Reading: Luke 24:13-21.
I feel that the Lord would have us seek to
bring matters to very practical issues. A very great deal of ground has been
covered, a large amount of material employed, many words have been spoken and
many things indicated and implied. And now we must seek in a simple way to see
what it means, what it amounts to and where we are in the matter.
These two of whom we have just read on the
Emmaus road were representative of a much larger company. Not only of the twelve
or the eleven disciples, but Paul speaks of some five hundred who saw Him after
His resurrection. And I think we are quite right in surmising that the five
hundred, and there may have been many more, were very much in the position of
these two, and the fact is they were out of things, they were really not in the
good of the truth. There was a great truth which had already been passed to them
by the Lord Himself. As you notice, He said later in this very chapter, "These
are my words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you", and it was a
great range of truth focused upon one tremendous thing. A great deal of truth
had been passed to them by Him. That truth had been put into expression within
the past few years of their lives, and now its great issue was taking place and
they were not in the good of it, they were out of it. And that raises the first
quite simple, precise challenge to us.
Are We in the Good of What We
Have?
Are we really in the good of all that has been
given to us by the Lord? Are we in the position to which all that ought to have
brought us? Are we in this great testimony of the Christ which is the subject of
this chapter and all that is gathered into this chapter as we have been seeing
from Genesis onwards? Are we in the good of this mighty thing: the power, the
Life of His resurrection and all that that means? Some of you are blessedly able
to give an affirmative answer.
Of course, it means more than that, as we have
been trying to show: the relatedness which results from it. For they were
scattered until they did really apprehend in a living way His livingness, and
then they began to come together. All the scattered bones came together, bone to
his bone, and in the end they were one organic and living whole, and that was a
fruit. Are you in the good of it? They were not at this time. No, we may say
that little, if any, of all that it meant was being enjoyed by them or was being
experienced by them. And it may be more or less the same matter with us. The
question is just this - Are we right in or are we out? Is this true of us or is
it not true?
Now the Lord, in drawing up alongside, asked
them the reason for their condition; asked them to state why it was that they
were as they were - knowing, as we earlier said, knowing quite well why and all
about it better than they did. But knowing also that it is a big movement
towards a crisis when we begin to precisely state our reasons and the causes for
our position. It is always a great help to do that and especially if we state it
to the Lord. Well, when He asked them the reason for their condition, they gave
as the explanation the recent happenings, things which had happened in their
lives, in their experiences, things which really ought to have had exactly the
opposite effect to what they had had. However, they gave these happenings as the
reason for their condition. He proceeded to give them another point of view from
which to look at those happenings, and having given them another standpoint and
another interpretation, He confirmed what He said with that final momentary
sight of Himself in the house or the inn, whatever it was, in Emmaus. Their eyes
were opened and they saw Him. And He vanished out of their sight - a confirmation
of what He had said.
Well now, this had a very good effect upon
them. They felt better, decidedly better, and they rose up that very hour and
returned to Jerusalem with a good deal of zest. If you had met them then
and asked them for the meaning of their
position, they would have given an explanation to that which probably would have
been very exaggerated. It was like one of those times which perhaps some of you
know when you have been going through a bad time, things have been very
difficult in yourself, in your own lives or in circumstances. Everything, you
would say, has gone wrong, everything has broken down, and it has been a very
difficult time indeed and all looks black. You see no way through. Then someone
has come along and talked to you, given you some explanations and some
interpretations, and, with their strong and confident manner and personality you
have felt a lot better, you have felt quite different, felt quite hopeful again
and you have gone away quite cheerful. But the real work has not been done. Old
strongholds within have not been broken down and the position, though apparently
more hopeful and the condition seemingly more cheerful, is still not very secure.
Now I am keeping close to the Book in the back
of my mind, because it took quite a lot, a tremendous thing, to get these men
firmly established on their feet after this. It is like that. The real work
still waits to be done. The fact is that we have been in a false position, just
as they had. They had been in a false position, and that false position had not
been destroyed with that talk, nor with that momentary glimpse of Him. You say,
How do you know that? Are you imagining? I said that they were representative.
You remember almost to the last minute before He was caught up from them they
asked this question - "Dost thou at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?"
(Acts 1:6). That was their false position. They were still clinging to something
of the old and that false position had not really been destroyed though they had
had this wonderful stimulus. It may just be like that, not really in... in all that
this means, because of a false position somewhere. The position is not
true, is not right, is not sound, is not safe. The thing is far more inward than
can be put right by stimulating discourses. That may only add to the falseness
of the position. There is something deep to be done inside. Why were they as
they were on this way? Why were the others like them?
The Need for Brokenness
Well, let us say at once, they really were not
broken men. They looked like it and they sounded like it. To have heard them talk
you would have imagined that it was so, but really they were not. What was
broken? The thing that was broken for them was their picture of sitting on
thrones in the kingdom on this earth. Their ministry was broken, their position
was broken, their earthly prospects were broken in the kingdom. They themselves were not
broken. It was their ambition that was broken, or the object of their ambition.
The shattering, although registering of course seriously upon their souls, the
shattering was really still an objective thing. "We hoped that it was he who
should redeem Israel". And if you look through the Gospels, you see what the
idea of the Israelites was as represented by the disciples about the kingdom. I
hope I am not too hard on them, but I do know that this is so true to life, that
we can be out of things because something precious has been broken, not because
we have been broken, but because we see some prospect, some outlook, some ministry,
some position being taken from us.
This is borne out, surely, by what the Lord
said in answer. "Behoved it not the Christ to suffer these things, and
to enter into his glory?" They had not calculated on the suffering. They had
not taken that into their reckoning. They had only seen the glory. The glory had
enamoured, the glory of this kingdom on the earth in which they would have
places. The suffering aspect had not gripped them at all, and they were in a
false position because of that. "Behoved it not the Christ to suffer?"
Well now, you see that brings us to a very
practical point. Because they were in that position, that false position, it was
absolutely essential that the Cross should shatter them. They had to be
shattered. They had to become broken men. All God's purpose, all that God means
for us on that other side of the Cross in union with Christ risen and exalted
absolutely demands brokenness, complete brokenness, in all those concerned. Not
just the brokenness of their pictures and outward hopes, but an inward
brokenness. "We have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the exceeding
greatness of the power may be of God, and not from ourselves" (2 Cor. 4:7).
The self-hood broken, broken vessels for
heavenly eternal fulness.
The Cross is necessary for our breaking. It is not a
pleasant note, I know, but in all faithfulness it must be said. This is the
Lord's word to you: that if you are not broken by the Cross, if you have not gone
through an experience of real brokenness under the hand of God, all that the
Lord means in you and through you will still be suspended, it will be
impossible. If the Cross means one thing, it does mean that the Cross is the way
to the glory and to heavenly fulness. It is the way of an inward breaking. Let
me be very precise, because I know of different kinds of brokenness. I know the
brokenness of disappointments, of disappointed hopes and expectations, but the
kind of brokenness I am talking about is the brokenness of the self-hood, the
strength of Self that holds its position and holds its ground and that will not
let go. That is the kind of brokenness. This self-strength, whether it be
intellectual and mental or whether it be emotional or whether it be in the will,
that strength of the natural life has got to be broken as truly as the sinew of
Jacob's thigh had to be touched and withered. Something like that has to happen
in us that we carry through the rest of our days. God has done something in the
realm of our self-hood and we are broken men and women so far as
self-sufficiency, self-assertiveness, self-confidence and every other form of
Self is concerned. It must be. With all that had happened, these happenings in
Jerusalem of which they spoke, there was still a question as to whether there
was real inward brokenness, whether it was not something more superficial than
that in relation to things.
Then again, there was a tradition, there was an
inheritance, there was an association with God's things and there was all that the
Scriptures held. They had got it. The Lord assumes here that they had got it. He
was not talking to men who did not know the Bible. He was talking to men who
knew the Bible and had all that the Scriptures held. And, in the case of some of
them, there was all that three years and more of association with Christ represented.
There was all that: a tradition, a great tradition, a wonderful tradition, a
religious tradition, the oracles and the promises and the inheritance... all that.
There was all the content of a large Bible knowledge, and then in addition there
was this personal association with Jesus Himself spreading over a time, where
they heard what He said, all that He said. They saw what He did, and yet with
all that there was a vital something lacking. Is that not the upshot of it? They had
all that long tradition, all that volume of Scriptures, and they had all that
this personal contact with Jesus meant, and yet there was that something so
vital lacking, that all that they had did not carry them through this tremendous
upheaval or stand them in stead through this ordeal and save them in the day of the
testing. So with all that they had, there was a vital something lacking. You do not need me to
say that that is so often true. There is the great tradition, the great
Christian tradition, there is the great inheritance from those who have gone
before and handed it down, and there is some kind of an association with Christ
and yet for many there is the lack of this vital something.
The value of everything is its livingness. The
value of the Scriptures is not that we know our Bibles and can handle our Bibles
and can give addresses, wonderful addresses, from our Bibles, and that we can
quote Scripture fully and accurately and all that sort of thing. It is not that we
bear the name of associates of Christ, Christians, not that we have this great
inheritance and tradition. It is the livingness of it all which is proving
itself in all ways; that this risen Life of Christ should prove itself. They
just had not got that, and, having all the rest, it did not amount to anything
when put to the test. That is a strong thing to say, it is a searching thing to
say. You have the Christian tradition and a great deal of Christian teaching,
perhaps you know your Bibles very well, or think you do, perhaps you have many
advantages in your associations, but the question arises. Not, Do you know it
all, have you got it all, all the teaching, the truth, the Bible knowledge, the
association, and that you are at all the meetings and you have heard it for
years and years past and your association with it has been very close. That is
not it. You can have all that and yet you yourself not be marked by this vital
something that you become a vital factor in the whole thing. You are still a
passenger, perhaps a parasite; not really in the good of it yourself. Let us be
frank about it. We must face this as a personal matter.
Resurrection the Answer
The answer is in the resurrection. That is the
answer to these men, and it is the answer to us. What I mean by that is not the
historic fact or a part of the Christian creed. I mean that resurrection is a
vital principle as well as an historic fact. It is something which precedes and
continues as a mighty force to be known, experienced and expressed continually
right through to the end. That is the resurrection and the answer is there. That
is, that resurrection is not to be only something that happened with Jesus, but
it
is something that has happened in us and taken place inside of us. There is a
counterpart of that by His risen Life imparted, that we have been raised
together with Him. And that is not just doctrine either. That is real, that is
vital truth and something to happen in us as well as in Jerusalem so many years
ago. It is not just history and tradition, it is experience. Someone, being
asked the question - What does history teach us? - answered, History teaches us
that history teaches us nothing! And that is very true. The history of past
wars, what has it taught us, what is it teaching us? "History teaches us that
history teaches us nothing." And it can be like that with Christian doctrine for
all practical purposes and outworkings. It may still be the great facts of
history unrelated to our present life, and that will not do. We have not only to
believe that Jesus rose from the dead, but we have got to be alive ourselves
with Him in that resurrection and on that ground.
The Touch of the Lord to Open
Inner Eyes
You notice that something happened, and this
was the happening upon which all the happenings waited. In the first part of the
story as to the men, it is put as though it did just happen. In the later part
of the story with those in Jerusalem, it is by His own act. And I believe that
both are the same, that the fact that their eyes were holden that they should
not know Him, was a divine act. Therefore, if they did behold Him suddenly, it was
a divine act. In the second case later in Jerusalem it says, "Then opened he
their mind, that they might understand the scriptures." The point is that there
must be a definite, precise touch of the living Lord upon our inner eyes. All the
rest that we may possess of which I have been speaking will be latent and
inoperative and unavailing until that something has happened in us which is
contained in this: that their eyes were opened. And then He opened their minds,
that touch of the Spirit of the living Lord upon inner eyes which opens a new
world, gave them a new Bible, but it was the old Bible come to life. They never
knew what a Bible they had; it was a new world altogether.
They were like people
who had never seen suddenly being given their sight. It was a touch of the new
creation Life which brought an entirely new world into view. It was like that.
We are all darkened, we are all blind, whatever our basis as to our associations
and our traditions and our inheritance and our study. We are all blind until He
touches us with the power of resurrection and we see. That is a thing that no
preacher can explain or define. That is a thing that no one who has the
experience can make others understand. One man born blind had sight given to him
and they tried to get him to explain, to define, to give some account. The poor
fellow was hard put to it, and at last said, 'I don't know', "one thing I
know, that, whereas I was blind, now I see" (John 9:25). That is all there
is to it. It is the wonder, the inexplicable wonder of just seeing, of getting an
open heaven, a faculty comes into life which removes the dome from over your
head, and from that time you are in the good of a seeing which makes all the
difference.
That is very simple, but I am perfectly certain
that this has an application far beyond what many of us might allow. I know many
who have a vast and wonderful Bible knowledge, better than I have by a long way,
and who have a wonderful tradition and background and upbringing and inheritance
and know all the truth and can put you right on any point, but I know that I do
not meet the touch of Life. It is all so cold, so exact, it is so icily correct.
It does not minister Life and release.
You see, we can go a long way with that
sort of thing and just not see. Of course, we do not know that we are not
seeing and that is the trouble. But oh, the point is that here are facts true to
life and every one of us ought really to be very honest about this, and our
honesty may have to take us to the point where, believing with all our might
that we know and see, we hold it before the Lord that it may possibly be that we
are not seeing after all, with that meekness which is always before the Lord,
even though we may have assurance about some things. 'Lord, if I am wrong, and
there is every possibility of my not being absolutely right on all points, keep
me checked up. Do not let me think I am right always, that my position over
against everybody else's is a right one'. Oh, God deliver us from the ever
present possibility of not being right when we think most surely we are! It is
something not to make us uncertain in life, but it is something to keep us
before the Lord ever open to new light, for when we close the case in finality,
that is the day of our doom. "The Lord has yet more light and truth to break
forth from His word". Openness, meekness and the ever present possibility of
there being revelation that will just make all the difference, even to us.
Oh,
this breaking work of the Cross, this opening up work of the Cross... this touch
of the Spirit of the risen Lord upon us inwardly which brings new vistas into
view, and makes us children of a new creation, seeing all things anew! Unless
something like that is true of us, or becomes true of us if it is not already,
all our teaching is in vain. These messages will not mean anything. Will you
have a very humble dealing with the Lord? Do not let any dislike of the way it
is put or dislike for the person who puts it or any argumentativeness come in
and cloud the issue. The Lord is wanting something with you and for you. Do not
let any prejudice or suspicion or anything like that rob you. Be very humble,
down before the Lord if it is like this. 'I have been quite sure of my
position, I have withstood all others about my position, yet I may be wrong.'
There is no one incapable of being wrong. You have a dealing like that
with the Lord so that He has His opportunity to get you into the place, or more
fully into the place, of adjustment to all that wonderful going on afterwards
that we find when this work of brokenness and of mending was accomplished in
these men.