I invite you to open your Bibles with me this morning to Luke 24. We'll be reading and focusing on Luke 24, verses 13-35. If you do so, you'll note that we're no longer in Revelation. We have tied up and completed that brief series. And now, hopefully, a new series here that will take us through the end of the summer at least, is looking at Christ as He's revealed in the Old Testament stories. Looking at Christ as He's revealed in the Old Testament stories. And so we'll walk our way in the upcoming weeks through different stories, well-known stories throughout the Old Testament. But this morning I would like to focus on Luke 24, verses 13-35. I believe it will become very apparent why we're using this text to kick off this new unit or series, if you will. This is one of Christ's 11 appearances that He made to His disciples after His resurrection. So please read with me here. Luke 24, verses 13-35. Please hear the Word of our God. That very day, two of them were going to a village named Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem. And they were talking with each other about all these things that had happened. While they were talking and discussing together, Jesus Himself drew near and went with them. But their eyes were kept from recognizing Him. And he said to them, What is this conversation that you are holding with each other as you walk? And they stood still, looking sad. Then one of them named Cleopas answered him, Are you the only visitor to Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened there in these days? And he said to them, What things? And they said to Him, concerning Jesus of Nazareth, a man who was a prophet, mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, and how our chief priests and rulers delivered Him up to be condemned to death and crucified Him. But we had hoped that He was the one to redeem Israel. Yes, and besides all this, it is now the third day since these things happened. And moreover, some women of our company amazed us. They were at the tomb early in the morning. When they did not find his body, they came back sane. They had seen a vision of angels who said that he was alive. Some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said, but him they did not see. And he said to them, Oh, foolish ones and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken. was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into His glory? And beginning with Moses and all the prophets, He interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself. So they drew near to the village to which they were going. He acted as if He were going further. But they urged Him strongly, saying, Stay with us, for it is toward evening and the day is now far spent. So he went in to stay with them. When he was at table with them, he took the bread and blessed it and broke it and gave it to them. And their eyes were opened and they recognized him. And he vanished from their sight. They said to each other, did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road, while he opened to us the Scriptures, And they arose that same hour and returned to Jerusalem, and they found the eleven, and those who were with them gathered together, saying, The Lord has risen indeed, and has appeared to Simon. Then they told what had happened on the road, and how He was known to them, and the breaking of the bread." Thus far, the reading of the Lord's Word. May He bless it. Please pray with me again. O gracious and merciful Lord, as we have just sung, so we come before you in prayer and ask that you would break now the bread of life for us. We ask, O Christ, that you would open our eyes to see the wondrous things in your word. We pray that most of all we would see Jesus Christ high and lifted up. that we would see Christ not after the flesh, but with eyes of faith as we look into this Word this morning. Grant us ears and hearts and eyes to perceive, to embrace, to adore these truths. And we ask this in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen. So we come into verse 24. The first verse here recorded for us is, On the first day of the week, at early dawn, they went to the tomb, taking the spices they had prepared. As Luke comes to chapter 24, he gives us, as it were, this transition of almost divine magnitude. If we were to flip back over to Luke 9 verse 51, which serves as another major transition in the Gospel of Luke, Luke records for us that Jesus, knowing that His time to die was drawing near, set His face to go to Jerusalem. And from Luke 9 verse 51 all the way through the end of Luke 23, this is what Christ was doing as He was making His way to Jerusalem. We might say that Christ was living in the full anticipation and expectation of His upcoming sufferings and death and ultimately His resurrection as well. And so Christ throughout the majority of Luke has His death hanging over Him. He is walking in the shadow of the cross. And yet as we come here to chapter 24, Luke begins a whole new unit in this last chapter by saying, but on the first day of the week. This was a time, this was a great and a glorious day. This was a great transition in all of history and not simply in Luke's Gospel. Well, what was about to transpire is what angels stood to adore from all of their creation and their being, what the prophets in the Old Testament longed for. What Christ said in the Gospel of John, that this was the day that Abraham looked forward to and rejoiced. As we come to Luke chapter 24, no longer do we have Christ being shown to us in types and in shadows. We no longer have Christ being served to us under a veil of mysteries, of unfolding revelation. But as we come to Luke 24, we have Christ in all of his fullness. Christ in the completion of His earthly ministry, now known as the resurrected Lord and Savior, forever reigning above all powers and principalities in this world. So we come to Luke 24. We come, as it were, in the story of redemption to new and greater heights of glory and grace and redemption than the world had ever seen. So as we open even this first verse, yes, what a miraculous first day of the week this was. And dare I pause and just insert that it's because of this that we too are gathered here in this church on the first day of this week to praise the Christ who is resurrected from the dead. Now the author, Luke, the Gospel of Luke and the Book of Acts were both written by him. And we're told in both the beginning of the Gospel and Acts that He has set out to give us a reliable history of the life of the person of the work of Jesus Christ. And the Gospel of Luke is primarily focused on Jesus' earthly ministry that is beginning at His incarnation when He became a baby, all the way through His ascension into heaven after His resurrection. And then the book of Acts picks up where Luke left off, not looking at Jesus' earthly ministry, but looking at Jesus' heavenly ministry. That is that Christ's work didn't end at the end of Luke, but it continues onwards as He is exalted and as He ascends into heaven in a heavenly ministry. And so as we come here to Luke 24, what we have is the ending of Christ's earthly ministry, and we're anticipating the beginning of Christ's heavenly ministry. And this section that we've read is commonly known as the road or on the road to Emmaus. And we've read just now that these two disciples were out and they were walking from Jerusalem to Emmaus, which was about a seven mile stretch. This whole scene is bathed in emotional language. We can only begin to try to comprehend what these two disciples were thinking about as they had seen Christ die and now as they heard of this empty tomb. So these two disciples were making their way. They were talking about all these recent events that had happened in Jerusalem. And we read in verse 17 that they were sad. These great events that they had seen didn't stir joy in their hearts, but it stirred up sadness. It stirred up a great emotional response of sadness. And we read in part why they were sad. And so Christ had died, and they reveal in verse 21, they had said, well, we hope that this Jesus of Nazareth would be the one who would redeem Israel. Who would redeem Israel perhaps from Roman persecution and bondage, or even perhaps they were thinking that maybe this is God's anointed Messiah who has come to free us from our sins. The apostles and the disciples had such lofty hopes, hopes of what Christ would do in His life, and they had followed Him for three and a half years in His earthly ministry, and now they looked at Him, and He was crucified, and He was dead, and more than that, these women had gone to the tomb, they had heard the prophecies that Christ would rise on the third day, but to their dismay, they didn't see Jesus. And so as Jesus was assumed to be dead, so too were their hopes and their dreams and their aspirations. And even as Christ comes into the midst of these disciples in verse 16, we're told that their eyes were kept from recognizing Him. As we come to this chapter this morning, what I think Christ is doing here, and what I'm going to put before you for your consideration, is that Christ is coming to these disciples and He veils Himself from them in order that He can direct them to see with the eyes of faith that He is to be made known through the Bible. That is, that Christ comes to these disciples and He directs them to the Bible to see Him, to know Him, to have fellowship and union and communion with Him. So we come to these verses, three brief points this morning. Our first point is that Christ is near in the Word, that Christ is near in the Word. Our second point is that Christ is known by the Word. And our third point this morning will be that Christ transforms through the Word. That is, that Christ is near in the Word, Christ is known by the Word, and Christ transforms through the Word. Our first point this morning then is Christ is near in the Word. And we note first that this scene is altogether emotional. That these disciples have left Jerusalem perhaps in great despair. That they have left perhaps fearing that they too are going to be persecuted because they were followers of Jesus Christ. We read in verse 17 that these disciples were sad. is that we can only imagine, this has only been three days since they saw their savior, their master, their rabbi, their teacher crucified on a cross. We can only imagine what sort of horrific thoughts this was conjuring up in the minds of these people. Christ's crucifixion and his death was still fresh in their minds. And this wasn't just the death of a teacher, but this was a death of a very close and intimate friend and teacher that they had. We can only imagine that still going through their heads were the chilling cries of pain, the near loss or the suffering, the loss of this dear friend, the images that they carried of seeing Christ hanging upon a cross. And we know that they longed to see Jesus, yet Jesus they no longer saw. It is as though these disciples, as they are walking on this road to Emmaus, are telling one another, if only we could see Him again. He had promised to rise on the third day. Where is He? And why can't we see Him? Why did the women not find Him in the tomb? Yes, these angels brought this news, but we don't see Jesus. He is nowhere around us. We need to find Christ. And so it's with some amount of anticipation, as we read this introduction here, that we read in verse 15 that while these disciples were talking and discussing together, Jesus Himself drew near and went with them. What a glorious statement! What a statement of such grace and mercy! That while these disciples don't know where Jesus is and these women haven't been able to see Jesus, that this resurrected Christ comes and He seeks out His disciples. That He goes after them, that He chases these disciples as they're walking on the road to Emmaus. This is a truly marvelous thought. Of the resurrected and glorious Christ coming into the midst of His brothers, of His disciples. who just days before had completely deserted Him, who had abandoned Him and left Him to die on this cross, helpless and hopeless. These disciples and these apostles who had fled from the Garden of Gethsemane before Christ was arrested, and yet as Christ has been raised from the dead, we see what His intentions are, and that is to find His disciples. He seeks them out. He walks into their midst. This is a telling statement that the author of Hebrews in chapter 2, verse 11, says of Christ that He is not ashamed to call them brothers. And how Christ is embodying this even in the scene that is before us. Christ is a concerned Savior and Lord as a compassionate Savior and Lord comes to His disciples in their sadness. And He comes alongside of them. And He walks with them. And yet we read in verse 16, don't we, that these disciples didn't recognize Him. Luke tells us that their eyes were kept from recognizing Him. Now this verb here, kept, it entails authority and a power. And what we would say of what is going on here is that these disciples weren't merely shell-shocked. It's not like they were looking at Jesus and just dumbfounded and confused, but rather that Christ was exerting a powerful influence over their physical eyes. Christ was keeping their physical eyes from recognizing who He was. He gave out this key, this power, this persuasion over them to keep them from recognizing Him. But one thing we would do well here is to note that it's only their physical eyes that Christ kept back from recognizing Him. We'll read in several verses down here that it's only their eyes, their hearts recognize Him. As they later say when they find out that it was Jesus, did not our hearts burn within us? And so Christ has, for the moment, veiled their eyes. He has kept them from seeing Him. Well, why? Why did Christ do this to these two disciples? We know that when Christ appeared to Mary in the garden after His resurrection, He didn't prevent her from seeing Him. But she knew Him and confessed Him as Lord. We know that as Christ comes to the eleven apostles here at the end of chapter 24, that He doesn't veil their eyes from recognizing Him. And we know from the Gospel of John That when Christ comes to Thomas, he doesn't veil Thomas's eyes from seeing him. And as Christ comes to these disciples, why is it that he hides himself? He could have shown himself to him in a moment. He could have taken all of their sadness, all of their gloom, all of their despair, and in an instantaneous moment turned it to complete and utter joy. He could have come alongside these disciples as they're walking. He could have revealed himself to them. He could have shown them that they had cause to rejoice and to celebrate because Christ was risen from the dead. And yet for these seven miles, Christ keeps their eyes veiled. Wow, Christ's ways are not our ways. I would submit that at least in part what Christ is doing as he's teaching his disciples and even the church of all ages is a very valuable lesson. Because this resurrected Christ knows that he won't be with his people very longer than in 40 days Christ is going to ascend into heaven. And on that day, Christ's physical presence would be veiled from all people. No longer would we be able to behold Christ with our physical eyes. And so Christ is teaching them a valuable lesson. He is encouraging their faith. And how is it that he encourages their faith? Well, it's through the Bible. Because this whole story here, as it happens and as it unfolds, what we hear is that Christ unfolds the passages of the Old Testament, that He is unfolding the Bible to them, that He is teaching these disciples that though I am absent with you physically, I am very near to you in the Scriptures, I am present in all of the Bible. Moses spoke of me, the prophets spoke of me, the psalmists, they spoke of me and they told me. He's drawing His apostles and His disciples here to a greater nearness than He could have in being physically present with them. He's drawing them to a nearness of faith. To look into the Scriptures and to know that Christ is in their midst. And how true that we as well live in this utter nearness to the Lord Jesus Christ through His Word. That for the time being, Heaven has received Him until the time of restoring all things. And as Christ draws near to comfort these disciples, He doesn't comfort them with His physical presence, but He communes with them in the very words of the Old Testament Scriptures. So the first point that we have is that as Christ draws near to these disciples, He veils their eyes and He points them with the eyes of faith to the Scriptures to know that in that He has nearness to them. But secondly, we note that Christ is known by the Word, that Christ is known by the Word. We read in verse 17 that as Christ came alongside, He looked at the disciples and He said, what is this conversation that you are holding with each other? And the disciples respond in verse 18, one of them named Cleopas answered Him, Are you the only visitor to Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened here and these days? As Christ comes and He approaches these disciples, He questions them. Well, what is it that you're talking about? And these disciples are essentially shocked that Jesus has no idea of these events. Now, we know that Jesus was relatively unknown to the greater Roman world. And yet in the city of Jerusalem, Christ had caused a stir in his earthly ministry, in his earthly life. That's what we see in verses 20-24, that this Cleopas, he unwraps and unfolds all of the events that had happened in Jerusalem from Jesus' time of arrest until His crucifixion, until His supposed resurrection. And so these disciples are left in shock that Jesus seems to be absolutely ignorant of what has occurred. And yet we see in this passage, don't we, how Jesus takes command of the conversation. These disciples look at Jesus and say, are you the only person that doesn't know what's going on? Are you the only person that's ignorant? They, in a sense, rebuke Jesus for not knowing these recent events. As we come to verse 25, Jesus in turn rebukes these disciples. He tells them after they recount all these events, O foolish ones and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken. Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into His glory? You see what Christ is doing here. The disciples rebuke Him because He's ignorant. He's failed to understand what's happened in Jerusalem. And Jesus turns this conversation on its head. And He looks at the disciples and He says, I'm not the ignorant ones. You're the ignorant ones. You're the foolish ones because you've failed to understand the meaning of all of these events that you're talking about. You've failed to understand that what has happened in your midst, that what has happened in your midst was necessary. And if you had only paid attention to the Old Testament Scriptures, you would have known. You would have known that you don't have cause for being sad and for being joyless. If only you had known what the prophets had spoken about, what Moses had written. And so we see that Christ takes command of this conversation. And in verse 27, we're told that beginning with Moses and all the prophets, He interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself. There are a few times in the Bible that I wish the writers would have given a little more detail. And this is one of those moments. Christ, the greatest interpreter of Scripture. Christ, the greatest teacher ever known to mankind. Christ, seizing this opportunity to unfold the Old Testament and say, don't you see how this all points to me? And I scratch my head and say, give me more details. What stories did Christ go to? What prophecies did He unwrap before His disciples' eyes that they had never thought of before? What pictures did Christ turn to? This was a Master Interpreter of Scripture who had completely dumbfounded the Sadducees against the doctrine of the resurrection when He points them and He says, did God not say, I am the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob? This Master Interpreter of Scripture looking at a present tense verb and laying waste all of these arguments of these religious elite. What is it that Christ told to his disciples here as he unfolded for them how Moses and the prophets and all of the Scriptures revealed? Well, Luke doesn't give us these details. Rather, he gives us nothing but a broad statement. A broad statement that Christ unfolded the Scriptures. And we would note well the emphasis that Christ does here. We know that Christ doesn't take His disciples to mere moralism. He doesn't say, foolish ones, you should have known that this is what God said. Do this, do this, do this, do that. Christ doesn't come to them with mere stories to tickle their ears. Christ doesn't come with grandiose statements or deep lessons of systematic theology or doctrine. Rather, we read that Christ's intention as He opened the Scriptures was singular. And that is that he taught his disciples the things concerning himself. Dear brothers and sisters, how we ought to read our scriptures with Christ in mind. From all of Genesis to Revelation, it is about Christ. Christ is like the choicest diamond that when you hold up into the light of revelation, this white light going into refracts into all sorts of beautiful colors, into a beautiful display of a spectrum of colors. And this is what Christ is doing for his disciples. You remember that Old Testament story? This is what it says about me. You remember this story, well this is what it says about me. You remember this prophecy, this is what it says about who I am and about my work. And yet how satisfied so many of us are in reading our Bibles and not seeing Jesus Christ in them. As Christ comes alongside His disciples here, He opens the Bible, He opens the Scripture to them and draws out wells of wisdom and knowledge. Again, we remember that Christ is soon to ascend into heaven. He is soon to no longer be physically walking with His disciples, and yet He is teaching us here, my absence is no hindrance to knowing who I am. This is great and glorious news, especially for those of us who sit almost 2,000 years after Christ has been crucified. to know that we're not dependent on Christ walking to and fro among us to know Him. Because Christ even here to His disciples, He says, you think you know so much, but you're ignorant because you don't know that these Scriptures point to me that they reveal who I am. And so Christ is, in a sense, preparing His disciples and showing us that He is to be known by the Word, by the Scriptures. These disciples had failed to believe the knowledge of Christ in the Bible, and so he corrects them. He corrects them by showing that they should have known all of these things. Well, dear congregation, we ought not to think lightly of this. Because if we look out at the world, and if we look out at even so many who claim to be Christians, there are many who chase after God. There are many who seek and desire to know God. And there are even those who desire to know Jesus Christ. Yet these individuals add ignorance upon ignorance because they fail to see that Christ has sufficiently made Himself known in the Bible. And so many people turn to so many other places. that we ought to say, even as we so often sing in that hymn, what more can He say than to you He has said, to you who to Jesus for refuge have fled? This is the first great, glorious day of the week. And Christ is showing us here that He is no longer to be known after the flesh, but He is to be known as He has revealed Himself from Genesis to Revelation. This is a litmus test, if you will, for all faithful preaching. Does it preach Christ? This is a litmus test of faithful listening to sermons. Have I heard Jesus Christ? This is profitable for our reading to know when we open the Scriptures, do we see Christ? This is how we ought to gauge our growth in grace. Do we see more of Christ? Do we have more of a knowledge of Christ than we did last week or last year? This is the gauge by which we ought to see. Have we learned anything of religion at all? Do we know more of the glory of Jesus Christ? And sadly, how often it's true that the Bible remains a closed book. even to the greatest theologians and scholars, because they fail to see that Christ is revealed in them. There is more learning and wisdom and insight in the peasant who sees Christ on every page than the most erudite scholar who remains in his ivory tower. And I think that this is why, or this sheds light into verses 30 and 31. We know that Christ walks veiled from these disciples' eyes, and yet when He sits down at the table with them, He took the bread, He blessed it, He broke it, He gave it to them. And then Luke says in verse 31 that it's at this moment that their eyes were opened and they recognized Him. And what does Christ do? He vanishes from their sight. no longer to be known after the flesh, but to be known by the eyes of faith that look into the Scriptures. It's as Paul said in 2 Corinthians 5, 16, that from now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard Him thus no longer. Christ would have our attention be turned to the Scriptures, for in them He is known. Our third and final point this morning is not only Christ near in the Word, not only Christ being known by the Word, but Christ transforming through the Word. You can only imagine, as Christ and these disciples walked these seven miles, how quickly their journey must have gone. And we pick up a little bit of this, don't we, as we read verses 28 and 29. Luke says, So they drew near to the village to which they were going, and he, that is Jesus, acted as if he were going farther. But they urged him strongly, saying, Stay with us. Christ isn't being deceptive here. There are some who say that as Christ pretends to be going on ahead, yet He knows He'll be going with these disciples. He's trying to deceive them. Far be it for Christ to ever deceive anybody. I think rather what Christ is doing here is He's drawing out the faith of these disciples. Because as these disciples prepared to part ways with Christ, we read that they strongly urged Christ to stay with them. They strongly urged Him. This isn't a simple request. This isn't, hey, just come and hang out with us for a little bit longer. But this is a word that carries the idea of constraining them. And so they grab the hold of Christ and they said, what you're teaching we love. We love to stay with us. We're constraining you. We're persuading you with everything we have to remain with us for just a little bit longer. And so they constrain him. And what a glorious picture of those who share such fellowship with Jesus Christ. What sweet communion with Christ these disciples have known as He opens up the Scriptures to them, as they come and they constrain Him to say, as they constrain Him to remain with them because they know that His teaching is opening to them the heart of glory and the person and the work of Jesus Christ. I think we can say as we come to this in the broadest picture possible, that there is a power in understanding the Word of God. There is a power in understanding the Word of God. And this is a power that these disciples are feeling. There is a force to the Bible when we understand it, when we understand it, when Christ comes and he opens it to us and we see that this isn't merely a book of names. This isn't merely a book of ancient history. This isn't merely a book of somebody's religious experiences of the past that we're to glean some moralistic idea from. But Christ shows us as He encounters these disciples that in the Word we are brought into an encounter with the living God through the work of Christ and by His Holy Spirit. Christ, as it were, in the Word, comes to our hearts, and our hearts come to Christ, and there is a sweet and a glorious fellowship and communion that we have with Christ. And yet, this encounter transforms. This encounter transforms, as we read in verse 26. Christ says, was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into His glory? And as He has unfolded all of these things, and these disciples come to their senses then, and what is it that they respond to each other? They say in verse 32, did not our hearts burn within us while He talked with us on the way? Did not our hearts burn within us? This is a great and a glorious transformation. Scarcely are we able to come and read the Bible and see Christ without some transformation upon our heart. Yet, we must be very careful here. And I throw out the disclaimer that we are not saying that when you come to the Scriptures and you see Christ, you need to have this or that explicit experience or transformation. Because we know that Christ comes to His Word and transforms us in a variety of ways. We learn from the story of Martha, don't we, that it seems to be a small change. Christ comes and he speaks to her and she realizes, here I am to sit at the feet of the teacher. It could be a great change like Zacchaeus, that when Christ came to Zacchaeus and opened his heart to understand the gospel of grace, that Zacchaeus went and he sold half of his possessions and he gave to the poor. The transformation that can be worked upon our hearts is the very conversion of our souls as it was with Paul on the road to Damascus when Christ came and he spoke to him. And this once persecutor and killer of the church is magnificently converted in a moment by the gospel of Jesus Christ. This transformation may be nothing more than a small comfort. That Christ is relating with us and is having compassion. He meets us in our needs. This transformation may be a rebuke even as Paul rebukes the church in Galatia. The transformation may be the Spirit works in us to say, I need to pray more. I need to be given to prayer more. We say with Paul that when we come to see the glory of Christ in the Word, Paul writes, and we all with an unveiled face beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed in the same image from one degree of glory to another, for this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit. Is it any wonder that these disciples constrain Jesus? Is it any wonder that they should grab ahold of Him and say, remain with us? Christ was opening their minds and He was inflaming their hearts. He was, as it were, fitting them for glory, transforming them from one degree of glory to another through the Word. As John Owen said, this transformation is when the heart is cast into the mold of the doctrine that the mind embraces. And that's the transformation that we begin to see in these disciples. And yet it's not only an inner transformation, it's an outward transformation. That is that their burning hearts flowed into burning zeal. We read in verse 33 that they arose that same hour and returned to Jerusalem. And they followed the eleven and those who were with them and gathered together saying, the Lord has risen indeed and has appeared to Simon. And then they told what had happened on the road and how he was known to them in the breaking of the bread. It's not merely an inner transformation, it's also an outward transformation. These disciples at a moment's notice rise and they hurry back with haste on this seven-mile journey between Emmaus and Jerusalem, and they find the apostles, and they tell them of everything that Christ has done. What a wonderful pattern for us to follow and to learn from. These disciples can barely hear of Jesus Christ and the truth that He unfolds without, in great joy and haste and anticipation, make their way to the disciples and to the apostles, proclaiming the good news of what Christ has done for them, of the joy that they have in Christ as they found it in the Word, their hope of redemption. They had once held to, and Christ was now bearing fruit, because Christ was alive. He was alive indeed. And they couldn't keep this and contain this to themselves. And so cast over this whole passage. Don't we see that Christ draws near to His disciples in the Word? That Christ reveals a knowledge of Himself in the Word, and that Christ transforms them by His Word? And it's by this transforming Word of Christ, it's by this burning in the hearts of these disciples, these apostles and these disciples would eventually be taken into Jerusalem, into Judea, into Samaria, into the ends of the world to make known the glorious Gospel of Jesus Christ. Amen. Please join me in prayer. Oh, our gracious and our merciful God, how we thank you for your word, how we thank you for the incarnate word, Jesus Christ, and how we thank you for your scriptures, how we thank you, O Christ, that from Genesis to Revelation, we have your heart unfolded to us. We have the glories of Jesus Christ made known to us. And how we thank you that when we come to your word with eyes of faith, we have union and fellowship and communion with Jesus Christ through his word. Be with us in the remainder of this day. We ask this in Jesus name. Amen.