Last week we looked at the lessons learned on the road to Emmaus by two of Jesus’ disciples. And the lessons that these two men learned was basically a completion of their theology. They had an incomplete theology concerning the Messiah, and so Jesus helped them to see how the Old Testament scriptures spoke of His suffering. That was what they had not understood. They thought that Christ’s death eliminated Him from being the Messiah. Jesus showed them from scripture how His suffering and death were in fact predicted and consequently proved that He was the Messiah.

And then if you remember when He broke bread with them their eyes were opened and they recognized Him, and immediately He vanished from their sight. The point I made was that now that they saw Him in scripture they did not need to see Him in the flesh. From this point on the gospel of Jesus Christ would be based on faith in the Christ they could not see, but who is revealed in scripture. Now today we are picking up where that story left off.

So our text tells us that immediately these two men got up from the table and headed back to Jerusalem, all seven miles by foot, in order to share with the apostles that they had just seen Jesus. But when they arrived, the apostles spoke to them of Jesus appearing to Simon Peter. Now to be frank with you, the way the story reads does not lend itself to that interpretation. The first impression when you read vs. 33 and 34 would seem to indicate it was the disciples from Emmaus that make the announcement in vs. 34. But Greek scholars tell us that the accusative form of the verb indicates that the ones speaking here are the apostles and not the two from Emmaus. So the best way to understand this verse is to realize that as the disciples from Emmaus enter the room, the apostles great them excitedly with the news that Jesus had indeed risen and appeared to Peter.

Now there is no real record of this event. But the apostle Paul writing later does confirm that Jesus appeared to Peter at this time. In 1Cor. 15:4-5 Paul says, “He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that He appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve.” Cephas of course being Simon Peter. So though Luke doesn’t fill us in on all the details here, he is giving us a condensed version of these events, the best interpretation is that at some point after His resurrection, before this event, Jesus sought out Peter and revealed Himself to him. And that is very significant because as we know Peter was devastated after his denial of Christ the night before the crucifixion. And so it is encouraging not only for us to know this, but obviously encouraging for Peter as well that after His resurrection Jesus seeks out Peter for a private time of reconciliation.

But the main thrust of Luke’s account here has to do with the rest of the apostles. So as the disciples from Emmaus were recounting what happened with them, Jesus suddenly appears in their midst and says “Peace be to you.” Now the next verse says that the apostles were startled and frightened and thought they were seeing a ghost. I guess that would not be an unusual response of most people if someone whom we knew was dead suddenly appeared in the middle of the room without opening a door. Sounds reasonable to me.

But Jesus says, “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 had said this, He showed them His hands and His feet. While they still could not believe it because of their joy and amazement, He said to them, “Have you anything here to eat?” They gave Him a piece of a broiled fish; and He took it and ate it before them.

Now what are we to make from all of that? Well, one obvious point that is made clear here is that in spite of being able to walk through walls and appear in various places at various times seemingly at will, Jesus has physically risen from the dead. That is an important theological point. We don’t hear much discussion about that today, but in previous generations, especially in the first century or two after Christ’s resurrection, there was a lot of false doctrine which put forth the idea that Jesus was only a Spirit. And that His resurrection wasn’t a bodily resurrection but a spiritual one.

The main point though to be taken from this is that the physical, literal resurrection of Jesus is fundamental to the gospel. Rom. 10:9 says “that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.” Why is the physical resurrection of Christ essential to salvation? Because it proves that Christ’s death was efficacious. It proved that God was satisfied with Christ’s sacrifice. It matters that His body came out of that grave because how else would we know that God was satisfied with His offering? We couldn’t see His Spirit. If it was just a spiritual resurrection then we would not have known for sure that God had in fact raised Him, that God had in fact been satisfied with His sacrifice. And without that assurance, we could not be sure that we are saved from our sins.   So the verification of Christ’s literal, physical resurrection is essential for the gospel. As Paul said in 1Cor. 15:14, “and if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is vain, your faith also is vain.”

So the fact of the gospel must be that it is literal, physical and historical. Paul goes on to say that Jesus appeared to 500 people at one time after His resurrection. That makes it historical. Five hundred witnesses makes it provable in a court of law. Luke goes on to say in Acts chapter 1 that Jesus appeared numerous times to various people over the space of 40 days. So the point is that the resurrection of Jesus was historical, literal and physical which is essential to the gospel. There is no doubt that Jesus was literally a historical figure that walked the earth 2000 years ago. And when you add to that the fact that He was raised from the dead then that establishes that He was in fact God in the flesh. That is the basis for our gospel.

Then starting in vs. 44 we read that Jesus began to do for the apostles what He had earlier done for the disciples from Emmaus. And that is, He opened their mind to understand the scriptures. Folks, this is so important. This is the reason that so many are deceived by false doctrines today. They haven’t had their minds opened to understand the scriptures. False doctrines always claim to be founded on scripture. But it’s possible to know scripture and yet not understand scripture. And so they build a doctrine or a theology based on a partial understanding of the gospel. This is exactly what had happened with the disciples.

So Jesus is using this opportunity to correct that here with the apostles. First as I mentioned earlier, He showed them the error of their theology that did not allow for a suffering Savior, that did not allow for the crucifixion of the Messiah. And to do that He showed them the scriptures. And so He is doing the same thing here with the eleven. He starts with the Law and then moves to the Psalms and then on through the prophets, teaching them how all these OT scriptures spoke of Him.

So Jesus is reiterating for the benefit of the apostles what we discovered last week, that the scriptures are fundamental to the gospel. The scriptures reveal God. That sounds like such a superfluous statement. And yet it had to be understood then and it desperately needs to be understood today. Extra biblical words of knowledge or dreams or visions or experiences cannot be relied upon. But the word of the Lord endures forever. It is the foundation of the gospel. Paul writes in Eph. 2:20 that the church is built on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets, that means the writings of the apostles and the prophets, the holy scriptures.

These are the scriptures which Paul told Timothy in 2Tim. 3:15 “that from childhood you have known the sacred writings which are able to give you the wisdom that leads to salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.” These scriptures that Paul refers to are the Old Testament scriptures. Jesus opens the mind of the apostles to understand the Old Testament scriptures. These are the scriptures that give you the wisdom that leads to salvation.

Listen folks, the gospel starts in Genesis, not Matthew. The wisdom that leads to salvation comes from understanding how God is revealed in all of scripture, how His plan for salvation was enacted before creation. If you do not understand the God which destroyed the world in the flood, and the God of the fire and smoke of Mt. Sinai, then you cannot understand the God of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Heb 13:8 says “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.” He is unchanging, He is the everlasting God.

So the second point then is that the gospel is Biblical. It is founded on the scriptures and dependent understanding the full scope of the scriptures and how it all works together. It is not something completely new. It is not an interruption. But the gospel is a continuous thread that runs through all of the Bible which has to be understood as a whole.

Next in vs. 46 Jesus gives them a concise synopsis of the gospel. Luke 24:46-47 “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 from Jerusalem.’” Incorporated in that simple statement is the plan, the purpose and the presentation of the gospel. The plan of God was the salvation of sinners through the death and resurrection of Christ which accomplishes our reconciliation with God, and then our mission to proclaim the gospel to the world. That is the gospel in a nutshell.

And the third major characteristic of the gospel as presented in this synopsis by Jesus is that the gospel is confessional. Now what do I mean by that? Well, I already showed in Rom. 10:9 the confessional nature of salvation. It reads “that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.”

But to confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord is much more than simply accepting the historical reality of Jesus. The Bible says that the devils believe and tremble. Believing in the literal, historical reality of Jesus but not accepting Him as Lord and Savior only serves to condemn you, not save you.

To confess Jesus as Lord is really understood more clearly in this statement here in Luke by Jesus. His statement affirms that Jesus is the Christ, that is the Messiah, which means that He is the Son of God, that He was raised from the dead, which we just finished showing meant that God was satisfied by His sacrifice, that He was in fact God in the flesh, and that repentance for sins would be proclaimed or preached.

Now that is where I would like to camp out for a moment. Because I’m afraid that repentance is the aspect of salvation that is not being preached today. And yet I believe it is the key to salvation because it is the key to transformation. It is the key to conversion. Without it, there may be a head knowledge, but no change, no transformation, no conversion from death to life, from captivity to freedom.

Repentance is the act that turns the heart from self sufficiency to salvation. It is necessary to be saved, for one to turn from sin’s presence, sin’s power, sin’s dominance, and even sin’s consequence to that of hungering and thirsting for righteousness. It’s a 180 degree turn in the opposite direction. Jesus said in Matt. 5 that salvation involved mourning for sin. That means having a desire to leave sin behind and pursue righteousness. This is true repentance. It’s not simply feeling bad about your circumstances, or feeling bad about your condition, it is not even feeling bad about the consequences that came from your sins, it is feeling bad about the reality of sin. It’s understanding that sin is an affront to a holy God.

The other day the President of the United States gave the annual State of the Union address. I did not watch it. I do not have to watch it to know that the state of our Union is deplorable. But I am much more concerned about the state of the church today than I am about the state of the Union. And I am here to tell you that the state of the church is in disarray. And I believe the reason for that disarray is because the church has abandoned the foundational truths of the gospel. Oh, most churches haven’t changed their official statement of faith printed somewhere in their literature. They still claim to hold to the foundational doctrines. But the truth is that many of the essential doctrines of the gospel are never emphasized anymore for fear of alienating someone. For fear of appearing condemning. And one of the first victims of this new apostasy has been to throw overboard the doctrine of repentance. And what is frightening is how this doctrinal error has infiltrated even many mainstream churches today at all levels to the point of completely undermining the gospel.

I was reading a booklet the other day by a mainstream evangelical church that purported to be teaching the way of salvation. And the author recounted a story about a homosexual man that had contracted AIDS, who called his office and said that he was dying and wanted to repent. This pastor told him, “The only thing I am interested in is this, that you let God love you.” He said in the booklet that even though the man had done wrong, that all that this man needed to do was to let God love him and to come to the point of loving himself.

There was no talk of the need for repentance. In fact, this dying man’s desire to repent was repulsed by this pastor. Even though Jesus said in our text in Luke 24 that repentance is necessary for the forgiveness of sins. Even though 1John 1:9 says, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

Folks, do not be deceived. To reject the doctrine of repentance is to reject the gospel. And not only do you reject the gospel, you reject the ministry of the Holy Spirit. Jesus said in John 16:8, “And He, when He comes, will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment.”   And if you reject the conviction of the Holy Spirit, then you cannot be saved because it is the Spirit that gives life.

Repentance is not only confessing your sins, but confessing the need to know the truth about God and that we are inadequate to do so on our own. Repentance is the key to the truth. 2Tim. 2:25 tells us that we are to preach the gospel “with gentleness correcting those who are in opposition, if perhaps God may grant them repentance leading to the knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, having been held captive by him to do his will.”

See, this is why Jesus needed to open their minds to understand the scriptures. Repentance leads to the knowledge of the truth. And the truth is what makes possible salvation. The truth will set you free. When we know the truth, we come to our senses, we see things clearly, and that enables us to escape from the trap of the devil, where we have been held captive to do his will.

The devil’s lie is to say that there is no need for repentance, that God is love and if God is love then that overrules all other characteristics about God. God’s love as it is defined today is nothing short of permissiveness. We do what we want, live the way we want without any consequences to our sin. They fail to take into consideration that Hebrews 12 says that if God loves us, then He will discipline us, chastise us for our sins, so that we might share in His holiness.

But the problem is that this unwillingness to repent has caused a hardening of our hearts so that we cannot understand the truth, and therefore we have a perverted perspective of God. Going back to that booklet I was reading from a while ago, the author goes on to explain that this man did not need to repent to be saved, but to just let God love him. And he went on to explain what he believed biblical love looked like. He said “there is an order to God’s love. I am not to love other’s first. I cannot love even God unless I love myself. I must let God love me. That’s the way it goes. First I let God love me. Second I love myself. Third I love God, and finally I am free to love everyone else.”

I found it interesting that he did not provide any Biblical references for that theological statement. He just said, “that’s the way it goes.” Ok. Right…

Well, I have a couple of references that clearly declare the opposite. Jesus said in Luke 10:27 that the foremost commandment was this: “YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR STRENGTH, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND; AND YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.” Notice how God’s statement puts ourselves at the end of the line, not at the beginning. You simply cannot square his comment with scripture. Love the Lord your God first, completely, with every fiber of your being. That hardly leaves room for you to love yourself first.

If you listened to this guy then you just made yourself an idol. You have put another god (yourself) above the Lord. Consider God’s definition of love in 1Cor. 13:4-7 “Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” Did you notice the phrase concerning love, it “does not seek it’s own?” How can you obey that verse and love yourself first? It’s incompatible.

And yet I’m afraid that this perversion of love has become the foremost doctrine of the church today. This isn’t some lunatic fringe that I’m talking about. This is main stream so called evangelical churches that have emasculated the gospel of Jesus Christ. Many churches today never preach the very message that Jesus came to preach. “Repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand.” This was the message of John the Baptist, the message of Jesus, the message of the Apostles and the message of Paul. And it is still the message of the gospel today. Because the gospel hasn’t changed.

Listen, when we understand the doctrine of repentance, when we come to God in brokenness and humbleness, confessing our sins, asking Him to make us new, asking Him to lead us in the truth, then we are transformed by the power of the gospel. This is what is missing today in modern Christianity. We have been told to come as we are. And so we allow God to love us, allow Christ to die for us, and then we continue just as we are in our sins. We are never changed. We are never converted. We may be a bit more religious from time to time. We may even be sincere. We may even believe in Jesus. But we have never been converted.   We have never been transformed from death to life, from walking according to the course of this world to walking in the Spirit, from being dead in our sins to being made alive in Christ.

Peter, preaching on the day of Pentecost says in Acts 3:19 in the KJV, “Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord.” Oh folks, we need a time of refreshing in the church today. And that conversion comes from a broken and contrite heart. David said “a broken and contrite heart O Lord you will not despise.”

How about you, do you need a time of refreshing in your life? Are you harboring sin that you have not given up to the Lord? If so, then Satan has you in his snare, to do his will. I got another email from a lady the other day. She occasionally sends me messages by Joseph Prince who is the foremost false teacher of this false doctrine which has eliminated repentance from the gospel. He teaches that as a Christian you don’t need to repent of your sins anymore. He is like the false teacher spoken of by Paul in 2Tim. 3:6-7 which says, “For among them are those who enter into households and captivate weak women weighed down with sins, led on by various impulses, always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.”

Ladies and gentlemen, do not be deceived. Repentance is the key to the gospel. Repent and the truth of God will be manifest to you, that you may be given forgiveness for your sins, that your heart may be renewed again with Christ, and that you might know the truth that will set you free.

This is the gospel. And when we understand that, then we are able to be what Jesus has purposed us to be; witnesses to a lost and dying world. This is our mission, the reason that He has saved us and left us here while He has gone away to prepare a place for us. That until He comes back we might tell the world His gospel. His gospel is powerful to save, to transform, when it is complete, when it is Biblical and when it is confessional.