Things that happened after the resurrection

I will read together first of all in the Gospel of Matthew, and that will be in the last chapter, chapter 28. Matthew chapter 28, verse 16. Then the eleven disciples went away into Galilee into a mountain, where Jesus had appointed them.

And when they saw him, they worshipped him, but some doubted. And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you.

And, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world, or the end of the age. Now turn to the last chapter in the Gospel of Mark. Mark 16, verse 19.

So then, after the Lord had spoken unto them, he was received up into heaven and sat on the right hand of God. And they went forth and preached everywhere, the Lord working with them and confirming the word with signs following. Now, it won't surprise you the next reading is the last chapter of Luke.

Luke chapter 24, and verse 19. Well, maybe we should read verse 13. And, behold, two of them went that same day to a village called Emmaus, which was from Jerusalem about three score furlongs.

And they talked together of all things which had happened. It came to pass that while they communed together and reasoned, Jesus himself drew near and went with them. But their eyes were holden that they should not know him.

And he said unto them, What manner of communications are these that you have one with another, as you walk and are sad? And one of them, whose name was Cleopas, answering, said unto him, Art thou only a stranger in Jerusalem, and hast not known the things which are come to pass here in these days? And he said unto them, What things? And they said unto him, Concerning Jesus of Nazareth, which was a prophet, mighty indeed and in word. Maybe that's all I need to read except for the Gospel of John now. And we'll go to chapter 20 and verse 19.

And the same day at evening, being the first day of the week, when the doors were shut, where the disciples were assembled for fear of the Jews, came Jesus and stood in the midst and said unto them, Peace be unto you. And when he had so said, he showed them his hands and his side. Then were the disciples glad when they saw the Lord.

Now, maybe that will do for the reading, and we know that God will bless and blesses the reading of his precious word. Now, for those of us who were here this morning, we had a nice time in the word and the Bible reading. It was verses that led up to the resurrection.

And I want to speak now from the Gospels, the end of each Gospel of things that happened just after the resurrection. And they're all very important because I think we can fit ourselves into these things. And we find in the Gospel of Matthew, the power of the almighty.

The power of the almighty God was shown. He said all power was given unto me in heaven and on earth. And then in Matthew 16, we ended up with, I'll call it preaching with authority.

The Lord went with them. So wherever we go to preach the gospel, we would hope at least that the Lord would be with us. And if we're in the proper condition, he will be.

And he'll bless in the preaching of the gospel. Then we have his presence in adversity. There were two going on the road to Emmaus and they were disappointed.

And wondered just what was going to happen. And the Lord drew near and went with them. Then John 20, we'll confine ourselves just to what we have read.

We have peace in the assembly. So these are four things I think that would be very important. We would likely all agree.

Things that transpired after the resurrection. Resurrection was a tremendous event. Nothing like it.

You know, President Nixon, he thought the greatest event ever in the earth was when they landed on the moon. Shouldn't say on the earth when they landed on the moon. That doesn't make too much sense.

But at that time period, and they thought. And you know, Billy Graham, I'm sure you all heard of him. He rebuked the president.

He said, no, that wasn't the greatest day. And as far as I can remember, he said, it was a day of the resurrection. It was a tremendous day.

And the gospels, the four gospels and those who wrote them, they look at this in different ways. And it fits right in with the truth of the gospel, of the gospels. You likely know that the gospel of Mark is the gospel of the teacher.

And the Lord Jesus is brought before us as a great teacher. We could prove that couldn't wait from what we call the Sermon on the Mount, where you have the precepts of the kingdom. Many of them will apply in the future, but many of them apply to us today.

And then if we would go to chapter 13, you find the parables of the kingdom. And then later on, you have what transpired in Mount Olivet, the Olivet discourse. You have the prophecies concerning the kingdom.

So the Lord Jesus Christ is the great teacher. So we shouldn't be surprised then, should we, when at the end of the gospel, what does he send them out to do? He sends them out to teach. We need teaching.

I know in these states, Wisconsin and Iowa, and we're very glad for those that go in for the gospel. But, you know, we need to be taught. Both things are essential.

There would be nobody to teach if there was nobody who would preach the gospel. So we're glad the gospel is proclaimed, but we need to be taught. Now, the Lord is a great teacher, and while he's sending others out to teach, I would suggest that each one of us, male or female, should know what it is to spend time in the book and time in the Lord's presence.

We can always help one another as we go through this world. And there are some in the gifts that are called helps, and it would be great to be a help and not a hindrance to God's people. So the Lord, he said, now I'm going to send you out.

We call this the Great Commission, and we have the power of God in it. And what does he say when they're gathered together? He says, all power, that's authority. All authority is given unto me.

So we have the authority of the Lord to teach, and we're glad that you're here, and I'm glad I'm here. And I'm not here just to preach or to try and teach, but I'm here to learn as well. We all love to learn.

We enjoy the fellowship, but we want to take something home with us to stir us up to be better Christians. So he said, go, therefore, teach all nations. So they need to be taught.

And then he says, you baptize them, and they teach them to observe all things. The first idea, of course, is go, therefore, and teach. It's make disciples of all nations.

See, disciples were adherents of the person they followed. They were imitators. And while it's not maybe used of us today, the truth is still the same.

We're following the Lord Jesus. And he said, I'm giving you authority. He was giving it to the disciples.

Well, I think we can widen it out a little bit. We're not all great preachers or anything like that, but we can all be helpers, and we can all be used to teach one another. Just a little word, something you've been enjoying.

It used to be that people would ask you what you've been reading recently. And you tell them, hopefully, if you have been reading something, then they can add a little bit to it and maybe explain things to you. And I'm glad of men that I could go to and men that came to me to stir us up.

And in the worship, even, they said, don't become a silent brother. Keep at it. And thankfully, we had that encouragement.

Make disciples, and then you mark them by baptizing them. And this applies to this day and age in which we live. Some might try to teach contrary, but we know what does.

And if we're to make disciples, why should we not baptize them? And he said, and then teach them to observe. How could you teach them and then tell them these things don't apply? These things definitely apply in this day and age in which we live. So it's good to have been taught the truth.

And we need to teach the simple truth and to encourage younger ones among us. I'm glad for the encouragement that I got. I probably wouldn't be doing what I'm doing if I hadn't been encouraged.

So he sends them out, and he says, teach them whatsoever things I have commanded you. So he tells them what to teach. And I think there's a germ of all the teaching in the Gospels.

All that's been explained in the epistles, it all begins here. And I thought, you know, even if you want to confine it to this book, there's nothing wrong with just going through and seeing all the things that the Lord taught. He taught them about giving, and he taught them about praying and fasting and so on.

He commanded them to fear not and to feed the flock and so on, and have a forgiving spirit. There's so much that he said, and I'm going to be with you. What is in the midst? The Gospel of Matthew is a gospel of His presence, isn't it? It begins with His name as to be Immanuel, which is being interpreted, God with us.

And then in the middle of the gospel, the Lord Jesus, in the midst of His gathered people, where two or three are gathered together unto my name, there am I in the midst of them. And then at the end, He says, I am with you always, even unto the end of the age. To learn, we need to spend time in His presence.

And then we know that the Lord will be with us, and He'll give help, hopefully. And so there'll be words at a conference that would be a blessing to others. Now, we come to the Gospel of Mark.

And you know, the Gospel of Mark, it's really the gospel of the evangelist. In Matthew, the Lord is the teacher here. He's the evangelist.

And you have a busy life of the Lord, and those words forthwith, immediately, and so on, henceforth, shows a busy life that the Lord lived. And He's reaching out to others. It's the gospel of the sin offering as well.

Matthew would be the gospel of the trespass offering. But here it's the sin offering. And I think that's why you can see at the end, so that after the Lord had spoken, verse 19, He was received up into heaven.

The sin offering, when the offering was offered outside the camp, the blood was taken into the sanctuary. Now, don't ever think that I'm teaching that the literal blood of the Lord was taken into the sanctuary. That's a type.

Types fall short. But He entered in in virtue of His own blood. And here He's in the sanctuary.

And if we're going to be preachers of the gospel, or gossipers of the gospel, some call it, we just talk to one another and try to reach out to one another, well, we need to spend time in the sanctuary as well. That's where the hidden manna was. That speaks of in Revelation in the addresses to the seven churches.

It was in the sanctuary. And if we're going to partake of that hidden manna, we need to get into the sanctuary of God, because we'll never be able to teach or to preach the gospel unless we get something to preach and something to teach. It's not just that we can get up.

We need to study the word. You know, there's a time coming when the Lord told him, you know, don't think about it. I'll put words.

Well, it doesn't put words in our mouths now. That would probably be obvious to some. But it is.

And He said, you go out. And He said, work. They went forth preaching everywhere.

They weren't confined, but everywhere they preached, it said the Lord worked with them. And I tell you, that's a good thing to remember, isn't it? Especially if you're trying to go door to door. That's not so much of that today.

Nobody ever home or won't open the door, but we still do it. I'm not able to do it the way I did. But we tramped around the countryside spreading the gospel.

And sometimes you wondered, is there much profit in what I'm doing? And you maybe had a little bit of a fear. Some are more fearful than others. But you need to remember the Lord went with them.

So the Lord went with them as they would preach the gospel. Now we come to Luke. And at the end of Luke, we have the Lord again.

And, you know, in Luke's gospel, the Lord is brought before us as a priest. It's often been said, and it's worth repeating. We need to repeat things to maybe get them.

And the gospel of Luke, it begins with a priest. And the priest's name was Zechariah. And he was a wonderful man.

He had a wonderful wife, but they had no children. Now I've often thought, you know, how Zechariah and Elizabeth, they would say, Lord, would like to have a son. And likely they could envision him in the priest's clothing.

My, that would be nice to have a son to be a priest. It wasn't the garments of glory and beauty, you know, but still they could tell a priest who a priest was in those days. And God said, I'm going to give you a son, but I'm not going to give you a priest.

Well, actually, he was a priest by descending, but he said, I'm going to give you a prophet. He's saying that priesthood that is involved here with Israel, it's not profiting the people, for you have a priest that couldn't speak. He couldn't come out and bless the people.

That's what a priest's work was to do, to go into the sanctuary, to bless the people. They learned from the priest's lips. They learned knowledge from the priest, Malachi tells us.

And here's this young man, and God says, you know, I'm going to give you a prophet. Why would he give him a prophet? Well, because that priesthood couldn't bless, so God's going to set it aside, and there's another priest that's coming in. And you know who that priest is? The Lord Jesus Christ.

The law couldn't help. There was a man going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among thieves. And the priest came by, and he thought, probably I don't want to defile myself with this man.

Maybe he's dead. And a Levite came, and all that system of the law could not help, because God was setting it aside. But then the Lord Jesus came.

He's depicted in what we call the Good Samaritan. He's the one that could help. And when we come right through this gospel, even on the cross, the Lord Jesus has thoughts, and the ones that Luke records are thoughts of the Lord toward others.

What a wonderful person the Lord is. That's one reason why we should not only read our Bible, but read the Gospels. There's a group of young men in Ireland one time, and my father found out they were meeting together in a home, and they were in an assembly fellowship.

He said, now, what are you studying? Oh, they said, we're going through the Psalms. My father says, forget the Psalms. Get into the Gospels.

Get to know the Lord Jesus Christ. That's good advice for anyone, a young Christian, and for some of us when we get older, we seem to gravitate back to the Gospels. Get to know this wonderful person.

So we come to the end of Luke's Gospel, and we find a beautiful chapter here, chapter 24. We have the resurrection. None of these things could happen apart from the resurrection.

And then you have the road, and then you have the room, and then you have the rejoicing. And here's these two. They're on the road to Emmaus, and the Lord draws near to them, and they're discouraged.

Sometimes that happens to Christians. We should never really, well, I don't know. Maybe that's wrong, but I think we can be disappointed.

We shouldn't be discouraged. We can't change things. We need to go along and trust the Lord for them.

But we can be disappointed. And they were disappointed, and they said, we had trusted that it was he that should redeem Israel. They thought he didn't know anything about what took place.

Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem? Well, he was a stranger. He was a stranger from heaven. But is he the only one that knew what took place in Jerusalem? And yet he never rebukes them.

Wonderful the way the Lord dealt with them, but, you know, it's the same way he deals with us. And he didn't rebuke them, he encouraged them, and he proved to them from the Scriptures. That's why it's so important in the ministry to stick with the word of God.

We can't improve on it. God has the best for his people. Why should we try and bring in things that aren't according to the word of God? That's what's happening today.

Thank God there are some of us that can face these things and warn the Lord's people. These things, they might sound good, but they're things of nature. They're not things that are wood, hay, and stubble.

And they're going to end up being burned in the fire. So the Lord drew with them. I don't want to say too much.

I don't want to take too much time. But anyhow, he drew with them, and he went with them, and he explained why he had to suffer. I tell you, that would have been a wonderful thing to be with the Lord.

Hear what he had to say about the law of the offerings and so on and the first sheaf and all those things. He taught them. And it's showing us that we need to learn these things too.

You know why he taught them? So he could help others. In the Gospel of Luke, as I mentioned, he's thinking of others. Weep not for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children.

And then he could say, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. This is what Luke records. Today thou shalt be with me in paradise.

It's the shepherd or the priest. I think in a way the two terms kind of are synonymous. At least the shepherd tends the flock and the priest tends us.

John never mentions a priest, does he? But he mentions a shepherd. So these truths are kind of intertwined. You'll allow me to say that at least.

So he's thinking about others. And here he is on the way to Emmaus, and he's thinking about them, not rebuking them. You and I could have rebuked him, but do you know what he did? He trimmed the lampstand.

They said, surely our heart burned within us, likely a husband and wife. The wick was flickering. They had trusted that it was he that should redeem Israel.

Beside all this, there's a third day since these things happened. But, you know, the Lord didn't blow out the wick. Some of you don't know anything about the old oil lamps, but some of us do.

Now, they weren't all oil lamps in Ireland when I was there, but up in the country places they had them, and they gave a good light. But you needed to get the oil, and you needed to trim the wick to make them burn all the more brightly. And this is what the Lord did.

And this is what he does with us at a conference, I would take it. He trims the wick. He doesn't extinguish the light.

I might have extinguished it and said, sure, I told you all these things, and you didn't believe me, but not the Lord. So gracious, wonderful person. We've met some lovely Christians in this life, I'll tell you.

I have. Seems like they shine with the light of heaven right in their countenance. Many of them have come through troubled waters, but you know the Lord, he shows how he needed to suffer before he would enter into glory.

And you know what he's doing? And I think this is very important because it's a prelude to what he's doing now. You all know that there were 40 days at the beginning of the Lord's ministry and 40 days at the end. Forty days at the beginning proved that he was adequate to be the king or the evangelist or the perfect man and so on.

But he's doing these priestly acts, and he's telling us what he's doing now. And is he not telling us, this is what you should be doing to one another? Because we're all part of a great priesthood. Are we encouraging one another? I don't mean that we can never be rebuked.

I was corrected a few times when I was a young believer, and you kind of feel bad at the time, but I'll tell you, I look back, I'm glad. We used to get into the habit of saying things, and some of the brethren, one was a little gruff. He'd say, why did you say that? I said, everybody says it, never mind what everybody says.

He said, we go according to the word of God, and I'm glad. We need to try to be exact in the things that we teach and in the way that we preach. So where was I anyhow? We're in a way too mess.

And of course, the Lord is setting us a great example so that when we have a brother or sister that's a bit down, draw near to them. That's all sometimes what we need to do, just draw near and encourage them. How do we do that? From the word of God.

That's the example that's given here. Now, when we come to the next scriptures, the end of the Gospel of John, what does it say? Well, it kind of links in with what we have in Luke. They went back from Emesh, you know, to the disciples, and the disciples were gathered together.

And I like this verse. It's really a wonderful verse. The same evening, the first day of the week, the doors were shut for fear of the Jews.

Oh, the doors, they could keep the enemy out, but, you know, they couldn't keep the Lord out. In resurrection, the Lord didn't need somebody to come and open the door or somebody to come and, let's say, like when Peter came to the door there when the people were praying in the house, they thought it's his spirit. But the Lord appeared in the midst.

And I've said this more than once, but some things you can repeat. I wonder what they were thinking about when they were meeting behind the closed door. Do you have any sanctified imagination? That's stuff you can't prove from the scripture.

Someone could have been saying to Peter, man, Peter, you really let it down. You denied the Lord. And he said, well, sure, we all forsook him and fled.

It's like I often wonder what Joseph's brethren were talking about when they were going back to Joseph, I mean to Jacob. See that you fall not out by the way. I'm sure they would have wondered, what are we going to tell our father after the lies that we told him? And Reuben could say, well, I tried to rescue him and there are all kinds of, but I'll tell you, you know what the Lord did? Whether they were disputing among themselves or not, I don't know.

But he said, peace. First word he said to them. They're great to have peace in the assembly that you're a part of? The peace where I come from? Am I one of the ones that say, blessed are the peacemakers? I always sometimes say, blessed are the pacemakers.

I've had a couple of those that are working pretty good. But it's good to be a peacemaker and not cause trouble. Now we stand for the truth.

There's a way to stand for the truth. But you know what the Lord said? At least I'm surmising he said, don't be occupied with yourselves. Be occupied with me.

How would I know that? He showed him his hands and his feet. I tell you, that should silence all disputes. When we think of what the Lord did for us and saved us and we're all indwelt by the same spirit.

How is it that we can't have perfect peace? This is the gospel of the shepherd, by the way. It begins with the Lord Jesus going out after the lost sheep. And he gets the individual sheep.

And then in chapter 10, he brings them into one flock and one shepherd. There should be unity among God's people. When we come to the end of the gospel, we have the, what is that to thee follow thou me? It's the shepherd going before the sheep.

The sheep are following him. So do we have that peace? We have peace with God and salvation. But I'll tell you, if we could all get our eye on the Lord Jesus Christ, we'd have peace among ourselves.

I'm not suggesting there's some here that aren't at peace. I don't know. But you know, there's preventative medicine as well as the stuff you have to take when you get the disease.

So these are just a few little thoughts of results of the resurrection. The Lord sending them out and going with them to minister the word of God and to make disciples, to build up God's people. And then Mark, the Lord sent them out to preach the gospel that I'm with you.

He's in the sanctuary, but he's with us. And we don't, shouldn't forget it. And that'll give us the courage.

And then as a priest, he's telling us these things that we might be able to help one another. None of us can make it alone. We need one another.

Maybe you don't think you need me, but I'll tell you, I need you. We need each other. And when it comes to John's gospel, we're all part of that flock.

And I don't know a lot about sheep. I've stayed with people way up in the Shetland Islands that kept sheep. But I would surmise that one thing they would want the sheep to be at peace.

How do you give them peace? Well, Mr. William Ferguson, a very austere man to us when we were young preachers, but I learned from these older men. He said he was in Scotland up in Heather and there were a lot of shepherds and they all had their own flock. No boundary lines that they could see.

And he asked the shepherd, he says, how do you keep your sheep together? He says, I tether them by their teeth. What he meant was he took them where there was pasture and where they could be at peace. And the 23rd Psalm would bear that out as well.

Where the Lord protects the sheep and finds pasture for them. So may the Lord encourage our hearts to think of these. There are lots more things that accrue from the resurrection.

But here's these things that should be a help to each one of us. Get our eye on the Lord, the wounds of the Lord. Get our eye on that.

Think of the price that he paid and he gave us peace. And he wants us to enjoy that peace and be part of his great flock.