Day 7
Luke 7
Are There Any Questions?

I’m saved today!  I praise God that I am.  But, even as I say that, I realize that I had nothing to do with my salvation.  I am saved because Jesus came to me.  I am saved because He did what I could not do for myself.  I am saved because one day Jesus came into my heart and saved my soul.  I am saved by grace.  I am saved perfectly, completely and eternally and I did not have one thing to do with it; not did I contribute one thing to it.  I am saved because He came to me!
As I read this Gospel, I see this same truth lived out time and again.  There is passage after passage showing Jesus as He goes to people trapped in desperate situations.  Whether it is a sinful woman at Jacob’s well; a blind man at the Temple; a poor beggar in Jericho; or a rich man in a tree; we are given the privilege of watching as Jesus moves in power for people who are trapped in hopeless and helpless situations.
I want to look into one of those wonderful times today.  I want to look in on a pitiful little scene in a tiny hamlet called Nain.  I want to watch Jesus do the impossible and the incredible one more time.  Please join me in this passage…I want to show you what Jesus can and will do when He comes into your impossible situation. I want to show you what He can do for every soul that will trust Him by faith.  
We are told that the victim is a young man and  he was “the only son of his mother”.  And we are told that he is dead!  A great crowd of mourners are making their way through the gates of the city, to a little cemetery, where he is to be buried.
  Here is a young man whose life had been filled with great potential.  He might have had hopes of marriage and of fathering children, but now he is dead.  There may have been plans of going into business to support himself and his widowed mother, but now he is dead.  Those eyes which had been bright with the gleam of youth are now dulled by death.  That mind that had hoped and dreamed was now stilled by the cold embrace of death.  That voice that had laughed and cried has been silenced forever.  Death has come and it has brought with it all the cruelness and heartache it possesses.
I think that there is more here than just the physical death of a mother’s only son.  I think this boy, in his physical death, is a picture of what spiritual death is all about.  .You see, there is something far worse than physical death!
  This young man was there physically, but he could not hear the cries of his mother.  He was there, but the mourning and the grieving did not affect him.  He was headed to a cemetery and they were going to place his body in the cold earth, but he neither knew it nor cared about it.  He was dead and the things of earth; the things associated with life had no affect on him whatsoever.  He was there, but he was oblivious to life; and he was beyond the touch of those who loved him still.  His was a hopeless situation!
  You will notice the wording of the text: “there was a dead man carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow.”  Here is a woman who has already felt the icy hand of death as it took her husband from her life.  The only things remaining from her marriage are a few memories and the only son that she and her husband brought into the world.  Now, her precious son has been taken away by death as well.
But, there is more here than just the death of a beloved son.  This poor woman has no one left to care for her in her old age.  In that day there was no welfare or assistance available to widows like her.  It was up to a woman’s children, especially her sons, to see that she was cared for in her declining years.  But, she has no one left!  She is all alone, helpless and caught in a desperate condition.  She has nothing to look forward to except poverty and despair.  She is at the mercy of others people’s kindness.  She has nowhere to go and nowhere to turn. She finds herself trapped in a helpless condition.
.  I am trying my best to get you to see the truth today!  If you have never been saved; if you have never trusted Jesus as your Savior; then you are in the same condition as that boy: you are dead in your sins right now!  If you have never trusted Jesus for salvation, you are in the same shape as that poor woman.  You are trapped in a set of circumstances that you are powerless to change.  You have nothing to look forward to but a life of bondage to sin and the whims of the world, the flesh and the devil.  Then, after you die, you have hope of nothing but an eternity in Hell!  My friend that is a desperate place to be!  But, it was that place in which I found myself at one point in my life! It was a time of utter desperation when Jesus came to me!

Do you remember the day Jesus came to you?