You know, several years ago I was leading a tour in the Holy Land, and our group was just coming out of the old city. We were getting ready to walk through the Lion's Gate, often called St. Stephen's Gate, when all of a sudden there was a commotion behind us that was so loud that literally we all stopped and turned around to look. And what we saw was this funeral procession coming towards us. However, it was different than any kind of funeral that I had ever seen before. Walking in the front of this funeral was the widow along with a clergyman. And then immediately behind them was the body of the deceased, except it wasn't in a coffin like you would normally see in America. The body was simply wrapped in a white sheet lying on a pallet, a stretcher. And then all around this pallet were mourners who were crying and moaning and wailing and weeping. And they had cymbals and tambourines.
We were mesmerized. We just stood there as this woeful procession went by us, went out the city gate, and then made its way down the street towards the graveyard. Now the reason I bring that up is because today in part 8 of our series, People Jesus Met, we're going to watch as the Lord Jesus himself in a little village called Nain came across a funeral procession precisely like the one we saw in Jerusalem. However, the Lord Jesus did not just stand there as we're going to see and let the funeral procession go by him like we did.
No, no. The Lord Jesus brought that funeral procession to a screeching halt. And we're going to look and see what happened back in Nain 2,000 years ago. And then we're going to talk about, well, what difference does that make to us today?
So here we go. Luke, chapter 7, verse 11. Soon afterwards, the Bible says, Jesus went to a town called Nain and a large crowd went along with him. And there's a church there today, actually, that commemorates the events of what we're about to read in the rest of this chapter. Verse 12. Now, as Jesus approached the city gate, behold, a dead man was being carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow. And a sizable number of people from the town were with her. This funeral was just like the one we saw in Jerusalem.
So you've got a mental picture of what it was like. And the Bible also tells us two other important facts about this woman. Number one, it tells her that this was this woman's one and only son who was dead and lying on this pallet. And it tells us, number two, that this woman was already a widow.
Her husband had already died. Now, in ancient Israel, this was a really bad combination that this poor lady had, because you know, as well as I, that the ancient Roman world was a male-driven society. A woman couldn't just go out and get a job like they can today and support themselves.
Women didn't go out into the fields and plow and harvest crops in those days. And so without a husband to provide for her, and now without a son to provide for her, this woman had no way to support herself. You say, well, what about her life insurance benefit? What about Social Security?
Well, hello. There was no life insurance in these days. Friends, this woman had no piece of the rock.
You understand what I'm saying to you? There was no government assistance. There were no 401Ks. There were no pension plans. There was no Social Security.
There was no Medicare. The stark reality here is that at the end of this funeral, all the townspeople were going to go back to their homes, and this poor woman was going to be left high and dry, probably reduced to having to beg on the street in order to survive. So is it any wonder that she was walking at the front of this procession weeping? She was probably weeping partly because of the grief she had for her son, and partly out of fear as to what in the world was going to happen to her now. Verse 13, and when the Lord saw her, I love this, his heart went out to her.
Wow, I love that. And he said to her, don't cry. The word that's used here that's translated, his heart went out to her, is an incredibly picturesque word in Greek.
It's an incredibly intense word. It literally means Jesus was gripped in his gut for her. Other translations are he felt compassion for her. His heart broke for her. The point is this woman's grief deeply touched Jesus and deeply moved Jesus. And we should ask the question, why? Why was Jesus so moved by this woman's plight?
Well, I'd like to suggest two reasons. Number one, because as God, Jesus is concerned about the heartache of every single human being alive. But number two, don't forget, Jesus's mom was a widow also. We don't know for sure when his dad Joseph died, but it was somewhere between the ages when Jesus was between 12 and 30. And of course, the Lord Jesus had to take the responsibility as the oldest son to provide for his mother Mary, to provide for his brothers and sisters.
The point is that Jesus had lived through. Jesus had experienced the struggles that a widow in ancient Israel faced, which means he understood way down deep the feelings and the fears that this woman had there in the village of name. I'd like to say that if you're a lady here today who's lost her husband, or you're a single parent mom here today, or you're a single woman who feels like you're all alone in the world, and tempted to think that, hey, Jesus is a man. He really doesn't appreciate what I'm facing as a woman.
Well, I'd like to suggest to you that the events here in Nain should change your opinion. The truth is Jesus understands exactly what you are facing, and his heart is moved by every struggle you have, just like his heart was moved for this woman here in the city of Nain. And so the Lord Jesus said to this widow, he said, stop crying, ma'am.
I'm going to do something to help you. And I'm sure the people around him thought, what's he going to do? Jesus doesn't have any money. Jesus certainly isn't going to marry this woman. Jesus doesn't have a job to offer this woman.
I mean, what's he going to do? Raise her son from the dead? Well, actually, that's precisely what the Lord Jesus had in mind. Watch verse 14, then Jesus went up and touched the pallet and those carrying it came to a halt. And then Jesus said, young man, I say to you, get up.
Then the dead man sat up and began to talk. And Jesus gave him back to his mother. Now, the Bible records this event with such simplicity and with such calm. But, folks, the truth of the matter is Jesus just raised somebody from the dead. And it wasn't the only time he's ever done this.
This was the first time he did it. But don't forget that in Luke Chapter eight, he raises Jairus's daughter from the dead. And in John Chapter 11, he raises Lazarus from the dead. And in all four gospels, he raises himself from the dead.
You say, well, long way to me. You don't really believe that this boy was dead and that Jesus raised him from the dead, do you? I mean, this thing had to be a hoax. Maybe he was unconscious.
Maybe he was in a coma. You don't really believe Jesus raised him from the literal dead, do you? I sure do. I sure do. And you should too.
And let me point out why. Folks, Jesus didn't do this in some kind of secret chamber. And he didn't do it in some secluded gathering where everybody around him was just one of his followers. And he didn't do it in some seance where he had everybody hypnotized. He did it in broad daylight, on the road, out in the open, at the city gate, in front of a huge crowd of people that had followed him from the city of Capernaum, and in front of almost the entire population of the village of Nain who had come out to mourn for this boy.
And you know what? Those people who were eyewitnesses to this event, they certainly didn't think this was a hoax. They certainly didn't think it was a con. Look, verse 16 says, Look here. These people knew a dead person when they saw one. And these people knew a miracle when they saw one. And they were so blown away by what Jesus did that they couldn't even keep it to themselves.
They ran around and told everybody they could find what he did so that his reputation spread like wildfire, not just in Israel, but the Bible says, in all the surrounding countryside. You know, we are often tempted to think, oh, those poor Jewish people in Jesus' day, you know, I mean, they didn't have Christian bookstores, and they didn't have Christian radio, and they couldn't turn on the television and watch Billy Graham. I mean, if they only had back then all the information that we have today about Jesus, they certainly would have believed. Hey, friends, don't you kid yourself.
Uh-uh. These people back in Jesus' day, they had an outrageous amount of information about Jesus. They knew exactly what he was doing, and yet most of them didn't believe in him. And you know why?
I'll tell you why. It's because salvation is an issue of the heart. It's not an issue of how much information about Jesus a person has. I mean, folks, it doesn't take a whole lot of information to come to Christ. It doesn't take a whole lot of information to get saved. When I came to Christ 39 years ago, the amount of biblical information I had, you could have fit in a thimble. But let me tell you what I did have. I had a heart that was willing to do business with God.
I had a heart that was willing to humble itself before Almighty God. And so often in trying to reach our unbelieving friends and our unbelieving relatives, we keep trying to give them more and more information about Jesus. We give them the book, Evidence That Demands a Verdict. And then we give them the book, More Evidence That Demands a Verdict.
And then we give them the Left Behind series, and we keep funneling the information to them. But this is not the root of the problem. The root of the problem is not lack of information on these people's parts.
Listen here, the root of the problem is their stubborn, willful, arrogant, self-sufficient heart. That's the problem. And that was the problem with the Jewish people in Jesus's day. These people stood here and watched Jesus raise somebody from the dead. You don't have that much information about Jesus.
You've never seen him do that. The problem was not that they didn't have enough information. The problem with these Jewish people is that their hearts were not humble, and they were not contrite, and their hearts were not broken about their sin, and they were not willing to bow and surrender their life to Jesus Christ.
It's just that simple. And so you know what, folks? What our unbelieving friends need most from us, and our unbelieving relatives, they do not need more and more information from us. What they need is more and more prayer from us. Prayer that the Holy Spirit would soften their hearts. Prayer that the Holy Spirit would convict them of their sin and of their need for Christ.
Prayer that the Holy Spirit would bring them to their knees at the foot of the cross. If you really want to do something to help your unbelieving friends, pray for them that God will deal with their heart. And let me just say, if you're here today, and you've never trusted Christ in a real and personal way, I don't mean to offend you in what I'm about to say, but please don't think that your problem is that you just need more and more information. If you've heard one sermon at McLean Bible Church, if you've listened to one Billy Graham message on television, you've got plenty of information to close the deal with God if you want to.
That is not the problem. Friends, at least let's be honest about what the problem is if you haven't come to Christ. It's your heart, your stubborn, arrogant, prideful heart. And let's at least be straight up with one another about that. And you need to ask God to deal with your heart.
It's not about more information. I hope you'll think about that. Well, that's as far as we're going to go in the passage today, so it's time to ask our most important question. And I want to hear all you folks out at Loudoun, and everybody at the Internet, on the Internet, and everybody at the Edge, so when we're ready, are we ready here? Are we ready? Okay, here we go.
One, two, three. So what? That's pretty good.
Yeah, good for you. All right, you say, Lon, so what? Say, look, I appreciate everything you're saying here, but I mean, I don't get how any of this connects to me. Well, let's talk about that. What was the driving piston here in this encounter between the Lord Jesus and the widow of name? Well, we find it in verse 13. Verse 13 says, when the Lord saw her, he felt compassion for her. See, we need to realize the Lord Jesus didn't raise this woman's son from the dead in order to enhance his reputation. He didn't raise that boy from the dead in order to impress the crowd or to make a statement about himself.
The Bible's clear, he raised that boy because he felt compassion for that woman. Now, what exactly is compassion? Well, it comes from the Latin word compasio, which literally means to suffer along with someone. Compassion means really caring about other people. It means being touched by their pain. It means being moved by their hardships and their struggles. And the Bible declares over and over again that our God is a God of intense compassion for you and me.
Listen to what the Bible says. Psalm 103 verse 13 says, as the father has compassion, there's our word, on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him. Psalm 72 verse 13 says that God has compassion on the poor and the needy.
And oh, by the way, in the sight of Almighty God, could I remind us all, we're all poor and we're all needy. Hey, the Gospels tell us that the Lord Jesus had compassion, Matthew chapter 14, on the multitudes and healed their sick. He had compassion, Matthew chapter 20, on two blind men and restored their sight. He had compassion, Mark chapter 1, on a leper and healed his disease. He had compassion, Mark chapter 5, on a demon-possessed man and cast the demons out. Mark 634, when Jesus saw the crowds, the Bible says, he felt compassion for them because they were like sheep without a shepherd.
And I could keep going, but I think the point's clear. The point is, whenever you and I pour our heart out to God in pain, whenever we pour our heart out to God in need, we can be sure that he is listening to every word and that he is feeling every tear and that he is deeply moved by every heartache we have. Why? Because he is a God of compassion. And this is why 1 Peter 5 verse 7 says, cast all your cares on him. Cast all your cares on him. Why? Why should I do that?
Because he cares for you. Amazing, huh? You know, a few years ago, I was appointed by President George W. Bush to serve on the President's Committee for Mental Retardation. In fact, I served two terms. And while I was on the committee, the committee voted to change its name from the President's Committee on Mental Retardation to the President's Committee for People with Intellectual Disabilities.
And so we were invited, the committee was, to the White House into the Oval Office for the President to sign the name change officially. And when my wife, Brenda, heard that I was going down to do that, she asked me if she could come along into the Oval Office. And I said, well, I don't know, Brenda, I don't know. I mean, she said, well, I would really like to go in the Oval Office and meet the President. I said, well, yeah, you and about 300 million Americans would like to go there. I said, I'll ask.
So I did. I asked the head of the committee, and the lady made a call and called me back and said, look, they said that Brenda can come, but there's no guarantee she'll get in the Oval Office. She may just have to sit out in the waiting area, but if she's willing to take the risk, she can come. So I said, do you want to go, Brenda? Under those circumstances, she said, I'm going. So she went.
So we're all standing there in the waiting room waiting for the President to come out and bring us in the Oval Office. And wouldn't you know it, this young lady comes walking by there in the White House with a clipboard, and I'd never seen her before in my life, and she goes, Lon Solomon, what are you doing here? And so I told her, and she said, well, I'm one of the President's schedulers. And I said, well, then I'd like you to meet my wife, Brenda, who's here with me. And she'd like to know if she could go in the Oval Office with us. And the lady said, oh, sure, she can.
No problem. She said, Brenda, just come with me. I'll make sure we'll go in together. So in we go, Brenda and everybody into the Oval Office. And after we got done and the President signed everything and, you know, whatever, we were breaking up, and Brenda was on the other side of the room talking to some folks, and I was standing next to President Bush, and I said, hey, Mr. Bush, would you mind taking a picture, the White House photographers there, would you mind taking a picture with my wife, Brenda, and me? He goes, no, no, no. And so he goes, hey, Brenda, Brenda, come over here quick. I want to take a picture with you. So Brenda scurried over, and he put his arms around us.
We took this picture, which, oh, by the way, is up in my hallway. And so we were riding home, and Brenda says to me, she says, you know, Lon, she says, as long as I live, I will never get over him calling me Brenda. And I said, well, I call you Brenda all the time. And she said, yeah, but it's not the same.
True story, honest to gosh, true story. Well, can I tell you what I will never get over in my life and what you should never get over in your life? I will never get over the fact that the almighty, all holy, majestic God of this universe is interested in me, that he cares about me, and that he's willing to intervene in the world to help me, and he's willing to do the very same thing for you.
This is amazing. I mean, as long as I live, I'll never get over that. This is what Hebrews chapter 4 says. It says, verse 15, for we have a high priest who is able to sympathize with our weaknesses. There's the compassion of God.
Watch. For he was tempted in every way as we are, yet without sin. Therefore, the next verse says, therefore what? Therefore, because we've got a God of compassion like this, therefore let us come, what's the next word, boldly, boldly, to God's throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and that we may find grace to help us in our time of need. Listen, friends, the Bible says, no matter how scared we are, no matter how discouraged we are, no matter how exhausted we are, no matter how burdened down we are, there is a place that we can take all of this, where we will always find a sympathetic ear, where we will always find a tender heart, a place where we can lay those burdens down and exchange them for the sweet peace of God, and that place is on our knees in the presence of the all-compassionate God of this universe. Amen?
Amen. And that's why I love the great hymn that says, And we have in Jesus all our sins and griefs to bear. What a privilege to carry everything to God in prayer, except that we don't.
You know, we don't. So many of us, we are determined that instead we're going to carry all those burdens ourselves. We're going to carry all our problems on our own shoulders. You know, we're like Atlas carrying the weight of the world on our shoulders and says, No, no, no, your shoulders aren't big enough.
No, no, no, you can't carry that kind of weight by yourself. The hymn goes on to say, Oh, what peace we often forfeit. Oh, what needless pain we bear.
Why? All because we do not carry everything to God in prayer. You know, my experience is that many of us today are carrying a much heavier load, carrying a much heavier burden than maybe we've carried in a long, long time. Things in our world are tough.
And I want to urge you to take Jesus up on his invitation. I want to urge you to believe God when he tells you he really cares about you and that if you'll just let him, he'll put his shoulder under the load and he'll shoulder it for you. Friends, you and I, we can't carry these burdens.
It'll kill us. But the great news of the Bible is that the Lord Jesus can. That's why he says, Matthew 11, 28, Come to me, all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. I'll take the burden off of you.
You will find peace for your soul. And I'll tell you, in some of my darkest days with my daughter Jill, in some of the toughest days of leading this church over the last 29 years, I'll tell you what, the only refuge I had was to go directly to the Lord Jesus and say, Lord, I can't do this. I can't carry this. It's too much for me.
This is going to kill me. What a wonderful thing to watch the Lord Jesus step in and say, Lon, let me let me lift that. I got that. I'll take that.
And to feel that burden leave because Jesus took it didn't mean the problems went away, but it meant that I had the shoulders of the living Christ to get under that burden and carry it with me. And that's how I made it. Pure and simple. No other way. And folks, that's how you'll make it. Believe God.
He's willing to do that if you'll just let him. Let's pray together with our heads bowed and our eyes closed. If you've been trying to carry your own burden on your own shoulders and it's killing you. It's sapped all the joy out of your life. And you just feel like you're walking around every day with a little black cloud over your head, man. It's time to get rid of that, to give that burden to the Lord Jesus. And he let him carry it for you because he cares about you. And so if you need to do that, drop that burden off at the foot of the cross and leave it there.
You take these quiet moments and you do that right now. OK, let's stand now and sing about it. What a friend we have in Jesus. Join with me.
Let's sing. What a friend we have in Jesus. All our sins and grief to bear. What a privilege to carry everything to God in prayer. Oh, what peace we often forfeit. Oh, what needless pain we bear.
Oh, because we do not care. Everything to God. Lord Jesus, I pray today that you would dismiss your people with the great blessing that you gave Aaron to pray for the people of Israel.
You've already had an eye by Yishma Rekha. May the Lord bless you. May he keep and preserve you. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. May the Lord cause his face to shine upon you. May he be gracious to you. Yes, I don't know.
I don't know. May the Lord turn his face and not his back towards you. And may he give you peace. Father, in a tough world where the burdens are great. Thank you that you offer us the sweet peace of God in exchange for our burdens.
Lord, help us to make that trade each and every day, each and every moment of each and every day. Thank you for your love and your compassion. Give us peace this week, we pray, Lord, in Jesus name. And God's people said, Amen. Have a good week. Bless you.
