In the sermon 'Jesus Gives Faith,' Peter Allison explores the story of the disciples on the road to Emmaus from the Gospel of Luke, emphasizing the importance of objective evidence in establishing faith. The disciples initially do not recognize Jesus and are despondent over recent events. They are rebuked for their unbelief despite having scriptural evidence of the Messiah's necessary suffering and resurrection. Jesus enlightens them by explaining the scriptures, and their eyes are opened when they invite Him into their home, recognizing Him in the breaking of the bread. Allison argues against relying solely on inward experiences to affirm Jesus' resurrection, asserting that faith is based on the objective truth of God's Word. He underscores that feelings are transient, but the promises in Scripture are steadfast and reliable. The sermon encourages believers to find assurance in the Word of God, which provides the foundation for understanding spiritual victories, even when appearances may suggest otherwise. Through this lens, hospitality and openness to divine truth are highlighted as avenues through which faith is deepened and confirmed.

Please turn in your Bibles to the Gospel of Luke chapter 24. Begin reading at the 13th verse. Now behold, two of them were traveling that same day to a village called Emmaus, which was seven miles from Jerusalem. And they talked together of all these things which had happened, so while it was, while they conversed and reasoned, that Jesus himself drew near and went with them. But their eyes were restrained, so that they did not know him.

And he said to them, What kind of conversation is this that you have with one another as you walk and are sad? Then the one whose name was Cleopas answered and said to him, Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem? And have you not known the things which happened there in these days? And he said to them, What things? So they said to him, the things concerning Jesus of Nazareth, who was a prophet, mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, and how the chief priests and our rulers delivered him to be condemned to death and crucified him, but we were hoping that it was he who was going to redeem Israel.

Indeed, besides all this, today is the third day since these things have happened. Yes, and certain of our women arrived at the tomb early, astonished us. When they did not find his body, they came saying that they had seen a vision of angels who said he was alive. And certain of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the woman had said, but him they did not see. And then he said to them, oh foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken, Ought not the Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into his glory?

And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself. Then they drew near to the village where they were going, and he indicated that he would have gone farther, but they constrained him, saying, Abide with us, for it is toward evening, and the day is far spent. And he went in to stay with them. Now it came to pass as He sat at the table with them that He took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. Then their eyes were opened, and they knew Him, and He vanished from their sight." Let us restrain our feet from every evil way that we may keep His Word.

Heavenly Father, thank You for giving to us Your Word, for the many witnesses that You have given to us in it. Grant us, Lord, eyes of faith to see and to understand those things that are spiritually discerned. Feed us this morning Lord with the bread of heaven and please sanctify my sinful lips to proclaim the riches of your grace in Jesus name. Amen. Well, there was a popular hymn from the 20th century called He Lives.

He lives. The refrain proclaims the central gospel message. Jesus lives. Jesus lives. Salvation to impart.

It then poses the question, you ask me how, I know He lives. And it gives us the answer, He lives within my heart. Well, I would submit this morning that while there are a number of very good statements in that hymn and each of the verses that point to the work of Christ and describe the things that He has done and who He is. I would submit though that this idea that we know He lives because of an inward experience is completely opposite to the Gospel account in our text. It's just the exact opposite in this Gospel account and in all the Gospel accounts of people believing.

People believe when they are confronted with the objective evidence of Christ's life and given faith to believe that evidence. They both are necessary. But it doesn't begin, we don't know that Jesus lives because we have an inward experience. It's just the opposite. We have the inward experience, and He lives in us because we believe that He lives.

These two disciples are on the way, on a road to a village. We don't know any more about them than what's recounted here. These were not prominent disciples of the New Testament as they weren't apostles. They aren't mentioned anywhere else. In fact, the name of one of them is not given to us.

They're two very ordinary disciples who like all of the other disciples at this point didn't believe They didn't believe. They should have believed. They had the evidence, but they didn't. They were mistaken about who the Messiah was. They thought that He was only a prophet, mighty in word and deed.

Well, He was, but He was much more than just a prophet, mighty in word and deed. He was the prophet. The prophet that Moses said would be raised up, one from among them, Him they should hear. This is the Son of God in whom God is well pleased. But they didn't understand that.

They didn't realize that He was that prophet. They were mistaken about what the Messiah would do. It says that they thought He would redeem Israel. And by redeem Israel, they meant that He would deliver them from the Roman occupation and restore to them the glorious days of David and Solomon when there wasn't an army in the world that could withstand their armies. When all the nations around them paid them tribute.

They weren't paying tribute to other people. They didn't have foreign people telling them how they could govern and operate their land. Under King David, the borders of the empire were pushed out. And in all of the nations that David, kings that David fought against, the Lord gave him victories over them. They were a mighty nation.

People came from around the world to hear the wisdom of Solomon. Because it was a wonder. It was amazing. When they came, they were overwhelmed with his wealth and his wisdom. And they thought that this Messiah would do something like that.

They were ignorant despite having the testimony of the prophets and of Moses. Because all of these things that happened are in the Scriptures. They're plainly there. They just hadn't understood them. And Jesus actually rebukes them for not understanding.

He didn't say, oh, of course, I understand you wouldn't understand. He actually says, oh, foolish ones and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken. They should have known. They should not have. They had the evidence.

They didn't believe it. And so they were downcast. They were heartsick. Hope deferred makes the heart sick. And their hopes were shattered.

They had high hopes for this Jesus. But as they told Jesus, the chief priests and the rulers had delivered him to be condemned to death and crucified him. And it's been three days and he's obviously pretty dead, they thought. He hadn't come back to life. Nothing had happened.

It's kind of like there was a time when after our current president was elected where there are a lot of false prophets, I'll call them, just trying to stir people up that there was going to be some last minute reversal of this election and you know and I was just amazed at the at the credulity of people to believe these things and to continue to hope that there was something going to happen. And this is kind of descriptive of what they were like. Okay, we had this terrible trial, but maybe there's going to be something. Maybe he didn't actually die. Maybe he was rescued.

But three days have gone by and nothing has happened, and they're pretty much ready to give up. It must not have been the Messiah. And so they're cast down. And then Jesus comes alongside of them and starts asking them, Well, why are you cast down? What's going on?

And they're like, well, where have you been? You're aware of all these things that are happening. What do you mean? Why are we cast down? And so they begin to talk to Jesus, not knowing it's Jesus about all the things that have happened in the last couple days.

And it's interesting the evidence that they recount. They, he was crucified, we were hoping he was going to redeem Israel they say, But today it's the third day since all these happened. Yes, and certain of our women who went to the tomb early today, because remember this is the same day that Jesus has arisen, they went to the tomb and they astonished us. They came seeing that they had seen a vision of angels. Well, they didn't say they had seen a vision of angels.

They saw angels. But there was so much unbelief in the disciples and in all of the people that they couldn't understand it. They thought they were just talking wives' tales. And so these disciples say, they don't say they saw angels, they saw a vision of angels. So the women bore witness.

Angels testified that Jesus had risen. They themselves say, and certain of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said. Peter and John went to that tomb and they found it just like the women had said it was empty. But they didn't they didn't believe. They didn't believe what they thought was a.

Great defeat and a disappointment and a fizzle was actually the greatest victory that has ever been won in the history of the world and ever will be. See we can look around like them. We can look around today and and have lots of things to be disappointed about. Things aren't quite working out maybe the way we'd like them to. We see evil seeming to flourish.

We see increasing persecution and harassment of Christians. And unlike we have ever seen in the last century in our country, we see the rise of evil, the open celebration of satanic things that would never have been seen in public. And we might be tempted to think that the church is losing. And that would be to believe, to not believe as these disciples didn't believe. Now I should also point out some of the graces in these Emmaus disciples.

We see first that Jesus did rebuke them for their unbelief and being slow to believe, but there were a number of graces that they had. They were charitable. They readily embraced a stranger joining their conversation. They didn't know who Jesus was. They thought he's a stranger.

But they responded very civilly to his question. They didn't give him a short answer and shut down the conversation, tell him to go away. They were consumed with their own sorrow and disappointment. No, they accommodated His apparent ignorance of the things happening in Jerusalem. And they begin to speak with Him.

Secondly, they're not afraid to speak of Christ. They spoke freely with Christ, not knowing who He was, but they spoke about Christ freely. This was really a dangerous time, right, to be a disciple of Christ. It's after this time that people like Saul are arising and persecuting people and putting them in jail. The Jews cast out of the synagogue anyone that professed to be a disciple of Christ.

Do you remember the story in John of the man born blind? They cast him out of the synagogue simply because he believed that Jesus had healed his eyes, which Jesus had done. All of Jesus' disciples had fled away when he was arrested. John is apparently the only one who has even dared to be near the cross. John and the women who followed him.

It was a dangerous time to openly speak about Christ, and yet they did it. They spoke about Christ, and so they were not afraid. And they're also hospitable. After, the text says after they had arrived where they were going, Jesus acted as if he would continue on. Now what do you do if you're traveling with a stranger that you've never met before and you get to your house and you say, Well here.

We're home and they say oh, yeah, I've got to keep going You would be you would think you would be perfectly It would be perfectly acceptable to say okay. Bye. It was nice talking with you, but they don't they are hospitable They see that it is late in the night. And they don't just accept that I've got, I'm going to be going. It says Jesus indicated that He would have gone farther.

He acted as if He was going to go farther. But they constrained Him. They pressed Him to stay with them and Jesus did. I think he might have been testing them. Just like he tested Philip, just like he tested the disciples.

You know, he would ask them questions. He would do things like like the feeding of the five thousand started out as a test. Philip. I think he might have been testing them. And they passed his test.

They constrained him to come and stay with them. Now we don't know who this second disciple is, but I think in light of this section here that it's possible that this was Cleopas' wife, was the second unnamed disciple. Given that they were going to lodge together in Emmaus, this is where they were going, and that they pressed Jesus to stay with them, which would seem to me to indicate that they were at their house and not just some inn along the way, that they were staying, but that this was they were going into their house and they were lodging together and they're bringing in pressing Jesus to stay. I think that this is their house, and they are showing hospitality to a stranger. That's what hospitality is, to show hospitality to somebody you don't know.

You know, we have each other over for fellowship, and we share meals together. And that's wonderful. That's good. But that's not what hospitality is. Hospitality is showing kindness to strangers.

And that's exactly what these disciples do. That's why Hebrews reminds us not to forget to entertain strangers for by so doing some have unwittingly entertained angels. These people, these two disciples, Clopas and this second one, who I think may have been his wife, entertained a stranger, not realizing that it was the very Son of God. And they received the blessing. Jesus stayed with them.

They constrained Him, saying, Abide with us for it is evening, and the day is far spent. And he went in to stay with them. And it came to pass as he sat at the table with them that he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. And then their eyes were opened. Jesus had been talking with them this whole trip.

And giving to them the objective evidence that Christ had to suffer the things that He suffered. The things that happened had to happen that way. The Scriptures had testified to that, the prophets and Moses. And as Jesus says later on when He's talking to the disciples, and the Psalms as well, Those are the three divisions of the Hebrew Bible, the law, the prophets, and the writings. In other words, everything in the Old Testament spoke and pointed to Jesus Christ, even the Pentateuch, even the law.

But they did not understand as he was doing all this explaining. It's necessary, our faith is based on that objective evidence, but they didn't understand until they invited him in. They showed hospitality to a stranger and in so doing entertained not just an angel, but the very angel of the Lord, the Son of God. And it's then in the breaking of bread with Him, the stranger, that their eyes were opened and they knew who He was and they believed. And then Jesus was gone.

You see, some say, I know that Jesus is alive because He lives within me, because I've had some great mystical experience. But the scriptures tell us otherwise. We don't know that Jesus lives because we have an experience of Him within us. We know that He lives because of the objective evidence before us, and because we believe He lives within us. You see, the proper discrimination between truth and falsehood does not arise from the ingenuity of our mind and our wisdom.

But it comes to us from the spirit of wisdom as we are given faith. You see, their eyes were restrained, and then their eyes were opened. Were opened. This was something that was given to them. Jesus gave them faith to see.

Paul says in 2 Corinthians 4, we do not lose heart. Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day. For our light affliction, which is but for the moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory. While we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen, for the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal." See, it's eyes of faith that enable us to see the great spiritual victories that are happening in front of us. Victories that may look without faith like defeats.

See, the apostles had this objective evidence of Christ's arising. They saw the empty tomb. They didn't believe. But when He stood in their midst, as he does a little later in the text, and shows to them the scars on his body from the wounds that he received. And they see him eating food with this body, then they believe.

They're forced to believe by the objective evidence that is in front of them. Now, no one can have that same objective evidence of Christ's resurrection that the Apostles had. That's what uniquely qualified them to be Apostles. They had seen the risen Christ. They had seen Christ.

They were eyewitnesses of the resurrection. We can't today see, although we will one day, but today we don't see the physical body and the scars. We can't, like Thomas wanted to do, put our hand into those holes. But we are at no disadvantage to them because we have the record of these eyewitnesses. We have the four gospels that testify to the reality of Christ's death and His resurrection.

And actually, all those women and those apostles had that written evidence as well in the Old Testament. And that's why Jesus could rebuke these disciples for not believing, because they had sufficient objective evidence to believe. They had the testimony of the Scriptures. See, we don't have a true inward experience unless it is based on the solid objective evidence of the Word of God. See, the Bible is an objective book.

You can read it. There are many witnesses in there of these things and and this is the objective evidence that is sufficient for us to believe. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. It doesn't say faith comes because we have an inward experience and then we can believe. No, it's just the opposite.

Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. If you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, it doesn't say that you have a feeling, an experience, and you feel saved. It says, Objectively, if you believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes under righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. You see, he lives within our heart because we first believed that He lived.

And that requires study. It requires diligent. When Paul preached, he commended those people who searched the Scriptures to see whether what he was saying was true. Who searched, and Jesus spent time with the Apostles and with these disciples to teach them from the Scriptures these things that they were to believe. Because the Scriptures are clear, objective evidence.

And it's through the Scriptures, it's through that objective evidence of the Word of God that faith comes. Yes, faith is a gift, but it comes through the Word of God. And this is the way that we need to live as well. We live by faith. Are you forgiven?

Do you know that you're forgiven? Well, if you base that on whether you feel forgiven, you're going to have a very rough life. Because there'll be a lot of days you won't feel that your sins are forgiven. You won't feel that you're at peace with God. You will feel just the opposite.

But praise and thanks be to God. The forgiveness of our sins is not dependent upon a feeling of forgiveness. It is dependent upon the objective truth of the Word of God as it's declared to us that if we believe in our heart that God raised Christ from the dead, we will be saved. It's based on the objective word of God that if we confess our sins, He is faithful to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. It's based on the objective word of God that though our sins be a scarlet, yet Christ's blood makes them as white as snow.

Martin Luther said in a collection of things that somebody put together of all of the discussions of theology around his table there. Martin Luther said the forgiveness of sins is declared only in God's Word, and there we must seek for it, for it is grounded on God's promises. God forgives you your sins, not because you feel them and are sorry. God forgives us our sins not because we feel them and are sorry for them. For that is produced by sin itself.

For that sin itself does produce. Sin itself can make us regret, feel sorry for our sin. And that deserves nothing. But He forgives your sins because He is merciful and because He has promised to forgive us for Christ's sake, for His dearly beloved Son. And He caused His Word to be applied to us, namely, be of good cheer, your sins are forgiven.

You see, feelings come and feelings go. Inward experiences come and go. We can enjoy them today, and then the next moment they're gone. It can be like a mirage. There's actually a continent, a explorer by the name of Wilkes.

He was an American naval officer, one of the very early explorers of the Antarctica continent. And he recorded and he actually sketched a mountain range, a cape, and he believed it was part of a continent. He was one of the early people who believed it was a continent down there, not just a couple islands. But he sketched this whole thing and he noted in his log, you know, the coordinates of where this this cape was. He actually named it a cape and sailed on.

He sailed for a very long way and recorded lots of things and so on. He was one of the early explorers, but when he got back he maybe wasn't as good a naval officer and he had a lot of mutiny and desertion, I mean, not mutiny. So he got back, he was faced with a court martial. And it didn't help matters that when other people went to where he said there was this land that there was nothing there. There's absolutely nothing there.

And so people just thought well he's just a liar as well as being a bad naval officer. But 75 years later after he logged exactly where He'd seen this island and sketched it out. He sketched out many sections of it. There was another naval captain that went to that spot and they saw land right there. And this captain wrote in his log, he was no wonder Wilkes saw land.

One of the guys on his ship sketched it out, what he saw, and it looked like it was land there. The next day, the land was gone. They couldn't see it. It wasn't there. What both of these captains had seen was a mirage.

The actual land they were seeing was 250 miles away, has been confirmed later. This is a mirage. And our feelings are like that. They can be there one moment and the next they're gone. And if we base our assurance of God's love, if we base our assurance of salvation, if we base our assurance on our feelings and an inward experience, it's going to be like that mirage.

There'll be days when it's not there. And then what do we do? Rather, we base our forgiveness upon the objective, infallible, inerrant, word of God that never passes away. It never changes. Not one jot or one tittle of all of God's word ever changes.

And that has to be the basis of what we believe and what we know. Its Great spiritual victories are seen by faith. Remember, in Elisha's time, there was an army sent to capture Elisha. He was quite a thorn in the Syrian king. And the Syrian king thought that there was a traitor in his own court that was telling Israel everything that he was doing militarily.

And somebody said, no, it's this prophet. He knows what you're whispering in your bedroom. And so he sent an army to capture him. And they surrounded the city. And Elisha's servant woke up and was alarmed at this army that was there to get him.

And Elisha prayed, Lord, open his eyes. And then he could see what he couldn't see before. That greater was the number around for them than against them. That the city was surrounded by the angels of the Lord, a great and mighty host. And so we have to base our understanding of what God is doing in the world on faith, by faith in His Word and what He says, and not on how things might appear to us or how we might feel that day.

Otherwise, we will miss like these disciples. We will think The greatest victory, the greatest spiritual victory in the history of the world was a defeat. See, it's by faith that we believe the Scriptures that tell us that Christ is reigning. And that of the increase of His government, there is no end. And that He will reign until He has put all enemies under His feet.

And that the gates of hell will not prevail against the church. And so what might look like defeat? By faith we can see spiritual victories. We can see where the Gospel is being proclaimed, where people are believing. And I know, you know, I've said many times how many things you can look at in the 20th century even, that point to this victory and point to the Gospel going forward.

Yes, there is great unbelief, but Christ is reigning. His Word is going out. There are testimonies and standards being raised today to the truth of the Word of God. We've seen the Pew Foundation reporting that as a result of COVID and churches not having services, that the number of people now going to church is drastically reduced, significantly reduced. People haven't come back.

Is that a defeat? Or maybe the Lord is purging His church and sanctifying it. In which case, that's a spiritual victory. That's growth. This life, we've died, we've been crucified with Christ.

And this life which we now live in the flesh, we live by faith in the Son of God. May the Lord give us faith to believe the objective truth of His word about in everything that it says from the forgiveness of our sins, the assurance of our salvation to Christ's victory over all of his enemies. Heavenly Father, we thank you that you have been victorious and that you do live and that you ever live to make intercession for us. Lord, help our unbelief for we acknowledge we are no different than any of these disciples the ones on the road to Emmaus the disciples who were so slow to believe that you had risen father we too have these kinds of doubts and we too are no different. We ask Lord that you would help our unbelief.

We ask that you would give to us eyes of faith that we might see your handiwork, that we might see your fingerprint and all the events around us, that we might take hope, not in the outward success or failure, but that we might hope in your word, That we might hope in the truth of your word. That we might hope in you. Which is a sure and certain expectation. That everything that you have said will come to pass exactly as you have said. Lord, it is to you that we commit our lives.

We offer our bodies as living sacrifices to you. And ask that you would give us grace and that according as the grace you have given us we may serve you in this body. In Jesus name we pray, Amen.