Luke 7:11-17 Arisen: Both a Prophet and a Dead man

The Bible’s Authority, Sufficiency, and Power to Change

Well, in this world, we certainly have all kinds of joys and wonderful things. But we also realize that this world is full of toil and pain and hardship. It seems like the world is spinning around. And my question this morning really is, does anyone care?

Does anyone care that there's so much lamenting and wailing and difficulties and sickness and illness and death? Is there anyone out there? Does anyone seem to care? If you take your Bibles and turn to Luke chapter 7, we're going to find out the answer to that question today with the resounding yes.

Someone cares. Someone knows. Someone can comfort. Someone can sympathize. Not only here in the Bible account, but in your own life. You can think about what difficulties you might be going through and pain and sickness and death and other things that go on.

Does anyone care? Does anyone give me comfort? What in the world is going on? Today, we're going to look at the Lord Jesus and His compassion and His sympathy and more. And I think as we come to Luke 7, you'll say, I don't think there's anyone like Jesus.

I don't think there's someone who could act like He does, preach like He does, and have comfort like He does. Does God really care? The answer is found in the incarnation of the Lord Jesus. You want to know what God the Father's disposition is to people?

You look at the life and ministry of the Lord Jesus. And so we come to Luke chapter 7 today, verses 11 through 17. And I just want you to know, dear congregation, something that you are already familiar with, but just to reinforce it.

If you were asked the question, why do we teach the Bible verse by verse, I wonder what your answer would be. What are the assumptions that undergird that kind of teaching, that philosophy, that methodology?

And just to give you an idea, what undergirds it all is we think that the Bible is authoritative. We think that there's no other higher authority. And that's why, to this day, I don't like to set anything on top of my Bible.

It's not a legalistic thing. It's just reminding me that confessions, creeds, commentaries, they all serve the Bible in terms of helping us understand it, but they are subservient. When we teach the Bible verse by verse, what else are we assuming?

We're assuming that the Bible is sufficient, that it can cover every possible need that is out there. So we just continue to go verse by verse. When we teach this way, we also realize that the Bible has no errors.

It is called inerrant. It can't have any errors because it is infallible. And so we come to the scriptures, and what do you do if you're a pastor? What do you tell people? Do I give you book reviews? Do I tell you my own philosophy?

Psychology? No, I want to give you the Bible because it is God's literal word to us, and it is sufficient, authoritative. It is God-breathed, and it is good for us. And I don't know if you remember this or not.

I'm sure you do, but it changes people. Week by week, it changes people. I don't know how many arguments have you won on social media, by the way, in the last week, in the last year, in the last 10 years.

But there's something about coming on Sunday morning, sitting underneath the word of God, and it slowly and surely conforms us to the image of the Lord Jesus. So we come to Luke chapter 7 today, really trying to answer this question.

Does anyone care when people suffer? Does anyone notice? Can anyone do something about it? Can anyone sympathize with our problems? Now, last time, we looked at Luke 7, 1 through 10, and we saw that someone was really sick, someone was suffering, and that Jesus could heal them.

Remember, it was a centurion's servant. The centurion, on behalf of his servant, says, I'd like to have the Jewish elders go to Jesus and request that Jesus might heal my servant. And by the way, I am a centurion.

I'm a leader of 100 soldiers, and I tell people to do things, they do it. I tell people to come here, and they come here. I tell people underneath me to get the job done, and they do it. And so Jesus, you don't even really have to come to my house.

I'm unworthy.

You're a Jew.

I'm a Gentile.

You're holy.

I'm a sinner. All you have to do is what? Say the word, and you can heal my servant. And that's exactly what happens in verse 10 of chapter 7. When those who had been sent returned to the house, they found the servant well.

You know, it's one thing to heal somebody who's sick. How about raising somebody from the dead? Who raises people from the dead? And so we're going to look at that passage today. Probably the greatest miracle in all the Bible is having people raised from the dead.

And it doesn't happen that often, but here we're going to see it happens. Basically, this morning, if you want to know why I'm preaching, what my purpose is, I want you to see the authority of Jesus. I want you to see the power of Jesus, and I want you to see the compassion of Jesus.

Because when you're dealing with your own struggles in life, it's good to know that God has power, that God has authority, and that God cares. I mean, think about it. God just had power, but he didn't care.

Other religions have that, but not Christianity. Maybe I could ask you, if you look at verse 16, everything's driving this to this. This would be a good response to the sermon today. Fear sees them all.

That would be good, as Bethlehem Bible Church would realize that God is in our presence. They glorified God, saying, a great prophet has arisen among us, and God has visited his people. That's what I'd like you to echo as we look through the passage today.

How do we want to work through it to kind of give some flow and to give an outline? Let me just give you three scenes, three scenes that help us understand who Jesus is and how compassionate he is. Three scenes, and we're going to have some practical exhortations mixed in the middle of this.

The Sovereign Hand of God in the Collision of the Crowds

Scene number one, in verses 11 and 12, the collision of the crowds. Scene one, the collision of the crowds. And we're going to see the sovereign hand of God.

Here quite clearly.

The gospel of Jesus, according to Luke, chapter 7, verse 11. Soon afterward, he 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, and a considerable crowd from the town was with her. And all I have to do is draw your attention to the random, lucky, coincidental meeting of a woman in need and Jesus. I mean, the stars are aligned.

The astrologists were right. Serendipity, luck is happening. You can just see it, can't you? If you're a visitor to the church, we don't call it pot luck around here. We call it what? Pot providence. I love that.

We could call it pot blessing, if you like. Would you not agree with me that scriptures are littered with this kind of coincidence? We know it's not coincidence. It's the sovereign hand of God, providential.

You go, she's walking out, he's walking in. This is amazing. Abraham was told to slay his son Isaac. And just before he was to slay his son, Abraham, Abraham, don't do that. And just by luck, there's a ram caught in the thicket.

You see this language everywhere. Ruth is supposed to go out into a field and Ruth 2 .3 says, and she happened to come on the part of the field belonging to Boaz. I mean, how fortunate can you get? Abraham's trusted servant was supposed to go get a wife for Isaac.

And Genesis says, before he had finished speaking, behold, Rebekah, who was born to Bethuel, the son of Melchah, the wife of Nahor, Abraham's brother, came out with her water jar. And so here you see the sovereign hand of God where everything is working perfectly.

And someone said something to me years ago, I've never forgotten it. Mike, when you read Genesis 37 through 50 and you see Joseph life and you see how sovereign God is in Joseph's life, you say to yourself, it's obvious God is sovereign in Joseph's life.

Why do you suppose that is? And then the man said, because in our lives it doesn't seem so obvious, but we need to be reminded that the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is our God. And if God is sovereign in Joseph's life, isn't he sovereign in yours as well?

And we know the answer is yes, God has a plan. It's unchangeable, it's definite, it's all encompassing from the lot that's cast in the lap to Nebuchadnezzar saying God's dominion is an everlasting dominion and he does according to his will.

So this is perfect timing. This is a good little section to be reminded that our lives maybe from our perspectives might seem out of control, the world's spiraling out of control, but there's no accidents, God is in control, perfect timing.

Now what's a city?

This is a little city called Nain, it's a town in verse 11. And it's a little south of Capernaum, remember the centurion's servant and they were in Capernaum. And so he's going south, it's probably a day's walk and he goes to this town called Nain.

And so you've got Jesus and his merry band as it were. Everybody with Jesus is probably joyful, happy, excited, the Messiah is here, he can heal with a word, he's a great preacher, he's a great teacher.

The end of Luke it says his fame was spreading everywhere. And so you can imagine where Jesus is going, everybody wants to go with and learn and here's this rabbi that they're following and how happy they must be.

Now maybe there's a couple Pharisees following but everybody else is happy. So this one crowd of people happy with Jesus, going to this town and of course Jesus purposely is going to meet this lady, it's all in the sovereign plan of God, just like he said I have to go through Samaria to meet that lady.

But the crowd that they happy ones run into aren't so happy. They run into a funeral procession. And so with funeral procession you have mourners, paid mourners, loud mourners, weeping mourners. You have musicians who are playing laments and people that want to pay their last respects.

So here comes Jesus and the joyful ones and he meets the funeral procession. And of course we know that the wages of sin is death and sin has come into the world and it has wrecked God's creation. Romans five says, sinning came into the world through one man and death through sin and so death spread to all men because all sinned.

And so we have this tragic situation here where this widow loses her son. Luther said, Martin Luther said, when you hear of death, you must not only think of the grave and coffin and of the horrible manner in which life is separated from the body, but you also must consider sin.

So happy with the people of Jesus, so sad these others were. I think it's gonna be important if we remember this dear congregation. How do people mourn in different cultures? I'll tell you how Germans mourn.

This is how we mourn. Stayed stoic. I've been in some funerals from other cultures and people are much louder in other cultures when they're mourning. They're showing expression, they're not afraid. And here in this Oriental scene, in this Eastern scene, I mean, they really show on the outside what they're feeling on the inside.

Some cut their hair, some put dust on, some wear sackcloth, some really wail aloudly. When someone dies in the village back in the Bible days, the people in the home would shriek out loudly to let everyone else know, in fact, that person had died.

And the word nain means pleasant, but the scene isn't so pleasant. The word nain means beautiful. It's just a beautiful town, but this situation doesn't look very beautiful. Crying, weeping, wailing, it's loud.

Psalm 119, rivers of water run down my eyes. And there are two strikes against this lady. Strike number one, what's the text say in verse 12? She was a widow. I mean, can you imagine? She's done this before.

She's had the funeral for her husband, and now she's a widow. I wonder what God's disposition to widows might be. Exodus 22, you shall not mistreat any widow. Deuteronomy 10, God executes justice for widows.

Deuteronomy 27, curse it is anyone who perverts justice due to the widow, and all the people shall say amen. She's in distress, she's lost her husband, and now the second strike, it's almost worse. The only son of his mother, by the way, no 401Ks in those days, no 403Bs, no SEP IRAs, no Social Security.

The only way you'd get money if you were a lady is your husband would provide, or if you had a son. And some people could actually have to go in to do prostitution and other things just to pay for food.

She has no husband. She has no son. I can just imagine the sights. I can just hear the sounds. Did you know they would hire mourners to mourn loudly? I'm trying to think of an illustration that's somehow close.

Who do we hire when we have a funeral? I think the only people maybe we hire, and I've seen maybe this happen eight times.

Here at Bethlehem Bible Church,.

Where you might hire someone to play the bagpipes. But it's not the same here, is it? And so what you would do back in those days, we don't have, we have coffins today made of wood and other things. There's not a lot of wood in Israel, so they would have kind of like this little plank, and you'd put the dead body on top of the plank, and by the way, you should try to bury the body the same day it dies because of the decomposition.

Here's these two crowds, they're gonna collide, and what is Jesus going to do? He's setting the stage, Luke is setting the stage for Jesus to raise this person from the dead, which brings us to scene two.

The Compassion of the Christ

From the collision of the crowds to now with alliteration, sorry, we don't do it that often, but sometimes you have to. From the collision of the crowds to the compassion of the Christ. Verses 13 through 15.

Collision of the crowds, now the compassion of the Christ. This is the central part of the passage. Luke wants you to know that Jesus has compassion, so you keep trusting in him, or you trust in him for the first time.

And when the Lord saw her, verse 13, he had compassion on her and said to her, do not weep. Then he came up and touched the beer, the thing that's carrying the body, and the bearer stood still, and he said, young man, I say to you, arise.

And the dead man sat up and began to speak, and Jesus gave him to his mother. One of my all-time favorite quotes is from a man named D .L. Moody. Here's the quote. Jesus spoiled every funeral that he went to.

Jesus spoiled every funeral that he went to. Whether it was Lazarus's, Jairus's daughter, or here with a widow from Nain. And when the Lord saw her, verse 13, he did not say, I'm sorry for your loss. He did not say, I'm going to miss him too.

I hope you're surrounded with a lot of love. I'm sharing in your sadness as you remember your son with deepest sympathy regarding your son. My all-time worst thing to say to someone, my thoughts are with you, that's basically what the world says.

Thinking of you as you celebrate your son's remarkable life. We're missing your son along with you. He didn't say any of that, did he? I read in a website article, how do you express sympathy? And you know what, it's really good.

How do you express sympathy to someone who's lost a loved one? What's the best response? And everything had to do with not just, I'm sorry, but could I do something about it? Not just, I feel your pain, but I'd like to somehow alleviate that pain.

Here was a few illustrations just online. Thinking of your family with love and wanting to help out in any way I can. I'll call to see when it'll be a good night to bring over a meal. So I'm sorry and I want to alleviate.

You've got so much on your mind and on your heart now. We hope it'll make one less worry to know that Kevin and I will be taking care of your yard as long as you need it. Sad, sorry, but also I'd like to do something.

That's what sympathy is. So when I think about sympathy, I think about comfort, I think about compassion. What would the perfect man do? What would the perfect man do when he saw someone who needed sympathy?

Would he in fact just say, I'm sorry? Or would he do something perfect, like I know that you're having pain and I'm going to do something about it? That's what sympathy is. Does this not sound familiar then?

Hebrews four, since then we have a great high priest who's passed through the heavens. Jesus, the son of God, let us hold fast to our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to what?

Sympathize with our weaknesses, but one in who every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

Jesus is not far away, he's passed through the heavens as it were, but he's close. He's the great high priest. First Peter chapter five, casting all your anxiety on him because he cares for you. Go back to Luke.

As you sit and just kind of look at the passage, think about the passage, ask questions about the passage, study the passage, something will probably come to your mind sooner or later and that is, it's Jesus that takes the initiative.

It's Jesus is the one that says, I'm going to help. Now of course the leper said, please help me, Jesus heals. The centurion on behalf of someone else says, my servant needs healing, please heal. Here the lady, the widow, here the crowds didn't ask Jesus, would you do something?

It's Jesus that takes the initiative.

And we all know grace initiates, sovereignty initiates, God's mercy initiates. God is the one who initiates and Hosea chapter 14 verse four says, I will love them freely. It's not that they do something first and then I respond or transactional, God is the one who initiates.

He sees this woman and he's going to do something about it. Of course as you know, isn't this a good little picture of salvation? When you read Jesus saying to Lazarus in John 11, Lazarus, be raised, arise.

You say to yourself, that's exactly how God saves people. God says, you're a Christian, you're made alive, you're brand new. God saves, God interrupts, God intervenes, God rescues every person. And for my friends that say, I have to move first before God can save me, I just remind you dear friend, that that's not how you pray, is it?

If you have a prayer for a loved one who needs salvation, how do you pray? Do you pray, God please work in their life but make sure you keep their heart and their will and their freedom and their free agency all separate and somehow intervene?

Do you pray that way? I don't think you do. I think you pray this way. God, take the initiative and save. God, do whatever it takes to save my loved one. On your knees, you believe in the sovereign initiation of God, don't you?

Of course you do.

And here Jesus, the protector of widows, Psalm 68, is going to do something. Some people can't be bothered with those who grieve. Here Jesus, the perfect man, he knows exactly what to do. He knows exactly what to say.

And what does the passage show us? What is the name that Luke uses here? Title in verse 13,.

And when the Lord saw her.

First time I think that the narration calls him Lord. Other people have called him Lord, but Luke wants you to know, sovereign, authority, Adonai, powerful, Yahweh. And he goes up and he touches this kind of movable frame that you put the body on.

Would that be good for Jewish people to touch something that a dead body's on? What would that do to them? That would make them ceremonially unclean. But just like with the leper, when Jesus, the clean one, touches the unclean leper, instead of the contamination going to Jesus, the cleansing goes to the leper, right?

Same thing here, exact same thing. Numbers 19, whoever touches the dead body of any person shall be unclean for seven days, but not Jesus. And the text says, I love this, he had compassion on her. Kim and I regularly talk these days about the overkill in the medical industry on gut health.

Kim usually says, I don't even wanna say gut. How's your gut health doing? And you can be off in your own gut health world if you like, but there's a lot of gut health. To describe compassion of a person back in the Bible days, you would talk about this thing in your inner gut, in your bowels, as it were, a visceral kind of feeling.

And the word is splankna, basically. And it just means from the insides, from the heart, with compassion and sympathy and real love, Jesus has compassion. It's the same compassion that Zacharias said of his son John the Baptist in Luke chapter one, that John the Baptist would give knowledge of salvation to his people as the forerunner because of the tender, compassionate mercy of our God.

And maybe sometime you like to just type in the word compassion in your Bible app and just see, what does the Bible say about God and his compassion? Is God far off and remote and just kind of above us or is he compassionate?

You probably know the most famous one, Lamentations three, the Lord's loving kindness indeed never ceases. His compassions, what? Never fail. They're new every morning, great is your faithfulness. Exodus 33, I myself, God said to Moses, will make my goodness pass before you and will proclaim the name of the Lord before you and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious and I will show compassion to whom I'll show compassion.

Deuteronomy four, the Lord, your God is a compassionate God. Jesus, when he sees people without a shepherd, he has compassion. He sees the leper and it says moved with compassion. He stretches out his hand and says, you're cleansed.

And if you ever need compassion, the times that you need it the most, and some here have experienced that, is the death of a child. Here, the mom loses the son. Do you need compassion when you have the death of a child?

Of course you do.

There's a theologian named Robert Dabney and he was out of town. He lived in the 1800s, Civil War time and he was out of town on church business and he heard his son was sick and so he rushes home and here's what he says.

We use prompt measures and sent early for the doctor who did not think his case was dangerous but gradually grew worse until Sunday and his symptoms became alarming and he passed away after great sufferings.

Half hour before he died, he sank into a deep sleep and became quiet and sighed his soul away. And then he says a sentence that I've not forgotten. I have learned rapidly in the school of anguish this week and am many years older than I was a few days ago.

And here Jesus comes, lost a son and what does he have? He has compassion. Not like me, not like you, maybe thinking about our own problems, but fully on board. I'm going to not just have compassion, but I'm going to do something about it.

Sin has ruined and God has a remedy. Some philosophers back in those days would say, do not grieve because it'll do no good. And then something happens. What does the Lord say? He had compassion on her and said to her, do not weep.

My first gut reaction is, to use that word again, how is that compassionate? Don't weep at your son's funeral. I've said a lot of dumb things to people in my life, but I would never say that.

Would you?

I mean, don't cry. This kind of crying isn't a whimpering cry. This is a loud lament cry. Not just from the inside, but it kind of flows to the outside. Just stop crying. Of course, we know that Jesus is going to do something about it.

Of course, it's appropriate to cry, but knowing what I'm going to do, you're not going to need to cry. You can stop your crying because I'm going to do something right now. And of course, the writer of Luke wants you to say, who's like this?

Who is this? This has to be the Messiah. This has to be the Son of God. I should be trusting in this one. Who's like this? Stop grieving. I mean, my father would say, kind of abruptly, that person has no class.

But of course, Jesus, the perfect man says, I want you to look at me. It's almost like he's saying, eyes on me.

Look at me.

Trust, look up. Isaiah says of Jesus, he was despised and rejected by men. A man of what? Sorrows, acquainted with grief. Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. Now, if Jesus would have said to her, don't cry, and walked away, it would have just been awful.

But he doesn't do that. He says, don't cry. He doesn't stop there. He came up and touched the beer. Bear stood still. Hey, what's going on? It's kind of bad form to interrupt during a funeral. I don't think we've ever had a funeral here interrupted.

A couple times when I've preached, there's been some people that shouted out things or mumbled under their breath. And that's when I am glad we have really strong ushers. But how about this interruption of a funeral?

What were these bears thinking, I wonder? Jesus comes up and touches it. It had to surprise them. It had to startle them. So they stop. And he said to the young man, or he said, young man, I say to you, arise.

As I was studying this week, I smiled when I read somebody who wrote this. There was nothing in the dead young man to merit this miracle. Jesus didn't say, what a good-looking corpse. I've never seen such a fine corpse.

I'm going to raise him from the dead. And then the writer said, I don't care how nicely you dress a corpse up, corpses do not have any merit. And of course, Luke is setting this up for the ultimate, not just Jairus' daughter being raised, not just this woman's son being raised, not just Lazarus being raised, but the language of eternal life, when God makes us alive.

Listen to Ephesians chapter two, and you were dead in trespasses and sins, but God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, what made us alive in Christ Jesus.

Colossians says the same thing. When you were dead in your trespasses, God made alive together with him. This is the sovereign Lord initiating, calling dead people to be raised. It happens physically with God, it happens spiritually with God.

I think I could probably look back and all Jesus has to do is say the word and something would happen, right? Say the word, arise. Isaiah 55, for as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there without watering the earth and making it bear and sprout, so shall my word be which goes forth from my mouth.

It shall not return to me empty without accomplishing what I desire and without succeeding in the matter for which I sent it. Sometimes Jesus will say your faith, I see your faith and I'm gonna heal you.

No faith here, corpse. You talk to a corpse and what will happen? If you talk to the corpse and they are raised, you must be supernatural, you must be powerful, you must be the God man. That's what Luke wants us to see.

Now I've told my children over the years and I know I've told you the stories that when I would officiate funerals, that I would bring my children when possible and that when we would go to the wake, I would always kind of prep them and say, we're gonna walk in and there's gonna be some funeral home people and they'll greet us and we'll probably sign the little booklet there to show that we're there and then you're gonna see there's a casket, it might be open, there might be a dead body in there and there's gonna be a line of people over here, the loved ones and all you have to do is say to them nothing and hug them, say I'm sorry, say I love you but I want you to come over to the casket and we're just gonna look at that dead body just for 15 seconds, 30 seconds.

I'm trying not to say the children's names because as you know, if I say their names when they're present, they get a dollar so I'm not trying to say my daughter's name, that starts with an M, R starts with a G, they're sitting over there.

And then I'd always say three things, I'd say the person's soul's not in that body anymore because you can tell it doesn't look like a live person and their soul has either gone to heaven or to hell and they're gonna get a new body one day at the resurrection and then I'd also say, dear children, I hope it's not for a long time but one day you'll be in that casket, it'll be you so make sure you're trusting in Jesus now and then lastly, I would say, who could go up to a body like that, cold, looks bad, stiff and just say no medical equipment but just say, arise, get up.

Who could do that? It has to be Jesus, he has the power to do that and so let's make sure, by the way, I try to encourage you to take your children to funerals and to encourage and to bring them and many like the Goddards and others would do that very thing.

Who can say to a dead body, arise? I mean, the heart doesn't beat anymore, pulse is gone, brain is dead, reflexes are gone, muscles relax, temperature drops, blood gets pulled downward, your body stiffens and more, death is an enemy, it's ugly and Jesus says, arise.

I like Hebrews two, since therefore the children share in flesh and blood. He, Jesus himself, likewise partook of the same things that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is the devil.

Listen, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery. All of us, this slavery of fearing death, what happens after we die? And Jesus says, be raised. He didn't say to the young man, raise yourself.

The language, for those of you that like grammar, it's passive language. Somebody's going to have to raise you, God is going to raise you. It's not active, raise yourself up. Jesus had power over disease with the centurion's servant, now he has power over death, he must be the right Messiah.

Who on earth walks up to a casket and says, get up? When it comes to waves at a beach, I like Job 38, thus far you shall come and no farther. Here shall your proud waves be stayed. God says, this is how far the waves come up and not only waves, but this is how far death can go.

And no farther.

There's going to be another resurrection, by the way. Does this sound familiar? John 5, Jesus said, truly, truly, I say to you, an hour is coming and now is here when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live.