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Hendersonville Seventh-day Adventist Church, NC

Eric Walsh

Christ Over Crisis: The Next Disappointment Pt.2

The Bible says, here is the patience of the saints.

Here are they that keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus.

Our message this Sabbath is entitled, The Next Disappointment.

Father God, we thank you for this opportunity to study your word.

We thank you, Lord, for your goodness and for your grace.

And I ask now once again Lord that you just make me a nail upon the wall, a nail hammered in by your Holy Spirit, and hang upon that nail a portrait of Jesus Christ.

I don't need to be seen or heard today, we need to hear a word from you, Jesus.

So speak now through the power of your Holy Spirit.

If you have a Bible, you may want to jump to Luke chapter 24.

Luke chapter 24, it's just a little over a week since the triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem.

They had laid palm branches down and cried, Hosanna, Hosanna.

The people were excited because they were sure now that finally this horrible oppressive yoke of the Roman Empire would come off of them.

Instead the disciples experience a great disappointment.

Instead of Jesus marching into Jerusalem, and on that Monday he cleans out the temple, instead of going in, cleaning out the temple, and sitting on David's throne, literally what happens is antithetical to royalty or him being a ruler.

Instead, during that week, the conspiracies against him culminate and the leaders take him and Jesus is beaten.

I want you to understand what it must have been like to be a disciple of Jesus and watched him punched and kicked, spat upon.

What it would have been like to see him come out of the room with a crown of thorns pressed against his skull.

Thorns so long that they would have penetrated skin, subcutaneous fat layer, and fascia to scratch directly against the skull bone of our Lord, to see him bloodied, beaten, in a position of complete powerlessness, at least that's what it looked like.

And so as he is moved and taken to the cross and crucified, the disciples are in a position of disappointment like nothing the Bible reveals before that.

They are distraught, in fact they scatter and run.

Peter denies him after Judas betrays him.

Except that on the third day something incredible happens you see that the leaders knew it's funny if when we as we read this story The religious leaders understood what Jesus was saying better than his disciples did Because they were afraid of the third day and the disciples Were weeping on the third day The religious leaders knew that they needed extra soldiers somebody else a man The religious leaders understood that what Jesus said is that he's going to rise on the third day.

Just a week earlier, a little over a week earlier, the disciples were thinking, which 1 of us is gonna be the vice president in the new kingdom?

Who's gonna be the secretary of agriculture when he sits on David's throne and we take over the world now they want nothing to do with Jesus so the women go to the tomb first, speak to the angels, come back to the disciples, give a full report of what they've seen and heard, which should have encouraged the disciples.

Do you know, eyewitnesses did not move them from sorrow to belief.

Peter goes down, in fact, just before the verses we're about to read, and he looks in the door, sees no 1, and the Bible says Peter basically just begins to ponder what all of this means.

And in order for Jesus to really give you an understanding of how you respond after a great disappointment like this.

He gives this story of the of the 2 disciples on the road to Emmaus.

Luke 24 13 says, and behold 2 of them went that same day to a village called Emmaus, which was from Jerusalem, about 3 score furlongs, about 8 miles.

And they talked together all these things which had happened.

And so these 2 disciples say, you know what?

It's probably, this is probably what they were thinking, it's probably going to be safer for us if we leave Jerusalem and go to our hometown.

And so they take off and they begin to walk.

You'd imagine, you know, it's a 2 to 3 hour walk depending on how fast they go, whether or not they stop.

And so they begin, and as they're walking, they're talking about everything that's happened.

They're recounting everything from the amazing and glorious entry into Jerusalem all the way up to the crucifixion and burial of Christ and they are discussing this thing and they are sorrowful.

Verse 15 the Bible says and as it came and it came to pass while they communed together and reasoned, Jesus himself drew near and went with them.

The answer to their great disappointment was the arrival of Jesus.

The reason some of us still think of the great disappointment of 1844 the way we do is because we sometimes don't realize it will be rectified at the coming of Christ.

When Jesus shows up and walks with us, we will have the experience these men had.

Verse 16, the Bible says, but their eyes were whole and that they should not know him.

I'm gonna make a list of all these interesting things that happen in the story.

But 1 of the first thing Jesus does, after he comes on them, Jesus miraculously shields their eyes so they can't recognize him.

Because if they knew he was Jesus right up front, they would never have paid attention to the coming Bible study.

It's even with Jesus resurrected, it took the study of the scripture for the men to actually finally get it.

I want you to understand that this is why, even when the false Christs begin to appear, as they already have, as outlined in Matthew chapter 24, if you don't know your Bible, you're in trouble.

There are all these false doctrines because people want the tangible.

So Jesus remained intangible to them so that they would believe by faith.

This is why we as Adventists can't get caught up in third temple theology in Israel.

It feels real good to say, okay, we're gonna actually build the temple and they're gonna be I mean, they talk about sacrificing the temple.

If you have to sacrifice in the temple, then what does the cross even mean then?

So Jesus shields himself, look at verse 17, and he said unto them, what manner of communication are these that ye have 1 to another as you walk in our side." Jesus shows up and says, man, what kind of conversation you having?

He says, are you only a stranger in Jerusalem?" And the other guy's like, man where have you been?

I mean he probably looks at the other disciples like, can you believe this guy?

And has not known the things which are come to pass there in these days.

How in the world did you miss, it's been everywhere.

They didn't have social media and 24-hour news channels back then, but everybody was talking about what happened to Jesus.

And this was the first clue that they were speaking to Christ is that they had this conversation about where were you at.

Have you not known what happened these past days?

And they said unto him concerning Jesus of Nazareth, which was a prophet, mighty indeed, and the word before God and all the people.

And they say, listen, haven't you heard what happened to Jesus of Nazareth, the prophet, the guy who did all the miracles, made the blind see, made the lame walk, resurrected Lazarus.

But notice they only refer to him here as a prophet.

When Jesus asked the disciples, he said, whom do men say that I am?

Peter's response, you are the Christ, the son of God, is the right response.

Verse 20, and how the chief priests and our rulers delivered him to be condemned to death and have crucified him.

And so they say, listen, it was horrible.

They took him, they nailed him to a cross, condemned him to death, and they crucified him.

In verse 21, the real sentiment comes out.

They say, but we trusted, we believed that it had been he which should have redeemed Israel we thought for sure this man would have come in and he would have liberated us from the Romans and then they say and beside all of that it's so hopeless because this is the third day since all that stuff happened but we trusted that it had been he which should have redeemed Israel Their hope in Christ was still nationalistic.

Their hope was that they would shake off the oppressor, the Romans, and that they would have liberation from what Rome represented.

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Christ Over Crisis: The Next Disappointment Pt.2

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