The Week After Easter

Pastor, teacher, and author Adrian Rogers has introduced people all over the world to the love of Jesus Christ and has impacted untold numbers of lives by presenting profound truth, Simply Stated. Thanks for joining us for this message.

Here's Adrian Rogers. A blazing, emotional, passionate love for Jesus Christ. There's nothing deader than dead orthodoxy for a person who knows the truth, who can cross every T, dot every I, but they can't spell victory.

This is what I want to talk to you about, how to have a passionate, burning, emotional love for Jesus. It's good to have everything right, but I think of a preacher who was preaching and did not use proper grammar, as I sometimes fail to do. He was saying in his message, I've seen this and I've seen that, and somebody corrected him and said, you should be like Pastor so-and-so who says correctly, I have seen. And he thought about it and he knew Pastor so-and-so who had that dead orthodoxy.

He said, well, I'll tell you the truth, I'd rather say I've seen when I've seen something than to say I have seen when I ain't seen nothing. So I want us to have a passionate love for Jesus Christ. The sign of Pentecost was a tongue of fire. And we need to have a burning, passionate heart for Jesus.

Now, let me give you the background. Jesus was crucified, put in that grave, came out of that grave and was seen. But the disciples were convinced, some of them, but some of them not totally fully convinced. They were half believing and half doubting. Two of them had taken a journey to a place called Emmaus.

And I've been to Emmaus a number of times. It's a beautiful little village, about seven and one half miles from the city of Jerusalem, where Jesus was crucified, buried and raised. And they were trudging along, two forlorn disciples, discouraged and burdened. Let's begin in verse 13 and you'll pick it up there. We're in Matthew and Luke chapter 24, verse 13. And behold, two of them went that same day to a village called Emmaus, which was from Jerusalem, about three score furlongs.

That's seven, a little more than seven miles. And they talked together of all those things which had happened. And it came to pass that while they communed together and reasoned, Jesus himself drew near and went with them. But their eyes were holding that they should not know him.

Now God did that on purpose and I'm going to tell you why in just a moment. And he said unto them, what manner of communications are these that you have one to another as you walk and are so sad? And one of them whose name was Cleophas answering said unto him, art thou only a stranger in Jerusalem?

And hast thou not known the things which are come to pass there in these days? And he said unto them, what things? And they said unto him, concerning Jesus of Nazareth, which was a prophet, mighty indeed in word before God and all the people, and how the chief priest and our rulers delivered him to be condemned to death and have crucified him. But we trusted that it had been he which should have redeemed Israel.

And beside all this, today is the third day since these things were done. Yea, and certain women also of our company made us astonished, which were early at the sepulcher and they found not his body. And when they found not his body, they came saying that they had also seen a vision of angels which said that he was alive. And certain of them which were with us went to the sepulcher and found it, even so as the women had said, but him they saw not. Then he said unto them, O fools, O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken.

Ought not Christ have suffered these things and to enter into his glory? Now here they are, two of these disciples. And what I want to talk to you first of all is I want you to see what I'm going to call the discouragement of a confused heart. These people were discouraged, two of them. They're trudging along now, half believing, half doubting. They'd heard the story, but they were let down in body and in spirit. And Jesus could tell by their countenance that they were discouraged. They were sad.

And we're going to see that their discouragement and their sadness had this source. It was a misunderstanding. And I want to talk a little bit about the misunderstanding in a moment, but that misunderstanding led to disappointment. And disappointment led to doubt and doubt led to discouragement.

Now, what was their misunderstanding? Well, they had been looking for a political Messiah. They were hoping that Jesus would come and redeem Israel and it had not happened.

And notice if you will, verse 21, but we trusted that it had been he, which should have redeemed Israel. Now, obviously they were looking for a political Messiah. They've been looking for a king. And now what had happened to the king? The king had nails for a scepter.

He had a cross for a throne and his kingdom had contracted to the narrow confines of a tomb. What had happened to the kingdom? The prophet said, prophesy the kingdom.

The poets had pictured a kingdom. The angels had pronounced and announced the kingdom. And Jesus had preached the kingdom. And they were saying, look, this is wonderful. Messiah is here.

Israel is going to be redeemed. And it had not happened. What had happened to these people is that they did not know, as Paul Harvey would have said, the rest of the story. They'd only seen part of the story. And they did not understand that Jesus was turning Calvary to Easter and the Pentecost was coming.

Just like sometimes we don't understand when we're going through our own Gethsemane in Calvary, that he's going to turn our hurts to a Hallelujah and our Calvary to an Easter and our tears to pearls. We only see a part of the story. I can remember when I was a little boy running away from home. I was not even school age, but I can remember like yesterday. I came into the kitchen and my mother was baking a pie shell, just the shell. I knew she was baking a pie. I was too short to see up in the oven, but I stood around and hung around in the kitchen till she took the pie shell out.

I have never been as disappointed and angry in my life. I looked into that pie shell and there was no pie in there. And I thought either my mother was extremely mean or she had absolutely gone out of her mind. How could any woman, how could any mother bake such a pie with nothing but a shell? I literally ran away from home.

I'm serious. I can remember, I went a whole half block. Out the front door, I had not even started school yet. Out the front door, down the street, pouting, murmuring to myself. I went an entire half block before I repented and turned around and came back home.

And by then I had learned the rest of the story, that she was not finished with what she's doing. Now these disciples were very much like that. It was only half done and they were sad because their sadness was rooted in misunderstanding and unbelief. And Jesus actually called them fools. If you look there in verse 25, it's a very interesting verse where he says to them, oh fools and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets had spoken. Now they believed part of what the prophets had spoken, but they did not believe at all.

They did not understand at all. And so what you have here is what I want to call the discouragement of a confused heart. When we get confused, when we don't understand the Word of God, that can lead to discouragement. And I have met in my ministry so many Christians who get discouraged because they don't understand the scriptures and they don't believe all that the prophets have spoken.

Now let's move from there and talk not only about the discouragement of confused heart, and these men were confused, but let's talk a little bit about the discovery of a challenged heart. Jesus met them and he challenged them with the Word of God. And I'm so grateful that he did.

I want you to see how he did it. First of all, Jesus sought them. Look if you will in verse 15 of this same chapter. And it came to pass while they communed together and reasoned, Jesus himself drew near.

And he's done that so many times to me and he's done that so many times to you. Jesus just caught up with them. He did not seek them now to condemn them or even to condone them. But what he did seek them for was to claim them and to comfort them. And just as the Lord Jesus sought us when we were lost, by the way, we didn't seek him.

He sought us and we love him because he first loved us. Now these men evidently were already believers, although they were backslidden and discouraged. If Jesus would seek us when we were just out and out sinners, surely he will seek us when we're saved and away from him. And every backslidden Christian has known and every confused Christian has found Jesus just seeking them. But not only did Jesus seek them, but he caught them. He sought them and he caught them.

He drew near to them. And I'm glad that he did. I'm here to tell you this folks, that Jesus has never ever lost one of his sheep, never. And it's not because we hold onto him. He holds onto us. And he told us that in John chapter 17, verse 12, while I was with them in the world, I kept them in thy name. And those that thou gave us me, I have kept and none of them is lost. So what he did, he sought them, he caught them, but here's the incredible thing. He taught them and he opened the scriptures to them and he opened their eyes. Look if you will in verse 27 and see what the Lord Jesus Christ did for them the week after Easter. Notice he says, in beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures, the things concerning himself. And they drew nigh unto the village, whether they went and he made as though he would have gone further. But they constrained him saying, abide with us for it is toward evening and the day is far spent. And he went in to tarry with them and it came to pass as he sat at meat with them, he took bread and blessed it and break it and gave it to them.

Now watch this, and their eyes were opened and they knew him and he vanished out of their sight. Now, first of all, in verse 32, we're going to notice that he opened the scriptures. Look in verse 32, and they said one to another, did not our heart burn within us while he talked with us by the way and while he opened to us the scriptures.

Underscore that, it's so important. Our hearts burn while he opened to us the scriptures. But it was not enough for him to open the scriptures. Go back up to verse 31, and their eyes were opened and they knew him. Now, there are two things that the Lord has to open to us when we're confused and discouraged. First of all, he has to open the scriptures. And secondly, he has to open our eyes. Now, both are absolutely necessary. Light without sight is no good and sight without light is no good.

It takes absolutely both. Now, why is it that God engineered it that they would not know who he was? Evidently in his resurrected form, there was something about his likeness that was changed because they had known him, they'd seen him, yet they did not recognize him. Why does the Bible say that this was holding from them and kept from them, that look in verse 16, but their eyes were holding that they did not know him?

Now, that doesn't necessarily mean that his form was changed, but something happened to them. God doesn't let them recognize him. God in some way distorts their vision.

It does not give them cognition. Why did God do that? Why did he say, look, here I am, believe?

Why? Good question, I'm glad you asked it. Jesus is getting ready to go to heaven and what he is doing now, the same thing that you and I need, we don't have Jesus before us in physical form. We have the Word of God. What he is doing now is putting their dependence not upon his physical presence with them, but upon the Word of God now. He's opening to them the Word. He's opening them the Bible. He's opening to them the prophets and he is opening their eyes to see him now, not after the flesh, but to see him by the Holy Spirit in the Word of God. You understand why he did this?

And so now we're seeing this transition. He's going back to heaven, but he is leaving the Word and the written Word is what we have today to bring Jesus Christ to us and to make Jesus Christ real to us. It is significant that it was the Word and not the physical sense that made him real to them. They didn't say, oh yes, we recognize him. That was really him. We saw him.

No. They said, we knew him because he opened the Word to us. That's how they knew him. They knew him now through the Word of God. Now he challenged them through the Word of God.

Now I want you to see how he challenged them. I want you to notice the sermon that he gave to them. The method was to open the scriptures and to open their eyes.

Now notice the message. Look, if you will, in verse 27. And beginning at Moses and all the prophets. Now that's just the Old Testament way of saying Moses and the prophets, first five books of the Bible written by Moses and then the prophets. That's just the way he speaks of a major portion of the Old Testament. So you just say, going back to Genesis 1, 1, that's what that says. And beginning at Moses and the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.

Now look at it carefully. It doesn't say he expounded to them all the things concerning himself in the scriptures. Now that would have been fine, but that isn't what it says. It says he expounded to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.

What does that mean? It means that Jesus is in all the scriptures and not that he is in some of the scriptures, not all the things in the scriptures, but in all the scriptures, the things concerning himself. And the New Testament had not yet been written. So he started in Genesis. That's Moses. Genesis is actually Leviticus numbers in Deuteronomy. And then he just continues in Moses and the prophets to speak to them from the scriptures. What are the scriptures about? Well, the things concerning himself. Now, if you read the Bible and you don't find Jesus, you missed it.

Go back. Standing somewhere in the shadows, you'll find Jesus. He'll be there in prophecy. He'll be there in precept. He'll be there in parable. He'll be there in poetry.

He'll be there. Somehow Jesus is there in the Bible and he himself said, and challenged the people of his day, when he was talking about the Old Testament, he said, search the scriptures for these are they which testify of me. I've been preaching long enough to know that the Bible becomes a wonderful book to you when you find Jesus in it. Whether it's the Old Testament or the New Testament, you'll find Jesus somewhere. And really there's no lasting joy without Jesus and he's the one that you need and God has engineered it that you're not going to have joy without Jesus and you're not going to know Jesus really apart from the scriptures.

Too many people are writing Dear Abby when they ought to be opening the Bible and reading, finding out what is in the Word of God. Now, he's walking with him. They're on the road to Emmaus. That's about seven and a half miles. So how long would it take them to walk seven and a half miles? How long? Two hours? Two hours. So there's a two hour Bible conference. Maybe they stopped a little bit.

Let's give them three hours, two hours, whatever. All the way now he's opening to them the scriptures. How would you like to have a tape recording of that? That's seven mile Bible conference. I would love to have a tape recording of that, of Jesus starting in the book of Genesis and going through the Old Testament and saying, here's Jesus, here's the Messiah, here's the Messiah, here I am...

But he didn't say here I am because at that moment, they still didn't realize who he was, but he was talking about himself. All of the scriptures about the Lord Jesus Christ. Fulfilled prophecy is such a wonderful thing. Did you know that there are over 333 precise details prophesying Jesus in the Old Testament? Centuries before Jesus was born, his birth, his career, his teaching, his suffering, his resurrection, his glory, his ascension, his second coming, that was all prophesied. Now don't take that for granted. Jesus is the only person ever born into this world whose ancestry, whose birth time, whose forerunner, whose birthplace, whose birth manner, whose infancy, whose manhood, whose teaching, whose character, whose preaching, whose reception, whose rejection, whose death, whose burial, whose resurrection, whose ascension were all written in a marvelous way before he was born.

Don't pass by that. Can you imagine anybody painting a picture of an individual having never seen that individual, him having never been born and paint that picture in striking in unmistakable detail? But then can you imagine not one person, but 25 artists participating in the same picture?

And then when that individual comes, there's that exact likeness. Peter Stoner is a mathematician and a statistician who has written in a book called Science Speaks. And he talks about the law of probabilities.

We're talking about now all of the things concerning Jesus in the Old Testament. Peter Stoner as a mathematician deals with a science called the law of probabilities, which is a law. And he takes not 333 of these prophecies. He takes eight of them, only eight. And then he shows the mathematical probability of all eight, only eight being fulfilled by chance.

And here is the chance. It is one in 10 raised to the 17th power. We say, Adrian, I know exactly what that number is.

No, you don't. And I don't even know what it means. Just picture a 10 with zeros going all the way over the wall. He's saying that one in 10 raised to the 17th power. Now we can't get our mind on that.

So Peter Stoner gives an illustration. He says, if you were to take the state of Texas and cover the state of Texas with silver dollars, two feet thick from border to border, the Texans would like that. But they're silver dollars this high, just as far as you can go. One time I drove across Texas from one side to the other. If you've ever done that, friend, that is a drive to drive all the way across Texas. And I was going in a straight line only one direction.

I didn't go both directions and crisscross. But just here's the state of Texas covered with silver dollars. Then he said, if you were to mark just one of those silver dollars, stir them all up, mark one specially, and then blindfold a man and drop him into Texas from a helicopter, parachute him in, and let him search through all those silver dollars. And if he, by chance, finds that one silver dollar of the entire state of Texas being covered with silver dollars, that's the kind of probability we're talking about of just eight of these prophecies being fulfilled, just eight. Now, 333 of them. When I'm talking about 333, just eight.

The law of probability makes these scriptures fulfilled in the Lord Jesus impossible to have been fulfilled apart from chance. I've often used this illustration. Joyce and I speak almost every week with our children in Spain by telephone. Now, there are about six billion people upon the face of the earth. Not all of them have telephones. Well, let's say that all of them did have a telephone. And I wanted to contact David, and I don't know his number. I don't know the number of his country, the overseas number. Nor do I know the area code where he lives.

Nor do I know the digits in his personal number. Now, suppose I pick up the phone and begin to dial some numbers at random. Do you think the probability is I'm going to reach David? Just pick it up, dial any numbers, and do you think he's going to say, hello, Daddy, David, out of six billion people upon the face of the earth?

Do you think that's going to happen? What are the chances? What is the probability that I would get every number right and a complicated phone number? Well, now, let me tell you how we're going to dial Jesus. All right, if you were to start, for example, in the book of Genesis, you're going to find out that Jesus, the Messiah, is going to come from a certain race. Genesis 3.15 says he's going to be the seed of a woman. So right away, we know it's not some angel or some other creature who's going to redeem us.

So we dial the first number correct. And then we get to Genesis 9, the descendants that have come out of the ark, and we know that Jesus is going to be a descendant of Shem, a Shemite or Semite. So we have that here is the Messiah. He's going to be of a race. And then he's going to come from a section of that race. Not all the peoples of the world are going to bring Messiah.

But now, wait a minute, we've got to dial the next number. And he's going to come out of a nation of that section of that race. So we read in Genesis 12 that he's going to be a descendant of Abraham. But then we find out that Abraham has a number of descendants. So there has to be a tribe of that nation, of that section of that race. That Messiah now has to come from the tribe of Judah. But we haven't got all the numbers yet, so we have to dial another number because he's going to come from a family of that tribe, of that nation, of that section, of that race. And he's got to be of the house of Jesse. But we're not finished yet.

We've got to dial another number. Not all of the descendants of Jesse, but there has to be a particular woman. Isaiah chapter seven says she is a virgin. And so you've got a virgin from that family, from that tribe, from that nation, from that section, from that race.

But not just any woman. She has to be a virgin and not just a virgin in any place, but she has to be a virgin in Bethlehem of that woman, of that family, of that tribe, of that nation, of that section, of that race. And she has to give birth to a baby, but not just at any time.

She has to give birth to a baby at a specific time, prophesied by the prophet Daniel in Daniel chapter nine. And so if you just keep dialing these numbers, just this many, and pick up the phone, and only at the end is Jesus, the son of God. Now you think that just happens? Do you think that's just, that just happens?

No. You see, the Scriptures, when Jesus took the Bible and he opened the Bible and began to show them in all the Scriptures, the things concerning himself, he's willing to open the Scriptures to us and he opens the Scriptures and he opens our eyes. Now, let me just, before I pass on to the third and final thing, I want to tell you that the prophecies concerning the second coming of Jesus are going to be fulfilled just as literally as those concerning his first coming.

Same Bible. Many missed the blessing of his first coming because they did not understand the Scriptures or they did not believe them. Oh fools and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken. I don't want to hurt your feelings, but there's something wrong with your mind and something wrong with your heart if you don't believe the Bible. Jesus would say to you, you're foolish and your heart is very slow if you don't understand the Scripture. The world is not through with Jesus, but I'm going to tell you something, this world is through without Jesus.

He is coming again. Now, we've talked about the discouragement of a confused heart. We've talked about the challenge of a confronted heart and now I want you to think about the declaration of a convinced heart. Notice what happened to these people. Look, if you will, in verse 28 now. After Jesus had been with them and they drew nigh unto the village whether they went and he made as though he would have gone further, but they constrained him. Do you know most of us have about all of God we want? Most of us have about all of God we want.

If we don't have any more, it's because we don't want any more. There are many times in the Bible where our Lord looks like he wants to get away from us. When Jacob was wrestling with the angel, the angel said, let me go.

Well, good night. You know that Jacob couldn't hold on to an angel. If the angel really wanted to get away, a fight was fixed. The angel said, let me go. Jacob said, I will not let you go unless you bless me. That's just what the angel wanted to hear.

So many times the Lord looks like he doesn't care. A Syrophoenician woman had a demon-possessed daughter. She said, Master, do something for my daughter. Jesus said, I've just come to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. I can't take the children's bread and give it to dogs.

Can you imagine him speaking that way? She said, yes, Lord, but even the dogs get the crumbs. He says, woman, great is your faith. Great is your faith. There's so many times it seems as if the Lord is trying to get away. But what he wants us to do is to press on.

And we have about all of God we want. Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness for they shall be filled. And so in verse 29, they constrain him saying, abide with us for it is toward evening and the day is far spent. He was glad they said that. He came to tarry with them.

And it came to pass as he said it, meet with them. He took bread and blessed it and break it and gave it to them. And they'd seen him do that before, I'm sure. And their eyes were opened and they knew him.

And he vanished out of their sight. And they said one to another, did not our heart burn within us while he talked with us by the way and while he opened to us the scriptures. And they rose up the same hour and returned to Jerusalem and found the 11 gathered together and them that were with them saying, here's what they said, the Lord is risen in deed and hath appeared to Simon. And they told what things were done in the way and how he was known of them in the breaking of the bread. And as they thus spake, Jesus himself stood in the midst of them and saith unto them, peace be unto you.

Well, I want to stop right there. But these disciples now are gathered together and they're talking about these things, Cleophas and the other disciple comes and they come to a new conclusion. And here's the conclusion that I want you to come to.

And I want Adrian to come too. I don't want you to come to the conclusion tonight that Jesus has risen. I believe we're about 100% on that. Conclusion I want you to come to tonight is he has risen in deed. Not he has risen. I mean, that's one thing. But they say, hey, it's real.

It is real. The Lord is risen in deed. And they immediately went back to Jerusalem with this news to shout it, to tell it, to sing it, to share it.

And you might as well have told the sun not to shine as to tell these people not to witness about a risen savior. Do you know what I think most of us in this room need? We need to have our eyes open because the Bible has been opened. Our hearts need to be set aflame and we don't need a dead orthodoxy. We need a living faith.

He is risen in deed. Amen? Father, bring the message to our hearts and may we, dear Lord, see you no longer with the eyes of the flesh. May, Lord, with the spiritual eyes, as you open the Scriptures, open our eyes, open our hearts to your truth. Thank you, Lord, that you've given us the Word and continue to show us in all the Scriptures the things concerning yourself. Amen. If you would like to learn more about how you can know Jesus or deepen your relationship with him, simply click the Discover Jesus link on our website, lwf.org. For a copy of this message or additional resources, visit our online store at lwf.org or call 1-800-274-5683. Thank you.