WWUTT 2457 The Parable of the Persistent Widow (Luke 18:1-8)

Jesus said that the days in which we live will be hard, but we ought always to pray and not lose heart. God wants to do good things for his children. He will give us justice in our days when we understand the text.

This is When We Understand the Text, a daily Bible study in the word of God that we may comprehend with all the saints how wide, how high, and how deep is the love of Christ. Tell all your friends about our ministry at www .tt .com.

Here once again is Pastor Gabe.

The Persistent Widow and the Call to Pray Without Losing Heart

Thank you, Becky. In our study of the gospel of Luke, we're on to chapter 18, where we read the parable of the persistent widow. We have a pair of parables. Yes, a pair of parables here with this one concerning the persistent widow and then the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector, which we look at tomorrow.

So I'm reading now from Luke 18, verses one through eight. Hear the word of the Lord. And Jesus told them a parable to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart. He said, in a certain city, there was a judge who neither feared God nor respected man.

And there was a widow in that city who kept coming to him and saying, give me justice against my adversary. For a while he refused, but afterward he said to himself, though I neither fear God nor respect man, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will give her justice so that she will not beat me down by her continual coming.

And the Lord said, hear what the unrighteous judge says. And will not God give justice to his elect who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long over them? I tell you, he will give justice to them speedily.

Nevertheless, when the son of man comes, will he find faith on earth? Now you might be able to see the connection between this parable and what we just finished studying. So at the end of chapter 17, which we concluded with yesterday, it was Jesus teaching his disciples about the coming of the son of man.

He responds to the Pharisees, first of all, about the coming of the kingdom. That's in chapter 17, verses 20 to 21. And then he says to the disciples, the days are coming when you will desire to see one of the days of the son of man, and you will not see it.

So what are the disciples doing in the meantime? Because Jesus hasn't returned yet, are we supposed to have this attitude of like, well, I guess we just sit around and have injustice played upon us. We're just gonna be treated unjustly in the earth until Jesus returns.

Is that supposed to be our attitude? We'll just sit and endure persecution until he comes. There will certainly be occasions in which we probably cannot do anything about the persecution that is coming against us, except pray and submit ourselves to the Lord and rejoicing in him, even in the midst of all things.

But there are occasions for us as Christians where we can fight for justice, especially within our American system of government. We have an opportunity to be able to utilize the laws and the rights that have been given to us for the sake of God's elect, and for the sake of therefore, being able to advance the gospel.

The constitution affords us freedom of religion. So how can we use those rights that are afforded to us for the purpose of being able to worship as we desire to worship, and being able to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ to the world?

We'll consider those things as kind of application here, as we look again at chapter 18, verses one through eight, the parable of the persistent widow. So Jesus told them a parable to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart.

Sometimes the meaning of a parable, we might have to do a little bit of digging to figure it out. But in this particular case, Luke is telling us right at the very beginning, here's what Jesus means for them to understand by this parable.

They ought always to pray and not lose heart. And again, this going right with what he had just shared about the trouble that was gonna come upon the earth before the days of the son of man. So as these things are happening, and even persecution will come against God's elect.

What are Christians, what are the saints supposed to be doing? We ought always to pray and not to lose heart. Peter addresses this also, when you get to second Peter chapter three, encouraging the brethren in the midst of tribulation.

Second Peter three, verse one, this is the second letter that I am writing to you, beloved. In both of them, I am stirring up your sincere mind by way of reminder that you should remember the predictions of the holy prophets and the commandment of the Lord and savior through your apostles.

Knowing this, first of all, that scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing. Following their own sinful desires, they will say, where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation.

For they deliberately overlook this fact that the heavens existed long ago and the earth was formed out of water and through water by the word of God. And that by means of these, the world that then existed was deluge with water and perished.

But by the same word, the heavens and earth that now exist are stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly. But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord, one day is as a thousand years and a thousand years is one day.

The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some counts slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any of you should perish, but that all should reach repentance. But the day of the Lord will come like a thief and then the heavens will pass away with a roar and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed.

Since all these things thus are to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be in living lives of holiness and godliness, waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved and the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn.

But according to his promise, we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells. Now, Peter shares those things there. I read a pretty substantial chunk of chapter three. He shares those things there so that the believers would ought always to pray.

They ought always to pray and not lose heart. That's why he shares those things. Scoffers are gonna say, why hasn't Jesus returned yet? Well, because he's patient toward you and by you meaning the elect, because that's who Peter is addressing at the very start of the letter.

He says that he's writing it to the elect. So all those whom God has foreordained for salvation, he is waiting until the last person that has been foreordained comes into the kingdom and then the end will come.

So he is patient toward you, not wishing that any will perish, but that all will reach repentance. And then the day of the Lord will come. Once that has been fulfilled, God's elect have come to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and are saved.

It is only through the gospel that this would happen. So when Peter talks about what sort of Christians ought you to be in these days, hastening the coming of the day of the Lord, how would we hasten that day?

It's not that we can change the day because as Paul says in Acts chapter 17, the Lord has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness. But we hasten that day only in the sense that we go out with the gospel so that those whom God has elected for salvation will come to saving faith because they heard the gospel of Jesus Christ and believe.

And that is how we would hasten the coming of that day, doing the Lord's work, praying and desiring to see his day come to fruition. So Jesus saying here to the disciples, again, you ought always to pray and not lose heart.

Prayer is the greatest exercise of the heart to demonstrate that we trust in and believe God. And I'm really saying this as a matter of self-testing because how can anybody know how much prayer you actually do?

Nobody can know that. They know how much prayer you might do in front of other people, but they don't know how much prayer they don't see. Like, what are you doing? What are you praying in your private life?

That's not something that could be tested by anybody else. But through self-examination, how much do you pray? How much do you actually commit your thoughts and intentionally even deliberately separate yourself away from everything else that is going on, all other distractions, and just give your mind and your heart to God?

It's a pretty good way to examine your spiritualness, how much you trust the Lord, how you are growing in your relationship with God. Prayer is a great test of that. How much do you pray? You know, I hear a lot of Christians tell me that when they drive, that's when they do the most praying because I can't do anything else but drive and pray.

So I'll pray to God. I'll spend my time driving doing that. Certainly a great time to pray, and I'm not telling you you shouldn't do that. It's a good way to utilize the time as you're driving, meditating on the Lord, either listening to good music that gives praise to God or listening to good Bible teaching or you yourself praying.

Great way to utilize the time in the car. But we should separate ourselves out from all other distractions, not just when it's convenient when I'm driving, but you're not even focused on driving. You're just focused on God.

Do you separate yourself out from everything else and just devote yourself, your mind and your spirit to prayer, to talking to God, meditating on His word, spending time with the Lord. And we ought always to pray.

Remember the instruction in 1 Thessalonians 5, pray without ceasing. That doesn't mean we're in this continual state of meditation, just rocking back and forth and nobody can talk to us because we're constantly praying.

But that once we have prayed for something, we don't stop praying for it. It's not that you prayed for it and then you went, okay, well, I took care of that. I've prayed for it now. No, pray without ceasing.

Come back to that request again. Continue to intercede for that person that needs prayer. We have a list of prayers that we go through as a family whenever we do our devotions in the evening. And there are people that we will pray for continually until we see the Lord do something amazing in their lives.

So we'll answer that prayer and either heal or give the thing that we are praying for. And then once that happens, then we praise God. God, thank you for listening to our prayers and for bringing this thing about.

So always in our minds, giving ourselves to the Lord, continually in prayer, and we don't lose heart. If we are a continually praying people, we won't lose heart because our mind is regularly submitted to God and His will, desiring that His will would be done in the earth.

And if we're doing that continually, then we won't lose heart. We will be sustained even in the midst of whatever it is that's happening in the world. There's a lot of panic going on right now, even from those who mean well.

They're looking at the state of the culture of society and maybe even thinking that America is the last bastion of the West. If everything in America goes to pot, then the whole world is going to suffer.

There may be some degree to which that's true. That's going to be the case with any nation, incidentally. No nation can lose God and not have an effect on all the other nations in the world. But some people are seeing kind of the state of America and they're going into panic mode.

We are losing it. This is it. We are done. And they are getting into just this hyper-legalistic mindset of things that we need to do, or we're going to lose America and imposing it on all these other Christians.

And why aren't you doing something? If we lose it, it's your fault. Don't lose heart. That person who is acting that way is losing heart. Trust in God. And if it be God's will that he brings judgment on a nation, don't lose heart.

God is doing what he said he would do. And we trust in him because this world is not our home anyway. As Peter said, we're looking for a new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells. And so continue entrusting yourself to Christ, doing the work that we've been called to do on this side of heaven, certainly, but doing it all to his glory.

And whatever change and transformation that's going to happen as a result of that work is up to God and not to us. But we continue to remain faithful, especially when it comes to our own personal disciplines, submitting ourselves to the Lord.

The Unrighteous Judge and God’s Justice for His Elect

So consider this parable that Jesus gives about a persistent widow, representing somebody who is continually persistent in prayer. He said, in a certain city, there was a judge who neither feared God nor respected man.

Now it's important here that when we see this description of this judge, you don't think of this judge as being God. I've actually heard this interpretation of this parable before, that because this widow was continually persistent with the judge, then we need to continually be persistent with God because the judge represents God.

No, that's not what Jesus is pointing out here. The judge is not God. The judge doesn't fear God, nor does he respect man. And it's kind of a caricature of a person here because the judge even says, I neither fear God nor respect man.

How many people do you know? How many wicked people do you know would actually outright admit that? So yeah, this is kind of a caricature of a villain here, but nonetheless, the kind of man that this widow is dealing with in trying to see God's justice done in the earth.

And the widow in that city kept coming to him and saying, give me justice against my adversary. Somebody is treating her very unjustly. We don't know the cause or the circumstance. We just know it's happening.

What's most likely happening is that the Pharisees have seized all of her assets. Like her husband has died and has taken away her home. And now she's left with nothing. In Luke 20, verse 47. And so later on, few chapters from now, Jesus says of the Pharisees that they devour widow's houses and for a pretense, make long prayers.

They will receive the greater condemnation. So now she's been left with nothing and the widow is begging for the judge to do something about this. Give me justice. And for a while, the judge refused. But afterward, he said to himself, though I neither fear God nor respect man.

Again, there's that caricature of a bad judge. Yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will give her justice so that she will not beat me down by her continual coming. He just got fed up with it and finally gave her what it was that she was asking for.

Now here's the lesson that Jesus is giving by that example. Verse six, the Lord said, hear what the unrighteous judge says and will not God give justice to his elect who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long over them?

So here's the contrast and therefore the lesson. This woman continued to berate this unjust judge to give her justice and he did. So if the unjust judges even recognize and understand bringing justice by those who persist in asking for it, then won't God who loves, who wants to give to us, who will not withhold from us.

Jesus has taught us this previously in Luke's gospel. He wants to give good gifts to his children. So if we continually ask of him, won't he do justice for us? If even an unjust judge will do that for somebody who continually asks, surely God who loves us will do justice for us when we continually ask.

Now, like I said, we have a great system here in the United States of America, a great system in the sense that it's open for us to be able to be involved in it and fight for the rights of those who have been treated unjustly.

So we might become the instrument that God uses to bring justice to his elect who are not receiving justice. Consider what's said in Proverbs 31 verses eight through nine, open your mouth for the mute, for the rights of all who are destitute.

Open your mouth, judge righteously, defend the rights of the poor and the needy. And there might be people who cannot stand up for themselves. They want justice done and they can't get it done. And so we have an opportunity to use our rights as American citizens to use the law to our advantage so that we can get justice for those who are not receiving justice.

And we can also use the law to our advantage, as I said earlier, that we may be able to be Christians here in the world. Being able to do what we have been called to do. And that is worship the Lord and even spread the gospel.

Paul used his rights as a Roman citizen to that end. He utilized those rights so that he could reach more people with the gospel of Jesus Christ. Now, if in our preaching the gospel, God means for an entire nation to be transformed, that's up to him.

That's the work that he will do by his providence. Sometimes he'll shut up the ears of a people so that no matter how much we're out there spreading the gospel, the people will not turn to God because he means to bring judgment on them.

But that shouldn't stop us from going out and doing it. We still have a call to love our neighbor. And one of the ways we show love to our neighbor is by fighting for the rights of those who may not be able to stand up for themselves.

So God may use us to be the one to bring justice for his elect, especially his children, those who are followers of the Lord Jesus Christ. Will not God give justice to his elect who cry to him day and night?

Will he delay long over them? Now, using the law is not the primary means that we're going to see justice come for the people of God. Jesus is saying here, we need to pray. We need to trust God and we need to not lose heart and we need to pray.

And God will bring justice about speedily for his people. Now, maybe in our day, we don't see that happen. Maybe it's going to be the judgment of the nations that comes and maybe it's right around the corner, but nonetheless, we're continually praying to God, not losing heart, trusting in him and his way and the ways that he means to accomplish his work in the earth in these days.

And so Jesus goes on to say, this is the last sentence there of this teaching in this paragraph. Nevertheless, when the son of man comes, will he find faith on earth? Of course he will. Jesus will return and he will gather his elect to himself.

So what does Jesus mean by this? It's another way of saying, you need to be diligent to continue to do the work until the day comes. Don't be working at it now and then lose heart and then you stop doing the work.

And then the son of man comes and he catches you unprepared. Remember what I had quoted, I guess it was yesterday from 1 Thessalonians 5, we are not children of the night. As those who get drunk at night, we are children of the day.

And so let us be awake and be sober and looking for the day of the Lord so that when he returns, he finds us faithful and working servants. We need to persist in this to the very end, holding fast to Jesus, who is the author and the perfecter of our faith.

Just like we read yesterday with regards to Lot's wife. Remember Lot's wife, she was fleeing the cities that God was destroying. And though she was told to not look back, that's exactly what she did. She stopped and she looked back, actually longing for the sins, the wickedness, the greed, the decadence, all this stuff, the immorality that Sodom and Gomorrah were being destroyed for, she longed for it.

And she perished right along with them, turned into a pillar of salt. And so again, we need to have our eyes focused on Christ. Even when things get hard, don't let that cause us to despair and end up falling back into the world instead of pursuing the kingdom of God.

As Jesus says in Matthew 6, 31, seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all the things you need will be added to you as well. Heavenly Father, we thank you for what we have read, this parable of this persistent widow.

And I pray that it teaches us to be persistent, to be persistent in prayer and in our pursuit of holiness. And keep us close to you in these days, assured by your words in which we trust, that we may always pray and we will not lose heart.

But we, like Peter instructing the saints in 2 Peter 1, work diligently to hasten the day of the Lord, that it may be soon, it may be right around the corner for us. And praying with the Apostle John at the end of Revelation, come quickly, Lord Jesus.

It's in his name that we pray, amen.

This is when we understand the text with Pastor Gabe Hughes. There are lots of great Bible teaching programs on the web, and we thank you for selecting ours. But this is no replacement for regular fellowship with a church family.

Find a good gospel teaching Christ-centered church to worship with this weekend, and join us again tomorrow as we continue our Bible study when we understand the text.