O Foolish Men And Slow Of Heart To Believe

We're coming down toward the end of the Gospel of Luke. Next week will actually be the very last week in the Gospel of Luke. We've been at it for about four and a half years, a good long while. And so we're at the point in the Gospel of Luke where Jesus has been raised from the dead, and he's about to ascend into heaven, and there's some business that he wants to take care of, needs to take care of, before he goes back to heaven. And what he's doing is he's preparing his people for his departure. And he's giving them instructions. The most notable part of all of this is the Great Commission, where he calls out his disciples to the mountain, Galilee, and he says to them, all authority in heaven and earth has been given to me. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them and teaching them to observe all that I've commanded you. And lo, I'm with you always, even to the end of the age. But there's a context in which he gives that instruction. And he's helping his people to...

and to get their minds wrapped around what's coming, what life is going to be like. And what he finds after his resurrection is common to man. What he finds is doubt. And what he finds is fear amongst his people. They're holed up, they're worried that those who put Jesus to death are going to come after them if they align themselves with him. And so they're in hiding, if you will. And they're not sure what to believe. When they see Jesus, they go, that can't be, really? They doubt and they're afraid. That's what we're going to see in our text this morning. And so there's a couple of things I want us to bear in mind to orient us as we come to our text this morning. First is that their response to what's going on around them is most likely the response you and I would have if we were in this situation. I don't want us to look at them and go, well, they were doubting and what fools were they? I want us to look at them and go, I doubt too. And then I want us to hear how Jesus addresses their doubt.

And he does two things. The first thing he does is he comforts them. And he proves to them that he is who he says he is, that he's real. But he also corrects them. And you'll find that Scripture often does both of these things at the same time. There's both comfort and there's correction at the same time. And so you're going to find Jesus saying, you should have known better. You really shouldn't be doubting. And the fact that you're doubting, here's the proof that you ought not to doubt. You don't need to doubt. And if you're like me, it's your inclination. If you see someone doubting, someone fearing, what you want to do is get frustrated with them. I can't believe they don't understand. And I want you to be admonished by the way Jesus responds to them, the way he cares for them, how he's tender with them. And so I want to read to you now the passage that we're going to be studying this morning. Would you please stand for the reading of God's word from Luke chapter 24, verses 36 through 49. It says,

He himself stood in their midst and said to them, Peace be to you. But they were startled and frightened and thought that they were seeing a spirit. And he said to them, Why are you troubled and why do doubts arise in your hearts? See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Touch me and see. For a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have. And when he said this, he showed them his hands and his feet. And while they still could not believe, it was because of their joy and amazement, he said to them, Have you anything to eat?

They gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he took it and ate it before them. Now he said to them, These are my words which I spoke to you while I was with you, that all things which are written about me in the law of Moses and the prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled. Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, and he said to them, Thus it is written, that the Christ would suffer and rise again from the dead the third day. and that repentance for forgiveness of sins would be proclaimed in his name to all the nations, beginning with Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things. And behold, I am sending forth the promise of my Father upon you, but you are to stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. You may be seated. Hey, Canaan, would you go get me some water? Thank you, honey. I already drank that one, John. I appreciate it.

So if you're not tracking with this passage, it sort of starts abruptly. And while they were saying these things, and you go, well, who is saying what? Who's talking? Well, if we read the passage that came just before, we would know who'd done the reading. Thank you, sweetheart. After Jesus' resurrection, he appeared to Simon on the road. Remember, Simon went running to the tomb after Mary and Martha came back and said the tomb's empty. Simon goes running to the tomb. And Jesus reveals himself to Simon. Luke doesn't record that, but the other Gospels do. And Jesus gives instruction to the disciples. He says, come and meet me on the mountain in Galilee. And then he's gone. And then the next day, there's these two men who are leaving Jerusalem going out to Emmaus. Four or five hour walk. And Jesus appears to them on the road. And he walks with them and he talks with them and says, hey, what's going on in Jerusalem? What's all this hubbub about?

They tell him, and they're kind of dumbfounded by the fact that he doesn't know what's going on. Are you the only person in Jerusalem who doesn't know these things? And so he walks with them a while. And then they get to Emmaus, and it's getting toward evening. The sun's going down. And they say to him, you need to come in and stay with us. Eat with us and stay the night. You shouldn't be traveling in the dark. It's dangerous. So he comes in, and he eats with them. And after eating with them, he speaks to them, and they realize who he is. And then he disappears. Straight away, he's gone.

He's there, they realize who he is, and then he's gone. And these men immediately go, we've got to go tell the disciples back in Jerusalem what just happened. We've seen the Lord. And so they get up, never mind the danger of traveling at night, they make the trip back to Jerusalem in the dark to tell the disciples what's going on. So we can presume that they arrive back in Jerusalem middle of the night, knocking on the door, midnight. Let us in, you won't believe what happened. These were the things they were telling the disciples. while they, these two men, were telling them these things. We've seen the Lord. This is the context in which Jesus appears to them and speaks to them. And one of the things to note is that Jesus gets into the house without anybody letting him in. You can tell by their response. Everyone's amazed. Everyone's shocked. Everyone's scared. No one knows he's there. And all of a sudden, here he is in the middle of them speaking to them. And we have to bear in our minds that he's the Lord of heaven and earth, and he can do just anything he wants. And so when he's with the men,

at Emmaus and he disappears, they were completely confused and wouldn't have known what just happened. He was really here. We watched him eat. He sat with us. He talked to us. And now he's gone like that. He's gone. He didn't get up and leave. He's gone. And now he shows up here standing in the midst of them talking, appearing out of nowhere, speaking, peace be to you. One of the differences between this appearance and his former appearance is as soon as he spoke, everyone knew who he was. Everyone recognized this is Jesus. But they didn't believe what they saw. They couldn't believe what they saw. Where did he come from? How did he get in here? They were afraid and they thought they were seeing a spirit. Now it's important for us here to note what their fear, their fright led them to. What it led them to is doubt. And what you see in the next couple of verses is Jesus diagnosing the people or addressing what's going on in their hearts. He says, peace be to you. And they're all scared. And they're not saying anything.

They don't respond to his, peace be to you and to you. And to you also would be the normal response. No one responds. Their fear leads them to doubt. And we know this because Jesus asked them, why are you troubled? And why do doubts arise in your hearts? And again, the disciples don't respond. So you have to ask, what is Jesus doing by asking them this question about their doubts and their troubles? Consider for a moment, when you're afraid of something, do you like being asked, why are you afraid? What are you afraid of? It's kind of a way, a sort of correction, right? It's sort of, it's a little bit of a shame thing where you're like, someone's making fun of you and they're like, you really ought not to be afraid. And yet they are afraid. And so I want you to see that Jesus is correcting them. When he says to them, why are doubts arising in your hearts? Why are you scared? We could word the question differently and say, why are you surprised I told you that I would be raised from the dead?

Why is everyone staring at me as though they've seen a ghost? This is exactly what I told you would happen. And you've heard from Peter that he saw me. Before that, you heard from Mary and the other Mary that I wasn't in the tomb. Now these two men from Emmaus are here telling you. And yet when I speak to you, you're afraid and disbelief. Why? Why do doubts arise in your heart? And we can understand that they're a bit disoriented. They don't know what's going on. I once had a guy in the military explain to me a thing called, they're called OODA loops. And I had no idea what that was. Some of you have probably heard of it. Some of you haven't. OODA is an acronym, O-O-D-A. And it's a military description of what happens when people get into high-stress situations. They get stuck. It's like a deer in headlights. They just kind of freeze because they don't know what's going on. They're not processing what's going on. And so OODA stands for Observe, Orient, Decide, Act.

This is what you have to do. This is how the deer gets out of the way of the car that's coming. They have to orient what's going on. They have to see what's going, you know, car coming. And then they have to orient and go, it's going to hit me. And then they have to decide, I'm going to move. And then they have to move, right? Well, the reason the military talks about this is that people get stuck in these loops and they never get past, they never get out of the orientation. They never get oriented. They're just kind of frozen, just unsure of what's going on.

And so the military trains people to get out of these loops. How do you get to deciding and acting? Because if you don't, in the military, that probably means you're going to die. If you don't learn to decide how to respond to the danger or the threat or whatever it is that's coming at you. And that's some of what's going on with these disciples. They're sort of caught in a surreal, you know, what's going on. I can't believe that Jesus is here. And we could say to them, you should have known that Jesus was coming. You've had multiple people tell you that he's coming, but now that he's here in front of you, They're stuck. They're scared. We have these sorts of things happen in our own lives. Those of you who are married the morning of your wedding, you'll have this at some level. The butterflies will come and you'll get nervous. And you'll have been prepared and you'll have been happy and you'll be excited too and you'll be terrified. Different men and different women respond different ways, but I've watched a number of you get married. Having gone through it myself, this is what happens.

You kind of get disoriented. You're not sure. And all these questions start boiling up. Should I? Oh no, what if? So the disciples' fear led them to doubt. Jesus says, why are you troubled? Why do you have doubts arise in your hearts? Before they could answer, Jesus gives them two proofs of who he was. Two confirmations. I'm Jesus. The first, he says, look at my hands and my feet. See the wounds and know that it's me. And it says later on that he shows them his hands and his feet. Who else would have these marks? Who else would have these marks and be risen from the dead to show them to you? Look at my hands and my feet and believe. He also gives them scriptural proof. It's as if they should have known, but it's only through the scriptures that they could have known. How else would they know that he was supposed to be raised from the dead except that the law and the prophets and the Psalms, along with his own instruction before his death, that he was going to be risen from the dead? And so he explains to them in the scriptures how all these things had to happen.

I want to speak to you a little bit about when we get disoriented, when we get fearful. And it's that sort of fear or that doubt and how it relates to Scripture. Psalm 119, verse 105 says, Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. And I think often when we think of walking down a path, you think of a well clear-cut path, where maybe wherever it is you walk through the woods or what have you. But you know, there's a clearly defined path. And the light's to just... keep you on the path. But I would submit to you that the word being a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path is sort of like you being in uncharted territory in the middle of the wilderness and they're not being a cut path for you. It's your direction out of the wilderness. And there's not a path for you to walk on. And so you need instruction about how to get out. If any of you have ever been orienteering or you've ever gone through the...

Through the woods like this, you realize how valuable a map and a compass are to you. And also how important it is that you travel in the daylight. How much harder it would be if you get stuck in the wilderness in the dark. And so his word is a lamp to our feet and a light to our path. It means that it's to guide us through the hills and valleys of our life. It's to tell us what to believe, how to act, where to turn, what to avoid, what to pursue. where the danger is. Scripture provides all of this instruction to us. Scripture provided to the disciples in this context, it told them that he was going to live and he was going to die and he was going to be raised again. That was the lamp. That was the light. And yet they were afraid. They didn't believe. It would be easy for us to look at them and go, well, they should have. And it's right. They should have. And yet so should we. How often do we learn after the fact, man, you know, I knew what God said, but I was scared.

And so I did this other thing. And it didn't go well. And now I have to deal with the consequence of that. And so as we look at these men, these disciples, and we see their doubt, I'd submit to you that part of their doubt arises from them not believing the Scripture. And that one of the lessons we ought to learn from them is that we ought to believe the Scripture. And it's also worth noting that Scripture is not going to be the only input or the only guide that's going to be vying for your attention. You'll have God's Word telling you one thing, and you're going to have the world telling you another. What to do, how to speak, what to believe, how to act. There's lots of other pressures that you're going to face about who to trust and what to do. How many of you guys have what I would call an internal compass? How many of you know which direction you're facing right now? How many of you have no idea what direction that is? Okay. Which direction is it? Right. Good. I was waiting for someone to say the wrong thing.

Now, you've just demonstrated that some of you have an internal compass, but you just kind of know which direction you're facing, right? And those of you who don't have that probably spend a lot more time lost, but there's a certain vulnerability there, right? You're like, I don't quite know which direction I'm going, right? And that's not a pleasant feeling, is it? Now, those of you who have the internal compass inside of you, has it ever gotten off by 90 degrees? where you're convinced that it's north, but it's not north. You're actually facing west. And when it happens to me, I have that. I can tell you which direction I'm facing, right? When I get off, it's completely disorienting, completely disorienting. I don't know what to do. I don't know which way to go. Everything is backwards to me. And the reason I bring that up to you is to say that sort of disorientation, what's happening is there's input going in to my brain, telling me that's south.

But I can walk around and get turned around. And I still have input telling me which direction I'm facing. But now what's going on is I'm getting the wrong information. And it's scary. Because I can't trust my eyes. I can't trust my senses. I've been disoriented. So how do I get reoriented again? If I'm driving south, but I'm convinced that I'm going west, what has to happen? Well, what has to happen is I have to trust a map that tells me which direction I'm going. and I have to take my mind and my compass, and I have to reorient it to the proper direction, right? That's what has to happen. What happens if I don't do that? I get more lost. I go further in the wrong direction. Well, the same sort of thing is true with regard to our disposition toward the Word of God. There are times where you're going to read Scripture, and it's going to be disorienting to you.

Or you're going to be like, I don't know. Or if I do that, that's going to be hard or that's going to be dangerous. And it's not going to seem right to you. Or you're going to be at a crossroads in your life and you're going to go, I don't know what to do. And you're going to be looking for direction, looking for input, looking, where do I turn? How do I go? Do I continue this relationship? Do I not? Do I take that job? Do I not? Do I buy this car? Do I not? What ought we to do? And so the question that comes to you is, what are you going to trust? You have your fears and you have your doubts. You also have your opinions. What are you going to trust?

You're going to obey. That's right, says my son. Who are you going to obey? How are you going to reorient? That's right. He says, God. And that's absolutely right. Your word is a lamp into my feet and a light into my path. And so when we're disoriented and when we're lost, when we're looking for direction, we have to turn to the word to be instructed about which way to go. Now here's the question. What happens when the word tells you to go some way you don't want to go? Then what? Then it's like, well, that's actually... That's a tough one because I have a decision to make. What am I going to trust? These men that Jesus appeared to, you could ask, what did they trust? Why were they doubtful? Where did their fear arise from? And I'd submit to you that their fear arose from what they saw. That's what they chose to believe. They looked at them and they went, we saw you die on a cross. You said that you would be raised, but we're not sure. And so initially,

Their fear leads them to doubt. They're not sure. They think there's a spirit. He's a spirit in front of them. And so he explains from the scriptures how they should have known these things. So first he says to them to help them, look at my hands and look at my feet. Then he says to them, look at the scriptures and see how they agree. And then he comes to them and he says, do you have anything to eat? Which is a strange request if you think about it. It's the middle of the night. Do you have anything to eat? Why would he ask for food? He's resurrected and he's about to ascend into heaven. He's not hungry. He spent 40 days in the wilderness with no food and the Lord sustained him. We can't think that he asked for food because he was hungry. He asked for food as a benefit to the disciples, as a proof to them. You see that I've got flesh and I've got bones. Do you have anything to eat? Spirits can't eat the fish. And yet here I am.

Do you have anything to eat? And they watched him eat it. You ever notice when you get really scared, you just want somebody to tell you what to do? Just tell me whether to turn to the right, whether to turn to the left, whether to speak, whether to be quiet, whether to stand up or to sit down. Just tell me what to do. And that's what Jesus is doing with his disciples. And if you've been in that sort of situation, you realize what a mercy it is. When you find a leader in the midst of your confusion to give you direction, to tell you, do this and don't do that. So after demonstrating who he was, That he was, in fact, Jesus, raised from the dead. Their fear goes away and it turns to joy. They're still paralyzed. They're still not sure what to do. And this is the point at which he explains to them from the Scripture everything that had to be fulfilled. And then it says this thing. He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures. And so what do we know about them previous to this? That they didn't understand. Right? Now there's a danger here for us. And so I want to caution us against it. It's this.

They didn't understand the Scriptures, so is that excuse or that reason available to us to say, well, I'm just like them. They didn't understand the Scriptures, so I don't understand the Scripture. Some of you are going, no. And some of you are like, well, there are things I don't understand. And you're telling me I can't say that I don't understand it, and how does that work? But I want you to understand about what's going on right now. There's a very unique thing that's happening at this time. This is a time in history that's never happened before. It only happened once. Jesus came to earth, and everything was changing. Everything was in flux. And what happens not long after this is Pentecost. And what happens at Pentecost, Peter preaches. They're all speaking in native tongues, and the visitors that have come into town are all hearing the gospel in their own language.

And then the Holy Spirit descends on them as fire. You remember? And Jesus had told them that the Spirit, one of the works of the Spirit was to lead them into all truth, to guide them. Okay? And so we ought to think of the Holy Spirit as a helper or as an interpreter or as a guide when we search out the things of God, trusting that he'll lead us and guide us into the truth. At this point, the Holy Spirit hadn't been poured out yet. And so they're in this time where they don't have that help yet. And the reason they don't have that help yet is because they still have Jesus. That's why it says he opened their minds and he explained everything to them. But he's about to go away and he's going to send them a helper, someone to do that work in them, with them, for them. And so that means that this text can't become an excuse for our ignorance. We need to understand the things that God has said. It's imperative that we understand them as his people.

You guys familiar with the concept of studying for a test? As opposed to studying to learn, right? We can't treat scripture like we're studying for a test. The test is our behavior. The test is our life. The test is the fruit we bear. So in that sense, if you want to say it's studying for a test, I'll grant it. You're studying for a lifelong test. And you're living it right now. You're being tested. If that's how you understand it, then sure. Study for the test. But if you've ever taught anybody, And they've had an interest in learning the material and understanding the material. It's a beautiful thing to see when they get it. When they don't understand the math equation or the physics behind something, and then the light bulb goes and they get it. And you go, praise God, they understand. We've all had these experiences in our lives where all of a sudden it all fit together. We went, that's right. That's the sort of thing that's going on.

with regard to the scriptures being opened up to the people. It's coming online. It's fitting together. Jesus is breathing life into these words for them. And having poured out the Holy Spirit, it means that we can't live in ignorance any longer. Those times have gone away. We need to know what the Bible says. We need to know what God requires, what he loves, what he hates, what he says yes to and what he says no to, and why. The other thing I'll tell you about having their minds opened was that this was not the end. The goal wasn't that they simply would understand. The goal was that they would bear the fruit of their understanding, that they would live a life of obedience that flew from knowledge that was mixed with faith. They had been witnesses to all of his sufferings, to his death, and now to his resurrection. They've seen these things with their own eyes. They've been witnesses to them. Now they're to be witnesses of them to others.

After he opened their mind to understand the scriptures, he said to them, thus it is written that the Christ would suffer and rise again from the dead the third day. And then he gives the reason why. And it's this, that repentance for forgiveness of sins would be proclaimed in his name to all the nations beginning from Jerusalem. Now this isn't the Great Commission. This isn't Luke's account of the Great Commission. But this is the preparatory remark. that's given to them in Jerusalem as they're going to Galilee of what their work is supposed to be. You have seen these things with your own eyes. You've touched with your own hands. Now your work will be to proclaim it to the nations. That repentance for forgiveness of sins would be proclaimed in Jesus' name to all the nations. But first he gives them this instruction. They're to wait in Jerusalem until they're clothed with power from on high. And so they're to wait.

Pentecost is coming, and they're to wait until they receive the Holy Spirit. So I want to wrap up with an application for us. The application is this. We've been talking about it already. God's Word must be precious to us. We have to love it, and we have to trust it. And it won't be in the absence of other things competing for our affection and our obedience. But if we're going to be useful to God, and we're going to bring Him glory, if we're going to bear fruit for Him, We have to trust his word. This will come with personal sacrifice and with danger, increasingly so for us, for Christians. I think one of the biggest dangers we face is similar to the danger that they faced. And that was the competition between their feelings of their doubt and fear and what God had said. When there arises a conflict between what we feel, and by feel, some of us would be like, oh, I'm full of feelings, and some of us would be like, I don't feel anything.

And you're wrong. You do. You just suppress it. When there arises a conflict between what we feel or what we desire or what we want and what God has said, we have a decision to make. And every one of us makes these decisions. And it may seem awkward to say they chose to doubt. We want to say, how do you choose not to doubt? And I say, same way you choose everything else. If you've fallen into sin, you choose not to doubt through repentance, by turning away from it. By taking your internal compass that's gotten off 90 degrees and going, no, I know I feel like that's west, but it's actually south. And so I'm going to do the work of turning my mind to the truth. I am facing south, even though everything in me feels like I'm facing west. And so God's word is supposed to inform our feelings of doubt and fear, or really anything that keeps us from believing what he said. You could think of it in terms of filters. You know, a filter is meant to strain out certain things, right?

What ends up happening in this situation is their feelings and they're running God's word through it and some of it's getting hung up in the filter and it's not making it through into their life. It should be the opposite. Our filter ought to be God's word and our feelings ought to get run through the filter and some of them ought to get caught and they shouldn't make it out into life, if you will. Maybe those feelings are fear and doubt like they experienced. Maybe they're anger. Maybe they're depression, discouragement. One of the things we want to realize when we're living in this conflict of our desires and what God has said. What I want us to see is that when our hearts go astray, when we're overcome with grief or fear or what have you, it's our hearts that have failed, not God. It's our hearts that have led us astray. Scripture tells us that our hearts are desperately sick and deceitful, which means that they're going to lead us astray and feed us all kinds of things that are not helpful to us and that don't glorify God.

And if we could simply have that disposition toward our own inclinations, we would do well. If we wouldn't trust what we feel so much. Which is not to say you should feel less. That's not what it means to be a Christian. It doesn't at all mean to become a stoic who never feels anything. It means that you want the right feelings to get through the filter. You want the right stuff getting out into life. Faith and joy and patience and mercy and compassion. Those are the feelings you want getting through. Those are the feelings you want to be cultivating. Because those are in conformity with God's disposition toward you. And so when there becomes a conflict, it's our hearts that have gone astray, not God. So we have to discipline our hearts and our minds not to contend with God, not to ask, why have you made me thus? Why did you bring this into my life? As I was preparing for Sunday school, I came across a quote that was apropos to this. It talks about contending with God. And it says this,

It says to contend with the providence of God, meaning what comes to us in our lives, is equally vain and criminal. It is vain for he leads the willing and drags the refractory. Refractory just means the stubborn, the unmanageable, the unruly, the ones who won't follow. You know, some dogs, when you put them on a leash, they walk next to you and some dogs dig at their heels and they fight. Well, that dog just gets drug along the walk. And that's us. Sometimes we walk along. willingly, and sometimes we dig in our heels and fight. But you're not going to overcome the providence of God by your resistance. You're just going to make it miserable for yourself. And you're going to be like that dog that's hacking and coughing. And so it is vain, for he leads the willing and drags the refractory. It is criminal, for reason says, that it becomes you to yield to the Lord and not the Lord to you. If someone's got to give, it ought to be you and not the Lord. If someone's will has to be bent,

to the will of another, it ought to be our wills being bent to the Lord's will. And that if you won't, it's better that you should be involved in utter ruin than that even the least part of his most holy will should fail to be accomplished. And so if you find yourself refusing the Lord's leading in your life, disbelieving what he says to be true, not doing what he's required of you, you should expect that that's going to bear bad fruit in your life. that it's going to make a difficult situation harder. And yet to those who are weary and heavy laden, Jesus says, come to me and you'll find rest. Come and learn from me for I am meek and humble of heart and you'll find rest for your souls. And so God is good to us. Jesus is kind to these disciples in revealing himself to them, showing him his hands, showing them his feet, showing them what the scripture says, showing them that he can eat and that he's a man. He's like them.

He's been good to them. He's been good to us. We can trust his word. He won't lead us astray, and he'll see us through whatever trials we face. Our part is to be his faithful follower, to live up to the name of Christian. Let's pray.