The name Nain probably comes from the hebrew meaning beautiful. It may have been a beautiful place, but death had visited it and spoiled all. This world may have many attractive things in it, but it is under power of death, and God has put death there for our instruction. There are these two great processions on the road to Nain: the procession of disciples of Christ to life, and the funeral march. One procession never reached its destination. Which procession are you in? We are either in the procession which leads to life, following Christ because we desire to be with him forever, or we are in the funeral march with death as our destination. We must respond to the call of Lord of life who can raise us from death. In this miracle, he gives you all the assurance that you need that he is willing to answer. As he came on this day’s journey to meet this widow’s need, so he has come down from heaven to meet our eternal need. Turn to him and ask him to pardon you, and you will possess one who is himself the resurrection and the life.
What is spiritual death? We cannot talk to God; there is no spiritual communication; we are silent because the soul within us is dead. There is no spiritual pulse, there is no spiritual feeling or appreciation, there is no friendship with God, there is no development of character, because to develop in character we need the soul to be alive, and we need to have the help of God. If we go through life without God, we only get worse, more hardened in our faults and our character warts and our sins. There's no worship of God, if you're spiritually dead. There's no hope of heaven; there's no eternal destiny in glory with God. And it never worries us, never concern us until God comes and begins to work within us. Christ must take the initiative. Maybe a friend speaks to you, who is a Christian. ‘Have you thought about your soul’, the friend says. Maybe you come into a church and hear a message about salvation. Maybe you read something even from the Bible or in a book, but it comes to you just as Christ came to this dead man. It's God's kindness. Christ addresses you, and what does he say? Well when Christ deals with you, he doesn't say in so many words, young man, I say unto the arise, but what he does is this. He makes you concerned about your soul. As you begin to be concerned, you realise, I do not know God. I thought I did, but I do not walk with him. I do not know him. I cannot say that he has any influence in my life. I cannot pray to him. I cannot be sure of him. I need to know more. Then you hear that you are under condemnation of God, alienated from him, cut off from him, and you need his forgiveness. You see your sins: your pride, your measure of dishonesty, your degree of selfishness and self-seeking, maybe even uncleanness, your temper. You need the forgiveness of God, and you need a new character, a new start, a new beginning, and God makes you aware of this, and you begin to feel your need deeply. We have a term for it: you come under conviction of sin. Then you begin to learn about the way God saves dead souls through Christ, how he came from heaven into this world to make an atonement for sinners, to suffer and die, because God is utterly holy. He cannot overlook our sin; he must punish it. He came to die for a person like me, he suffered my eternal punishment, compressed into hours in his holy soul. He suffered separation from his Father, which I should have suffered, to save me. When we come to him, put our trust in him, pray to him, he gives us a new life, a new nature. He pours a new spiritual life within us, so that we have spiritual faculties, and we can pray to him, and we can understand him in his word, and we can love him and live for him. What a change.
Great fear gripped them, says the original Greek. They were frightened; they were alarmed. One minute they are heading out of the city in the procession, and they would have given anything to see this young man come back to life. Maybe there were other young men in the procession, his friends, and of course his mother would have longed to see him raised. But they didn't let things such ideas enter their mind. No one had ever seen it; it was impossible. And then when it happened what would their reaction have been? Why, we imagine, they should have been so excited and so amazed, and yet the narrative says, fear gripped them. Can you explain that? Can you explain why when people see God come and do something wonderful it makes them afraid? Yes we can, because that is our reaction. There are some people – and it was certainly once true of me – that as you hear that it is possible for a man to seek God and to truly find him; as you hear that there really is a heaven and a hell, that unless we are converted we will be shut away from God eternally. As you hear about the need to repent of your sin and to be given a new life, and to live for Christ, it alarms you, it frightens you, it disturbs you. Spiritual truth always disturbs us. We have to understand ourselves, because there is a part of us that wants to cling onto our independence, cling onto our pride, cling on to our things in this world and our sinful habits. And so when we hear, as these people did so long ago, that God truly exists and he has power to change lives and he is calling us to himself, it frightens us it alarms us. Oh may there be nobody who goes on living as though there were no God, no Saviour. May there be no one who places themselves under the power of death, and never looks to the Lord Jesus, the Saviour, who could wash you clean from all your sin, who could change your life, who could give you eternal life, because you are afraid of being changed, of giving up the paltry things that we have in this fleeting life. Learn from the very style of Christ. Learn from this how he deals with those who are humbled, who recognize they need him and who repent. When we come to him sincerely he changes and he converts the seeking sinner instantly marvellously totally.