[0:00] Luke chapter 24, we're going to read verses 13 through 35. And it starts out by saying, now that same day, and that is resurrection day.
[0:16] Okay, the same day Jesus arose from the dead, these things take place. Let's read the word of God. Now that same day, two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem.
[0:33] They were talking with each other about everything that happened. As they talked and discussed these things with each other, Jesus himself came up and walked along with them.
[0:48] But they were kept from recognizing him. He asked them, what are you discussing together as you walk along? They stood still, their faces downcast.
[1:01] One of them named Cleopas asked him, are you only a visitor to Jerusalem and do not know the things that have happened there in these days? What things?
[1:12] He asked. About Jesus of Nazareth, they replied. He was a prophet, powerful in word and deed before God and all the people. The chief priests and our rulers handed him over to be sentenced to death, and they crucified him.
[1:29] But we had hoped that he was the one who was going to redeem Israel. And what is more, it is the third day since all this took place. In addition, some of our women amazed us.
[1:43] They went to the tomb early this morning, but didn't find his body. They came and told us that they had seen a vision of angels who said he was alive. Then some of our companions went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said.
[1:58] But him they did not see. He said to them, how foolish you are and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken.
[2:11] Did not the Christ have to suffer these things and then enter his glory? And beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the scriptures concerning himself.
[2:26] As they approached the village to which they were going, Jesus acted as if he were going farther. But they urged him strongly, stay with us, for it is nearly evening.
[2:39] The day is almost over. So he went in to stay with them. When he was at the table with them, he took bread, gave thanks, broke it, and began to give it to them.
[2:52] Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him. And he disappeared from their sight. They asked each other, were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the scriptures to us?
[3:09] They got up and returned at once to Jerusalem. There they found the eleven and those with them assembled together and saying, It is true, the Lord has risen and has appeared to Simon.
[3:23] Then the two told what had happened on the way and how Jesus was recognized by them when he broke the bread. I wonder if I've convinced you yet that 2 Samuel chapter 7 belongs in that category of the great chapters of the Bible.
[3:50] I have found it to be a chapter that has opened up the last half of the Old Testament for me. And given me a clear insight into what the prophets were saying.
[4:02] For the greatest problem of Israel for that last half of the Old Testament, some 600 years before Christ, was that it appeared as if God's promise to David had failed.
[4:17] That promise in 2 Samuel 7. The promise of having the descendant of David on the throne, whose reign and kingdom would last forever.
[4:29] The harsh realities of life seemed to mock such promises. Not only was there no king in Israel, but they were held in captivity to Gentile nations.
[4:40] First the Assyrians, then the Babylonians, the Medes and the Persians, the Greeks, and at last the Romans. Some 700 years in captivity under the heel of Gentile nations.
[4:57] And for the last 400 of those years before Christ, the heavens went silent. There was no word from God to explain what was going on.
[5:09] And so they were left to hang all of their hopes upon a thousand year old promise that Nathan made to David in 2 Samuel 7.
[5:24] And that promise was then repeated over and over by Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the following prophets. And then at last the silence was broken.
[5:35] The 400 years of silence was broken with the angels who announced the birth of this Davidic king. First to Zechariah there in the temple, the father of John the Baptist.
[5:47] Then to Mary. Then to the shepherds. Then indications to the wise men. And then after Christ's birth, through John the Baptist, who brought the word of God to Israel, the forerunner of Christ, announcing that the kingdom of heaven had come.
[6:03] The kingdom has come because the king has come. And so he said, repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. And then Jesus himself used those very words as he announced the arrival of his kingdom and preached what?
[6:20] The gospel of the kingdom. And called men to come to him and enter the kingdom, which they did by repentance and faith.
[6:30] An entrance into the kingdom that required a new birth, being born again, to even perceive the kingdom, to even see and understand it, much less to enter it.
[6:42] They had to be made new. And in that Sermon on the Mount, he gives his kingdom manifesto and unpacks the laws of his kingdom and later taught many parables about the kingdom of God.
[6:57] In Matthew's gospel alone, the kingdom is referred to 52 times and most often from the lips of the king himself, Jesus Christ.
[7:09] So over and over, the gospels are telling us that Jesus is that long-promised Davidic king of 2 Samuel chapter 7. And it is telling us that his kingdom is that forever kingdom promised to David.
[7:29] The gospel of the kingdom is the same gospel that you and I have believed who have come to Christ. This kingdom that David spoke of is the kingdom that we have entered as we've received the king.
[7:44] And it is this kingdom and its righteousness that is to be our priority above everything else in life. To spread that kingdom, to have that kingdom come to our hearts, to walk in the righteousness of the laws of this kingdom, to enjoy fellowship with the king himself.
[8:05] This is the big fulfillment of what was so long promised and hoped for. And yet, after just three years of preaching the gospel of the kingdom and working many miracles of mercy, we find this Davidic king, Jesus, nailed to a cross and dying in shame and humiliation, rejected by his own people whom he had come to save.
[8:37] What happened? That's the question. What happened? What happened? How could this be that a nation which had the promise of 2 Samuel 7 drummed into them for some 600 years in the Old Testament, praying and longing for the coming of this Davidic Messiah, that they should miss him when he came and even have him crucified once he finally arrived?
[9:05] Well, that's our topic tonight. How could this happen? And the first explanation is that their spiritual leaders were blind? The scribes and Pharisees searched the scriptures, Jesus said.
[9:19] They knew their Old Testament Bible. They knew the Messiah king would be born in Bethlehem. But very early on in Jesus' public ministry, they had made up their minds about Jesus, that he was a blaspheming false Messiah, deceiving the people.
[9:45] They hated his guts. They hated his guts. They hated his guts. He was critical of their religion. He exposed their hypocrisy. He uncovered their sins and the sham of their religion.
[9:56] He didn't keep their many rules that they had added to the scriptures. He was a friend of sinners that they would never be found with at all.
[10:07] He taught a salvation by free grace and mercy, that sins could be forgiven for the undeserving. That's not what they were teaching.
[10:19] The scribes and the Pharisees were teaching the salvation that's only possible if you keep the law of God. Well, they were envious. They were envious of Jesus because, you see, they had a corner on the market.
[10:33] They were the rulers of Israel. And as long as it was just them teaching, the people listened to them. But now all of a sudden, here's another one speaking. And he's speaking such words of grace and of forgiveness and of possible eternal life.
[10:51] And they wanted to silence him forever for the crowds were going over to him. And so they condemned him as a blasphemer.
[11:02] Now, you think if all your favorite preachers that you listen to online, all your favorite spiritual leaders had come out in condemnation of a man in his ministry, wouldn't that carry a lot of weight with you?
[11:17] Wouldn't you be cautious about that person once you learn that about them? Remember, there were no Bibles in the people's possession as we have today.
[11:29] Maybe in the synagogue. But they didn't have one to take home like you and I do. And therefore, the spiritual leaders of Israel bear most of the responsibility for the masses that followed them.
[11:43] And Jesus said, if the blind are leading the blind, they will both fall into the ditch. And that's what they did. They missed their Messiah because the leaders were blind.
[11:57] Well, we're blessed to have Bibles. We're to be like those Bereans who when Paul came to town, even though they didn't have Bibles, they somehow maybe went to the synagogue and they checked to see if what Paul was saying was according to the Scriptures.
[12:15] And then they believed. And they were praised for their Berean spirit looking to the Word of God. Well, that's the first explanation. How could this happen that they missed Messiah? Their leaders were blind.
[12:27] But secondly, and really in one sense, maybe this should have been first because this is the bottom line of it all. That it was the sovereignty of God that they missed their Messiah.
[12:44] It was the fulfillment of His eternal plan for Christ to die for the sins of the people. God chose to hide these things from the wise and He revealed them to babes.
[12:58] He hid these things from those who profess to be wise, who claim to be wise in their own eyes. They were too proud to be taught by an uneducated rabbi who had not been through their accepted schools.
[13:15] They would not become little children and become teachable by this Messiah, Jesus. And so it was God's judicial judgment upon these leaders and the nation.
[13:34] And so they were left in their blindness. Now we know that the Jews despised and rejected Jesus. We know the injustices and the torments that Christ suffered at the hands of the Jews and the Gentiles.
[13:52] And yet when the church prays in Acts chapter 4 and verse 28, they said, Sovereign Lord, they, the Jews and the Gentiles, they did what your power and will had decided beforehand should happen.
[14:08] In other words, they did absolutely nothing but what you planned from eternity past, that you would save your people by the crucifixion, a cruel, unjust death of your son on Calvary.
[14:24] And so behind all these other secondary reasons that I'm going to be giving you tonight, and I've given you one, reasons why they missed their Messiah and crucified him, ultimately we must trace it back to this, that this was God's plan.
[14:40] It would be by this rejection and death of Messiah that Jesus would die and shed his blood that we might be forgiven and saved forever, that that hope we sang of might be a genuine hope that will never be dashed.
[14:55] So that's the second reason and really the one that encompasses all the rest behind these human reasons is this plan of God to bring salvation through the crucifixion of his son.
[15:10] Well, what are some further human reasons? Why did they miss their king? Well, third, they were confused about his birthplace and where he was from.
[15:22] If you want to open to John chapter 4, this is where we find Jesus teaching in the temple. He's teaching the people and as was often the case, the crowd listening to him was divided.
[15:37] Jesus is the great divider of humanity. Some believe him and some do not. But families are divided by Jesus Christ. Well, here we read.
[15:51] Some said, surely this man is the prophet. Verse 41. Others said, he is the Christ. That is the Messiah, the anointed. Still others ask, well, how can the Christ come from Galilee?
[16:05] Well, that's where Jesus was from. Nazareth in Galilee. And when someone says, I think he is the Christ, the Messiah, the response is, well, how can Christ come from Galilee?
[16:24] And verse 42 follows, does not the scripture say that the Christ will come from David's family and from Bethlehem, the town where David lived? They knew those verses.
[16:36] He's to be born in Bethlehem. But Bethlehem is in Judea, not in Galilee, not in Nazareth of Galilee. So Messiah is to be born in Bethlehem.
[16:49] How can Jesus of Nazareth ever be Messiah? They just assume that Jesus of Nazareth was born in Nazareth of Galilee. It's not always safe to follow your assumptions.
[17:01] For though Jesus' parents lived in Galilee, and though Jesus grew up in Galilee, he was not born in Galilee.
[17:14] And so it was that they traveled, Mary and Joseph and the babe in the womb, traveled from Nazareth in Galilee all the way to Bethlehem.
[17:30] Why? Because Caesar Augustus had issued a decree that all the world should be taxed. And everyone went back to his hometown. And Mary and Joseph, being of the line of David, also went to Bethlehem.
[17:45] While they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered. And she brought forth her firstborn son and laid him in a manger because there was no room for them in the end. So Jesus is born in Bethlehem, the city of David.
[18:00] He does fulfill the Messianic promise that Messiah will come from Bethlehem. And their assumption was wrong that Jesus of Nazareth is not from Bethlehem.
[18:16] Well, the people were divided because of Jesus and this issue about his birthplace. And when Nicodemus, one of the Pharisees on the Sanhedrin, the ruling council of the Jews, who had come to Jesus by night back in John chapter 3 and had talked with Jesus, when he suggested, well, at least we ought to hear him out before we condemn the man, right?
[18:41] Isn't that the way our law would handle this? Yes. And his fellow Sanhedrin and Pharisees snapped back at him.
[18:53] Verse 52, are you from Galilee too? Look into it and you'll find that a prophet does not come out of Galilee. Well, if they really looked into it and did what he said and asked him, were you born in Nazareth in Galilee?
[19:12] Really? He'd have said, no, I'm born in Bethlehem of Judea. Oh. But they didn't ask. They really didn't want to know and this may have just been another excuse for why they would kill him.
[19:28] Oh, he doesn't fit the birthplace for Messiah. He can't be the true Messiah. Oh, but he did fit. He was born in Bethlehem and he is the true Messiah.
[19:40] So that's the third reason. But by far the greatest human reason why the Jews missed their Messiah was because of their wrong desires and expectations of the Messiah, of this Davidic king that was coming.
[19:55] Early on in Jesus' ministry, he's miraculously healing their sick. He's feeding them by the thousands. This was just the king they wanted.
[20:06] John 6, 15 says, Jesus, knowing that they intended to come and make him a king by force, withdrew again to a mountain by himself.
[20:21] He walked away from the kingship that they were going to force him to take. He refused it. Why? Because they didn't have a clue what kind of king he was and what kind of kingdom he was bringing.
[20:38] But as that became clearer, each time he preached, the crowds became thinner. Indeed, this is John 6 where they tried to make him a king by force.
[20:52] Later on in that same chapter, we come to verse 66 that says, from this time, many of his disciples turned back and followed him no more.
[21:05] He wasn't what they wanted. He wasn't the Messiah they had envisioned and that they desired. They wanted a health, wealth, and prosperity king who would provide all these things for them.
[21:18] They wanted a warrior king like David who would bring freedom to the Jews by destroying their enemies, those pagan Romans who are ruling over us.
[21:29] But that wasn't on Jesus' agenda. He wasn't raising an army. He wasn't taking up arms to fight. Indeed, his greatest victory would be won by dying on a bloody Roman cross.
[21:45] Nothing could be more counterintuitive. Healing sinners, healing sinners by his wounds?
[21:58] Setting them free by his death? Oh yes, for he had come to save them not from the Romans, but from their worst enemy, their own sins.
[22:13] But they had no interest in being saved from what they loved. So we come then to the final week before the crucifixion. Jerusalem is swarming with people.
[22:28] I've read books that say that the population of Jerusalem during Passover swelled ten times its normal population as Jews from all over the Roman Empire came to Jerusalem to celebrate the week-long feast of Passover.
[22:44] Passover. And what was Passover? Oh, it was a remembrance of their great deliverance from the ruler Pharaoh in Egypt.
[22:56] How God brought them out of that bondage to a pagan Egyptian ruler. And you see how that would only be fueled?
[23:08] The remembrance of that? Fueling the longing for deliverance from their present Roman bondage? And here is Jesus. He's also coming to the Passover feast.
[23:21] And on the way, He stops at Bethany, just two miles short of Jerusalem, outside of Jerusalem. And here Martha served up a dinner in His honor, and her brother Lazarus, whom He raised from the dead, is at the table.
[23:36] And when the word got out that Jesus was there in Bethany, a large crowd of Jews came, not only to see Jesus, but also to see Lazarus, whom He had raised from the dead.
[23:49] And for this reason, the chief priests made plans to kill Lazarus as well as Jesus because on account of Lazarus, many Jews were going over to Jesus and putting their faith in Him.
[24:06] You couldn't deny it. People knew Lazarus was dead in the grave four days, and here He is sitting at the table. There's no way to deny it as long as Lazarus lived.
[24:19] So the plan was, let's kill Him and get Him out of here. To take away this sign that Jesus gave of His messianic kingdom.
[24:31] And so the people who had seen Jesus raise Lazarus from the dead went and spread the news throughout Jerusalem. Remember, swarming with Passover pilgrims.
[24:43] And so the city, as they prepared for Passover, was buzzing with messianic hopes of a deliverer to take us out of Jewish bondage to the Romans. And the next day, hearing that Jesus was on His way to Jerusalem, the pilgrims there in Jerusalem, stirred by this sign that Jesus had left, this miraculous sign of raising Lazarus from the dead, poured out of the city with palm branches to meet Him, shouting as He rode into Jerusalem, Hosanna!
[25:15] Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord. Blessed is the King of Israel. They had it. They had it right. They recognized Him.
[25:28] They saw this is the King that David was promised to come and rule forever. And yet, as the crowd was rejoicing in Jesus their King, Jesus was weeping, sobbing over Jerusalem, saying, you see, He was under no delusion of what was going to happen in Jerusalem when He got there.
[25:52] He'd been telling His disciples, they're going to kill me. They're going to misuse me and crucify me. And so, He's weeping and He's saying, if you, even you, Jerusalem, as they come into, as they're coming down the Mount of Olives and they turn and there spreads out Jerusalem in front of Him.
[26:10] He weeps and He says, if even you had only known on this day what would bring you peace, but now it's hidden from your eyes. The days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment against you and encircle you and hem you in on every side.
[26:29] They will dash you to the ground, you and the children within your walls. They will not leave one stone on another because you did not recognize the time of God's coming to you.
[26:43] He was coming. God the Son was coming to them and they did not recognize Him. Again, He sees that they're not truly recognizing Him as the King.
[26:59] No, they're hoping, ah, this guy, he's got power to raise from the dead. Won't he do a number on the Romans? And sure enough, in 70 AD, the Roman army came just 40 years later and broke through the wall and massacred as many as a million Jews, fulfilling what Jesus here was saying as He wept over Jerusalem.
[27:23] So He's coming into Jerusalem. What a dramatic scene here. They're shouting His praises on Palm Sunday. and five days later when they see Him arrested, beaten, His face swelling beyond human recognition, a crown of thorns mocking Him as King and see Him presented before them.
[27:49] They will despise Him. They will reject Him as a weak and helpless victim at the hands of the Romans. this is not the King for them.
[28:03] Not the deliverance they wanted. So they chose Barabbas to be released instead of Jesus. And Pilate says, what then shall I do with Jesus?
[28:13] And at the instigation of the chief priest, they chant as a crowd, crucify Him. Crucify Him. wrong desires and expectations of the Messiah King.
[28:30] You see how fickle people are praising Him and now calling on Him for the cross.
[28:43] That's the fourth reason those wrong expectations of Messiah. The fifth and last that we'll look at another reason why they missed their Messiah had to do with their failure to understand the two comings of Christ the Messiah.
[29:00] Now the Old Testament foretold a time as Isaiah and the other prophets wrote about the Babylonian captivity is coming. You have rejected God. You've gone your own way.
[29:11] God's coming in judgment and you're going to be taken away to Babylon. But it's only going to be for 70 years and then God's going to bring you back into the land. And after that the Messianic King will come.
[29:25] What a glorious thing to look forward to. Well, He didn't say right after that but He just said it in terms of you're going to Babylon you're coming back the Messiah King will come and lead the Jews into the greatest peace and prosperity that they've ever known forever and ever to reign with their King.
[29:45] Well, they expected it to happen all at once. So, they got back from Babylon back into the land building the wall building the temple and expected Messiah.
[30:02] But for four five hundred six hundred years there was no Messiah and for the last four hundred years no word from heaven. Why wouldn't they expect the Messiah to come?
[30:17] The promises said He was. But they were viewing it from afar, you see. Not like we in the New Testament. And to them it was like two mountains at a distance.
[30:31] And the distance is so far maybe fifty miles. The human eye can see that clear on a clear day. and there's two mountains and from fifty miles it looks like one mountain with two points on it.
[30:47] But as you get closer and closer and closer you suddenly realize they're not one mountain with two heads but they're two separate mountains with a lot of distance between them.
[31:05] And so as the Old Testament perspective said Messiah is coming and He's going to bring peace and prosperity and a new world. They saw His coming and all that was promised as one thing happening at once.
[31:24] But in the light the clearer light of the New Testament we know that there are actually two comings. It wasn't just one coming of Messiah but there were actually two comings and there's been two thousand years between these comings and we're still counting.
[31:41] You see the progressive nature of Revelation. It wasn't clear in the old. It was just He's coming. And they put their hopes that all that was promised to happen when He comes would look like that only to find when He came that not everything that was promised was fulfilled in His first coming.
[32:02] And so they they missed Him. Some of the things predicted had to do with His first coming.
[32:14] Other things pointed to His second coming. And they didn't see that in the Old Testament. In fact these two comings have two different aspects to them.
[32:29] Jesus said in John 3.17 here He is at His first coming. He said God didn't send His Son into the world to condemn the world but that the world through Him might be saved.
[32:40] The first coming was not to condemn but to save. But the second coming He is coming to condemn His enemies. All who have not bowed the knee to Him. Two quite different aspects between His first coming and His second coming.
[32:56] They didn't see that that's not to happen at once. So there are two phases to His kingdom. He now rules.
[33:08] From heaven He rules. And He rules in the midst of His enemies and at His return His enemies will be cast into hell to bring no more trouble to this new earth and new heavens that He will create for His people.
[33:21] And so the Old Testament prophecies about Christ's coming you could put them in two baskets. You could put some of the prophecies spoke about Christ's coming spoke of His sufferings.
[33:32] So you put those in that suffering basket. Other promises spoke of His glories and the wonderful things that He will do when He comes. The sufferings and glories of the Messiah.
[33:47] He had glorious things foretold about Him but also horrendous things foretold about Him. Such as Psalm 22. My God, my God why have you abandoned me?
[34:00] And Isaiah 53. He was wounded for our transgressions and bruised for our iniquities. So there you had the two baskets.
[34:14] Two different kinds of prophecies sufferings and the people didn't know what to do with them. So what do we do when we don't know what to do with them? We take the ones we like and the others we say, I'm not sure how those passages are going to be fulfilled.
[34:29] I just, I see that glory's coming when Messiah comes. So they clung to the promises of His coming glory, Messiah's glory and just didn't know what to do with the suffering.
[34:43] Surely they didn't apply to the Messiah King. He can't die. He's going to reign forever and ever, right? Even John the Baptist seemed to stumble over wrong expectations about Messiah.
[34:55] You remember he's in prison. He didn't think prison should be in store for the friends of Messiah. It's victory, remember? We're going to win.
[35:05] Those Romans will be crushed and he's in prison. He's going to lose his head in a few months. And so he sends messengers to Jesus to ask him, he's the one that told people, behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.
[35:25] This is the Messiah. And now he sends messengers to ask him, are you the promised one or should we look for another? The circumstances, prison life, seem to mock the promise of the coming glories that were to be theirs when Messiah came.
[35:44] The Lord's own disciples, His own apostles were stumped by this along with their contemporaries. You remember when the Lord finally, about the third year of His three years with His disciples began to tell them what's going to happen when He comes to Jerusalem.
[36:00] They're going to abuse me, they're going to mishandle me, the Jewish leaders will hand me over to the Romans and they will crucify me. And then I'll be raised to life.
[36:15] And Peter took Jesus aside and began to rebuke Him. Never, Lord. This shall never happen to you.
[36:28] The Davidic king cannot die. He must reign forever and ever. That's what 2 Samuel 7 said. Now, He didn't say all of that, but that's what He's thinking, you see.
[36:39] He did say, this shall never happen to you. Well, where did He get that idea? 2 Samuel 7. And He doesn't get a compliment from Jesus.
[36:53] Get behind me, Satan. You have in mind the things of man, not the things of God. Peter missed it by a mile, didn't he? One of the leading apostles who had just confessed just moments earlier that Jesus was the Son, the Christ, the Messiah, the Son of the living God.
[37:15] And He too only had room in His theology for the glory basket. He didn't know what to do with the sufferings and the death of Jesus. You know, when Jesus talked about dying and rising again, what does that mean?
[37:28] What does death mean? What is resurrection? There must be something mysterious about the way He's twisting those words to mean something. No, He just meant exactly what He said, but they couldn't put it together.
[37:43] Luke 24, we had it read for us, two sad disciples on the road to Emmaus on the day of resurrection and Jesus walks alongside unrecognized. They tell Him all about Jesus.
[37:54] He acts ignorant. Oh, we had hoped that He was the one who was to redeem Israel. We had hoped that He was the one that would fulfill 2 Samuel chapter 7. But they killed Him.
[38:09] they crucified Him. And then there's this tender rebuke by Jesus. And suddenly, the stranger goes from the inquisitive visitor who just showed up in Jerusalem, doesn't have a clue what's going on, to an expert authority on the Old Testament.
[38:27] How foolish you are, He said. How slow of heart to believe all, A-L-L, that all that the prophets have spoken.
[38:39] In other words, both baskets. How foolish and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken. Did not the Messiah have to suffer these things and then enter into His glory?
[38:54] And beginning with Moses and all the prophets, He explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning Himself. Not only the glory passages, but the suffering passages.
[39:07] This had to happen first before this. A bit later, their eyes are open, they recognize who He is, and He disappears. And they said, did not our hearts burn within us while He walked with us and opened the Scriptures.
[39:23] We see it now. Oh, how could we be so blind? They were Christians, they were believers, they had been born again, but they missed it. They misread the Scriptures.
[39:37] And then He appears later in that same chapter to His apostles and others in the closed room in Jerusalem. They hid out for fear of the Jews, and He tells them much the same. This is what I had told you while I was still with you.
[39:49] Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms. Then He opened their minds so that they could understand the Scriptures. This is what is written.
[40:00] The Christ will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and repentance and forgiveness of sins will be preached in His name in all nations beginning at Jerusalem.
[40:12] And you can read in the book of Acts how Peter understood it on that day of Pentecost as he stood and preached this Jesus whom you crucified but whom God raised from the dead. He is now ascended and sitting on God's throne in heaven.
[40:28] He saw it clearly there. Jesus had opened His eyes to the Scripture. Yes, it was sufferings first and the glory to follow. And so when He writes to other Christians in 1 Peter 1 verses 10 to 11, He says, concerning this salvation, the prophets who spoke of the grace that was to come to you, those prophets themselves were searching intently and with the greatest care trying to find out the time and circumstances to which the Spirit of Christ in them was pointing when He predicted the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow.
[41:05] You see, even the prophets didn't understand. How does that work together? Suffering and glory passages. They were searching, trying to understand. Well, Peter now sees how both suffering and glory passages were to describe one and the same Messiah at two different comings.
[41:24] A real reminder to accept all that the Bible teaches. Not to have our little favorite portions that we just read the things that sound good and the sweet promises and the things that are encouraging to us.
[41:40] not to just focus on our favorite passages or we can fall into the same error of reading the Bible selectively and I like that. I like that.
[41:52] I'll put that in my glory basket but not liking the sufferings. Do you know the same agenda for the disciples? It's the same agenda that Jesus had. It's sufferings now and glory to come.
[42:05] Paul says it in Romans 8, 17. Now if we're children then we're heirs. Heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ. If indeed we share in His sufferings in order that we may also share in His glory and I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing to the glories that will be revealed in us.
[42:26] Again, we can get this idea and don't we have it in Christendom today that God's number one aim for us is to keep us healthy and wealthy and prospering.
[42:39] That doesn't match with the agenda of Jesus and His disciples. That's just cherry picking the bright side. Yes, prosperity and peace is coming but that's reserved for His second coming when He'll destroy all of His enemies and there'll be none to cause us fear and harm.
[42:59] And then perfect peace and prosperity will be ours. Perhaps there's more of the prosperity gospel inside of our hearts than we realize.
[43:13] Just listen to me when I'm sick and how I pray as if God's number one agenda should be just to make me healthy and not to learn the lessons that He has to teach me.
[43:26] Just listen to me pray when hard times come and I just want out of them. I'm not really ready to go into the school of Christ and to have Him teach me in affliction.
[43:43] And so the kingdom of God is both here and it's coming. There's been 2,000 years between. Isn't it good that we live in this time?
[43:54] Aren't you glad that we don't live before Christ's coming? He's coming. Okay, there was enough there for faith to lay hold of and be saved. Oh, but He came and He lived the perfect life and He laid down His life on Calvary's cross and He's been raised and He's ascended and He's in heaven.
[44:15] Isn't it great that we live after that and before His second coming? What a privilege to be New Testament believers living between these two mountain peaks enjoying the benefits of His first coming and longing for what's coming at His second coming.
[44:38] Do you know what's coming at His second coming is promised in the Old Testament. All those glory passages that they were hanging on to, many of them referred to what's yet coming at His second coming so that when we want to know what's coming at Christ's second coming, we don't just have the 27 books of the New Testament, but we have the Old Testament prophets.
[45:04] They too spoke of what glories were coming and we'll have to be unpacking those at another time. But what a precious thing to live after the coming of Christ.
[45:15] He is reigning now. That's the good news. Drink it in for your comfort. He is seated upon the throne of the universe. The scroll is in His hands.
[45:26] What's the scroll? It's the plan of God from all eternity. And no one was worthy to open that scroll but the Lamb was. And it's in His hands and every day He's unrolling God's plan for this world.
[45:41] It's all happening perfectly according to God's plan. Nothing's out of order. Nothing. It was all in order when Jesus was nailed to the cross.
[45:52] That was the plan. And it's all in order today. And one day we'll see Him face to face and we'll say He's done all things well. Not one word has failed.
[46:06] What a faithful God. What a sure hope that we have in life and death. And let us set our hope fully on the grace to be given us when Jesus Christ returns and is revealed.
[46:20] Our King is coming. And we simply don't live right without our eyes on that coming. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen but on what is unseen.
[46:33] For what is seen is temporary and passing. What is unseen is eternal. Live clinging to that promise.
[46:44] Pray in that promise your kingdom come. He says I'm coming soon we say even so come Lord Jesus. So shouldn't our longing for His second coming not only match the longing of the Old Testament saints longing for His first coming.
[47:05] Shouldn't it far surpass theirs because we see yes He did come He fulfilled all those promises He's come. But we see as well that He's coming again.
[47:18] And so just as we're privileged to live in these last days between His first coming and second coming so our anticipation and longing should ever be toward His second coming.
[47:29] So we're going to sing a song that's usually sung for the first coming and we're going to sing it yes with joy that He came first but with the longing that He would come again and bring in His consummated kingdom.
[47:47] He's inaugurated it. He's presently reigning but He's coming back and that kingdom is going to be in glory and in power and every eye will see Him and every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that He is Lord to the glory of God our Father.
[48:05] So let's turn to 145. Come thou long expected Jesus. 145. Stand with me and let's sing as we close out our Lord's Day together looking to the Lord.
[48:19] You know why we meet on Sunday? It's the resurrection day. It was the beginning of that new age. It began with the resurrection of Christ and it's going to be consummated when He does come again in glory.
[48:33] Let's pray. Father, we thank You for Your everlasting plan of salvation that it would be forged in love for a people who were so undeserving that it would be brought to us purely by grace that we held deserving sinners would have the Son of God sent as our Savior to be that suffering servant of the Lord.
[49:00] The government is on His shoulders and He brought about that eternal will of the Father as He died for us, rose again for us, ascended into heaven, now rules for us and is coming back to take us to be with Him forever.
[49:16] Thank You for such glorious destinies for men and women, boys and girls that once were on our way to an eternal hell. increase our gratitude, increase our focus on that which is coming, make us to live for the kingdom of God, not for our own petty little kingdoms, not for our own petty little wills, but to live for Your will being done.
[49:40] Reign and rule in our hearts without a rival. Be our all in all. Thank You for the privilege of belonging to the kingdom, Father of the Son, You love, a kingdom of light, a kingdom of love.
[49:55] Help us to reflect that light and love to others in our week. We ask in Jesus' name. Amen. Now we're dismissed.