Hope From the Word

Guest (Male): Drawing our attentions to some of the appearances of Jesus to his followers after he had risen, here's Pastor Bill Luebkemann.

Bill Luebkemann: He appeared to Peter, and when Peter went back and heard the story with the ladies and the angels and the empty tomb, and now Peter's appearance, they were pretty stoked at this point. The Lord has risen and has appeared to Simon.

And then these two guys come in and they tell their whole story. "We were just minding our own business. We were just on our way home. We were bummed out just like everybody else, and the Lord came and walked with us, only we didn't recognize him. And he told us all this stuff about how it all fits together and how this was his plan from the beginning of time."

Guest (Male): The Lord Jesus has risen indeed. He's alive and has conquered sin and death. Hello and welcome to Hope From the Word, the daily outreach of Calvary Chapel of Marlton with Pastor Bill Luebkemann.

Can you imagine having Jesus explain God's glorious plan of salvation from the scriptures? Well, the disciples from Emmaus had that privilege. To hear more about it, let's join Pastor Bill in Luke chapter 24, picking up in verse 27.

Bill Luebkemann: God, knowing in advance it's going to rise and it's going to fall, but in the end there's going to be salvation because that's my plan and foretold all throughout that time. And it says here, beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the scriptures concerning himself.

He told them how this was foretold and how the Son of God would come and be a man and how he would die and how he would carry the sins of the world upon him. And how his Father would turn his face away. "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"

This was all part of God's plan and it was all his purpose, and that was that the Son of Man would die and take our sins upon him. Every terrible sin ever committed by anyone, past, present, or future. Every evil thought, everything ever done or that ever will be done.

In the last 100 years, think about how many people were murdered by communists, by Lenin and Stalin, and in Europe, in Italy, and during World War II, and with Japan. Think about all the evil deeds. Maybe 100 million people lost their lives in the last 100 years in wars, maybe more than that. And all the sin of all mankind taken upon his back and that price paid for, right on down to whatever little sin you committed this morning when you had an argument with your spouse, maybe.

Beginning with Moses and all the prophets. And these guys were just amazed. In fact, in a few more verses, it says their hearts were burning within them. Both of them, their hearts were burning up as they were soaking this stuff up. But they didn't know. They didn't know each other's heart. One guy, his heart was burning up; he didn't know the other guy's getting the same reaction. They were like sponges, I think, soaking up the Lord's explanation of God's plan of salvation.

Verse 28: As they approached the village to which they were going, Jesus acted as if he were going further, but they urged him strongly, "Stay with us, for it is nearly evening, the day is almost over." So he went in to stay with them. He didn't want to impose on them. He's not going to invite himself into their house. "Hey, we're at your house. Why don't I come in for dinner?"

He may have been hoping that they would invite him in. Of course, he knows everything; he knew they were going to do that. But he acted as if he were going on. And they said, "No, we want to talk some more. It's nearly evening. Come and we'll have dinner together. We can talk some more. We want to hear more about what you have to say. Stay with us." So he went in to stay with them.

And they fixed up a meal there. And verse 30: When he was at the table with them, he took bread, gave thanks, broke it and began to give it to them. 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?"

Here they were. Here's the point where they were allowed to see who he was. Look, it wasn't some human reaction. It was some supernatural touch of God that prevented them from recognizing him, and now that was removed and they were allowed to see who it was. God chose to do it this way for some reason.

And he took the bread and he gave thanks and broke it, and all of a sudden they realized who he was. And poof, he was gone. They realized, "This is him." They recognized him. And then he disappeared from their sight. These heavenly bodies are really cool. You can go anywhere you want, just materialize somewhere. If you wanted to go to Nepal, you wouldn't have to take 30 hours on a plane. You just poof and you're there.

It's going to be even better than in Star Trek. In Star Trek they beam up. "We're going to beam over to Paris for dinner and then we'll beam back." I'd like to do that. But this is even better. Their eyes were opened and he disappeared, and they were so excited. These guys were stoked. They couldn't believe it. "We've been talking to him all these hours. He taught us all these things that we should have known already." But now we understand. Now we get it.

You get it when the Holy Spirit gives you that understanding. You're never going to get it on your own. You're going to get it when the Holy Spirit shows it to you. And that's why you need to be born again, receive the Holy Spirit before you can understand the truths of the Lord. Spiritual things are spiritually discerned. Without the Holy Spirit of God, it's just so much meaningless stuff. You could never figure it all out on your own.

Somehow at this point here, they were allowed to recognize who he was. And then he was gone. And then 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?" Wasn't it so exciting to hear how this all fit together? Weren't we just thrilled to death to see what the Lord was doing? And weren't we feeling silly for ourselves that we hadn't understood that previously?

Weren't we feeling foolish that we had been following Jesus for so long, and this guy comes up, walks along, we don't even know who he is? Because they didn't recognize him. And he knows more than we did. We've never even seen him before. Where was he when we were traveling around with the Lord having dinner together and doing ministry together and seeing the Lord do things together? This guy comes along and he's a foreigner. We don't even recognize him.

But yet he brings us such great understanding. "Shouldn't we have realized who he was sooner?" They're probably kicking themselves. "How come we didn't recognize that sooner?" But of course, it was because that's the way the Lord wanted it. They asked each other, "Were not our hearts burning within us?" And he opened the scriptures to us. Look, that's how we get understanding. It's by the Holy Spirit showing us what the scriptures mean.

I like to tell people who are unsaved, sometimes talk to an unsaved person, we would call them seekers, maybe. They're thinking about the Lord or they're interested. I would call them draw-ees because God is drawing them. And I like to tell people like that, sometimes they'll say, "Gee, I read the Bible and it just doesn't make any sense." And I like to tell them, "Look, go home, open up to John chapter 1 and pray first."

And say, "God, if you're real, if you're really there, if there's really a God, then show me what this means. Make it make sense to me. Teach me it." And what a difference it makes when the Lord shows you something instead of you just studying it intellectually. You want to study calculus, physics, all the finer things in the world. That's all great, but that's all intellectual stuff, mental exercises.

When God teaches you something, how much more significant that is. And when we read our Bibles each day, which I know we all do here, and when we spend time with the Lord each day, we need to be asking God as we open the pages here, "Speak to us through these pages. Make your presence known. Show me what you want me to learn today." If you don't invite him in to be part of that experience, then you might as well not bother reading it because you're wasting your time.

Ask him to show you, and he will. And that's a safe thing to tell to an unbeliever. Go home and read the Bible and ask God if this is really for real. I remember when I was right around the time I got saved, I was reading a Bible a lot thinking, "Man, if this could just be true, this would be great. If only this could be true." And then I got saved and realized it was true, and how much more the Lord speaks to us after that.

It's not magic or anything like that. It's not some secret, some deep, dark secret that you have to be in the Christian faith and arrive at the 32nd level before you can really know what it's all about. It's the Lord speaking to you, and he speaks to anyone with an open heart that wants to hear if you just believe. Look, if you don't believe, why bother reading? Why bother asking?

I think an unsaved person, I think you can never go wrong encouraging an unsaved person who's interested to read John, for example, and ask them to pray, "Lord, open my heart to this. If you're real, show me what this means." I don't think the Lord would ever turn down a sincere prayer like that. And these guys were given a lesson here from Jesus Christ himself, personal tutorial here, personal tutoring session just the two of them as they walked along the road and as they got a study of all the scriptures there and all these different things that came together.

And it was so much so that their hearts were burning. And then they realized who he was because they were allowed to see that. 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." Then the two told what had happened on the way and how Jesus was recognized by them when he broke the bread.

So when they got back to Jerusalem, now this was seven miles on foot. They weren't walking on blacktop either. It was probably hiking on some sandy dirt road or what have you. It was hard work. Seven miles. I know in Nepal you probably walk farther than that, right? But I cannot imagine walking from here to the other side of Medford. I'd probably be dead by the time I got there. And then pack it all up and walk back.

In fact, on the way back, I think they probably were running a little bit. We've got to get back. They returned at once to Jerusalem. They didn't waste any time. They didn't tidy up their affairs. They didn't worry about cleaning the kitchen sink or anything like that. They got up and they returned at once to Jerusalem. And there they found the Eleven and the others that were gathered together there. The Eleven meaning Judas had hung himself, so there was only 11 apostles.

The Eleven were there and there was other people with them, and they were all saying, "It's true, the Lord has risen and has appeared to Simon." Remember Peter saw him earlier, and Peter had gone back. And now we had the ladies who said his tomb was empty and the angels were there and, "We don't know what to make of that." And then we had John and Peter go to the tomb and there was nothing there.

We still don't know what to make of that. Maybe someone stole his body. Remember the word on the street from the Jews was his disciples came and stole his body so it would look like he rose again. But then he appeared to Peter, and when Peter went back, well, that was enough to convince them all except for Thomas, maybe. But when you heard the story with the ladies and the angels and the empty tomb, and now Peter's appearance, they were pretty stoked at this point.

The Lord has risen and has appeared to Simon. And then these two guys come in and they tell their whole story. "We were just minding our own business. We were just on our way home. We were bummed out just like everybody else, and the Lord came and walked with us, only we didn't recognize him. And he told us all this stuff about how it all fits together and how this was his plan from the beginning of time." And they had to be even more excited now.

While they were still talking about this, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, "Peace be with you." He just appeared in the room. Walked through the wall or something, who knows. The doors were locked. He appeared in the room and stood among them saying, "Peace be with." What else is he going to say? "Hi." And what would someone say if, like we said before, if one of your long lost friends or relatives who's long since deceased came back to life?

Even if they weren't long since deceased, let's say you just had the funeral a few days ago. You went to the funeral home and then you had the pallbearers and you went to the cemetery and buried the person and you had a meal afterwards and you're grieving and you're home, and three days later they show up. "Think we spent all that money on that funeral for nothing?" What's Jesus going to say? "Hey, I'm alive and you're not?" No. "Guess what, I made it, I survived?" No.

He says this very simple greeting, "Peace be with you." Don't be alarmed. Don't be afraid. Don't be nervous or scared. Don't be wondering. Don't be fearful. We know they were fearful. It says in the very next verse, they were startled and frightened, thinking they saw a ghost. It seems like every time an angel appeared, the first thing he said was, "Don't be afraid." Because if you saw an angel brighter than the sun standing in your presence radiating, the first thing you would probably do would be to pass out or something.

When Jesus appeared and they certainly seemed to have recognized him in this section here, he said, "Peace be with you." In other words, nothing to be fearful of any longer. Be at peace. You can rest now. This plan has been executed and it's over and done with. He knew he was going to be successful from before the creation of the world. God planned it, he did it. He didn't have any doubts of his ability to carry out his plan.

The people who were his followers might have, but now he's saying, "You can relax, it's over." And they were so surprised and startled and frightened that they thought they saw a ghost. He said to them, "Why are you troubled and why do doubts rise in your minds? Look at my hands and my feet. It is I myself. Touch me and see. A ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see I have."

Remember from one of the other gospels, they were locked up there in the upper room because they thought the Romans were going to come and get them at any moment. They were afraid that their fate was next, that they were going to be executed for their faith, that they could all be hanging on crosses. The Romans were great at doing that. They knew how to hang people on crosses really well.

They were into high volume, too. They did it to lots of folks. It was a common way of execution back then. And you just, if you were smart, you just stayed out of their way. You didn't look at them, didn't have anything to do with them. Just stay out of their way or you could be next. And they were startled and frightened. "How did he get in here? Is this his ghost?"

Jesus knowing what they were thinking said, "Why are you doubting? Why are you troubled? I'm not a ghost. Look, my hands, my feet." Later on he asked them for some food. And it seems like every time he was with them until the Ascension, he was always eating, which is why I like Calvary Chapel so much and bagel fellowships. Because he always wanted to eat.

One of the reasons was maybe that he was hungry, perhaps. But one of the reasons was he wanted them to clearly see he was not a ghost. He was there in flesh and bone. He was there, they could touch him, shake his hand. "Give me some food, I'm going to eat it." Ghosts don't eat food. What would happen if a ghost picked up a food, what would happen to it? It would just fall on the floor or something.

Jesus is, "Look, it's me. I've got holes in my hands, I've got holes in my feet. Touch me if you want to and see, I'm not a ghost." And this is the greatest news that has ever been brought to mankind. And it's a life-changing message compared to every other religious system in the world. Well, there's just no comparison. You can't even put them in the same book.

Every other system is about mankind pleasing God, doing something to earn their way into heaven. I remember when my kids were little, my daughter used to have discussions out there. My older daughter, she was probably only in kindergarten, and now she's 19. That was a long time ago. She would be out on the street witnessing to the Hindu neighbors a few doors up.

She came in and said, "Yeah, they said there's at least 10 gods, but not more than 50." I didn't know they believed there's millions? This kid thought the number was between 10 and 50 gods. And my kindergartener was telling them, "No, no, none of that stuff. There's just one God." If there was a million gods or even if there's only 50 gods, trying to keep them all happy, you can't keep 50 people happy.

Imagine trying to keep 50 people who thought they were gods happy. And now imagine trying to keep 50 gods happy. You would always be jumping around, worried who you were ticking off or getting mad at you. This is the greatest story ever told. It's a life-changing message, but you have to put your heart into it. "How foolish you are," he said, "and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken."

They were foolish. We don't need to be foolish today. They weren't foolish for long. They heard the message, they got their act together. And we can do the same thing ourselves. Put your faith in Jesus Christ in your heart. Maybe you know you went to church when you were a kid and you always heard them read from the Bible and you know so much about what the Bible says, but you've never put it in here.

You've never believed with your heart that Jesus Christ is who he says he is. Historians today, some people say they don't even think there was a person named Jesus who ever existed. And that's just plain silly. He's attested in history of the time. You can read the writings of Josephus, for example, a Jewish historian. People who say no one named Jesus ever existed, they just want to start an argument. Or they just don't want to believe.

Everybody knew about this. There was 500 dead stiffs walking around town on the day he was resurrected, and they weren't dead anymore so they were previously dead stiffs. Everybody knew he existed. There's no question about that. If you say, "I don't believe somebody named Jesus ever existed," that's just dumb. The people who believe that also believe like we never went to the moon, it was all staged in a theater somewhere just for pretend.

You can always find a conspiracy theorist that thinks that the World Trade Center was designed to fall or that somebody in Washington pressed a button to make it come down. You can always find somebody who believes some far-out gimmick. But the fact of the matter is, he was a person and he did live and he was the Son of God. And he did die to pay the price for our sins.

And he hung on the cross there and the price for our sins was upon him, the weight of our sins was upon him. He didn't do that because it was pleasant. He wasn't sitting up and saying, "Oh, I can't wait to go down and do that. I'm going to have such a great time." If you could imagine what it would be like to take your life and become an ant. Watch the ants carrying grains of sand around and building their little mountains.

If you could imagine what it would be like to be an ant. Well, the difference between you and an ant is nothing compared to the difference between God and man. It's even a greater jump. And he became a man to show us how we can live our lives for him. And then he died to pay the price that we owed. And the price has to be paid.

So your price for your sin is going to be paid one way or the other. Either you're going to pay it or you're going to accept what he did to pay it. One or the other. Just two choices there. Pay it yourself or you accept the fact that he paid already. It's just like when you're at a restaurant and someone else says, "Let me pick up the check." And you pretend to say, "Oh no, let me have it."

But really you're thinking, "Yeah, great, take it. You want to pay the next one too?" You have a choice. When you leave the restaurant, someone's going to give money to the cashier. It's either going to be you or the person you're with. And the same is true with our sin. I was corresponding this week, some people know this, with a guy who must be an atheist in England.

And he was listening to a Christian station in England, which I think is called Hope FM. And he went to look them up on the internet and he got my email address somehow. And he sent me this vile, vindictive thing about how long it's taken to get rid of Christianity in England, and it's terrible, we're trying to bring it back. And how stupid people believe in this, and he just went on and on about how stupid Christianity was and any kind of religion.

And there's no gods and everything. So I was feeling pretty chipper and I wrote back to him just a very simple email. I said, "Well, we're in New Jersey on the East Coast of the United States of America, and you've clearly got us confused with someone else. So it would appear in this conversation, the only stupid person is you." My wife says you really shouldn't do that.

But he wrote me back and kind of apologized, and then I engaged him in a conversation and we've gone back and forth a few times. It makes a lot of sense to believe this. There's so much evidence for it. It's not a leap of faith. It's a leap of faith to believe we got here by chance. It's not at all leap of faith to believe that we were created by God. That just makes sense. If you confess with your mouth, Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

Guest (Male): Pastor Bill Luebkemann has presented us with compelling reasons to believe the gospel today. If you've yet to do so, why not take that step of faith and believe in a faithful God who promises to save the one who trusts in him? We're studying the events surrounding the empty tomb right now on Hope From the Word with Pastor Bill Luebkemann.

You can join us at Calvary Chapel of Marlton either in person or online. Our Sunday service begins at 10 a.m. and there's a Wednesday evening service at 7. You can subscribe to our YouTube channel at Calvary Chapel of Marlton or just go to our website for the link at ccmarlton.org. And if you'd take a moment to write to Pastor Bill, it would be such a blessing to us.

We're thankful each and every time we hear what God is doing in our listeners' lives and we want to pray for you too. Either email us through the website at ccmarlton.org or call 856-983-1662. Once again, we'll be reviewing the seven last sayings of Christ tomorrow. Join us then as Pastor Bill Luebkemann returns with more Hope From the Word.