Dunlop, John: Things Most Surely Believed Among Us 02

Now, you might notice the man flu's no quite away, but it's much better than it was. And we're glad to be with you this evening to conclude a little look at Luke's Gospel. And so we're going to read this evening again in that Gospel, chapter number nineteen, and we're going to pick up from where we left off last week. Let me just remind you that what we've done is we've tried to divide Luke's Gospel into three main sections. We thought that the first section began at chapter number one and came through to chapter number four, and in particular chapter number four and maybe about verse number thirteen. And what we noticed was that that dealt with the first thirty years of the life of the Lord Jesus. Chapter number one, actually his conception, and chapter number two, his birth, and chapter number three, where it will tell us he was thirty years of age. And so the Lord Jesus in his life to chapter number four and verse thirteen, he's thirty years of age. But then we noticed that there was another section began at verse fourteen of chapter four, and it came all the way through to chapter number nineteen, and we read last week from verse twenty seven. And what we thought was that in that framework, there were three and a half years approximately. A time when the Lord Jesus was moving publicly, a time when there were those who were able to see him and to listen to him. They were able, we thought in that middle section, to see the miracles that he did and to hear the parables that he spoke. And so the first part of the gospel is thirty years, and it's a private time, a time when he was in seclusion. The next section of the gospel, that's now three and a half years, and that's three and a half years when he was ministering publicly. But let's take a little read, and we'll set it in its context, and the beginning of the section, I think, would be chapter nineteen and verse twenty eight. and it says this: And when Jesus had thus spoken, he went before ascending up to Jerusalem. And it came to pass, when he was come nigh to Bethpage and Bethany at the Mount of Olives, the mount called the Mount of Olives, he sent two of his disciples. Now we're coming to the end of the gospel. We're at chapter number twenty four. And chapter number twenty four begins like this. Now upon the first day of the week, very early in the morning, they came unto the sepulcher, bringing the spices which they had prepared and certain others with them, and they found the stone rolled away from the sepulcher. Now the end of chapter number twenty four, it reads like this, verse fifty: And Jesus led them out as far as to Bethany, and he lifted up his hands and blessed them. And it came to pass, while he blessed them, he was parted from them and carried up into heaven. And they worshipped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy, and were continually in the temple praising and blessing God. Amen. Now, we know God blesses us when we read his word together. And so we're looking at the third section of the gospel, and we are still looking for things that we were noticing at the very beginning of chapter number one. we're putting under a broad heading. Those things that are most surely believed among us. That is, the things that as Christians we hold very tightly. We hold them fast. These are, these are important things in the Christian life. These are important things for Christian doctrine. And we've been noticing these things as we've come through these past two weeks, and we want to find a number of them again this evening. Things that are most surely believed among us. Now, let me remind you, I think we mentioned last week, that this last section from chapter nineteen through to chapter twenty four, it's a very, very busy section. Last Sunday, I think that in, in religious circles, they've got a particular name for it, and that would be Palm Sunday. It's called Palm Sunday because that's the day that the Lord Jesus entered Jerusalem. He was riding on a donkey, and his disciples, the multitude, they took palm branches and they threw them in front of the donkey that he was on. Now, that's Palm Sunday. And in actual fact, if we'd read a little further in chapter number nineteen of Luke's Gospel, where we started reading, that's the kind of picture that we would have come across. We did begin by reading that he was come nigh to Bethpage and Bethany, uh, the mount called the Mount of Olives, and that was when he was entering to Jerusalem. You might remember we said that the Lord Jesus, he was going to Jerusalem, and he knew that. It's one of the things that we believe. So here he is, and the beginning of the section now is he's preparing to get the colt the full of an ass, and he'll get on it, and he'll move into Jerusalem, and the disciples will take palm branches and throw them in front. And so that would be, if you like, Palm Sunday. And then we've got the days that are going to follow, and these days are in chapter number twenty and twenty one and twenty two and twenty three until we read at the beginning of chapter twenty four. it was the first day of the week very early in the morning. Now, the first day of the week, that's Sunday. That's how the days of the week go. Don't let me tell you that it says Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday. That's actually no right. The first day of the week is Sunday. And so Sunday, Monday, Tuesday through to Saturday. And so here we are at the first day of the week at the beginning of chapter twenty four. And the first day of the week, Sunday. Well, if chapter number nineteen is Sunday, and it's Palm Sunday, then the beginning of chapter number twenty four is Sunday. And it is Easter Sunday, it's Resurrection Sunday, it's the, the first day of the week when the Lord Jesus rose from among the dead. And so from chapter number nineteen, and about halfway down the chapter to the beginning of chapter number twenty four, it's sandwiched between Sunday to Sunday. And if you're counting the days at either end, that would be eight days. And so we've got that eight-day spell. And so, and so what we've got is in eight days, we've got chapter nineteen and the second part and twenty, and twenty one, and twenty two, and twenty three. and so we've got lots of detail about that eight-day spell. A Couple of chapters just, chapters two and three, about thirty years. But now we've got four and a half chapters, about eight days. And then, if you're doing the rest of your counting, then you'll come to chapter number twenty four, and it begins on the first day of the week, and it ends with the Lord Jesus going back up into heaven. And you'll find from the Acts of the Apostles that that was a period of forty days. And so the whole of chapter number twenty four, a period of forty days. Now, we need, I think, to put a kind of beginning and an ending on what we're saying. I think there's a very good beginning in chapter number nineteen, and you'll remember, I think, quite well, because what happens in chapter number nineteen at the place where we started reading is that the Lord Jesus, he's going to go up the Mount of Olives. And so chapter number nineteen, in this last section of eight days, then forty days, it begins on the Mount of Olives. And when you come through to the end of chapter number twenty four, it says he led them out as far as to Bethany. And again, if you come into the beginning of the Acts of the Apostles in chapter number one, it says actually, that was at the Mount of Olives. So this last part of the life of the Lord Jesus, from resurrection to ascension, from when he rose from the dead till he went back up into heaven, it's sandwiched in between these two, these two events, the Mount of Olives, the Mount of Olives. And so the Mount of Olives is the beginning and ending of this last section. And I think if you were to read the whole of the chapters, you would discover it's not the only mentions of the Mount of Olives that you get in the section. I think also important to notice that chapter number twenty four and the Lord Jesus going up into heaven is a lovely ending to the whole book. Because what Luke tells us at the beginning of the gospel is, this is one who came down from heaven in incarnation. This is one who came down from heaven, knowing why he had come. And so the beginning of the gospel has him coming down, and the end of the gospel has him going back up. So there's a lovely fullness in that. He's coming down, he's going up. And so the gospel by Luke gives a very good account, a very full account of the life of the Lord Jesus down here below. Coming down at the beginning, going up at the end. But now here in our last section, it's the Mount of Olives he's going to go up. It's the Mount of Olives he's going to be taken up. And so the Lord Jesus, in a fullness, seen in this last section, Mount of Olives to Mount of Olives, coming down to going up. But I want just to outline some of the things that as Christians we believe, we need to believe, and it gives us great encouragement in believing them. And it's actually very difficult out of a full section like this just to decide what the high points are. But let me mention a few of them, and I'm sure you'll be able to find more, and you'll be able to develop these ones, and I think find great encouragement in them. One of the things that I think it's worthy to notice here is that it is clear that the Lord Jesus, when he was in this earth, and in the section that we began to outline this evening, he was a man who suffered. He suffered. It's important to notice that he suffered. So how did the Lord Jesus suffer, I think, is a question worth asking. Why is it important we believe that? Well, there is a part in nineteen to twenty four, and let me just read you a section. It's the Lord Jesus that's being spoken about in chapter number twenty one. It says in verse 37, and in the daytime he was teaching in the temple, and at night he went out and abode in the mount that is called the Mount of Olives, and all the people came early in the morning to hear him in the temple. So there's the Lord Jesus at the end of chapter number twenty one, and what it says is that while it was he spent the day in Jerusalem, he spent the night in the Mount of Olives. Now, we did say that the Mount of Olives is important in this section. It begins it and it ends it. Now here we're being told that the Lord spent the night on the Mount of Olives. And so we need to wonder what the night is. Was it, was it when it got dark until it was bedtime, and then he went somewhere to go to his bed? Did it mean that he went there just for a couple of hours or three hours or four hours or... In actual fact, while there are those and they say, well, the Lord Jesus actually, he spent his days in Jerusalem and his night times he spent in Bethany because there were those who loved him there. Actually, this verse, verse thirty seven, in the original language, it will give the impression that he went out to the Mount of Olives and he camped there, he dwelt there, he spent the night there. And so if we're talking about the Lord Jesus suffering, then this section at the end of the gospel by Luke says there was a physical suffering because it's not easy to spend the night out of doors. There were no mod cons and no conveniences. But the Lord Jesus, he had already said, talking about himself, he said foxes have holes and and and the birds of the air have nests, but the son of man, talking about himself, he's at nowhere to lay his head. And he wasn't ashamed of the fact that during that public ministry of his, there was no fixed abode. There was no home that was his and he could call his own that he went to of an evening. And when we're thinking about physical suffering, we're thinking about that which was uncomfortable for him, then you need to add other parts, and you need to say, I remember the Bible says that he was hungry. I remember the Bible talking about him being tired. I remember the Bible says he was thirsty. I remember all these things that the Bible talks about in the experience of the Lord Jesus, which were physical, and he clearly suffered physically. But that very same chapter, chapter number twenty one, earlier in the chapter, there have been little hints about other kinds of suffering. Suffering when, at the end of chapter number nineteen, you discover that there were those and they were calling for him to be made king. Blessed be the king that cometh in the name of the Lord at the end of chapter nineteen. But he knew perfectly well that they would reject him. That was, if you like, a mental suffering, a mental anguish. When you come into chapter number twenty, the Lord Jesus tells a parable there, and as he tells the parable, he talks about himself. And in the parable, in the language of the parable, he says that the husbandman will say, this is the heir, come, let us kill him. So they cast him out of the vineyard and killed him. He knew perfectly well that he was going to suffer, and he was going to be cast out of that vineyard. He was going to suffer. In chapter number twenty one too, he knew what it was to suffer. A mental anguish, and it's almost as if it's building up and building up till you get to chapter twenty two. And in chapter twenty two, the Lord Jesus finds himself in a garden, a garden called Gethsemane. This is what it says in verse forty four. And being in an agony, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was, as it were, great drops of blood falling down to the ground. And the suffering of the Lord Jesus not only had a physical aspect, but it had, it had an aspect that touched his soul and his spirit. There was a mental anguish and aspect to it as well. An agony of soul that, well, I don't think I fully understand, and I'm sure you don't either. It's almost as if when he was there, he was at an end of himself. The Lord Jesus, when he was here, he was clearly one who suffered. Not in the same kind of way, but on other occasions when the Lord Jesus was speaking, he would talk about the fact that there were those who had once followed him, and having once followed him, they decided that they would then turn and go away and stop following him at all. And one day he said to his disciples who were closest to him, will you also go away? And so the suffering of the Lord Jesus, it was a very real suffering. It was a very deep suffering, physical and mental anguish. But I'm reading a little section, and this is a section which is in the book of the Hebrews. It's in chapter number two. And the chapter number two, it talks about suffering. This is what it says. We see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, with a view to the suffering of death. And I think that I want to remind you this evening that the sufferings of the Lord Jesus, though they were many and they were varied, the sufferings of the Lord Jesus, though they were physical and though they were mental, these sufferings of the Lord Jesus were not able to be compared to the suffering of death on the cross of Calvary and the suffering that he endured on the cross of Calvary when the Jehovah of heaven, when the God of heaven, the righteous holy God of heaven, laid on him the penalty and the burden of sin. So what a man does to him causes him suffering. The anticipation of Calvary caused him suffering. But these were not sufferings which were able to deal with your sin and mine. That happened when he suffered death and suffered on the cross of Calvary before he gave himself into death. The sufferings of the Lord Jesus on Calvary, these are the sin-atoning sufferings. These are the precious sufferings that dealt with your guilt and mine. One of the things that's most surely believed among us is that the Lord Jesus, as he moved through and as he went to Calvary, it was there that the suffering for sin took. That's not to minimize what he suffered on the way through. It was awful. But it was on Calvary that God made to meet on him the iniquity of us all. There's another thing I think is worthwhile mentioning in these chapters, and it's this. And I've said that these are busy chapters, nineteen and twenty and twenty one and twenty two and twenty three, and... and it's all about this man did that, and these men did these things, and these disciples did. But in the middle of all that, the busyness, in the middle of all what men were doing and plotting and planning against him, the Lord Jesus took time to draw aside and find a quiet place. I'm reading a little section from chapter twenty two. It says in verse fourteen, and when the hour was come, he sat down with the, and the twelve apostles with him. That word sat down, it actually should read reclined. That's how they would sit at their Passover meal. They would recline. Here's the Lord Jesus, and there's one who's betrayed him. Here's the Lord Jesus, there are chief priests plotting against him. Here's the Lord Jesus, and they're getting, they're getting a band of men to come and take him. Here's the Lord Jesus, and his enemies are in full flow. His enemies are going to do their worst, and he says, I want to take time, and I want to go to an upper room. I want my own to be with me. And in the middle of that busy spell, in the middle of that eight days where it was one thing after another after another, he wanted to take time with his own. And what he did was, he celebrated with them the Passover for the last time. And what he did also was, he then said, but now I've got something new. And this something new is, and he introduced to them what we would call nowadays the breaking of bread, what we'd call the Lord's Supper. It's a gathering that would happen on a Sunday morning in a place like this, and when Christians who are part of the company here are visitors from other places, and they come and they participate in bread and a cup. And I think it's very difficult to explain that kind of thing to those who have not had the joyful experience of that participation. What I do want to say, however, is that it is utterly, to me, it is utterly amazing and thrilling that the Lord Jesus should think about me in the middle of the busyness of that last eight days. Now you're saying, John, find yourself in chapter number twenty two. but but I'm there, and if you read it carefully, I think you'll come to the conclusion that you could be there as well. You see, what the Lord Jesus was doing was, he was not saying, this is something that only this special group of disciples who are with me can do. He was not saying, this is a once and for all occasion that I will want you special people to have an involvement in. What he was doing was, he was saying, this is something that I want to do with you. This is something that I am introducing, and I'll introduce the bread and tell you what it means, and I'll introduce the cup and tell you what it means. And as I do that, what I'm wanting is that this should be something done in order that I will be remembered. And that remembrance has come on down through the ages of time, these two thousand years. And two thousand years after the Lord Jesus spent that time in chapter twenty two with his own, there are still individuals today, there are still companies of Christians today who will remember the Lord Jesus in that way. Now there are those and they say it's kind of simple, it's really very basic, and so it is, because that's how the Lord Jesus made it. There is bread, there's a cup, and to be honest with you, there's nothing else. Uh, there is nothing you'd say, well, that's fancy. There's nothing you'd say, oh, that's, that's really quite over the top and quite, quite ostentatious. Well, there's nothing like that. It is the simplicity of the gathering, to me, is the appealing bit about it. So in Luke twenty two, the Lord Jesus said, I want in the middle of all this busyness to stop and to spend time with my own and to, to institute this remembrance. And some will say, well, there you are then, that's its institution. And so it was. When you come into the Acts of the Apostles, then you discover that actually the early disciples, they kept on doing this, they kept on remembering. And when you get to chapter number twenty of the Acts of the Apostles, you discover that it was in the first day of the week that they did it. That would be its continuation. So it's institution and it's continuation. And if you're looking for a wee bit of bedtime reading, and if you're looking to read round about these kinds of things, then you'll go to what Paul writes to the Corinthians. You go to First Corinthians chapter eleven and to the second part of the chapter, and it's there he gives an explanation of it. So an institution, it's a continuation, it's an explanation. And the explanation is this, whenever you're doing that, you're showing forth the Lord's death until he comes, and so how blessed of the Lord Jesus to take that time and to say, this is what I will want my own to be doing. This be doing in remembrance of me. So, one of the things I think that's vitally important is that the Lord Jesus, during that time, spent time with his own and said, here's something, it's something I want you to do. But clearly he left that room, the upper room, and he went to the garden, and they took him, and they laid him away, and they took him to Calvary. And one of the things that's most surely believed among us is this, that the Lord Jesus, now listen carefully, the Lord Jesus gave up his life. And I'll repeat that, the Lord Jesus gave up his life. And if you were to say to me, that was an awful thing, the Lord Jesus having his life taken from him, I would say, no, it wasn't awful because it didn't happen. And you'll have to be very careful in what it is that we read. So the Lord Jesus did not have his life taken from him, because that would kind of imply that those who came and took him out of the garden and who led him away and treated him in an awful fashion, that would be to kind of suggest that they were in charge and that his life was in their hands, and they came and they, if like, forcibly removed his life. They took his life from him. Now, that's not accurate. That's not what the Bible will teach. So the Bible will not teach that men took the life of the Lord Jesus. Nor, I think, does the Bible teach that the Lord Jesus became a martyr. You know what a martyr is? It's somebody who lays down their life for a cause. A martyr's somebody who, who believes in something strong enough that they say, I'm prepared to die for that. And I don't even think that's the Lord Jesus in his experience. It's not that he believed in a cause. It is that he quite deliberately, with forethought, and with power in himself laid down his own life. Now, we did say, I think maybe a couple of weeks ago, when we were talking about the sinless perfection of the Lord Jesus, that the Lord Jesus, he had absolutely no sin about him at all. That's important to think about when we come to chapter number twenty three, which is a chapter of his death. It's important to remember that because if you would consider the Lord Jesus was a sinner, then you'll consider that it was quite right that death reached out and put its hands upon him and pulled him in, if you like. But because he was sinless, death could not reach out and grasp him and take him and bring him in under its power and influence. The Lord Jesus, he voluntarily gave his own life. Let me read you one or two things that Luke will record. He says, and when Jesus had cried with a loud voice, he said, Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit, and having said this, he gave up the ghost. And there's a couple of phrases that I think are very worthwhile noticing there. Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit. I commend. That is, it was something that he was doing quite deliberately. What he was doing was he was saying, I have a spirit and I'm commending, I'm giving it to God. It was a voluntary act. It was something that he was in control of. He had the power, he had the authority. It's exactly the same thought you get just a few words down when it says, having said that, he gave up. He gave up the ghost. It is a voluntary act. It is a deliberate act. It is the Lord Jesus on a voluntary basis saying, now I will quite clearly and deliberately enter into death. Now that's how Luke puts it. The other gospel writers, they tell us other things which mean exactly the same thing and demonstrate the same thing. For instance, one of the gospel writers will say that as he was speaking toward the end of his time on Calvary, he cried with a loud voice. That is, it was not a man in his weakness who was going into death. It was a man still in his strength. The gospel records, as they're recording these things again, will talk about the Lord Jesus, and he said, I have, talking about his life, I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again. And the Lord Jesus was perfectly clear that what he had in himself as a divine person was a divine power to lay down his life. And if you want to be accurate about scripture, then that's what he did. He laid it down, he gave it up, it was not taken from him. And I think you need to be very accurate too about the timing of the thing. There's lots of things you could do reading around the death of the Lord Jesus by way of being accurate about when he died. And the gospel by Luke will tell you about attempts that there were to put the Lord Jesus to death prematurely. So, for example, as we were reading earlier, we read in chapter number four, and he went up into the synagogue and he read from Isaiah the prophet. And what it says is this. All they in the synagogue, when they heard these things, were filled with wrath, and rose up and thrust him out of the city, and let him onto the brow of the hill whereon their city was built, that they might cast him down headlong. That is a way, way back in chapter number four. These three and a half years earlier, they took the decision to kill him at that time. What they didn't understand was they were three and a half years early. What they also didn't understand was that's not the way he should die, because the Old Testament had predicted, had prophesied he would die a death of crucifixion. So the death of the Lord Jesus was at the right time and was in the right manner, and it was in the right way in that he laid down his life and nobody took it from him. Now you need to believe that, and you need to accept that as a fundamental fact. It's one of the things most surely believed among us, the voluntary nature of the laying down of the life of the Lord Jesus. But that wasn't an end. And that's why we came to chapter number twenty four. This is controversial to many. You see, there are lots of people who are perfectly happy to accept that the Lord Jesus died, but they're not so very happy to come to chapter number twenty four and accept that he rose again from the dead. I believe it. It happened, and the Bible teaches it. It's only three or four days ago that somebody came to me at the school. She's a sixth year girl, and she was doing higher RMPS. So she came to me and she said, bad day, Mister-in-law. I said, tell me why. She said, I've just had a test. I said, right, okay. And she said, the question was, how important was it that Jesus rose from the dead? And it was worth ten marks, and I couldn't have thinking much to write. And I said, wow, ten marks. She said, aye. I said, wow, only ten marks. It's, it's one of the fundamentals of the faith. It's one of the things that's most surely believed among us. The bodily out resurrection of the Lord Jesus from amongst the dead. Why is it important? One of the reasons it's important because in the Old Testament scriptures, it had been predicted, it was prophesied. So, if it didn't happen, then the Old Testament, you'd as well no believing it. One of the reasons it's important is that the Lord Jesus Christ himself said that he would be put to death, but that he would rise again the third day. And if we're going to have any faith in the things that he was saying, then we would need to accept the resurrection. This is what he said in Luke chapter eighteen, for instance. He shall be delivered to the Gentiles, shall be mocked and spitefully entreated and spitted on, and they shall scourge him and put him to death, and the third day he shall rise again. And so he said very clearly, just before these events took place, they're going to kill me, but I'll rise again the third day. And so that third day after he had been put to death, after he had voluntarily given up his life, that third day becomes absolutely crucial in what it is that we feel, what we believe about the Lord Jesus. Is he God? Is he one that the miracles pointed out that he was? Is he able to deal with sin? Is he able to, to give us teaching for life down here below? Is he these things and so much more? And to me, it all hinges on, can you believe a word he says? And he said, I'll rise again the third day. Now, near the beginning of his public ministry, when he spoke to his disciples, he told them in the Gospel by John about the temple, and he said, pull it down, I'll raise it in three days, and and they thought he was talking about the temple in Jerusalem. But there's no such ambiguity in chapter eighteen of Luke. He said, I'll die, and then I'll rise again the third day. Can you believe a word he says? That's why it's important. And so the Lord Jesus, whether you can believe the Old Testament or not, whether you can believe him or not, whether you can get a grasp of the fact that he had a sinless perfection or not, because if he's not sinlessly perfect, death can't hold him, can't keep him in its grip. But the bodily resurrection of the Lord Jesus, that's what the Bible teaches, and for ten marks or no, that's what it teaches. Paul, he brings these kinds of things together when he writes to the Corinthians in chapter fifteen. This is what he writes. Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, and he was buried, and he was raised again the third day according to the scriptures. And what Paul has done is he's put a little heading over that, and he said, this is the message of the gospel. So as we've gathered here this evening, I have to tell you, if Christ is still dead, if he did not bodily rise from amongst the dead, then you're not going to heaven, and neither am I. Because your salvation and mine rests on, did the God of heaven accept the death of Christ as being enough to deal with sin, and did he demonstrate that by raising him from amongst the dead? And Luke twenty four says, yes, he did. And so as I talked to that girl just these few days ago and said, did you ever think about the empty tomb and why it was when they arrived there, the door or or the the stone was rolled away? And she said, oh, aye, aye, they needed in. I said, you've got it. It's not that he needed out, because he was the son of God with power. It was that they needed in as a proof, as a verification, as a test to go in and to say, he is not here, he is risen, as the angel said that very day. We're of all men most miserable, is how Paul puts it in First Corinthians fifteen. If we do not believe there's a resurrection, and if Christ did not rise from the dead, you're miserable. So am I, because we have no hope. But one of the things most surely believed among us is the bodily resurrection of Christ from amongst the dead. And there's maybe just time for one more. And that's coming to the end of Luke's Gospel, chapter 24. And there's the Lord Jesus, and his work on earth has been complete. It's been accomplished. There's been the incarnation of chapter one, and the birth of chapter two, uh and then up to the age of thirty in chapter three, and the public ministry through to chapter nineteen, uh and then that busy eight days, but now, but now there's forty days where the Lord Jesus spent it with his own. Now, it's quite an important point to remember in the scriptures that when the Lord Jesus was taken down from the cross and put in the tomb, it was only his own who saw him after that. It was only his own who touched him, who had communication with him, who communion with him, and he spent that time teaching his own, giving them instruction. Until at length, at the end of the forty-day period, here he is. And he's come with them out as far as to Bethany. And there he was parted from them and carried up into heaven. And so we do ask the question, is it important? Is it one of the things most surely believed among us that he's now in heaven. Listen to what he said. I go to prepare a place for you, and if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again. Well, here he is now at the end of Luke's gospel, and he's going. He's going back up into heaven. And he's going there to prepare a place. Now, he's not going there to do any building work, to do any kind of construction, and he's not going there to do any kind of decoration to get the place finished off. What the thought would be, would be that the Lord Jesus, as he has gone into heaven, he has completed heaven, if you like. The fact that he has gone means that it's now ready. It's prepared because he's there, and he says, I've gone to prepare a place for you. Listen again to what the Bible will teach. It would be when Paul writes to the Thessalonians, and as he writes to them, he's writing about folks, and they were wondering about resurrection. They were wondering about death and resurrection, and wondering about Christians who had already died and, and what it would be like for them. Now this, listen to what it is that he will write. This we say unto you, by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout. And the end of the gospel by Luke tells you how he got up into heaven. It was at the end of that forty-day period which he'd spent with his own, and now up to the Mount of Olives, out to Bethany, to the Mount of Olives, and up into heaven. And so the Lord Jesus, when he went into heaven, he made heaven ready and complete. When the Lord Jesus went up into heaven, he made it then possible for him to come back from heaven. For those who belong to him, for those who have put faith and trust in him, whether dead or alive, to be caught up with him in the air. So the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout. But before he went to heaven, and when he was speaking to his disciples and giving them lots of instruction, before he went to heaven, actually he gave them some tasks to perform, and it's that that I want to finish with. You see, the coming into the world of the Lord Jesus and the going out again, the, the thirty three and a bit years that he was here, they ended with him saying, when I go, this is what I want. Now, the instruction was given in a fuller sense in the gospel by Matthew, although Luke at the end of chapter number 24 gives us a l- a little bit about it. Luke will say here in verse forty seven, repentance or remission of sins should be preached in his name. That is, I will want that there should be preaching. Well, that's one of the things that happens in this place, the preaching of the gospel, the preaching of the glad news of the forgiveness of sins through the work of the Lord Jesus when he was here, and in particular, the work of Calvary of chapter twenty three. He said, when I'm going to heaven, it's now your responsibility to preach. There's a fuller account in Matthew, and in Matthew twenty eight, he goes on there to say, and I want you also to be baptizing individuals. So those that have the gospel preached to them and they believe and they res- respond, they repent. I would want you to be ba- ba- baptizing them. And then he said, I want you to teach them. Teach them what? Well, let me suggest that the beginning of Luke's gospel is what? Those things that are most surely believed among us. Teach them the things about himself. Teach them the things that he would have taught when he was here, and then he gave to his apostles to teach in the epistles. But amongst the preciousness of the things is things which are so very fundamentally important about Christ. So this is a busy last section, olives to olives, but ending the book with coming down to going up. And in that nineteen, halfway through, through to the end of the book, these are just some of the highlights, some of the things most surely believed among us. He suffered when he was here, but the suffering of the cross is what is able to deal with sin. He, when he was here and in this busyness of the time, took time to be alone, alone with his own, and to give instruction about the breaking of bread. The Lord Jesus is the one who voluntarily entered into death. He's the one who, in a bodily form, in bodily fashion, and a new body, a body of glory, was raised again from amongst the dead, and who has now gone back up into heaven. And the one who has come is the one who's coming again. And might it be that until it is that he comes again, we'll find ourselves enthralled, we'll find ourselves captivated with the things that the Word of God will teach about him. These are things that are most surely believed among us. Let's pray together. We are grateful this evening, our God, for all of these things and more which are revealed in thy Word. We thank thee for as many as are here this evening who believe these things. These are things which are very important to us, and we understand them to be important to thee. Perhaps it is there are those who are here this evening, they've heard some of these things for the first time. Might it be these things will become very real and very precious to them, as Christ himself would become real and precious. Precious as a savior, precious as a Lord. And so we're grateful for this occasion which has drawn us together again, and we're grateful too for nourishment which has been provided for us tonight. We thank thee for those who provide it, and we thank thee for a time of fellowship together. We do ask it in the Savior's name. Amen.