So today we're in chapter 7 and we're going to
begin in verse 11. And we're going to read down
through verse 17. And it came to pass, in Luke
chapter 7 verse 11, came to pass the day after, after that he
had taking care of this servant in the Capernaum area there. He went into a city called Nain
and many of his disciples went with him and much people. Now
when he came nigh to the gate of the city, behold, there was
a dead man carried out. the only son of his mother. And
she was a widow, and much people of the city was with her. And
when the Lord saw her, he had compassion on her, and said unto
her, Weep not. And he came and touched the buyer,
and they that bear him stood still. And he said, Young man,
I say unto thee, Arise. And he that was dead sat up and
began to speak, and he delivered him unto his mother. And there
came a fear on all, and they glorified God, saying that a
great prophet is risen among us and that God has visited his
people. And this rumor of him went forth
throughout all Judea and throughout all the region round about."
So I have a couple of, I had a map here that I printed up. that I'll pass around. Nain is
just a little bit southwest of the Sea of Galilee. And remember, he just came from Capernaum,
which was on the north shore of the Sea of Galilee. And he
performed quite a lot of miracles around that Galilee area. Now he's at this city of Nain,
which means a pleasant place, a pasture, a pleasant home. It's only about 60 miles north
of Jerusalem, if you look on the map there. Such a tiny area,
but you know the Lord isn't concerned with the magnitude of places. Oh Bethlehem, though thou be
littlest among the towns. Out of you is going to come one
who will be great. So we find a lot of things going
on in this small area. So I thought it would be just
interesting for you to say, well he was up in this Galilee area,
now he's moved south 10 or 12 miles to this city of, this town
of Nain. And as the Lord enters the gates
of the city, according to his purpose from all eternity, I
love that hymn we sang. Wasn't that an interesting hymn?
It sums up just about everything in this lesson, if you read the
words to it. Anyway, You know, as we go through scripture,
we find the Lord didn't go anywhere by accident. Every step was directed
according to the purpose of Him with whom we have to do. And
He had an appointment here to keep. Now, we were talking this
morning. What a coincidence that He would
show up at the gates of the city just as they were passing this
funeral procession here and intersecting with it. So we'll kind of look
at that a little bit. And there's several things that
we want to examine and hold from these verses. There's just a
lot of information packed into these few verses here. And so
we see this divine appointment with this dead young man and
his mother. And we look at that, he's dead. And we look at the
cause of death. Why do people die? And what is
the root cause of that? And then we noticed that he had
compassion. It's just as it said in that
song, he pitieth his people. We'll examine this from his eternal
viewpoint, from that I am viewpoint that we've been discussing for
the last several lessons, how the Lord viewed this present
circumstance. Then we look at the symbolism
of him touching the bier, this litter upon which the dead person
is carried to the burying place. Then we noticed the command to
arise. He said unto the young man, arise. And it was not a provision for
that young man to have life. It was a command to arise. And
when he said that, he who created everything by his word, that
command was effectual. And that young man arose and
sat up and started talking. So there's a lot to, and he delivered
him to his mother at the end. And there's a lot to unpack in
just this few verses. So again, we want to note that
it was by divine appointment that the Lord made his way to
the city of Nain at this precise time, at the time of this funeral
proceedings of this young man who's not named. And when he
came nigh to the gate of the city, behold, there was a dead
man carried out, the only son of his mother. And she was a
widow and much people of the city was with her. You know that
young man was probably her life. Her husband was dead, he who supported her, and now
she had her turn to her son and now he's dead. It's kind of like
in the book of Ruth, we find those circumstances. And we find
similar circumstances in the gospel regarding every step of
Christ directed to his purpose in redeeming the church. You
know, we find as we go through the gospels, I must needs go
through Samaria. And after these things, he went
forth and saw a publican named Levi sitting at the receipt of
custom and said, follow me. He went directly there. He didn't
just happen to bump into him. And then in Luke chapter 19,
he looked up and saw Zacchaeus in that tree and said, make haste
and come down for today. I must abide at thy house. It was written. It was before
ordained that he would do that, that he would meet with him at
that time. So it's a great truth that we can depend on that there's
no coincidences with the Lord. The time and the place and the
circumstances of all we see have been laid down before the foundation
of the world by the great I am. Everything is working for good
according to his purposes. We look at Another example, as
we examine this fact of him just kind of intersecting with this
person is dead. This man, this young man, he
died according to the purpose of God who worketh all things
after the counsel of his own will for the purpose that they
would, the Lord and him would intersect at this point so that
he could demonstrate his power so that he could give us a scriptural
truth about that he has power. All power is given him to give
eternal life to as many as the father had given him. So we find
this same principle given to us in John chapter 9 verse 1,
when Jesus passed by he saw a young man or a man that was blind from
his birth. This person had been blind from
the day he was born and he probably suffered a lot from that because
he couldn't do things that ordinarily people can do. He couldn't see
things and it was a great handicap to him. And his disciples asked
him, saying, Master, who sinned, this man or his parents, that
he was born blind? And that's just the rationale that natural
man always applies to things. Well, something bad happened
to him. He must do something to deserve
that. But you know, the Lord said,
neither this man sinned nor his parents. That's not the reason. but that the works of God should
be manifest in him. That was the purpose of it. I
must work the works of him that sent me while it's day and the
night cometh when no man can work. And you know, this man
that was born blind, they picked on him kind of unmercifully after
that. And how did this happen, you
know? And they tried to accost his
parents, because they tried to get them to say something that
would give them grounds for excommunication. And they said, we don't know.
He's of age. Ask him. And the young man said,
you know, I don't know anything, but I know this. I was blind. Now I see. If we applied that same thing,
it doesn't say what this young man said when he sat up, but
we could imagine that he said, I was dead. Now I'm alive. I don't know how that happened. We apply that principle here
and we can reason that out that that's probably, he said something.
I don't know what I'd say if I was dead and I just suddenly
woke That would be something, wouldn't it? So we find the circumstances
of Jesus intersecting at this precise foreordained time with
a dead young man, that the works of God should be made manifest
in him, just as we found in John 9, verse 3. And what a picture. This young man, dead, and we
know that all death originates in sin. The cause of death originates
in sin. We can trace that right back
to Genesis. chapter 3 and the fall and all
death entered in right there. No matter what the particular
cause, I mean a lot of people are dying from this COVID thing
right now, but the real cause of it is sin from the fall. Its roots can be traced back
to the fall and our sin nature. In Romans Chapter 623 says, the
wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through
Jesus Christ our Lord. The two things that we have.
In 1 Corinthians chapter 15 verse 22 says, for in Adam all die. We all have to suffer that because
of what happened in Him. He said, and even so in Christ
all shall be made alive. The Lord purposed from all eternity
to intervene in the consequences of sin affecting his sheep. In
this instance, even though he raised this young man to life,
it was a temporary physical life. By nature, he would die again
physically, but it pictured what he would do for his sheep eternally. In John chapter 17, he says,
as thou has given me all power. in heaven and earth to give eternal
life to as many as thou has given me." All those things. I just
love that hymn again that we sang this morning. All due to
eternal electing love. And so as we read through here,
it came to pass that as he went into a city called Nain and many
of his disciples went with him and much people now when he came
nigh to this Gate of the city, behold, there was a dead man
carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow.
And much people of the city was with her, a lot of witnesses.
And when the Lord saw her, he had compassion on her, and said
unto her, weep not." And so we want to kind of focus on that
for just a minute. He had compassion. You know, it's more than a compassion
that, oh, we see some tragedy happen and we feel sorry and
we feel pity for what might have happened. But as we've been trying
to go through these scriptures and point out the eternal viewpoint
of these things from, as we've been calling it, the great I
am viewpoint, how the Lord sees things not as man sees them,
but as he sees them. And he came upon this funeral
and sees things from an eternal aspect, from the I am aspect. I noted here one of our favorite
hymns that we often sing is Great is Thy Faithfulness. A fellow
that was born in Kentucky in a log cabin named Thomas Chisholm
wrote that hymn. He was born in 1866 right at
the close of the Civil War and died in 1960. He wrote that hymn
and he said, Thy compassions fail not. And he had this view
of the eternality of God, and he viewed that compassion is
not something that God just happened to be acquainted with from time
to time, but it was an eternal, it was a part of his attributes,
it was a part of his nature, compassion for his church, compassion
for his, that's why he had the lamb slain from before the foundation
of the world. before the children were even
born, having done either good or evil, or any works that the
purpose of God according to election might stand. He had compassion. So we try to examine this from
that point of view. In Acts 15, we see the circumstances were
just a little bit different, but the principle is the same
where it's written, known unto God are all his works from the
beginning of the world. And as we, if we view this funeral
as in that perspective, uh, it helps us to understand a little
bit more about God, God, and, uh, Romans chapter four sheds a little
light on this too. In Romans 4.17, I'm just gonna
quote a part of the, not read that whole thing, but it says,
God who quickeneth the dead, which is what we're dealing with
here, and calleth things that are not as though they were. Because he's the I am. He sees
things in just that way. And so, as we examine those circumstances
of the death of this young man from this viewpoint of eternity,
we'd be made to know that this young man was One whom the Father
had given the Son from before the foundation of the world,
whose name was written in heaven, and He had compassion on Him. As we read in John chapter 17,
as Thou has given Him power over all flesh, that He should give
eternal life to as many as Thou has given Him. And this is life
eternal, that they might know thee the only true God and Jesus
Christ, whom thou hast sent. That's why he was in name this
very day. I have glorified thee on the
earth. I've finished the work which thou gavest me to do. And
now, Father, glorify thou me with thine own self, with the
glory which I had with thee before the world was. I've manifested
thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world. He
said, thine they were. They belong to the Father in
eternity. And thou gavest them me and they've
kept thy word. So in the, I am view, we would
see one whom the father, he belonged to the father and the father
had given him to the son. one whom he loved eternally and
not because, I just love that hymn, it's not because of any
merit or good works that he saw in that young man or that he
had compassion on that family, but simply because he chose it
to be so. And I was telling Norm, we were
talking about this a little bit briefly. It's hard for us to
put these, do an analogy that kind of puts things in perspective,
but the Lord would see this young
man as one before the fall, who belonged to the Father, and then
yet, through sin and the fall, became marred, became indelibly
marked by sin and death. But he saw him before, and he
sees him as he is now, and just what that once was, what it is
now. but what it will be. I'll present
him without wrinkle, without spot. And there's many scriptures
that talk about the change that's wrought in them, but I just wanted
to present that I am view of how the Lord would view this
young man, not just, oh, there's a dead guy. I could fix that. You know, because many in religion
today, they just say, well, Jesus was a good man who just went
about doing good. And he hated death and everywhere
he came across it, he fixed it. Well, I don't think that's exactly
true. But in this case, we find that
it is true. And we're going to come across
this a little bit later as when we move on to the next block
where John sends unto him and says, are you he whom we're looking
for? And he says, you go back and
tell John He says, the dead are raised,
the blind are made to see, the sick are healed, the gospel is
preached. And so, this was one of the evidences
that he, right, it just happened. So, he sees them before the fall,
he sees them in their fallen condition, and When he's laying there in this
condition, such a picture of the enmity against him, and yet
he has compassion. His compassion is not based on
anything foreseen in the way of works or merit or behavior
in his sheep. It's because it's based on his
eternal electing love and nothing else. He sees him in this condition
and has compassion from the very core of his being. It's not a
superficial Oh, that's too bad, kind of a thing. We see so many
horrible things in this world and then we just say, well, that's
too bad, that's too bad, that's too bad. It's hard for us to
muster up a little bit of compassion unless it's somebody that we're
just connected with. the Lord's mercies that were
not consumed because his compassions fail not. That was for that Thomas
Chisholm when he wrote that hymn. He says that's part of his character. That's part of his attributes.
His compassions are just as eternal as his eternal love and his all-mightiness
and all those other things that we look at that go together to
make up the character and nature of God. His compassions are just
as unchanging they change not. They're just as immutable as
anything about God. In His I Am view, He sees them
as they will be as a result of His work on their behalf and
free from the effects of sin and the fall, free from death.
In Ephesians chapter 2, we're going to read just a few verses
from the beginning of Ephesians chapter 2. He says, and you have
He quickened, made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins,
wherein the time passed, ye walked according to the course of this
world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the
spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience, among
whom also we all had our conversation in times past, in the lusts of
our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind,
and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others. But
God, If it weren't for that, just like that hymn says, but
God, who is rich in mercy for his because, that word for
means because he's rich in mercy to those that he loved with an
eternal everlasting love. For his great love wherewith
he loved us, even When we were dead in sins, even when we hated
Him, even when we didn't want nothing to do with Him, He was
despised and rejected of men, and all those things that we
read about in Isaiah. He quickened us together with
Christ, by grace are you saved, and has raised us up together,
and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus, presented
spotless, unaffected as it were by the results of sin in the
world and death. And in a few chapters later in
Ephesians in chapter 5 it says, husbands love your wife even
as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for it. You
know we, there's so much universalism in the salvation of religion
that, oh, he died for all the sins of all the world, and it's
just up to you to accept or reject it. But he says he loved the
church and gave himself for it. That's pretty specific. that
he might sanctify it and cleanse it with the washing of water
by the word, that he might present it to himself, a glorious church,
not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but it should
be holy and without blemish." Now, the next thing we come to that's
closely tied to this concept of compassion, eternal compassion
that the Lord exhibits here. He touched the buyer. It was
a personal connection there. As he looks at this young man,
sees what he was, how he is now, and what he will be, and he touches
that. That's a platform, a litter,
that they're carrying this young man to the burial place. What symbology is presented to
us in that little bit of a text? He came and touched the buyer. His touch was emblematic of his
connection to our frailties as the Son of God come down and
took on himself the likeness of men. I was reading a couple
of, you know how we do these lessons and we're always saying,
oh, oh, oh, here's something else, here's something else,
here's something else. And we write in these notes all the
time. And sometimes we go way over our time, but there's just so much. Let's turn
over to Psalm 103 for just a minute here. And all this stuff makes more
sense when we look at things through the I am view of things,
because these things were written a long time before this comes
to pass. But they're written with the
view of, in the I am view, they're now. In Psalm 103, it's almost like Ephesians. You
can't hardly just pick a spot in the middle to start reading.
But in verse 3 it says, Who forgiveth all thine iniquities? Who healeth
all thy diseases? Who redeemeth thy life from destruction? who crowneth thee with loving
kindness and tender mercies. Boy, what a description of what
he's just doing here in Luke chapter seven. Who satisfieth
thy mouth with good things, so thy youth is renewed like the
eagle's. The Lord executeth righteousness and judgment for all that are
oppressed. He made known his ways unto Moses, his acts unto
the children of Israel. The Lord is merciful and gracious,
slow to anger, plenteous in mercy. He will not always chide, neither
will he keep his anger forever. he hath not dealt with us after
our sins, nor rewarded us according to our iniquities, but he has
exercised compassion and mercy and grace. For as the heaven
is high above the earth, so great is his mercy toward them that
fear him. As far as the east is from the west, so far has
he removed our transgressions from his life. As a father pitieth
his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him. this compassion
that he has. He knows our frame. He knows
we are dust. As for man, his days are grass.
As a flower of the field, so he flourishes. And the wind passes
over and he's gone. But the mercy of the Lord is
from everlasting. You know this word, frame. He
knows our frame. That's an interesting word. It's a word that means
formed. And he looks at that man and just
says, well, there's another of them weak human beings. But it
says he knows our being formed. And it's a word that's kind of
takes us in mind to Romans the eighth chapter in verse 29. He
predestinated us to be conformed to the image of his son. And
that word means molded and squeezed kind of into the shape. And so
it's this word that we have here in Psalms, a Hebrew word, and
the one in the Romans is a Greek, but they both convey the same
aspect, I think, of an exterior force that acts upon them, predestinated
to be conformed to the image of his son. Turn forward a couple of pages
to Psalm 139. Psalm 139 verse 1, O Lord, thou
hast searched me and known me, thou knowest my down-sitting
and my up-rising, thou understandest my thought afar off. Thou compass
my path and my lying down, and art acquainted with all my ways. There's not a word in my tongue,
lo, but thou knowest it altogether. Thou hast beset me behind and
before, and laid thine hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful,
too wonderful for me. You know, in the 53rd Psalm,
it says, he's acquainted with grief. So when he touched that buyer,
because of his I am view and he was the lamb slain from before
the foundation of the world. He identified with that death
that was laying there. Even though physically in our
time concept he wouldn't die for a little bit later, yet He
was acquainted with the grief of that mother. He was acquainted
with that death that was laying there before him. He's acquainted
with grief. That's not, well, he's going
to be acquainted with grief at some point in the future. He
was acquainted from it when he was the lamb slain from before
the foundation of the world. So what symbology in this touch? Philippians chapter two says,
let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, who
being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with
God, but made himself of no reputation, took on him the form of a servant
was made in the likeness of men. And being found in fashion as
a man, he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even
the death of a cross. We see Jesus made a little lower
than the angels for the suffering of death. Crowned with glory
and honor, that He by the grace of God should taste death for
every man. Hebrews chapter 2 verse 9. Well, I'll just go ahead and read on
down here through a couple more verses in Hebrews chapter 2 because
it says, For it became Him for whom are all things and by whom
are all things. And that's important for us to
keep in mind that who we're dealing with here, who it is. He's the creator by his word,
he created all things and by his power they are and exist. In bringing many sons into glory
to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings
for both he that sanctifies And they who are sanctified are all
of one, for which cause he's not ashamed to call them brethren,
saying, I will declare thy name unto my brethren in the midst
of the church while I sing praise unto thee. And again, and he's
quoting the Old Testament here, again, I'll put my trust in him.
And again, behold, I and the children which God has given
me, he's quoting like verses from the Old Testament there,
for as much then because of these things, because He is the Creator,
because He created all things, because God gave Him a people. because he promised to redeem
them. For as much then as the children
are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took
part of the same, that through death he might destroy him that
had the power of death, that is the devil, and deliver them
who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to
bondage. For verily he took not on him
the nature of angels, but he took on him the seed of Abraham,
Wherefore, in all things it behooved him to be made like unto his
brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things
pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people. For
in that he himself has suffered being tempted, he's able to succor
them that are tempted." He experienced that very thing. So when he touched
that buyer, it was not with a, I don't know anything about that.
For we have not a high priest that cannot be touched with the
feeling of our infirmities. When he touched that fire, he
symbolized that he could be touched for that, that he is touched,
that he has eternally been touched with the feeling of our infirmities.
He was in all points tempted like we are, but yet without
sin. And now we come, we're getting
close to being out of time here, We come to the crux of the whole
matter. In verse 14, He came and touched
the buyer and they that bear him stood still. Boy, stand you
still and see the salvation of the Lord. That's from the Old Testament.
They stood still. And he said, he who created all
things by his word, he who by his power all things exist, he
said, young man, I say unto thee, arise. And I just want to make
special note again, that we mentioned this in our introductory notes,
that he didn't just make provision for this young man to suddenly,
of his own ability, to wake up. It was a command to life. It
was not a provision for life as religion says, well, he died
for everyone. All they, they have to accept
that or reject that. Well, that young man wasn't in
no position to accept or reject anything much, but having dirt
thrown in his face. But when the, he who by his word
created all things said, young man, I say into the arise, And
he did. He couldn't, it was effectual. He could not not rise. And he that was dead sat up and
began to speak. And we kind of covered that a
little bit earlier. We don't know exactly what he
said, but we can imagine what he might say if it was a similar
thing that happened to us, or like that blind fellow. So this young man, he was dead,
period. He had no ability. He had no
spark of life that Jesus could just walk up and fan him a little
bit and kind of say, Well, he's just mostly dead. If we say the
right thing or do the right thing, he has the opportunity. It's
just an indiscriminate way to try and apply a notion of man's
free will in the way of obtaining salvation, and yet we see a vivid
portrayal here of how it really is. He commands life. In Ezekiel, Norm brought this
out here a couple of messages ago. He said, can these bones
live? And that guy says, well, I can't
make them live. Thou knowest, Lord. And he said,
prophecy unto these bones and say unto them, oh, you dry bones,
hear the word of the Lord. Thus saith the Lord God unto
these bones, behold, I, will cause breath to enter into you
and you shall live. That's how it works. And that's
what we have an example of here. And the result was that the dead
sat up just the same as those bones came together bone to bone
and then sinew upon sinew and until they were standing and
living and breathing. There could be no other outcome
from him who created all things by his word. And so he sat up and then we
find Jesus is still engaged in compassion. He could have took
that guy along as a kind of your traveling side show and said,
Oh, here's another guy that I raised from the dead. But he said he
delivered him to his mother who saw all of her hopes vanish when
her husband died and her son died, and yet he restored her
hope. So we'll stop there. We're out
of time again. Next up, the word comes to John
of the works of God in Christ. So until next time, be free.