THE COMPASSIONS OF GOD
[p. 126] THE COMPASSIONS OF GOD
Luke 7: 11 - 16; Luke 9: 37 - 42
My thought is to say a word to you about God’s compassions. I have selected these two passages because they serve, among many others, to illustrate what I have on my mind. The one, as you will observe, refers to a mother, a bereaved mother, a mother deprived of her only son by death. The other refers to a heartbroken father, a father whose heart was broken by the influence of Satan on his only child. In other words the attack in both instances was carefully made. Death attacked the woman’s heart and was successful. Satan attacked the father’s heart and was successful. There are many parents here, many children here. Mothers’ hearts are attacked through their children, and fathers’ hearts are attacked through their children. I desire to show you, if I can, how God meets that.
God, beloved friends, had compassion. Those of us who are in the blessing of the truth of Romans will understand the compassion of God. The apostle besought the Roman church “by the compassions of God” (Romans 12: 1) as something well known to them; he besought them by that which was known to their souls. The gospel, having become effectual in their souls, enabled them to understand the compassion of God. There is nothing that can touch men more than that it had pleased God to be sympathetic with them.
I used the word advisedly. It came out at the beginning: although God had to pronounce sentence on sin, He feels for the sinner. His government moves on: you sow your seed and you reap bitterly, but God feels for you. He felt for Adam, and made him a covering. Adam devised an apron (the first invention in Scripture was the invention of an apron), making [p. 127] a device to cover up sin, to cover nakedness! Every sinner is a deviser in that way. Every sinner is an inventor; he devises something to cover every sin he commits, unless like a swine he revels in his pollution! Adam and Eve would live in respectability in spite of their sin; therefore they devised a covering. The whole system, religious, political, and social, with which we are surrounded, is a device to cover up sin. But your sin is there, whether a month ago or a week ago; it is there and God requires it; He brings it to light. But He has provided a covering, or you would suffer under it. God felt for Adam as He drove him out of the garden. His majesty required that the garden should not be occupied by such a creature, but He sent him out covered with clothing. Even for a man like Cain there was sympathy with God. ‘Why is your countenance fallen? Why do you droop? There is a sin-offering at your door’. You have committed a sin and God knows it; He has put a sin-offering at your door. In spite of that word of comfort, we read, Cain talked with Abel his brother. Outwardly, he was quite brotherly, inwardly he was a murderer; it was deliberate, consummate wickedness. Think of God looking on! Think of all the violence going on now in the world! Great diplomacy between nations, but the murderers’ heart beneath. In spite of Cain’s murder of his brother, God put a mark on the man to stay the avenger’s hand. Such is the compassion of God with regard to man!
Anyone can have compassion on a widow who has lost her only son. It is very much easier to weep with those who weep than to rejoice with those who rejoice.
So we find this widow at Nain had a goodly company with her at this funeral. We read that much people of the city accompanied her to the grave with her son; it was a very commonplace occurrence. I passed three funerals today here in Belfast. It is only neighbourly to attend a funeral. Many sympathised with [p. 128] her to the extent of attending the funeral of her son. The Lord Jesus met her and met them. He met the funeral; He was not alone. At Jacob’s well He was alone. Here there were much people with Him; He had a company with Him. Thank God, He has them now! One takes pleasure in being there. The Lord is not alone now; He has those whose hearts are actuated by His Spirit. One is met not only by Christ but by a company with Him. You remember how Jacob was met. Laban was not a man of much sympathy; he was a selfish man and Jacob had very little sympathy there, but when he returned, in Genesis 32, two hosts of God met him; they were sympathetic. It is a great thing to be surrounded by sympathetic hearts. God has no sympathy with your worldly calculations; He had no interest in those flocks and herds of Jacob. Jacob had got wealthy during those twenty years, but the two hosts had no interest in this. They had interest in Jacob, and so it is tonight. Every saint is genuinely exercised about you; there is sympathy with regard to your soul, with regard to your spiritual requirements.
So here, much people were with Him, we are told.
The Lord looked into that widow’s heart, and He looks into your heart now; He knows the desolation there, and He knew that widow would return to that city alone. When the funeral had dispersed, she would go home to a husbandless, sonless house; the Lord Jesus knew all that. The pall-bearers thought nothing of that, but the Lord Jesus looked into the widow’s desolate heart. The compassion of God moved Him; He had compassion on the widow, divine compassion. Who has not lost a loved relative?
Presently this woman would return to her house, a house without a husband, without a son! What a fit illustration of man, bereft of every affection of his heart spiritually! God has compassion, and the compassion of God flows out in the heart of a Man down [p. 129] here on the earth. His compassion was for the widow, “Youth, I say to thee, Wake up”. The young man “sat up and began to speak”. I know of nothing more interesting than that he began to speak! One loves to hear a young christian begin to speak. Do not be timid! The evidence of intelligent life is that you begin to speak. The Lord would illuminate that desolate house by listening entranced to the conversation between the mother and raised son. Who can conceive it? He is going to speak to her now; it is recovery in Luke. In John, Lazarus, when set free, went to the supper table with Christ, but this young man is given back to his mother. You are never fit for the assembly till you are right in every natural relationship. God has respect to everything He has created, and we must get right at home first. The Lord will reinstate the object of that mother’s heart. He “began to speak”. Are you accustomed to speak?
Are you converted? Tell your parents about it. You must recognise every divinely instituted relation ship. There was no defect in Lazarus; he loved his sisters, he owed nothing to them in that way, but he owed everything to Christ; he became a witness to Him and is found at the supper table. You can go to God, and adjust matters with Him; but see to it that you adjust matters here first. This young man was brought back from the dead by His word. He is a speaking young man; there are no foul words in his mouth; his spirit is pure. He was alone in that widow’s house by reason of his conversation. What tales he would tell her! What experiences he would relate! The Lord Jesus having raised him up from the dead lays no claim on him, for the mother must have her right place. Do not presume to serve Christ till you recognise every natural claim first; God adjusts everything on earth first. He brought the young man back from the dead, speaking, and delivered him to his mother.
[p. 130] In chapter 9 we have a father, not a case of desolation as pathetic as in chapter 7. There are two enemies: “The last enemy that is annulled is death”, 1 Corinthians 15: 26. Death is treated in Scripture as an enemy of man, and is the last one to be destroyed. The young man in chapter 7 was simply taken out of it. Christ in coming out of it annulled it, and He will take all His own out of it presently-”the last enemy”. So this chapter 9 shows an emissary of Satan, a demon. Satan is a being who is head of a principality with many ramifications; he sent one of his agents to attack this father. “And lo, a man from the crowd cried out saying, Teacher, I beseech thee look upon my son, for he is mine only child: and behold, a spirit takes him, and suddenly he cries out, and it tears him with foaming, and with difficulty departs from him after crushing him” (verses 38, 39). Such is the picture presented here, and the Lord Jesus takes account of that father’s heart.
Mark tells us of the man (chapter 9: 22 - 24) that he cried and “said with tears” beseeching Jesus, “if thou couldst do anything ... help us”. It was the cry of despair. Was there ever such a cry escaped from your heart? “If thou couldst do anything ... help us”. How much can Jesus do? He upholds all things by the word of His power. “If thou couldst believe” is the reply; “all things are possible to him that believes”. The Lord says, “Bring him to me”. How one loves that thought! Parents, bring the children to Christ! “Bring him to me”. We are told that, as he was yet coming, the demon threw him down. Did you ever try to come to Christ? I believe in exercise; you do not get anything without it, you do not really. Directly the exercise begins, Satan renews his activity; he left him as dead; he stayed long enough to control him. Sin is intermittent; presently Satan may come back. He may depart for a moment but returns; how is it? Arise, make a [p. 131] move toward Christ! Directly the exercise begins, you are conscious it is not simply a propensity to evil, but Satan’s power actively dominating your spirit. He may depart for a moment, but only to return. Sometimes God in grace gives you a long respite. We read of the evil spirit actually going out of a man, but, returning and finding the house swept clean, brings in seven more demons. When God gives you respite from Satan, draw near to Christ, or Satan will return with sevenfold power, and the case at last becomes hopeless.
He came to Jesus, but as he came the demon threw him down and tore him. Think of the satanic opposition to the relief brought in by the Lord Jesus Christ! That continues; it is as active now, as then. Directly there is a bit of exercise for relief, Satan throws you down and tears you. Think of the soul agony of many. It is Satan’s opposition to the compassion of God in Christ. The Lord “healed the child”. How many truths in that word! He simply healed the child. When God has to do with Satan, the work is short. Christ lay dead in the tomb; there was no struggle at His resurrection. Look into the tomb: everything is in order there. And so as faith exercises the soul, it is the same. He “healed the child”. What a sigh of relief comes into the heart as the gospel is received and the soul is healed and is set at rest. There is no struggle, He simply heals the child. One loves to dwell on the superiority of Christ in all His doings. Satan’s power is broken; the avenue by which he came in is closed, for self-judgment has taken place. He “healed the child and gave him back to his father”. What dignity marked all His doings! Things were done in the most dignified yet superior fashion. “Gave him back to his father”-what a happy man now! The compassion of God works out in recovery. Things are reinstated; they are set up as they came from the hand of God. Everything is adjusted, and [p. 132] recovered according to God. What would that father do with that child? What would that mother do with that son? She is a type of a relieved person. If the Lord gives everything back to you, what are you to do with them? Give them back to Jesus! The power of the father could not keep that evil spirit away, so he gave him back to Jesus for safe keeping. He reinstates the child in the house. Luke does not present the side of what the father would do with the child. If you could trace the history of men whom God has used, you would find they were children who had been delivered up to God. If God comes in on the line of compassion and heals the child, give him back. Do you undertake to protect that child? Only the Lord can keep him. Hence the woman would deliver that speaking young man back to the Lord.
He is now to talk of Christ.
A woman is fever-struck; that is Luke’s presentation. The Lord stands over her and commands the fever to stop, and she arose and served everybody.
He sets her up in service. So He took Peter, ‘I will make you a fisher of men’. If the Lord restores the child to the parent, the parent’s wisdom is to give it back to God. If you cannot protect the child in its childhood, how can you in its full age? He has respect for your exercises and answers them, but He can do much better for you than you expect.
The compassion of God is seen in what it worked out in Christ for the recovery of man, in the mother’s heart and in the father’s heart, for the restoration of human conditions as God ordered them at the beginning. May we each know the compassion of God!