#76 Lu. 9:43-45 A SECOND WARNING OF HIS DEATH

Introduction:

    Just a short while prior to this Jesus had told His disciples that He
must suffer many things at the hands of the Jewish leaders and that they
would kill Him.  He informed them that, never-the-less after three days He
would be raised from the dead back to life again.  About eight days after He
first informed them about His soon coming death He carried three of His
disciples up into a mountain and showed them a preview of His glory.  On the
day following the transfiguration, He and the three disciples went back down
the mountain to rejoin the rest of the disciples and Jesus cast a demon out
of young boy.
    In our text today, Luke speaks first about the reaction of the crowd to
the miracle and then about Jesus telling His disciples once again that He
would be killed at the hands of the Jewish leaders.

I. The people amazed at the power of the Lord

    V. 43, "And they were all amazed at the mighty power of God..."  This
speaks, of course, of the great crowd of people who had gathered.  They had
witnessed as the nine apostles attempted to cast the demon out of the boy
and failed.  They had witnessed also as Jesus so easily cast the demon out
of the boy.  To them there was no question about whether or not the demon
had been cast out and the boy healed.  They had witnessed as the boy was
torn by a seizure right in the presence of Jesus.  They had heard the Lord
rebuke the demon commanding him to come out.  They had
seen the seizure stop immediately and had seen the boy get up, made
perfectly whole.
    Luke says that this great crowd of people were all amazed at the mighty
power of God.  That is, they recognized that the miracle had been performed
by the mighty power of God.  The mighty power of God was working in and
through Jesus.  It is not likely that many in that crowd actually at that
time considered Him to be Deity God.  The people in the crowd were not
saying, "Look!  This fellow must be the Son of God."  But they were saying
that the mighty power of God was working through Him.  And they were saying
it very enthusiastically.  They were all excited about it.  They were
amazed.  They were astounded.  There was no way in the world that anybody
could have convinced them that the boy just got well of natural causes.
There was no way in this world that anybody could have convinced them that
the power of God was not involved in this great miracle.  There was no way
in this world that anyone could have convinced them that Jesus had nothing
to do with the boy's healing.  The boy was healed by the power of God
working through Jesus.  They were convinced of this.
    Can you imagine some of the things that the crowd was saying?  "Wow!
Did you see that?  I can hardly believe my eyes.  If I hadn't seen it with
my own eyes I would not believe it.  A prophet of God is at work among us.
A great prophet of God is here.  The power of God is certainly at work among
us."
    Then I can imagine that at least a few of them--probably a very few--
would say, "The power of God in not only at work among us.  This man has
just got to be the Messiah that God has promised.  He has just got to be the
Emmanuel that God has promised.  He is God among us.  He is the Son of God."
    If the scribes and Pharisees had anything to say against Jesus at this
point, the Bible does not say anything about it.  The way that I picture it
is that the scribes and Pharisees were just as critical in their own
personal attitude toward Jesus as ever, but they dared not say a word
against Him in the presence of such a great crowd of people who were
praising Him so highly.

II. The Lord reminding the disciples about His approaching death

    (V. 43), "...But while they wondered every one at all things which Jesus
did, he said unto his disciples..."  Right in the midst of all that praise
that the great crowd of people was heaping on Jesus, Jesus spoke to His
disciples and called their attention to all that the people were saying.  V.
44, "Let these sayings sink down into your ears..."  He said, "Do hear all
these things that the people in this crowd are saying about me?  Do you hear
all this flattery?  I want you to know that the most of this is not for
real.  I want you to know that most of these people are just caught up in
the excitement of the miracle.  I want you to know that the some of these
very same people will go down to Jerusalem and will take their stand with
the scribes and Pharisees against me.  Some of these very people who now
shout my praises will later shout even louder against me.  They will cry out
saying, "Crucify Him! Crucify Him!"
    In essence, what Jesus was saying was, "Don't be taken in by all this
praise for me and think that I am going to Jerusalem to be crowned as king
to rule the nation of Israel.  I want to remind you that I have already told
you that I am going to Jerusalem to be killed.
    (V. 44), "...for the Son of man shall be delivered into the hands of
men."  Here Jesus not only reminds them that He will be put to death in
Jerusalem, but He informs them that He will be betrayed.  Luke uses the
word, delivered.  He said that He would be delivered into the hands of those
who seek His death.  Matthew uses the word "betrayed."  Matthew says that
Jesus told His disciples that He would be betrayed into the hands of His
enemies.
    A betrayal is by one who pretends to be a friend.  We know that Jesus
would be betrayed by one of His very own disciples.  He does not at this
point tell His disciples that one of them would betray Him, but He does tell
them that He will be betrayed.

III.  The disciples failure to understand

    V. 45, "But they understood not this saying..." The disciples did not
understand what Jesus was talking about.  They had not understood the first
time when He told them that He would be put to death.  This was just not in
their thinking.  What they had always understood all their lives about the
Messiah was that the Messiah would come and set up His throne in Jerusalem.
He would raise an army and drive out the Romans.  This is what all of
the children of Israel had been taught from their very earliest childhood.
It is true that Jesus had already told them on an earlier occasion that He
would not drive out the Romans.  Instead, He would be put to death by the
leaders of the Jewish people.
    Now the disciples did not fail to understand because they were dumb or
stupid.  They were not dumb.  They were not stupid.  These men were plenty
smart.  They were perfectly capable of hearing and understanding what they
heard.  The reason they failed to understand was because they were already
prejudiced against what He had to say.  They were already sold on the idea
that the Messiah was going to take over the throne in Jerusalem and drive
the Romans out of their country and they were simply not willing to believe
anything else.  They most certainly did not want to believe that their
beloved Lord Jesus was going to be killed.  They loved Jesus.  They had
given up all to follow Him.  They had devoted their lives to Him.  They
could not bear the thought of Him being killed.
    The disciples did not understand the reason for His death.  They did not
understand that the blood of bulls and goats and other sacrificial animals
could not take away sin.  They did not understand
that without the shedding of blood there would be no salvation for anybody
They did not understand that the blood of Jesus was the only blood in the
whole world that could take away sin.
    The disciples did not even understand that Jesus would arise from the
grave.  He had told them that after three days He would arise from the
grave..  He had told them as plain as words could make it.  There was no way
they could fail to know that He had said.  The problem was that they did not
want to believe what He said about His death and so they missed what He had
said about His resurrection.
    (V. 45),  "...and it was hid from them, that they perceived it not..."
It was not the Lord who hid it from them.  It was the Lord who had already
revealed it to them and who had now told them for the second time.  It was
not the Devil who hid it from them.  The Devil may have wanted to hide it
from them, but the Lord had revealed it to them anyway.
    It was their own prejudice which had hidden the truth from them.  Let me
tell you that prejudice still hides a lot of Bible truth from men even
today.  Some men just cannot understand that a lost sinner can be saved just
by repenting of his sin and trusting in Jesus Christ.  They still think that
the lost sinner must do some kind of good works in order to be saved.  They
do not understand that salvation is by the grace of God through faith in
Jesus Christ the Son of God.  It is hidden from them by their prejudice so
that they cannot understand.  They cannot see because they do not want to
see it.  They do not want to believe it.
    I hear a lot of people say, "I just can't see this business of once-
saved-always-saved."  And they are right.  They cannot see it because their
prejudice has hidden the truth from them.  They cannot see it because they
do not want to see it.
    Listen, whatever truth God has revealed is not hidden from men by the
Lord.  God has not hidden it.  God has revealed it.  He has brought it right
out in the open and put it in the Book.  But if we already rejected the
truth it is a hard matter for us to lay aside what we already believe in
order to believe the truth of God.  If we really prefer to believe something
contrary to revealed truth, then it is a hard matter for us to lay aside
what we really prefer to believe in order to accept what the Bible has to
say.  If a revealed truth is still hidden from us it is not because God has
hidden it.  It is just that our own prejudice has hidden it from us.
    (V. 45), "...and they feared to ask him of that saying."  The prejudice
of the disciples had hidden the truth about the death and resurrection of
Jesus from them, but it was their failure to ask Him for an explanation that
helped to keep it hid from them.  There were twelve of the apostles and any
one of them could have gone to Jesus and asked for an explanation.  If no
single one of them wanted to go alone they could have gone as a group.  They
had asked on numerous occasions regarding other matters.  They could ask
again.  In every instance when they had inquired the Lord and been very
patient to explain.  But in this very important matter they simply did not
come to Jesus for an explanation.

IV.  Our own failure to understand

    Brethren, is it not so with us?  We have a question about some Biblical
matter and we fail to search for the truth in the matter.  We fail to come
to the Lord in prayer and ask Him and let Him guide us in the matter. We had
rather go on in ignorance holding to our own prejudice than to find out from
the Lord what the truth really is.  I certainly would not say that this is
so in every situation, but I do say that it is true all too often.  We ought
in every instance to be anxious to come to the Lord and learn the truth.  We
ought to be willing to search out the Word of God and then be willing to let
the Word of God give us the truth.  We ought to believe the word of God.  To
put it another way:  We ought to believe God.  That is the way that God
reveals His truth to us is through the word of God.  God is not going to
speak to us out loud and show us the truth.  God will show us the truth
through the word that He has already spoken.  He will show us the truth
through the Book that He has inspired.
    This is now the second time that Jesus has told these disciples this
same thing and they, for the second time, have refused to believe it.  I am
pretty sure that the Lord through His word and through the working of the
Holy Spirit has tried more times than that to get us to accept some Bible
truth.  Brethren, when God has such a hard time getting something across to
us, is it any wonder that He has such a hard time getting the unsaved to
accept the simple gospel of Jesus Christ?  We cannot really blame the
unsaved for being so stubborn and so hardheaded about the gospel when we are
so hardheaded ourselves in some Biblical matters.
    But there is one big difference.  The eternal destiny of the unsaved
person depends on his believing the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ.  A
man can go on in unbelief if that is what he is determined to do, but if he
does it will cost him dearly.  It will keep him out of heaven and will doom
his soul to the everlasting fires of hell.

Conclusion:

    Let me tell you what I am going to ask you to do.  First of all, I am
going to ask every saved person to earnestly seek to lay aside his own
prejudices and to search the Scriptures for the truth of God.  Do not search
the Scriptures in order to prop up your own prejudice, but search the
Scriptures to find out what the truth of God really is.  Then seek to
rightly divide the Scriptures.  Don't try tell God what you believe, but let
God through the Scriptures tell you what you ought to believe.
    Then I am going to ask every unsaved person here this morning to believe
the gospel of Jesus Christ.  I am going to ask you to believe---to really
believe that Jesus is the Christ, the very Son of God the Father in heaven.
I am going to ask you to believe that Jesus died on the cross in order to
save lost sinners and that He arose from the grave.  That is what Jesus was
trying to get those disciples to believe and that is what I am going to ask
you to believe.
    Then I am going to ask you to go one step further.  I am going to ask
you to put your destiny in the hands of Jesus and to trust Him to keep you
out of hell and to take you to heaven.
    Before we have our invitation hymn I want you to bow your head with me
and let us pray together.  I am asking you to pray, too.  I will lead the
prayer out loud, but I am going to ask you to pray to the Lord and to ask
Him to save you.