WWUTT 2337 Jesus Raises a Widow's Son (Luke 7:11-17)

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Jesus raised a centurion servant from his sickbed simply by speaking a word.

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Jesus is going to raise a young man from his deathbed the same way, by speaking a word, when we understand the text.

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This is When We Understand the Text, a daily Bible commentary that we may be equipped for every good work in Jesus Christ our

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Lord. Please tell others about our ministry at www .utt .com.

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Here once again is Pastor Gabe. Thank you, Becky. In our study of the gospel according to Luke, we come back to chapter 7.

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We've been reading of a couple of miracles that Jesus performed here at the start of the chapter.

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Yesterday, reading about Jesus healing a centurion's servant simply by speaking a word, and the servant was healed from a distance.

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Today, Jesus is going to raise a man from the dead, and he's going to do it the same way, by speaking a word.

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So let's read here Luke 7 verses 11 -17, hear the word of the Lord. Soon afterward,

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Jesus went to a town called Nain, and his disciples and a great crowd went with him. As he drew near to the gate of the town, behold, a man who had died was being carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow.

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And a considerable crowd from the town was with her. And when the

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Lord saw her, he had compassion on her and said to her, Do not weep.

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Then he came up and touched the bier, and the bearers stood still, and he said,

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Young man, I say to you, Arise. And the dead man sat up and began to speak, and Jesus gave him to his mother.

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Fear seized them all, and they glorified God, saying, A great prophet is risen among us, and God has visited his people.

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And this report about him spread through the whole of Judea and all the surrounding country.

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This is actually a section I preached on sometime last year. I was in 1 Timothy 5, and it's there in 1

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Timothy 5 that we read about instructions for caring for widows in the church.

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Paul is telling Timothy to keep a registry of those widows, who qualifies to be a widow on that particular registry and how the church is supposed to care for them.

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And so I used that sermon to talk about how God cares for widows, and how we as a church should care for those who are most in need.

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So I began the sermon by reading this account here in Luke chapter 7.

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This is the only account of this particular miracle. It doesn't appear in Matthew, Mark, or in John.

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And it's the only place in the New Testament that this town called Nain is even mentioned.

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But you see the compassion that Jesus has on the widow. And it demonstrates God's love and compassion for widows, for women who have nothing, no husband to take care of them, no sons, no children that can provide for them either.

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And so it says in verse 13, When the Lord saw her, he had compassion on her and raised her son from the dead and gave him back to her.

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And again, we see this happen in the same manner that Jesus healed the centurion servant at the beginning of the chapter.

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He simply spoke a word. And when the servants of the centurion returned to the house, they found that the servant was fine.

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He was well again, no longer on death's doorstep. He was up and able to work again for he was of great value to his master, to the centurion, as was also said there in that account.

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Now, here, this young man, this mother's son is of great value to her.

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And in this particular case, he's not on death's doorstep. He's already crossed the threshold. This this young man is dead.

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And Jesus raises him from the dead by God's providence. And Jesus, surely knowing this comes to this town at this moment, at this time to perform this miracle in the sight of all the people who are with him.

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So let's come back to this again. We see the power of Christ to even raise the dead by his own word.

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Verse 11. Soon afterward, he went to a town called Nain and his disciples and a great crowd went with him.

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And again, it seems that this is the same sort of crowd that Jesus would have been preaching to back in chapter six.

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We saw that Jesus performed many miracles there, and then he preaches the sermon on the plane.

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And then a bunch of a bunch of people follow him, a crowd of people who had come to him to hear him preach and see him perform miracles.

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And now that crowd is following him also. So it could be that this happens immediately after the healing of the centurion servant.

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We don't really know for sure. It just says soon afterward, he went to a town called Nain. And I've mentioned previously, this was a couple of chapters ago, but many of the events that we read about in Luke are not given in a chronological order.

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There could be some other things that happen in between the healing of the centurion servant and then the raising of this widow's son.

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Jesus is in Capernaum when he heals the centurion slave. And he's in this town called

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Nain, which is about 15 miles to the southwest of the Sea of Galilee. So that's a considerable distance to cover.

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He probably did that in a couple of days. So it may not have been that these events were immediately successive.

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There could be some other things, perhaps recorded in the Gospels, that happen in between.

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There's a reason why Luke starts this chapter with these two miracles.

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Both of them, what I've pointed out, what both of them have in common is the miraculous power in Christ's very word.

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He doesn't have to touch anyone. He doesn't have to do anything in particular. He just simply speaks a word, and that's all he has to do.

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And a man is healed and another man is raised from the dead. So that's what these two accounts have in common. Now, what we get to tomorrow, we read about John the

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Baptist's disciples who come to Jesus and ask him if he's the Messiah they've been waiting for or should they expect another.

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And what is Jesus going to tell them? I'm kind of doing this lesson a day ahead.

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But anyway, what is it that Jesus tells the disciples? Go back and tell

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John what you have seen. And what they have seen is in accordance with what the word of God has said.

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So there is a trusting in God's word that happens here. We're seeing this all throughout

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Luke 7. Jesus speaks a word, a man is healed. He speaks a word, a man is raised from the dead.

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He speaks a word to John's disciples to look at the word, to see what it is that you have observed the

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Son of Man doing and how this has been in fulfillment of the scriptures. So we see the power of God's word that's being demonstrated for us here in this first two -thirds of Luke 7.

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So again, he comes to this town, his disciples and a great crowd are with him.

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And as he drew near to the gate of the town, behold, a man who had died was being carried out.

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Now, gate of the town, we don't really know exactly what the picture of this is like.

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It could be that Nain is a pretty small town. And so it doesn't have to have a substantial city wall around it.

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It could also be that the entrance of the town was filled with mostly houses.

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It's not that the city has like an actual constructed wall, like a high wall or something that you would consider to be a border of a town in that way.

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They built a wall around all of the occupants that are on the inside of this wall.

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So it's fortified. That's not necessarily the picture of Nain. But it could be that there's just a lot of tight houses all the way around the town.

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So you wouldn't be able to get into the town except by using particular entrances. And there would be more than one.

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There's not just one way into the town. But this would be the front way into the town because it's on the road that Jesus and his disciples and this crowd have been traveling on.

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So they come to wherever the front entrance of this town would be.

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And it would be between houses or between buildings would be considered the gate.

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And there may have been like a wooden wall with a wood door in it. I don't know if you've seen Lord of the

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Rings, the first film, The Fellowship of the Ring. Earlier in the film, the hobbits go to a town called

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Bree and it's there that they are supposed to be meeting with Gandalf. And when they get to Bree, there's a gate that they have to go through.

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And it's a wooden gate. It's not a heavily stone fortified city like you might see in Old England or something like that.

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It's just a wooden wall with a wooden door in it. And they knock on the door and the gatekeeper opens a window in the door and asks him some questions, opens the door and lets them in.

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So it could have been a gate that was something like that. It doesn't have to be this heavy fortification. But even that would provide protection for the town.

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So at night, the bandits, raiders, they're all kept outside. And the people that are on the inside can feel safe.

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We don't have any invaders coming into our town. So it may have been that kind of a structure where Jesus and his disciples in this crowd are coming up to the entrance of the city.

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And as they are approaching, someone's coming out. And it's like it's the whole town, the way that this is described here.

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So there's a man who is being carried out. A man had died as being carried out. The only son of his mother.

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And she was a widow and a considerable crowd from the town was with her.

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So it looks like it's a huge procession from the town as the man is being carried out. He's going to be buried and he will either go to a family tomb or he's going to be buried somewhere where there would be some marker, probably in a hillside, something to that degree.

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But he's not going to be buried in the town. It's going to be outside the town. And so a crowd is mourning along with this woman as this man has died.

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And as the crowd is coming out the gate, there's so many of them. Jesus and his crowd are not going to be able to get inside.

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So it's difficult for them to not notice one another. The crowd that is coming out in the funeral procession, they see the crowd that is trying to come in.

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Jesus and his disciples and everybody else who's with him. And it could be that they were merely passing by the town.

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Maybe they didn't mean to go in, but however they were positioned, these two groups of people come across one another.

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And when the Lord saw her, it says in verse 13, he had compassion on her and said to her, do not weep.

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This is actually a big deal that this woman is a widow and has lost her son.

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She has no husband. She has no son. She has no one to take care of her. Now, she's obviously loved by this town.

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And so there are people in the community that will surely care for her. But she is otherwise on her own.

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No one to provide for her. Who's going to work for her and buy her food and things like that.

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And so she is distraught, of course, at losing a son. But her situation is even more dire than that, of just losing a loved one.

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How is she going to get by? A widow would depend on her children, especially her sons, to be able to provide for her and care for her.

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And so the whole crowd is mourning with her. And Jesus, having compassion on her, says to her, do not weep.

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And like I said, I had used this account at the beginning of my sermon in First Timothy, Chapter five, where we were reading the instructions concerning the church's responsibility to care for widows.

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And even within those instructions there in First Timothy five, it says, let her own family care for her first.

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So that they would have an opportunity to be able to to serve those heroes of the faith in the church, which is the way such a woman who would be registered as a widow with the church would be considered.

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She must have washed the feet of the saints. It said there among her qualifications. And so let the let her own kids provide for her first so that the church will be able to use those resources for those who are most in need.

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And then as a widow has need, then she would be registered on the list and the church would be able to provide for her.

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But we see throughout the scriptures, even there in First Timothy, Chapter five, here in Luke seven, and then multiple other accounts, we see

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God's love and his compassion for widows, for these women who cannot provide for themselves, take care of themselves anymore.

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There's two groups of people, two classifications of people that are often mentioned in the scriptures, especially in the

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Old Testament, that epitomize those who cannot do anything for themselves.

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And they are widows. And what's the other group? Orphans, orphans and widows.

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And both groups have no what? Neither have men, neither have strong men to be able to provide for them and care for them.

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The widow has no man, no husband to provide for her any longer. And the widow, in the case of the instructions that have been given to Israel about caring for widows, that woman's probably a widow because her husband had died in battle.

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And so there was a there was especially a need to care for that family that has been left without without a father.

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Even orphans in the text, an orphan may not necessarily be someone who has no mother or father.

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An orphan could just be someone who doesn't have a father. Now, oftentimes they're described described as fatherless.

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But even that word that gets translated orphan is a child who has no father.

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So because there's not a man to be able to provide for them, then they they're sometimes regarded as orphans in that sense.

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It's the classification that they fall into. But we think of an orphan as having no parents, no one to be able to provide for them.

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That orphan would die if left to have to do things on their own.

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A widow, no man to be able to provide for her. She can't even work if she's elderly, especially.

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And so she, too, would die in her circumstances unless there would be someone to care for her.

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But the scriptures say in Psalm 68 5, father of the fatherless and protector of widows is

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God in his holy habitation. It also says in Psalm 146 9, the

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Lord watches over the sojourners. He upholds the widow and the fatherless.

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But the way of the wicked he brings to ruin. And Proverbs 15 25 says the

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Lord tears down the house of the proud, but maintains the widow's boundaries.

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This is a vulnerable woman and the Lord protects her, provides for her and and even establishes her boundaries.

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This this is what belongs to her. And may no one take it from her. You may remember the account of the woman with the two mites or the two copper coins as they are sometimes termed.

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We've read about this in Matthew and in Mark. It's going to come up again in Luke. But if you'll recall, this is a woman who drops two small coins, all that she has in the offering box in the temple.

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And Jesus and his disciples are there and they see this happen. And Jesus says all of the rest of these gave out of their plenty.

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But she gave out of her poverty all that she had. And that story is often used to talk about how we need to be willing to give all that we have.

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And that's not the point of the story at all. The point is that the Pharisees had preyed upon this woman, this widow whose property and everything belonged to her that had previously belonged to her husband.

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It had been taken from her after her husband died and left her with nothing. So here she is even forced into a position that she's giving anything that she has into the offering box in the temple.

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When what should be done is that the Pharisees and those who serve in the temple should be caring for her.

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And that wasn't happening. That was that's the whole point of that account with Jesus and his disciples watching that woman putting her coins into the box.

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It's not about giving everything you have. It's actually about providing for people who don't have anything.

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And here Jesus has compassion on this woman who can't provide for herself.

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She has no husband. She has no son to care for her. And he says to her, do not weep.

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And then he comes up and he touches the beer. Now, the beer is spelled B -I -E -R, not beer like B -E -E -R.

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This is a platform of some kind that people would use to carry a body on.

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And they may have the platform suspended on their shoulders, you know, like you would see pallbearers that might carry a coffin up high.

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So they have it on their shoulders and the man is laying on it there. Or it could also be a cart. And I want to I want to think that in this particular account, it's probably a cart.

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And that's because of Jesus saying to the young man, arise, and then he sits up.

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And that seems unlikely if he was up on the beer. And Luke doesn't describe them putting it down.

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It just says that the bearers stood still. So it's probably a cart. And it's not being pulled by an animal.

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It's being pulled by the bearers. And they could be pushing it from behind and others are pulling it from the front, may be the case.

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So that's kind of the picture that's setting the scene here. This crowd of people coming out of the city, this man who has died.

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He is on this beer as they're carting him out to the place where he is going to be buried. And when

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Jesus stops the beer, the bearers stood still. And he says to the young man, young man,

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I say to you, arise. And again, it's just like him speaking the word and healing the centurion servant.

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He says a word. And this man lives by the power of God's word.

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It's by the power of a word that all things came into existence. Jesus saying, let there be.

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And there was, I said, Jesus, God. It was the pre -incarnate son of God who, in the very beginning, brought all things into being.

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That's said in John 1, Hebrews 1, and Colossians 1. So here, by the same power of that word, the son of God says to this dead man, arise.

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And he gets up. And he begins to speak so that the people know this man's alive.

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He gets up and he's got cognition. He's even with it. He's able to talk to all of us and address us.

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They see that this man lives. And Jesus gives the man to his mother.

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Probably, you know, takes him by the hand, helps him up off the cart, takes him over to his mother. And fear sees them all, it says in verse 16.

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And they glorified God. So you see the compassion of Christ for this widowed mother and gives her back her son.

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And the rest of the people that are there, both the people that have been coming out of the town and the people who are with Jesus, the crowd that were following him, fear seized them all.

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A man has such power that he can speak a word and raise the dead.

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Now, I know that all of us, we probably think of the miracles that Jesus performed as being really, really cool.

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And I wish I could have been there to see it. But you don't understand how unusual this is.

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And that would terrify a person. If you knew somebody was dead, you knew a relative was dead.

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And they're laying in that coffin at the wake. And you go to the wake to see the body and kind of visit with the family and things like that.

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You walk up to that body and it sits up. It will freak you out. Don't anybody ever tell me that, oh, that would just be the coolest thing.

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I would love to see that. You would get wigged out. All you got to do is see like some of those practical joke videos that are out there.

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People doing this where the body in the coffin isn't really dead. Somebody walks up to it and then the person sits up and they just fall out of themselves.

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They might fall over. They might scream and jump. They might run out of the room. But people know that dead is dead.

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And the dead don't come back from the dead. We have no experience with the dead coming back from the dead.

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And so for people to see this, they know that once a person is dead, they're dead. And yet Jesus speaks a word and he comes back from the dead.

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And fear sees them. Because this isn't just like somebody rising up from the dead who wasn't really dead.

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This is a man who had the power to raise the dead. And they all observe it. They saw it happen. And they glorified

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God saying, a great prophet has arisen among us.

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So they give glory to God in believing this man is a prophet who's been sent from God to us.

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And God has visited his people. Those are the two sayings that Luke records here that the people were lifting their voices and crying out.

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A prophet has arisen among us. God has visited his people. And the report about him spread through the whole of Judea and all the surrounding country.

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Kind of hard to keep that one a secret. So the fame of Jesus is going to continue to spread all the more.

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But the people have observed the power of his word to simply say, and it happens.

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And so, my friends, we must be in submission to that word. If you know that word has power.

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The word has power to raise the dead. That word has raised our dead spirits to life.

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That we might have new life in Christ through the hearing of the gospel of Jesus Christ. You heard the gospel that he died on the cross for our sins, rose again from the dead.

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Whoever believes in him will not perish under the judgment of God. Our sins will be forgiven and we will have everlasting life.

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And you were cut to the heart and you believed in Jesus. And your dead soul was raised to life.

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You were born again to a new and living hope in Christ Jesus.

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That power that raised this man from the dead is the same power that has raised your dead spirit to life.

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And has given you new life in Christ. And so we must also understand the authority of that word.

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That it has over us. That we may hear the word of Christ and do what he says. Be obedient to him.

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Live lives of holiness until the day of his return. When he will speak a word again.

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And those who are wicked will perish. But those who are in Christ will rise to everlasting life.

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We too will experience a resurrection from the dead. It is all who are in Christ Jesus.

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We will rise and live with him forever. Heavenly Father, we thank you for what we've read here.

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And I pray that it does fill us with awe of the power of Christ's word.

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And we would heed that word and do what he says by his word. That we may live lives of holiness before you this day.

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What lives of holiness ought we to live? In view of the Christ who died for us and has promised us life after death.

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By the power of his word. It is in the name of Jesus that we pray.

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Amen. Pastor Gabe keeps a regular blog sharing personal thoughts. Alerting readers to false teachers.

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And offering commentary on the church and social issues. You can find a link to the blog through our website www .utt

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.com Thank you for listening and join us again tomorrow as we continue our study in God's word.