Expository Thoughts (continued)
He quickens whom He will. (John 5:21.) He can raise to a new life souls that now seem dead in worldliness and sin. He can say to hearts that now appear corrupt and lifeless, "Arise to repentance, and live in the service of God." Let us never despair of any soul. Let us pray for our children, and faint not. Our young men and our young women may long seem traveling on the way to ruin. But let us pray on. Who can tell but He that met the funeral at the gates of Nain may yet meet our unconverted children, and say with almighty power, "Young man, arise!" With Christ nothing is impossible.
Let us leave the passage with a solemn recollection of those things which are yet to happen at the last day. We read that "there came a fear on all," at Nain, when the young man was raised. What then shall be the feelings of mankind when all the dead are raised at once?
The unconverted man may well fear that day. He is not prepared to meet God. But the true Christian has nothing to fear. He may lay himself down and sleep peacefully in his grave. In Christ He is complete and safe, and when he rises again he shall see God's face in peace.
Notes on 7:11-17
13. When the Lord saw her, his heart went out to her. Poole's remarks on these words are worth reading: "None moved our Lord on behalf of the widow, neither do we read that she herself spoke to him. But our Savior's compassion was moved at the sight of her sorrows, and consideration of her loss. It is observable that our Savior performed his healing miracles: firstly, sometimes in response