Luke 24: 13-35

1 Corinthians 4: 14-17

Philippians 2: 19, 20

         I seek the Lord’s help to say a simple word as to the need of fathers.  I hesitate to speak of it because I am very conscious of my own shortcomings.  Paul had to say to the Corinthians that there were not many fathers.  I do not think that was normal, but the state of things in Corinth at the time militated against it.  There were persons there who were reigning as kings and there was party activity; all these things militated against the development of fatherly features. 

         The scripture in Luke 24 has often been used to draw attention to the priestly service of Christ to these two, and we need to maintain that impression, but I also wondered whether you would see the features of a father in the Lord Jesus in His service to these two.  They were two that had known Him, two that had loved Him; and He had loved them.  The Lord Jesus could say to His Father, “those thou hast given me I have guarded, and not one of them has perished, but the son of perdition”, John 17: 12.  I think that relates to His fatherly features.  When He said to them in John’s gospel that He was going to leave but that the Spirit, another Comforter would come (John 14: 16), they seemed to block it out of their minds because they could not contemplate being without Him. 

         The setting in Luke 24 is well known to us; things had not worked out quite the way these two had thought that they would work out.  So they were downcast.  There are many things that can make you downcast today.  The enemy would work on the circumstances, the smallness of numbers that continue; all these things bear in upon you and make you downcast.  Some of us are old enough to remember in our youth when there were bigger numbers and what has come in subsequently you would never have thought, but it did.  Things did not work out quite the way that we would have envisaged.  That is how these two were; they were going off into the country because they thought there was no point in staying here in Jerusalem.  They are going off into the country.  The Lord Jesus had His eye upon them, and it says, “Jesus himself drawing nigh, went with them” – a beautiful touch.  He could have said, ‘You are going into the country, you are going away from where things are operating’, but He did not do that; He went alongside them.  The first thing He does is to enquire of them as to why they were downcast.  They were talking about why they were downcast.  He knew, of course, He knew perfectly well.  One thing about a father is that he will listen.  Young people, you might have concerns, you might be troubled about things, but the Lord Jesus listens; He listened to these two.  He did not brush them aside; He listened to them.  Even in natural things you may know what a listening ear can do.  It will share the burden.  He said to them, “What discourses are these which pass between you as ye walk, and are downcast? And one of them, named Cleopas, answering said to him, Thou sojournest alone in Jerusalem, and dost not know what has taken place in it in these days?  And he said to them, What things?”  He knew, but he was drawing it out from them.  “The things concerning Jesus the Nazaraean, 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 up to the judgment of death and crucified him.  But we had hoped that he was the one who was about to redeem Israel”.  They had their own thoughts as to what they thought should have arisen, but it was not God’s way.  God has His own way, and His way is best.  Not only was Israel redeemed, but the finished work of Christ could redeem all.  What a thing that is, the greatness of the Person who could take on such a work.  All these uncertainties have happened, “besides all these things, it is now, to-day, the third day since these things took place.  And withal, certain women from amongst us astonished us, having been very early at the sepulchre, and, not having found his body, came, saying that they also had seen a vision of angels, who say that he is living.  And some of those with us went to the sepulchre, and found it so, as the women also had said, but him they saw not”.  There is the evidence from the vision of angels, the women went to the sepulchre, and it was empty, and they did not see Him.  They had been used to seeing Him, been used to being with Him, used to His company, used to His love, used to His interest in them.  I think the Lord Jesus was preparing them for the transfer from the sight system to the faith system.  What a thing that was, “him they saw not”.  They were still troubled because they did not see Him, but there was a faith system coming in and that involved that He would suffer and enter into His glory, and subsequently the Holy Spirit would come.  Thus, the present dispensation has been launched.  These persons were without hope. 

         In the beginning of the chapter the question is, “Why seek ye the living one among the dead? He is not here, but is risen”, v 5, 6.  Christianity is a living system of things because there is a living Man in the centre of it.  So these persons were filled with hope as a result of the personal service of Christ.  The resurrection of Christ from among the dead filled them with hope.  But, it is not only that: He has entered into His glory, and He is there at God’s right hand.  He lives there to make intercession for us.  The fact that He is not actually still here in this scene makes no difference to the fatherly service of Christ on high.  He takes account of you and me in our circumstances and He would serve us in His love, but we need hope.  These persons thought everything was lost.  There are persons today who think everything is lost, but everything is carried through in a glorious Man, the One who is living. 

         He said to them, “O senseless and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken!” – they were words that were spoken in love.  A fatherly feature is that whatever is needed is said, but it is totally in love.  That was the crux of the problem, they were slow of heart to believe, and I am sure that if we were there in that day we would have been no better.  “And having begun from Moses and from all the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself”; these persons had the Old Testament scriptures in their hands, and there is prophetic reference after prophetic reference in relation to the Person of Christ and what He would do in relation to His death, His rejection and His rising again.  He goes on to say, “And they drew near to the village where they were going, and he made as though he would go farther”; what grace that is.  However far was needed the Lord Jesus was prepared for it.  “And they constrained him, saying, Stay with us”.  Even though at this point their eyes were not opened, they did not want to lose the presence of this One, “Stay with us”.  There was something about Him.  Later they said, “Was not our heart burning in us”, that is what only He can do.  “Stay with us, for it is toward evening and the day is declining”.  Beloved brethren, we are in a day when the day is declining; morally the day is declining.  All around us there is moral decline; may we be preserved from it.  The Lord Jesus will preserve us from it as we seek Him. 

          “As he was at table with them, having taken the bread, he blessed, and having broken it, gave it to them”, He had done that before.  The idea of His acting as a father to these persons is confirmed by what has been said that in relation to this verse, that He took the house father’s place.  What He did, the way He did it, only He could have done; “their eyes were opened, and they recognised him.  And he disappeared from them”.  It was His own touch.  There is no touch like the touch of Jesus.  He disappeared from them because He was setting on the faith system, things were not going to be the same, but as He had said in gospels, they were not going to be worse off.  He says, “he will give you another Comforter”.  What a day it is!  What resources are available to us from Christ on high, and the Holy Spirit here. 

          “Was not our heart burning in us as he spoke to us on the way, and as he opened the scriptures to us?”  They were suddenly filled with hope; they were filled with energy.  They were no longer downcast, because all they needed was that touch from the One who had broken the power of death.  “And rising up the same hour” - it has often been spoken of; they did not wait until the next day.  They knew what to do, as from the touch of the One that they knew.  They had no doubt as to where they were to go - back to Jerusalem.  “Rising up the same hour, they returned to Jerusalem.  And they found the eleven, and those with them”, the Christian circle.  They found the eleven.  One had fallen to go to his own place, Judas, which speaks to us of the fact that it is a day of breakdown.  We do not need to be reminded that we live in a day of public breakdown and ruin.  Are God’s thoughts not going through? They are being carried through in Christ; He does not depend on you and me.  Everything is dependent upon Him: “in him is the yea, and in him the amen” (2 Cor 1: 20); everything has been carried through to God’s full satisfaction and He is sustained in His own power where He is at God’s right hand. 

          “And they related what had happened on the way, and how he was made known to them in the breaking of bread”.  It was the true fatherly service of Christ, and they had something to contribute to the Christian circle.  They had their own experience.  Nobody else could have brought this impression in; it was their experience.  I wonder what you and I can bring in the way of our own experience to enrich the Christian circle.  What a circle it is.  You look around this room; you take account of God’s work, and you respect it.  It is the sphere in which the Spirit can operate, who would magnify the Lord Jesus in our affections, “made known to them in the breaking of bread”.  That was their own experience.  There was no doubt, no uncertainty, no being downcast with them now.  It is assured.  It was His touch that they had felt.  Nobody else but He could have brought in that touch; so there is no uncertainty.  They were able to bring it in for themselves.

         In Corinthians, Paul has said that there are not many fathers.  Things were not normal at this point.  Paul had been used to secure them; he had been used to form the assembly in Corinth.  What they knew of the truth they had learnt through Paul, and he says, “For if ye should have ten thousand instructors in Christ, yet not many fathers”.  There were persons there who had gift and were using it to their own glorification.  They could no doubt quote Paul’s teaching because they got their teaching from him. They got it from Paul, he was their spiritual father.  He speaks of them as his beloved children, even though they were very critical of the apostle; what they had and had learnt they had received from him.  Did their conduct make any difference to the fatherly approach of Paul to the brethren?  Did he go round and speak of them in a derogatory way?  No, he did not.  He spoke well of them, because he was a father to them.  But, “not many fathers”.  It does not say there were not any; it says, “not many”.  No doubt there were those there that took on, not only the teaching of the apostle but his ways. 

         He goes on to speak of Timothy, “For this reason I have sent to you Timotheus, who is my beloved and faithful child”.  Timothy is spoken of as Paul’s child and so is Titus, but what marked them was that they not only had Paul’s teaching, but they took on his ways.  I can remember localities where there have been persons who you could speak of as a father, and when they have been taken, there has been another generation that have taken on features that were seen in them.  It is not only what their teaching was, but the way they were in their life.  Paul says, “Be my imitators, even as I also am of Christ”, 1 Cor 11: 1.  “Beloved and faithful child”, they are not two words that we would readily put together, but they are not incompatible.  David, as a type of Christ, was a lovable man.  The Lord Jesus, think of how lovable He was to His disciples, and so Timothy was not only beloved, but he was faithful.  He would bring in a word that was needed in order to feed them, in order to remind them of the truth, “who shall put you in mind of my ways as they are in Christ, according as I teach everywhere in every assembly”.  He is not only what he said, but there were his ways.  They were seen in Timothy, a true child of Paul.  And yet he would send such a one to Corinth where things were difficult and he would remind them of Paul, not only in his teaching but in his ways. 

         In Philippians 2 he says to the Philippians, “I hope in the Lord Jesus to send Timotheus to you shortly, that I also may be refreshed, knowing how ye get on.  For I have no one like-minded who will care with genuine feeling how ye get on”.  It is as if Paul is saying, there is one here that I have confidence in, that he will care with genuine feeling how you will get on; there is one that I can hand things over to.  I am going to pass off the scene, but Timothy remains and he was one there who cared with genuine feeling how the saints got on.  That is the feature of the father, to take account, and to be able to draw near, and to be able to teach in such a way that the thing is exemplified in the persons themselves. 

          “For all seek their own things, not the things of Jesus Christ” – that is the day in which we are, “all seek their own things”.  I speak for the encouragement of the younger ones here; there are a good many and we are thankful for each one.  You could have been elsewhere doing your own thing, but you are here as seeking the things of Jesus Christ.  The Lord takes account of that.  He would take account of that, and He will see you through, He will encourage you.  He would use the Christian circle to encourage you too.  That is why I feel the need for the promotion of this feature of fatherliness, that would bring out the best, to know what is of God’s work in you, and bring it out so that the Christian circle will get the gain of it. 

         That is the simple word I have; I am very conscious that I have shortcomings in this, but I do see the need of it.

         May God bless the word.

Malvern

30th August 2008