The Week After Easter | Part 2

Do you believe in Jesus Christ, the risen Savior?

Listen to it. Welcome to Love Worth Finding, featuring the lessons of acclaimed pastor and Bible teacher, Adrian Rogers. The resurrection of Jesus Christ is a known fact we fully believe as Christians. However, in the days following this miracle, some of the disciples were struggling with it. In part one of today's message, we learned of two disciples whose misunderstanding of Jesus' resurrection led to disappointment. This led to doubt and discouragement.

What changed when Jesus met them face-to-face on the road to Emmaus in Luke 24? If you have your Bible, turn there now as Adrian Rogers shares part two of The Week After Easter. 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, passionate love 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, 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 in Matthew and Luke chapter 24, verse 13. Now, 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'd 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 prophets had prophesied a kingdom.

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

Israel is going to be redeemed. And it had not happened. 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, to believe all that the prophets had spoken. Now, they believed part of what the prophets had spoken, but they did not believe it all.

They did not understand it 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 it all.

They don't believe all that the prophets have spoken. Now, let's move from there and talk not only about the discouragement of a confused heart, and these men were confused, but let's talk a little bit about the discovery of a challenged heart. Look, if you will, in verse 27 and see what the Lord Jesus Christ did for them the week after Easter.

And notice he says, Now watch this. Now, first of all, in verse 32, we're going to notice that he opened the Scriptures. Look in verse 32. 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.

Both are absolutely necessary. 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, 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. 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 precepts, he'll be there in parable, he'll be there in poetry, he'll be there. Somehow, Jesus is there in the Bible.

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 and 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 ten raised to the seventeenth power. When you 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 ten with zeros going all the way over to the wall. He's saying that one in ten raised to the seventeenth 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 on the 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 him in 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 a 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 is, 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 7 says she is a virgin. 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 9. 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. And 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 woman, 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. Oh, he says, woman, great is your faith. Great is your faith. There's so many times as 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. And he went in 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 eleven 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. 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 to. I don't want you to come to the conclusion tonight that Jesus is risen.

I believe we're about 100% on that. Conclusion I want you to come to tonight is he is risen in deed. Not he is 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, is 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 open. 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, but, 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.

Amen. And maybe today you have questions regarding how to place your faith fully in what Jesus did for you. We'd love to offer an insightful resource.

It's our Find Answers page. There at the website, you'll find resources and materials that will answer questions you may have about fully trusting Christ. We want to invite you to check out your Grow Your Faith page as well. You can get grounded and dig deeper in God's Word right there.

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Mention the title of today's lesson, The Week After Easter. This message is also part of the insightful series, Victory in Jesus. For the complete collection, all seven powerful messages, call 1-877-LOVEGOD. Or you can order online at lwf.org slash radio. Or write us at Love Worth Finding, Box 38600, Memphis, Tennessee 38183. You may not know, you can also purchase our new Bible studies much like this message in our online store.

To find that, go to lwf.org slash radio. Are your eyes open to the Bible and to the risen savior? Is your convinced heart set aflame?

Pray and ask God to challenge you as you read scripture today. And join us next time for more timeless truth from Adrian Rogers, right here on Love Worth Finding. A Facebook friend recently reached out and encouraged us with this message.

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