Luke 4:14-22; 7:11-16, 36-5014And Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit into Galilee: and there went out a fame of him through all the region round about. 15And he taught in their synagogues, being glorified of all. 16And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up: and, as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the sabbath day, and stood up for to read. 17And there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet Esaias. And when he had opened the book, he found the place where it was written, 18The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, 19To preach the acceptable year of the Lord. 20And he closed the book, and he gave it again to the minister, and sat down. And the eyes of all them that were in the synagogue were fastened on him. 21And he began to say unto them, This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears. 22And all bare him witness, and wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth. And they said, Is not this Joseph's son? (Luke 4:14‑22)
11And it came to pass the day after, that he went into a city called Nain; and many of his disciples went with him, and much people. 12Now when he came nigh to the gate of the city, behold, there was a dead man carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow: and much people of the city was with her. 13And when the Lord saw her, he had compassion on her, and said unto her, Weep not. 14And he came and touched the bier: and they that bare him stood still. And he said, Young man, I say unto thee, Arise. 15And he that was dead sat up, and began to speak. And he delivered him to his mother. 16And there came a fear on all: and they glorified God, saying, That a great prophet is risen up among us; and, That God hath visited his people. (Luke 7:11‑16)
36And one of the Pharisees desired him that he would eat with him. And he went into the Pharisee's house, and sat down to meat. 37And, behold, a woman in the city, which was a sinner, when she knew that Jesus sat at meat in the Pharisee's house, brought an alabaster box of ointment, 38And stood at his feet behind him weeping, and began to wash his feet with tears, and did wipe them with the hairs of her head, and kissed his feet, and anointed them with the ointment. 39Now when the Pharisee which had bidden him saw it, he spake within himself, saying, This man, if he were a prophet, would have known who and what manner of woman this is that toucheth him: for she is a sinner. 40And Jesus answering said unto him, Simon, I have somewhat to say unto thee. And he saith, Master, say on. 41There was a certain creditor which had two debtors: the one owed five hundred pence, and the other fifty. 42And when they had nothing to pay, he frankly forgave them both. Tell me therefore, which of them will love him most? 43Simon answered and said, I suppose that he, to whom he forgave most. And he said unto him, Thou hast rightly judged. 44And he turned to the woman, and said unto Simon, Seest thou this woman? I entered into thine house, thou gavest me no water for my feet: but she hath washed my feet with tears, and wiped them with the hairs of her head. 45Thou gavest me no kiss: but this woman since the time I came in hath not ceased to kiss my feet. 46My head with oil thou didst not anoint: but this woman hath anointed my feet with ointment. 47Wherefore I say unto thee, Her sins, which are many, are forgiven; for she loved much: but to whom little is forgiven, the same loveth little. 48And he said unto her, Thy sins are forgiven. 49And they that sat at meat with him began to say within themselves, Who is this that forgiveth sins also? 50And he said to the woman, Thy faith hath saved thee; go in peace. (Luke 7:36‑50)
My object in connecting these precious incidents in the Lord’s ministry on earth—His personal dealings with men—recorded in Luke 7, with that familiar scripture in ch. 4, is, that we might dwell a little this evening on the fulfilment of His own word, which was so peculiarly and exclusively applicable to Himself. For surely there never was one on earth who could bind up the broken-hearted, or open the prison to the captive, but Christ; but it is not even that—blessed and beautiful and precious though it be—which I want to bring before you; but I seek, the Lord helping me, to call your attention to these scenes this evening, in the hope that the Lord might be pleased, through it, to give us a more longing desire to become better acquainted personally with Christ. Because, I take it, beloved, that most Christians are better versed in His work than Himself. God forbid, that it should in any way be supposed that I desire to lessen the appreciation of His blessed work in our hearts; but I am quite sure I should not do so, if I were to help, through God’s grace, to stir up a more ardent longing to know Him better personally; because a personal knowledge of Christ is that which increases and enhances, to a marvelous degree, the value of His work, for I then connect with His work all the blessedness and all the importance and all the preciousness of the One who did it.
The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind; to set at liberty them that are bruised; to peach the acceptable year of the Lord.
We shall look at these two scenes in a different order from that in which they are presented here; and we shall begin with the last, and for this reason: that before you can know the sympathy of Christ, you must know the grace of Christ. I believe there are many who look for the sympathy of the Lord who are not really settled and established in His grace. You will mark what we have in the end of ch. 7. It is salvation, it is the revelation of salvation, it is the revelation of the forgiveness of sins; for all these things come in. You do get salvation, and you do get forgiveness of sins, unquestionably. The Lord says to the woman, “Thy sins be forgiven thee—thy faith hath saved thee—go in peace”; but what we have essentially, is, that from which all these spring—the revelation of a personal Savior. Now think what an immense fact that is for the heart. You may say to me now, Oh, you are speaking of the gospel to us. Will you bear with me, beloved, when I say earnestly, affectionately, and from conviction, that I believe this is the very thing that we need. Why, you can never get to the end of the gospel; for the gospel is the revelation of the heart of God, a much higher thing than the unfolding of His counsels, blessed and wonderful as they are. The heart of God is propounded and unfolded to us therein, and what, may I ask, could be more wonderful than this?
What makes this scene so precious to us, is, as I said, the fact that it is a personal Savior for the very vilest; and I am not speaking now merely of the way in which a person may get the knowledge of relief for conscience. If a person came in distress as to conscience, I should turn to the Epistles to the Romans and Hebrews, and see the way in which the Spirit of God treats of the value of Christ’s work as clearing the conscience, so as to put us uncondemningly in the presence of God; but I am not speaking of that now. What I have before me this evening is the blessed One Himself, who had not yet done the work, who was about to accomplish it, but who was presenting all the value and preciousness and blessedness of that work that was yet to be accomplished in His own holy Person down here, and who could attract, and did attract, by His grace, a poor wretched, miserable creature into the place of all others upon earth where she was least likely to be welcome. There was not one spot where this woman could expect to find so little countenance as in the house of Simon the Pharisee, and there was no person on this earth that was less likely to be tolerated in such a place than this woman of the city. They were just the two opposites, the extremes of mankind—a Pharisee and a woman of the city, the great contrasts of society.
This Pharisee’s house is where this scene took place; and whether I think of the house where the blessed One was found, or the one to whom that house belonged, or the person who was drawn, by the exquisite grace of the Lord Jesus, into that unwelcome place, to express in His own holy presence what that grace had made her in the depth of a broken heart, it is a wonderful scene; because, observe, the center of it all is a personal Savior. Now, you may tell me you know the work of Christ, and I shall not question it; I shall not discredit in the least your title to that; but this I do ask: Do you know, so that you can adoringly speak of it (in humility, but still as a real fact), the Person of the Savior? Has the Lord Jesus Christ become so really a living, glorious Person known to your heart, that you can say of Him, “He is the One I have come in contact with; I know Him personally, and I made His acquaintance when I could not go near any one else; there is One there I came in contact with, who left His impress of grace upon my heart, which is indelible”?
That is what we want to lay hold of. You will get an illustration of it in another scene, a familiar one, in this same gospel. It was exactly the same thing that laid hold upon the heart of Simeon, in ch. 2, a godly Jew, all whose prospects, as far as this earth was concerned, were then superseded. This earth was the prospect and promise of God’s ancient people, and here was one waiting for the consolation of Israel; but when he came into the temple, and when he personally came in contact with the Lord Jesus Christ, and has the Babe in his arms, what is his confession? His cup is full; he has seen God’s salvation, and he can close his eyes upon every earthly prospect. He can do that which certainly of itself was not a bright prospect for a Jew—could die, the very thing at which Hezekiah shuddered. Hezekiah could not bear the thought of dying; he was a servant of God, but could not bear to die; but here is a man who can gladly pass now from every prospect. When he has the child Jesus in his arms, he is like Jacob with the living Joseph before his eyes; what does he say? “Let me die!” And, beloved, that is the effect of this personal knowledge of Christ. You may think it is speaking of a mere common-place thing, but what I feel is, that, to a large extent, we have lost sight of it. I feel it myself; I constantly go down before the Lord, to ask Him to keep alive in divine freshness in my soul the sense of that blessed One being a real living Man before God. I feel that just as it was the habit to talk about the Spirit of God as if He were an influence instead of a Person, so we can get to think about Christ, until all the blessed reality and distinctness of His personality as the One who lived and died and rose again for us is faded from our souls. We are in danger of losing the sense that He is really a Man upon the throne of God in heaven, that He is the same Jesus there, and that though His place in heavenly glory is different, yet He is not altered in Himself. What a wonderful thing that is for the heart of a poor, wretched, worthless creature!—to say, I know a Man up there on the throne of God, who is the living Person and object for my soul’s affections, and that as I come in contact with Him personally, I have rest. It is a most wonderful moment to our hearts when we get the sense of it, and that is what really gives the soul unction—though I hardly like to use the word, because it has been misused. Yes, personal intimacy with Christ gives a Savior, and freshness, and reality of soul. You could not come in contact with that blessed One personally, and not be filled, in measure, with the grace and affection and beauty which shone from Him. It leaves its mark upon you. I do not speak now of the way in which this is accomplished; you will find that in 2 Cor. 3, the way in which we have to do with Him personally. “We all with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord”—that is, the Lord Himself in glory, in that new sphere where He is; and what is the effect of it?—“changed into the same image from glory to glory.” It is a living, glorified Person with whom the soul by faith comes in contact by the Holy Ghost: and though it is not a visible thing, yet it is a reality, a divine reality. The effect of this is seen, not only in a case such as that of this poor woman here; but look at it in the servants of God, the same thing is true of them. I was struck with this in thinking of the Old Testament saints, before God was revealed in trinity, and when it was only God in unity. What is it {that} marks the history of the saints? Personal dealing with God. Enoch “walked with God”; and if you take a man in trouble and difficulty, like Joseph, you find “the Lord was with Joseph.” If I look at the children cast, for their faithfulness, into the burning fiery furnace, I find this record, that there were “four men loose, and the form of the fourth is like the Son of God.” Was not that a Person? It was not merely a question of His being able to keep and sustain them; I do not deny that, but it was more than that, it was His presence. The Lord grant we may have a better sense of it in our hearts; that what we may long for increasingly is, to know His presence in personal living power, so that we can say, “that I may know him,” and what is so wonderful as that? That was the longing of the apostle in Phil. 3. “That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection.” There is nothing beyond this; though I am speaking of the simplest thing, yet it is most profound. What was the special word to the “fathers,” in John’s Epistle? “I write unto you fathers, because ye have known him that is from the beginning.” It is not possible to get beyond that; and I press it now because I feel that these are days in which one of two things is likely to happen to us—either that we shall get our minds and thoughts occupied with the evil instead of with Christ; or that, if we are preserved from being occupied with the evil, we shall get our hearts filled with ourselves—spiritually, I mean, not naturally; how we have been enriched and blessed, and what we have been brought into, and so forth, and thus be as barren and powerless as we can possibly be, in fact really self-complacent.
The only remedy for either of these is the sense of the Person who has made all good to me. It is that blessed Christ of God who was down here in circumstances of suffering and humiliation, and is now up there in glory, but a man still. He has carried manhood to the throne of God; and by faith I can see there, a real man, on the throne of God in heavenly glory, un- alterable in affection, the same in all the grace and blessedness and beauty of His Person as He was when He trod this earth—the same in tenderness, in kindness, in grace. What a wonderful reality! The Lord by His Spirit imprint the sense of it deeply upon our hearts, that we may long to live more personally in contact with that blessed One.
And now look at this woman again for a moment, as an illustration. I need not dwell upon Simon the Pharisee. Observe the contrast between him and the woman. The Pharisee probably thought there was none so good as himself, and, no doubt, he wanted to gain some credit for himself by asking the Lord into his house; while this poor woman, owning herself as a miserable and broken-hearted creature, has Christ filling her thoughts. It is all Christ. What was it, beloved, first of all drew her in there? She did not know the forgiveness of sins—she did not bring that in, for as yet she did not possess it; but what did she bring in? only a broken heart; and let me assure you of this one thing, a broken heart is just the very condition which gets the knowledge of the blessedness of the Person of Christ, because it was a broken heart He came to look for here. It was the misery of man that brought Him here. You know, beloved, it is a wonderful thing to think of it, and yet it is true of us all, saints as well as sinners, that in our joys we were far away from Him, but in our miseries He came near to us. It was our miseries which brought Him near. You will find it was nearly always a scene of sorrow and misery that was the occasion for His displaying the grace of His Person down here in this world; and I have often thought that it was in the Lord that that word found its fullest and most blessed verification, “it is better to go to the house of mourning than to the house of feasting.” Was it not to the house of mourning that He came? What is this world but a great scene of misery? It was that which as it were attracted Him, and He makes known in it all the grace of His Father, and all the love of His heart. It was that which brought this woman in to Him—the grace which shone in His blessed Person. And now see the effect of it. The first thing is that she must get where He is. That is always the effect of grace; the desire to know Christ is not natural to any of us.
I may just say, that there is a possibility of speaking about these things in a human way—about loving Christ as though it were a human affection. I feel increasingly the need of being watchful as to this. I am speaking of divine love—the affections of the new man which are called out and satisfied by the Person of Christ. It is not any wrought-up feelings in hearts—that is a very easy matter; but it is the objective presentation to faith of the Person of Christ, which is the spring of the subjective affection of the new man! and therefore you find this, that you have desires after Christ, and long to know Christ just in proportion as He is objectively before your soul. If He is the One before your soul, you will long to be with Him, but it is all formed by Him, and gratified by Him, and therefore Christ Himself becomes the spring and maintainer of the affections of the new man.
Now I say then, it was grace which drew this poor woman in. What is so beautiful in it, is to see how she faced all the difficulties; all that stood in her way in Simon’s house were never once thought of. Oh, the power of having One who is above all the difficulties simply before you! You never then think of difficulties. Like Mary in John 20, she is so intent upon finding Him that nothing deters her—nothing will keep her away. The Lord, by His grace, grant that we may know what has been called the “expulsive power of a new affection,” even that blessed Person of Christ in the soul. It is that alone which turns all other things out. Well, there is not only the sens in the woman’s soul, “I must get near Him—nothing can keep me out”; but the next thing you find in her action is, she cannot make enough of Him. Everything that I have (though a poor broken-hearted creature), my poor tears, the hair of my head, I put them all down at His feet. My ointment—all that I have is too little to express the appreciation that His own Person has created in this poor broken heart of mine; I can only give Him my tears and my sins. This is, as it were, her language, and that of her act. That is exactly the thing that the grace of His Person elicits and that He wants; that is what He came into this world to seek for. What a blessed reality to think that He came to look for tears and sorrows and broken hearts! Are not we just the very people that He wants, the poor, the halt, the blind, the lepers? I could never describe the comfort it is to know that the moment I have got down to the very lowest conceivable point, there He meets me. I ask you, what company in scripture would you like to associate yourself with? Which of the companies in scripture is Jesus at home with? and which will you take as the one fittest for you to link yourself up with? This is what would find out where we really are—all of us—the company we each would take as suitable for us. It is the very principle of those verses I read in Luke 4. To whom was He sent?
He hath sent me to heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised.
If you can find souls with these marks, that is where He is found, and to meet such surely He came into this poor world. This woman answers exactly to this description, and so she fitly comes in there, laying at His feet all that she has, with her tears and her sorrows, with the sense that she cannot make too much of Him. It is exactly what we see in Nathaniel, when he has the revelation of the Lord personally before him; he cannot sufficiently exalt Him. “Rabbi, thou art the Son of God, thou art the King of Israel.” There is no title of glory too great to put upon His head. Many crowns will not be wanting to express all that the heart has found in Himself. Blessed be His name, on His head are many crowns, and to have them there is the joy of the heart that knows anything of His personal excellency
One cannot but be struck with the manner of the love that this woman exhibits—the beautiful, refined delicacy of the way in which this poor broken-hearted creature desires that the blessed Lord should know what He had impressed her poor heart with. Everything she has she lays at His feet; that is the very first way to have to do with Christ. Suppose it was a poor sinner now, who had never known the forgiveness of sins, it must be the same. He must know Christ, and must come to Him as this woman did. I believe the fruit of not preaching Christ is not {sic, omit “not”} apparent in the imperfect apprehension of salvation we see all around us. Peter went down to Samaria, and what did he preach? Christ. Paul went to the synagogue, and what did he preach? Jesus as the Son of God. It is so in the scriptures, where ever you turn; so much so, beloved, that often, when one has turned over the scriptures, the heart sinks, as it were, with a sense of how little we have caught the spirit of this blessed principle that runs through the whole book of God. I do not depreciate, on the contrary, I magnify the riches of His grace that gives the whole value of His work in detail to clear conscience.
I am speaking of the necessity of knowing the Person of Christ, because it is so lost sight of and forgotten. It is not that I would take away from the appreciation of His work, but to increase it in our hearts by the sense of what it is to have deeper personal knowledge of the Lord, as the One who has accomplished all so perfectly.
But now let us look, not merely at Him in His exceeding grace as a Savior, but at the other scene where, in the grace of His heart, He comes out as the One who is able to sympathize; I mean, that scene at the city of Nain in the earlier part of the chapter. Here is a scene of every-day life; that is what makes it so interesting to our hearts. “He came to Nain”—you know that Nain means “beautiful.” He came to the beautiful city, and what does He find there? Exactly what is characteristic of this poor world around us. Is not this world beautiful? Would God turn out from His hand anything that was not beautiful? When He surveyed all that He had made, we have the record of what He said, “Very good”; but what do we find now? Death is in it; it is characteristic of this world. There is not a leaf, nor a tree, nor a plant, nor a field, nor a flower that grows that is not beautiful, but there is death on everything; and I tell you more than that, and it ought to have a great response in the hearts of His own people who are here tonight—not merely death, but if I know this blessed One that I speak of, it is His death. That is what has happened in this beautiful world.
Well, quite in keeping with what I have been saying, here is this sad and mournful sight to meet the eye of the Lord: “There was a dead man carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow.” Could you conceive anything more mournful than that? It is like the prophet when he came to Jericho. It was a beautiful place, but the water is nought, and the ground is barren. And that is what this world is—not this world as God made it, but this world after man sinned in it. We are not in the world as it was in the days of Eden, or before the fall; but we are in the world as the fall had left it, and characterized it, with all the fruits of sin, and not only that, but the fruits of man’s will as well for more than eighteen centuries since that blessed One was murdered in it. We are in a world where sin and death soil everything that is beautiful. The only comfort is, and it is blessed indeed, that He was here in it, and therefore when He meets this spectacle of sorrow (mark how exquisite it is), the personal sympathy of Christ comes out. What is the first thing that touches Him when He comes upon the scene? “When the Lord saw her, he had compassion on her, and said unto her, Weep not.” There is not either a cry expressed, or a groan unexpressed, from the hearts of His poor people which He has not most perfectly measured. It reminds me of that beautiful scripture where Jehovah speaking of His concern about His ancient people Israel, when He unfolded the purpose of His heart says, “I have surely seen the affliction of my people which are in Egypt, and have heard their cry.” What a thought for our hearts, beloved, that there is One up there on the throne of God in heaven who sees the struggles, and knows the pains and trials and pressure of each of His own poor saints down here on earth; and if you have a trial, or a difficulty, or a bereavement, or a sorrow, there is a heart up there on the throne of God that enters into it, and knows all about it. And what I find is this, that just in proportion as this precious sympathy of Christ is now known, human sympathy is sought for. I do not deny that human sympathy is very sweet to the heart, but it is, after all, only the expression of its own powerlessness. We may go and sit down beside the sorrowing one, or go and try to comfort a bereaved one, but how poorly we can do it! Sit down beside a poor sheep of Christ, tossed and tried, and attempt to introduce that one into the presence of its Shepherd and Lord, and you see how poorly you can do it! How many of us take it up as if we were performing a duty? We say a few words because we know it is “the right thing” to say. It is the greatest mistake for any one to be happy about saying “the right thing.” But just try and be a channel to convey the grace of the heart of Christ to meet a case like that, and you will see how different it is, and you will feel how little the sympathy of the Christ is flowing through you as the vessel for the comfort of the sufferer. It is just as He Himself has impressed your own heart that you can give an impress to another. You cannot learn it as men learn theology; there is no way by which any one of us can get the impress of either the grace of Christ or the sympathy of Christ, except as we personally know Christ for ourselves. I must personally be in contact with Him for myself, before I can be versed in His grace or sympathy.
Look at Him here. What did He do first? Does he exercise His power first? No. What is the first thing that attracted Him, the dead man carried out? No. It was the broken heart of the living one, of the widowed mother; this did arrest the all-seeing eye of the Lord. The Lord saw, and He had compassion on her, and wiped away her tears. Do you know such a Christ? Has He ever been so near to you as that—has He wiped away your tears? Do you enjoy the blessed consciousness of the fact that when you were in loneliness inexpressible, in trial, in difficulty, with every human light gone out, and not a single bright spot left, there was One who came beside you, and gave you the sense of His presence, and to know that He was there with you in it all? It is not merely that He took you out of the circumstances, but He walked with you through them. As the apostle could say, “There stood by me this night an angel of God, whose I am and whom I serve”; and a dark night it was too, but look how he is able to comfort everybody else, and what is his standpoint, what has he had comfort from? Just this that I have been quoting, the “angel of God, whose I am and whom I serve,” who stood by him; and now, he says, I can comfort you from the same source where I get my comfort from. And more than that, when he is forsaken—and you must expect to be forsaken if you follow the Lord, and you will have to walk alone, it is the day to walk alone, in that sense. God grant that I may never deny for a moment, as some have denied, all the truth that is connected with our being together, still together, and yet alone will be our experience as we follow Christ this day. If you follow Christ you will be left as Paul was left, and what does he say? “No one stood by me; all forsook me.” And I trust I am not uncharitable when I say that I do not believe there is more faithfulness to-day than there was then. “All forsook me”; but what follows? “Nevertheless the Lord stood by me.” There is the Person again; and, the apostle does not say that the Lord strengthened him, and stood by him, but the Lord stood by him, He gave him the sense of His own personal company, before He exercised His power for him, and that is exactly what we get here. He meets the heart and wipes the bitter tears away, He binds up the broken heart. The first thing He does is to touch that widow’s heart—before He touches the bier. Do you know what that is? It is exactly what He did with Mary in John 11. He does not say a word about raising Lazarus, Why? Because He Himself was filling her heart. He did raise up Lazarus afterwards—and death cannot exist in His presence; but first He must comfort the bereaved heart. So it is here—the first thing is to heal the broken heart, to say “weep not”; and then, “young man, I say unto thee, arise!” And then look at the blessed and exquisite grace of Christ: “He gave him to his mother.” He might have claimed him for His own, but no, He exhibits all the perfection of His human sympathy, as well as all the power of His Godhead—the sympathy of the man, and the power of God.
The Lord, through His own rich and sovereign grace, use the word this evening to stir our hearts up to desire that we may come more in personal contact with the Lord Jesus Christ, and be able to say what is not really a great thing—ought not to be so: we know one Person as we know no one else on earth, One whose heart is, beyond all conception, interested in us and occupied with us. There is no one on earth to whom you can tell your wanderings, and your coldness, and your indifference, and your half-heartedness, and know that you would meet with the grace that would over-reach everything, and with the power that would impart strength to you. That is what Christ does—a living Person with whom I come in contact; through whom I not merely know salvation, but to whom I find it my solace to go and unburden my heart about everything, knowing that there is not a circumstance, however trifling or small, but there is a response in grace to everything I may bring.
The Lord acquaint each of us more with the grace of His blessed Son; so as to secure more allegiance, and more devotedness, and more true-hearted following and serving of Himself—for His own Name’s sake!