WIDOW OF NAIN’S SON RAISED
Luke 7:11-17
[Some of the material contained in this message is borrowed from Charles Spurgeon’s sermon on this passage]
INTRODUCTION
A. HUMOR
1. Jackie Cahill took her four-year-old great-grandson to Leavenworth National Cemetery where her husband is buried. While there, they heard the sound of a bugle. "What's that?" asked Jeremy. "‘Taps.’ They play it at a soldier's burial," she explained. A minute later came the honorary rifle salute. With eyes bugging out, Jeremiah asked, "Did they just shoot him?!"
2. JOKE #2
a. An Angel appeared at a university faculty meeting and told the Dean, "In return for your unselfish and exemplary behavior, the Lord will reward you with your choice of infinite wealth, wisdom, or beauty."
b. "Give me infinite wisdom!" declared the Dean, without hesitation. "Done!" Says the angel before disappearing into cloud of smoke.
c. All heads now turn to the Dean, who sits surrounded by a faint halo of light. "Well," says a colleague, "say something brilliant." The Dean stands and, with the poise of Socrates, opines, "I should've taken the money." (Henry Mixon)
B. TEXT
“11 Soon afterward, Jesus went to a town called Nain, and his disciples and a large crowd went along with him. 12 As he approached the town gate, a dead person was being carried out—the only son of his mother, and she was a widow. And a large crowd from the town was with her. 13 When the Lord saw her, his heart went out to her and he said, “Don’t cry.”
14 Then he went up and touched the coffin, and those carrying it stood still. He said, “Young man, I say to you, get up!” 15 The dead man sat up and began to talk, and Jesus gave him back to his mother. 16 They were all filled with awe and praised God. “A great prophet has appeared among us,” they said. “God has come to help his people.” 17 This news about Jesus spread throughout Judea and the surrounding country” Luke 7:11-17.
C. THESIS
1. We’re going to look at the event of Christ raising the Widow of Nain’s Son, and see the implications it has for us today.
2. title: “Widow of Nain’s Son Raised.”
I. PRE-MIRACLE HAPPENINGS
A. MIRACLES DAILY, WITHOUT DELAY
1. Behold, the ever-flowing power of our Lord Jesus Christ! He had worked a great healing on the centurion’s servant, and now, only a day after, he raises the dead.
2. Did He save you yesterday? His readiness to intervene is the same today. If you seek Him, His love and grace will flow to you today. Never is our Lord compelled to pause until He has recharged His resources. Virtue goes out of Him forever.
B. ANY TIME, ANY PLACE
1. Notice, also, the naturalness of the outflowings of His life-giving power. Jesus was travelling and He works miracles while on the road—“He went into a city called Nain.”
2. He doesn’t seem to have come to Nain [NOT] at anyone’s request to heal. But He was passing through the city for some reason which is not recorded.
C. ALWAYS READY
1. See how the Lord Jesus is always ready to heal! He healed the woman who touched him in the crowd while He was on the road to quite another person’s house.
2. He gives life to the dead when He is en route. No time, no place can find Jesus unwilling or unable.
3. On Mt. Carmel, the Baalites found their deity was on a journey, or sleeping; they discovered they couldn’t count on his help. But whether Jesus journeys or sleeps -- a prayer will find Him ready to conquer death, or still the tempest.
II. THE MEETING AT THE GATE
A. THE REMARKABLE TIMING OF THE MEETING
1. Isn’t it odd the young man died and was being buried just then? How strange that they came at the exact hour of his burial! Jesus & co. had just travelled 25 miles and arrived at Nain in the evening. Evening funerals are very rare; I can’t remember one.
2. How amazing that of the four gates that entered the city that Jesus would be entering the very one from which the funeral procession issued!
3. Almost all ancient cities were built on hills. He made His way up the hill to the little city and reached the gate at the same moment when the funeral procession was coming out.
4. He met the dead man between the funeral and the cemetery. A little later and the man would have been buried. A little earlier in the day and he would have been at home lying in the darkened room and no one might have called the Lord’s attention to him.
B. THE MEETING OF DEATH & LIFE
DEATH REIGNING
1. It was a remarkable incident, this meeting of the two processions at the gates of Nain. One procession descended from the city; Death upon its pale horse dominated the procession. He’d taken another captive.
2. In the coffin lay the spoils of the dread conqueror! Mourners, by their tears, confessed the victory of death. Like a general riding in triumph, Death bore his spoils to the tomb. What could hinder him?
3. Suddenly this procession was halted by another going upward—a company of disciples and large crowd were coming up the hill. All attention fixed itself upon the One who walked at the center.
4. It’s the Alpha & Omega, the Consolation of Israel, Immanuel, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Morning Star, the Seed of the Woman, the Sun of Righteousness – shining in His full zenith! He who only has immortality and lives in the light unapproachable! Suddenly death wavers; in Christ death has now met his match, no, far more – his destroyer!
5. The battle is short and decisive—no blows are struck—death is arrested! With a word the spoil is taken and Death flees, defeated, from the gates of Nain.
6. This was a rehearsal upon a small scale of that day when those who are in their graves shall hear the voice of the Son of God and live!
III. WHY DID JESUS WORK THIS MIRACLE?
A. THE WIDOW OF NAIN
1. Normally people asked Jesus to work miracles. Only with the man at the Pool of Siloam (John 9) do we see a man healed who
didn’t ask for it. But we do so here also. So what precipitated this great miracle?
2. It must’ve been because of the unspoken prayer of this mother. Out of that procession He singled out the chief mourner. He was always tender to mothers. He fixed His eye on that widow and read her inmost heart. The dead man is her only son—He perceives all the details and nothing is hid from His infinite mind.
3. Jesus knows all about you. Jesus, who is invisibly present this evening, fixes His eyes on you at this moment. He has seen the tears of those you have prayed. Jesus saw it all and, what was more, entered into it all. Jesus knows all about our troubles of soul. Our travail is His travail.
B. BECAUSE HE IS TOUCHED BY OUR TROUBLES
1. “NAIN” derived from Hebrew (4999) “Naw aw,” a ‘home,’ a ‘pasture:’ :--- habitation, house, pasture, pleasant place (Jeremiah 23:10).” So this town was beautifully situated and its plant life lush and rich.
2. This woman had begun her life in a "pleasant place." She had one offspring, a son. Her husband died. But she wasn’t alone, she still had her son. But her only Son died. She had no one else to take care of her in her old age. Now she’d lost the object of her love, her only provider and her only protector.
3. Jesus knew all this and His heart went out to her and He said, “Don’t cry!” Jesus says to all you agonizing souls, “Don’t despair like those who are without hope! Have faith in Me!”
4. Hebrews 4:15 says, “For we don’t have an high priest Who can’t be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.”
5. POINT ONE: JESUS IS MOVED BY WHAT TROUBLES US.
C. BECAUSE THIS WAS HER ONLY SON
1. John 3:16.
2. God gave His only Son. This was her only son. He understood her heart since the Father would lose His only Son.
D. BECAUSE JESUS THOUGHT OF HIS OWN MOTHER
1. Jesus gave her son back to this mother, just as in three years, the Father would give Him back from the dead to His mother!
2. Jesus did for her what He wished done for His mother.
IV. THE DEAD RAISED
A. THE MIRACLE
1. Our Lord then went to the coffin and just laid His finger upon it and they that carried it stood still. When they stood quite still, there was a hush. The disciples stood around the Lord, the mourners surrounded the widow and the two crowds faced each other.
2. There was a little space and Jesus and the dead man were in the center. The widow pushed away her veil and gazing through her tears wondered what was going on. The Jews who came out of the city halted as the bearers had done. Hush! Hush! What will HE do?
3. In that deep silence the Lord heard the unspoken prayers of that widow woman. I doubt not that her soul began to whisper, half in hope and half in fear—“Oh, that He would raise my son!”
4. What lay before Him? It was a corpse. The spectators were sure that he was dead, for they were carrying him out to bury him. No deception was possible, for his own mother believed him dead. If there had been a spark of life in him she would not have given him up to the jaws of the grave. There was then no hope—no hope from the dead man, no hope from anyone in the crowd either of bearers or of disciples. They were all powerless alike.
5. Jesus spoke to the dead young man, spoke to him personally—“Young man, I say to you, Arise.” Neither Elijah nor Elisha could’ve spoken with that authority. But He who spoke was very God of very God, the same God who said, “Let there be light” and there was light. If any of us are able by faith to say, “Young man, Arise,” we can only say it in His name.
6. Immediately, the young man, to the astonishment of them all, sat up. He had been called back from the dominions of death.
B. THE OUTCOME OF THE MIRACLE
1. Jesus helped him down from the coffin and delivered him to the mother as one presents a choice gift. Imagine His happy joy as He looking at the awestruck & happy mother and said to her, “Receive your son.” The thrill of her heart was such as she would never forget.
2. Doubtless the young man lived a better life. What would it feel like to wake up in a coffin? What had he seen while he was departed? We will never know, but we can be sure the change was permanent.
3. Verse 16 says, "Their came a fear on all." Two great crowds saw this. It frightened them to see a dead man sit up in his coffin, in
broad daylight, and began to talk, at the command of a man.
4. "A great Prophet is risen among us." A Man/Prophet who can breathe life into the dead, can breathe life into a nation.
CONCLUSION
A. ILLUSTRATION
1. It was Easter Day, 1973. Pastor Kefa Sempangi bravely and openly preached on the risen Lord in his Ugandan town's football stadium to over 7,000 people.
2. After the service, five of Idi Amin's Secret Police followed Sempangi back to his little church and closed the door behind them. Five rifles pointed at Sempangi's face. "We are going to kill you for disobeying Amin's orders" said the captain. "If you have something to say, say it before you die."
3. Sempangi, thinking of his beautiful wife and lovely little girl, began to shake. But the risen Lord living in his heart gave him the courage to speak. "Do what you must," he said.
4. Sempangi said, "The Word of God says that in Christ I am already dead, and that my real life is hidden with Him in God. It is not my life that is in danger, but yours. I am alive in the risen Lord but you are still dead in your sins. May He spare you from eternal destruction."
5. The leader looked at Sempangi for a long time. Then he lowered his gun and said, "Will you pray for us?" Sempangi did, and from that day those five officers, now converted through the witness of Sempangi's bravery, protected the pastor with their very lives. By Peter Kennedy, Copyright 2003, Devotional E-Mail DEVOTION FOR EASTER.
B. THE CALL
1. And Jesus has come here, too. He has come here on purpose to meet you and quicken you to newness of life.
2. Do you have burdens and fears? He understands!
3. Do you have what seems is an unchangeable situation? Go to Him!
