A Word in Season: God’s Vengeance (Luke 18:7)

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God's people are not a spiteful and vengeful people, they don't spend all their time asking that God will rain down judgements upon the wicked, they are not personally committed to seeing the worst kind of things happening to the people who treat them badly.

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Indeed one of the things that marks a true saint is a God -like willingness to do good even to those who hate us, to pray for those who treat us spitefully and wickedly themselves.

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And yet for all that there is this pressing sense for many of God's people, dependent on their varying circumstances, that we are not being treated righteously and fairly.

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That's not a crass or carnal complaint, that's not pettiness or bitterness or resentfulness, it's a recognition of the fact that as God's people there is much that comes against us, we have an adversary who stands against us and he has many agents even in this world who will do everything that they can to oppress and to distress and to assault

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God's true people. And so at the beginning of Luke chapter 18 the

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Lord Jesus spoke a parable that men ought always to pray and not lose heart.

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And he talked about a certain city where there was a judge who didn't fear God or care about man, and there was in that city a particular widow, and the widow came before the judge and said,

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Get justice for me from my adversary. And he would not for a while, but afterward he said within himself,

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Though I do not fear God nor regard man, yet because this widow troubles me, I will avenge her, sit lest by her continual coming she weary me.

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In other words, this widow, this vulnerable and needy woman was being oppressed by an adversary.

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Someone was taking advantage of her and was not dealing with her righteously. And she went to a judge who was not himself a just man, and she was sufficiently persistent that eventually he said,

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Even though I don't really care about justice, I've got no real regard for what God thinks of me, and I don't really care what other people think about my judgments.

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I'm fed up of this woman, and therefore I will give her justice just to get her off my back.

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The Lord Jesus moves from the much, much lesser to the much, much greater.

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Hear what the unjust judge said. Listen to how he operated. Consider what he actually did despite the fact that he himself was not just and did not have any real regard for the way others considered him.

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If he acted in that way under those circumstances, verse 7, shall

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God not avenge his own elect who cry out day and night to him, though he bears long with them?

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I tell you that he will avenge them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will he really find faith on the earth?

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If you are a Christian, are you crying out to God? Are you pleading with God for justice, for righteousness with regard to the church and with regard to the world at large?

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Do you have particular enemies who are oppressing and distressing the church of Jesus Christ?

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Are there people who are around you, individually or in concert, who are doing all that they can to hinder the work of the kingdom of God?

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Are there people who have set themselves in opposition to the saints of Jesus Christ?

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Are there just general, if you like, general and widespread distaste and pressure that is making the people of God cast down and threatens to overcome us?

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What ought our response to be? We need to be pleading with the righteous judge.

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We need to be asking that God would vindicate his great name and do justice with regard to his people.

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If the unjust judge eventually said, I'll give them justice because I'm fed up, how much more will the just God give to his people that vindication which in due course will come?

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Will the son of man find such faith on the earth when he comes? Will he find people who are not just taking matters into their own hands but pleading with the

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God of heaven, with the judge of all, that he will come speedily after long patience and deal in righteousness with every wrong that we suffer and every need that we have?