The Widow of Nain Luke 7:11-16 CLICK TITLE FOR AUDIO
The funeral for and the resurrection of the son of the widow of Nain pictures the sinner’s need of Christ and the result of his meeting with Christ.
The city is called Nain which means “pleasant.” When coming into this city, therefore, you don’t expect to find tragedy; you expect to find happiness. Likewise, when you come into a Christian home you don’t expect to find sorrow, but rather joy. Such was the case for the widow of Nain.
There was a dead man carried out. The wages of sin is death and when a man messes with sin it will kill him and carry him out. Eph 2:1 mentions, “you… who were dead in trespasses and sins.” We understand doctrinally that sinners without Christ have a dead spirit. But practically, sin is a killer. Even before a man physically dies, sin starts killing him. It kills his joy, it kills his relationships, it kills his motivation, it kills his sense of ethics, righteousness and morals, it kills his conscience and so forth, and carries him out until it finally kills him “dead.” The son of the widow of Nain pictures a man dead in sin.
This man was the only son of a widow. Tragedy had already struck the widow of Nain once and now this woman’s coal was being quenched [2 Sam 14:7]. It didn’t matter that much people of the city was with her because she found herself all alone in the midst of a crowd. Let me clarify the picture for you. You can be in a great church with a crowd of people to attend to you. And yet when you have a son being carried out of the church and out of your home by the deadly work of sin, you feel just like this widow. As far as you are concerned you might as well not have a husband or other children. And that’s the way your family feels. You feel all alone and totally helpless. You would give anything to bring him back.
The Lord had compassion on her. Meeting the Lord was the greatest thing that could have happened to the widow of Nain. You must remember that the Lord has compassion on you. And he is saying to you, “Weep not.” Have you ever considered that all your tears have not changed your child’s circumstances one bit? You can make yourself as miserable as if you are experiencing the grief of death and your child is just as callous to your grief as this dead man was to his mother’s tears. They didn’t affect him one bit. Now you may cry out to God in prayer; but to weep in bitter grief isn’t going to fix one thing. It’s just going to make you sick.
The Lord stopped the funeral. Your child needs to have a meeting with Jesus. Jesus must intervene and stop the thing that is killing your child. Jesus stopped the men that were carrying her son out. Jesus intervenes at precisely the time when he can get your child’s attention. There are many of us who have had this kind of meeting with Christ; but not until the day and the hour when we finally realized that what we were doing was killing us. We were as good as dead. I did not think I would live through the night of my meeting with Jesus.
Jesus said, “Arise.” When we get saved we are new creatures in Christ. We walk away from our meeting with Jesus walking in the newness of life. We are risen with him. It is evident that there has been a change. We are not what we were before getting saved.
The man sat up and spoke. Notice something very important. This “young man,” [Lk 7:14] sat up and began to speak. Contrast what happened to him with the two other resurrections during Jesus’ ministry, the raising of Jairus’s daughter [Mk 5:41-42] and the raising of Lazarus [Jn 11:43-44]. Notice that the 12-year-old girl arose and walked immediately, the young man sat up and spoke but didn’t start walking immediately and Lazarus couldn’t do anything because he was still bound. He needed to be loosed. The longer a man is in sin the more he must recover from when he meets Jesus. He’s going to be slower to get going.
“He delivered him to his mother,” [Lk 7:15]. The Lord delivered the son of the widow of Nain to her alive. You can’t do it and he can’t do it for himself. Jesus must turn him around and bring him home. Anything you do before that is going to be nothing more than bringing the same dead man home that left. And the longer he sticks around the house the more he is going to stink.
The people feared and glorified God. When Jesus turns your child around, then others fear God and God gets the glory. Ps 50:15… that’s how this works. If you do it through your effort, God doesn’t get the glory. But when God gets the glory, everyone sees “that God hath visited his people,” [Lk 7:16].
Conclusion: if your child has let sin carry him or her out of your home and out of the church, then turn your tears and prayers toward the Lord until HE stops the “funeral,” like he did for the widow of Nain.