If you'd like to follow along with me as I read from God's holy word, you can first turn to the book of Ruth. The book of Ruth, we'll read most of the first chapter there. Page 222 in one of our church Bibles. Ruth chapter 1. beginning in verse one. In the days when the judges ruled, there was a famine in the land, and a man of Bethlehem and Judah went to sojourn in the country of Moab, he and his wife and his two sons. The name of the man was Elimelech, and the name of his wife, Naomi. And the names of his two sons were Malon and Kilion. They were Ephrathites from Bethlehem and Judah. They went into the country of Moab and remained there, but Elimelech, the husband of Naomi, died, and she was left with her two sons. These took Moabite wives. The name of the one was Orpah, and the name of the other Ruth. They lived there about ten years, and both Mahlon and Hillion died, so that the woman was left without her two sons and her husband. Then she rose with her daughters-in-law to return from the country of Moab, for she had heard in the fields of Moab that the Lord had visited his people and given them food. So she set out from that place where she was with her two daughters-in-law. They went on the way to return to the land of Judah. But Naomi said to her two daughters-in-law, go, return each of you to her mother's house. May the Lord deal kindly with you, as you have dealt with the dead and with me. The Lord grant that you might find rest, each of you, in the house of her husband. Then she kissed them, and they lifted up their voices and wept. And they said to her, no, we will return with you to your people. But Naomi said, turn back, my daughters. Why will you go with me? Have I yet sons in my womb that they may become your husbands? Turn back, my daughters. Go your way. For I am too old to have a husband. If I should say I have hope, even if I should have a husband this night and should bear sons, would you therefore wait till they were grown? Would you therefore refrain from marrying? No, my daughters, for it is exceedingly bitter to me, for your sake, that the hand of the Lord has gone out against me. Then they lifted up their voices and wept again. And Orpah kissed her mother-in-law, but Ruth clung to her. And she said, see, your sister-in-law has gone back to her people and to her gods. Return after your sister-in-law. But Ruth said, do not urge me to leave you or return from following you, for where you go, I will go, and where you lodge, I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God, my God. Where you die, I will die, and there will I be buried. May the Lord do so to me and more also, if anything but death parts me from you. And when Naomi saw that she was determined to go with her, she said no more. So the two of them went on until they came to Bethlehem. And when they came to Bethlehem, the whole town was stirred because of them. And the woman said, is this Naomi? She said to them, do not call me Naomi. Call me Mara, for the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me. I went away full, and the Lord has brought me back empty. Why call me Naomi when the Lord has testified against me and the Almighty has brought calamity upon me? And then turning over to our sermon text tonight, turning to Luke chapter 7. Luke chapter 7, page 863 in the church Bible. We come now to read of another widow who has also lost her only son. Luke chapter 7, beginning in 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 when the Lord saw her, he had compassion on her and said to her, do not weep. Then he came up and touched the buyer, and the bearers 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. Fear seized them all, and they glorified God, saying, a great prophet has arisen among us, and God has visited his people. And this report about him spread through the whole of Judea and all the surrounding country. Thus far, the reading of God's inspired word. Thanks be to him for it. Let's pray. Lord, we come to you now asking you to speak to us through what you've spoken for your servants are listening. May indeed we be fed once again by the good shepherd of the sheep. For we pray in Jesus' name. Amen. One of the very familiar texts, I'm sure to all of you, is in Ephesians 6, where the Apostle Paul is describing the whole armor of God. And in it, as you no doubt remember, he describes the one weapon in the armor, which is the sword of the spirit, the word of God, a weapon that is to be wielded in the strength of his might in the good fight of the faith. And what is amazing to me is that there are times, many times, that this same word that we are to wield, the sword of the spirit, in our own hands actually is a weapon that God himself wields in our hearts and in our minds and in our lives. In fact, God first and foremost wields the sword of the spirit, which is his own word. And then we in turn, like him, like our savior, live by his word, every word that comes from his mouth, and we hear the truth and speak that truth. But one of the things that the Lord is pleased to do is to wield his word and pierce us by it. As we know from Hebrews 4, God's word is described as sharper than any two-edged sword, meaning sharper than any known weapon at the time, the sword of a Roman, the sword of a Greek, the sword of a barbarian. And that sword of the spirit, his own word, is able to pierce even to the center of bone, right, the marrow. His word, wielded by him himself, pierces us. And I think that if we had time tonight, we could tell each other of times, very special times, significant times in our own lives, where God has been pleased to wield that word powerfully, unusually powerfully, in our lives. And we feel, we sense, we experience that piercing of his word. And if we had time, we could tell each other about how that's happened. Because as Hebrews 4 says, it keeps on happening because his word is living. And it's active, even as he who spoke it is living and active. And this passage in Luke 7 is one of those texts that has pierced me. It's pierced me. And again, we could talk about the many ways God's word can pierce us. But what I want to do tonight is I want to talk in particular about this text, and in particular about the way that God himself could pierce us all by the glory of Jesus that shines from this text. And so what I'd like to do is I'd like to consider briefly the few verses here we've read in Luke 7 under three headings, the first being the scene, the scene, verses 11 and 12. Secondly, the Savior, the Savior, verses 13 to 15. And then finally, the certainty, verses 16 and 17. The scene, the Savior, the certainty. It's amazing to me that Luke tells us of this wonderful and amazing story about the Lord. And he says in verse 11 that soon afterward, Jesus, is the he, went to a town called Nain. His disciples and a great crowd went with him. And the reason why Luke describes it this way, as he sets this scene, is he's reminding us that the Lord Jesus has just healed a centurion's servant by his own powerful word. praising the faith of the centurion, said, hey, you don't even need to come. It's not like your presence is necessary or that you'd have to touch the person. You just speak the word. I know what it's like to speak a word and have it obeyed. You speak a word, sickness will obey. On the heels of that, he, along with the disciples that he had just called in chapter 5, come to a town with a great crowd. Because by now, he has amassed a great crowd. They have heard the shorter version of Luke's Sermon on the Mount in chapter 6, on the heels of healing a centurion's servant. Now this huge throng that's following Jesus, listening to his teaching, hearing of this miracle in the first part of 7, now comes with Jesus to Nain. a town about 15 miles southwest of Capernaum, where, of course, he enters at the beginning of seven. Traveling southwest, he now comes to Nain with all of these people, with all of his disciples. And as he draws near to the gate of the town, we read that a man who had died was being carried out of the town. We read that the man was the only son of his mother. Mother had one son. He's dead. And we read the detail that she herself was a widow. She's there, part of the funeral procession. And we read that there is a considerable crowd from the town that was with her as her son lays dead on a bier being carried, presumably, to a tomb. And I just want to pause for a second because those details go by very quickly. But can you imagine what it would have been like to be there? That's a lot of people. And this is a critical moment. Imagine following Jesus as he leads to Nain and all of a sudden you meet up with a funeral procession. You see the dead being carried out to go to a tomb. And you read of these details. And this scene is palpable with its intensity, I think. And I know that we read it and we know what happens, but as you've heard me say before, it is a wonderful exercise to just slow down and say, man, what's gonna happen? I mean, we already know what's gonna happen. But think of the drama that is here in these first two verses alone. It's why we read from Ruth, because there's so much drama in the Book of Ruth, in the positive sense, right? Not the 13-year-old girl sense. We're talking about positive drama that the Lord uses in the way he writes through his human authors to help us imagine the scene. Remember, a part of discipleship is the way that the Lord uses his word and captures our imagination. What's going to happen? Well, obviously what's going to happen is these people are going to pass by Jesus in this crowd and bury the person in the tomb as they weep and wail and continue to mourn the death of the only son of this poor widow who is now destitute, right? That's what will happen. And yet it isn't what happens at all. And so Luke paints for us and paints for our imagination this scene of Jesus and all the crowds and his disciples who come with him meeting up with a widow whose dead son is on a buy or a funeral procession with a crowd of mourners with them to bury the son. Well, what is going to happen? And it is amazing in the next portion of this text that we read about how the Lord, right? We're talking about King Jesus' response to this situation. Notice it then, we have the entrance of the Savior, right? He who is the life, he who is the resurrection. We have him coming up against death and apparent destitution. Mom's a widow. She has no way of providing for herself. Her son, her only son, is dead. What will become of her? Her hopes and dreams, as it were, lie on a buyer. What's going to happen? Well, the first thing that we want to note under the Savior is that he knows what's going on. That goes by fast. That goes by fast. He sees her and he has compassion on her and then he speaks to her. How could he? Well, he does because he knows precisely what's happening. He knows precisely the woman to whom he's coming, the dead to whom he's coming, the mourners that are with her. He knows precisely all there is to know because he's God come in the flesh, and he knows exactly what is going on, and he does not let them pass by, and neither does he pass by. Not only did the Savior know, but he sees. Jesus knows and Jesus sees. And I think that that is a wonderful, wonderful verb. The Lord Jesus sees. His eyes are open. They never close, so to speak. Of course, now in his resurrected glory, they never close. He always sees me, Children's Catechism says. Always sees me. He saw her. He didn't ignore her. He didn't ignore her plight. He saw her, even as he knew precisely what was going on. And he saw that the widow's hopes and dreams were lying dead on a byer. He saw her position, her destitution. He saw her need. Even as we read, of course, about Naomi's need. Who would care for her? Her husband's dead, sons are dead. Who's going to care for Ruth? And of course, we read in Ruth of a wonderful kinsman redeemer that is raised up for Ruth and Naomi, who provides for them. And here we have the kinsman redeemer present with another widow who has lost her son. And not only does he know precisely what's going on, not only does he see, but he cares. He cares. Last week we talked a little bit about how we bear one another's burdens in love. And one of the things we were considering is how we respond to people that take a brick, a burden out of their heart and hand it to us. How do we be good stewards of that burden? And one of the things I said is that we actually care about it. We care about them. We care about them and their burden, and it's exactly what we see here with Jesus. He knows what's going on. He sees the widow's plight, and he cares about it. He is moved by it. It matters to him. Even as he knows us and sees us and cares for us, that we matter to him. Notice fourthly, he not only knows and sees and cares, but then he commands. We tend to hear the word command, by the way, in a kind of abrasive, negative way, don't we? We think of it as demand, as something that is whimsical, but it isn't. It's not the command of a tyrant who's just on a power trip. This is a command in the sense of that which is good for her, that which is needed, that which is fitting in the moment, and he says to the widow, right, there, tears running down her face with probably the wailing mourners behind her, don't weep. Now it doesn't say how she responded to it, but imagine how ridiculous it might have sounded in her ear. They don't write part of the unfolding drama. What do you mean, don't weep? Maybe there was even some incredulity. How can you say, don't weep? Don't you know what's going on? You hear? You hear the irony? Don't you know what's going on? Don't you see who's behind me? Or maybe he was before her? Don't you understand? Imagine the pain of this situation and the suffering that's going on. And he has the audacity to say, stop crying? Imagine what she thought next. He says, don't weep. And I hear compassion in that command and tenderness in that command. It says he sees her. It says he has compassion on her and he commands her. And in compassion, in love, because he cares for her, he says, don't weep. because he's about to do something absolutely astonishing. She doesn't know that yet. And I wonder how many times we can hear the commands of scripture in precisely the same way. They may seem harsh, they may seem cruel, they may seem out of whack with our circumstances. And yet we read here of the heart of the Savior that so commands that it's compassion to her that he says, stop crying. And the reason why he commands her to stop crying is because then he goes to the dead. Isn't that wonderful language? He came up and touched the buyer, right? The thing upon which the dead was laying, that was being carried to the tomb. He comes to it and he touches it so that they will halt, they will stop proceeding to the tomb. And this is where, when I read this, I was pierced in a very unusual way, and in two ways. The word of God pierced my own heart when I read that. Already, I was sensing a piercing because I was seeing, for one of the first times in this text, the great love and tenderness of Jesus. But he reaches out and he touches the dead, that which should have ceremonially made him unclean, defiled him, and it doesn't. And that blew me away. It blew me away that he could reach out and he could touch that which was ceremonial unclean, the dead, and he would not be made unclean because he was the Lord of glory come into the flesh. In other words, he was able to make it. He was able to make it holy as the Lord God come in the flesh. But not only that, there was a second way. There's a second way this pierced me. He reaches out his hand and touches death. He does not shrink back from it. He doesn't recoil from it. Think about that, right? He who is the resurrection and the life, the one who holds the keys of death and Hades, when he beholds death, he does not shrink back from it. And I think that that says something powerful about the kind of Savior we behold in this text. That he is a Savior who would not, in the coming pages, the stories we know so well, will not shrink back from death, not even his own. He will not pull his hand back and say no, but that he will reach forth and he will take death, even death on a cross, even his own death. And so the Lord pierces us by the word, piercing us, showing us what kind of compassionate, merciful, wonderful savior we have that reaches out, touches death and destitution, is not made unclean, indeed makes clean. And then in the last, second to the last place, he commands death and it obeys. It obeys, meaning the son, a person who's dead, obeys. He says to the young man, arise. And what happens? He rises. It says he sits up and begins to speak. In case you wondered if it was some weird, like, death throw, he makes sure he says he starts talking. But more than that, imagine the things that might have been coming out of his mouth. You suppose he started crying out for his mother? Or are you, right? I mean, imagine what was going through his mind when he died. And here he is, the Lord of Glory has commanded him to rise again from the dead, and he obeys. The dead must obey his voice. He sits up maybe on the byre, maybe swings his legs off, jumps off it. People start probably hugging him and kissing him, least alone of his mother. Because Jesus not only commands him to rise, but then he gives him back to his mother. And just behold the change of events. In what, the space of five minutes? I mean, how long did it take? The two crowds meet, all of a sudden, I mean, how long did it take to read? Right, 30 seconds? The change. in that day must have been staggering for mother and for son, who rose again from the dead, was given back to his mother, restoring, as it were, her hopes and dreams. So we've seen the scene. We've seen the Savior, how he responds. And then we see the certainty, the certainty. I'd like to point out that the crowds respond. Fear sees them all, and then they proclaim with their mouths, a great prophet has arisen among us. God has visited his people. And of course, then the report goes out. And they respond rightly and well as far as they respond. They were glorifying God because they beheld the work of God in who they said was a great prophet that God had raised up for them. They saw in the Lord Jesus coming and commanding the dead to rise and it happening as a way in which God himself was visiting his people. And that is all well and good as far as it goes. But one of the ways that we know that the word of God is piercing us, one of the ways we know, is as Paul puts it in a different place in 2 Corinthians 4, that he commands light to shine out of darkness so that we might see the glory of God shining in the face of Jesus Christ. In other words, it's not enough to affirm the supernatural about Jesus. That is what they did. And they were right to do that. And maybe there was more. It doesn't say that there was or wasn't. But we are not to just affirm the supernatural about Jesus, but we are to experience the supernatural in ourselves. In other words, we're not just supposed to see, excuse me, we're not supposed to just affirm, wow, Jesus did something amazing there, and put that in our memory banks. Yes, Jesus is able to raise the dead. Yes, he's able to do miracles. No, we're supposed to see and savor the glory of God that shines in His face. In other words, it's not supposed to just stay there. It's supposed to be experienced in our own hearts and minds and lives. Remember what Jesus says to Nicodemus. Because when he comes to Jesus, he affirms the supernatural about him. And Jesus doesn't respond to Nicodemus. Good job. Two enthusiastic thumbs up. Gold star. Jesus says you must be born again to see the kingdom of God, right? You must experience supernatural birth from above, the supernatural birth of the spirit if you want to see that which is true and real, not just affirm it. You see, it takes new birth to see the glory of Christ, the glory of God that shines in his face, and to love it. to see beauty, right, to see worth, to be astonished, not just by what we read about, but to be astonished that this is the Christ who is also for us. As Russell's done many times, as he's preached through this book, let me remind you, that was the goal. Luke says so. He says in chapter 1 that he wants Theophilus, right, not just to know about it, but to have certainty, to have certainty concerning the things you've been taught. And that's why Luke writes this portion, even as he writes the rest of the accounts, that we would have certainty that we behold the glory of God in the face of Christ, that we behold the glory of accomplishment, right? That Jesus is life. He is the resurrection, and we know that he can raise the dead. And we know, therefore, that he can raise us to newness of life, that he has. and that he will raise us too on that last day. Not only that, we see the glory of that certainty because Jesus is also full of truth, which is not a sidebar issue for Luke. That's because what he says in chapter one is that there were ministers of the word that had been teaching Theophilus. There were eyewitnesses that had been teaching. And Luke, page after page, is saying, do you see it? He is who he said he is. He is who we've said he is. He's real. He's for you. He's full of life. He's full of truth. Thirdly, he's full of compassion for you. He's full of love. He's full of mercy. And in the new birth, he has touched us too and said, arise. Because we've been born from above. We've been given hearts of flesh to replace hearts of stone. But not only that, in this passage, we see the glory of Christ as a man of action, a man of action. He cared, and he did something about it, even as he still cares, and even as he still acts. And of course, as the people rightly recognize, we see the glory of God's visitation. You know, it's hard for us to remember because Jesus did not come to us in bodily form, but he came to us. It's hard for us to remind ourselves that in as far as we've been born again, he's come to us. He's reached out his hand full of compassion. He has touched us. He has commanded that light shine out of darkness, that life come out of death. And that's precisely what's happened for us. That the Lord Jesus Christ is the Savior, is the one, the resurrection and the life, who is our resurrection, who is our life. And as I've thought about this text and meditated upon it, as we come to the supper tonight, it is important that we remind ourselves that we do come to the Lord's supper. We come to him who is the Christ of compassion for us. We come to the one who lays his banqueting table before us to remind us that in him is life. and life to the full. Indeed, that he is the resurrection and the life, even as he is the way and the truth, that he does in fact hold the keys of death and the grave, and that there will be a day, sooner than we think, where all the dead will hear his voice and they will live. And a day is coming when we will not celebrate the Lord's Supper anymore. But a day is coming when we will eat with those resurrection bodies that he purchased for us, that great wedding supper of the lamb. May he come quickly. Let's pray.