The Persistent Widow

Intro

Onto the next parable. As you may know, I’ve been teaching through the parables for the last few years now. I think we are halfway through them now. I personally love the parables because they continue to challenge and shape me as a follower of Christ, and I hope they do the same for you.

If you would turn with me to Luke chapter 18, we will look at our next one. At the top of Luke 18 you might find a title that says Parables on Prayer. And so that is what we are going to tackle in the next two weeks. Prayer.

Asking Questions About Prayer

If you are a Christian but also a human being, you understand that at times prayer can sometimes seem mundane. We go through this life with trial after trial, bad experiences, loved ones getting sick and dying, bad things happening to people around us and it just doesn’t seem to end. But we pray and we pray, but then the natural questions start to arise.

Is God even listening? Is He answering my prayers? Does He care? Is he too busy for my prayers. God is sovereign, so why pray? Or maybe the big one: Is it even worth praying about? God knows we are His redeemed children and He knows we are still in the fleshly human nature that tends to grow weary if things are not going our way, or they are not happening as fast as we like them to happen, or they are not answered in a way we would like them to be answered.

And so, God has graciously given us many passages in His word about prayer. And here, Christ has given us these parables on prayer, one of which we will look at today to hopefully answer those questions.

Luke 18:1-8 The Persistent Widow. (Find and Read)

So what sparked Jesus in this section of Scripture to teach about prayer, to pray at all times and not lose heart, suggesting that people are going to lose heart or grow weary from praying. While this parable does have some implications on general prayer, there is a specific prayer that Jesus is targeting here. A prayer that many Christians over the last 2 millennia have probably grown weary of.

The Biblical Context

The answer to our Luke 18 question is found at the end of Luke 17. Vs. 22-37. Jesus talks to his disciples about His return. The coming of the Son of Man. And he tells them in Luke 17:22, the days will come when you will long to see one of the days of the Son of Man, and you will not see it. He then describes to them this day, what it will look like, what will happen. But nobody knows when it will happen. Matthew 24:36 “But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father alone.

In Matthew 6Jesus gives us an example of how to pray, “Our Father who is in heaven, Hallowed be Your name, Your kingdom come. We are to pray that Christ’s kingdom comes to us and we are to include that in our daily prayers.

But in the meantime as Christ awaits His call to come back a second time, He tells us that Christians are going to suffer, be persecuted, have hardships and trials, and most will have an earthly death awaiting the second coming. Generations will pass, centuries will pass, earthly kingdoms and governments will rise and fall. And now nearly 2,000 years have passed after Jesus gave us His words in Rev. 22:20. “Yes, I am coming quickly.”

Normally we don’t think of 2,000 + years of being quick or soon. We will have the tendency to grow weary. And so, Christ tells us in Luke 18:1: At all times, we ought to pray and not lose heart, or give up, or get discouraged. Lit. means to faint.

Explaining Contrasts

And Jesus does something interesting here. In most of the parables, He always has characters in the story that represent someone, and most of the time, there is a character representing God, usually a character representing us, Christians or humanity. And other times there are some third-party characters. But here, he does have two characters, but they are actually in severe contrast to the true individuals he has in mind.

But even before we get into the parable, Jesus gives us a sharp contrast right off the bat. We are going to look at 3 contrasts today.

1. He says either pray or lose heart.

Put it another way, if we don’t pray, we will lose heart. It’s as simple as that. And here lies a general aspect of prayer. We are to pray always or at all times so that we don’t lose heart in all circumstances in our lives.

Paul echoes this in many of his epistles. 

Philippians 1:3-4 ­­― I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, 4 always offering prayer with joy in my every prayer for you all…

Ephesians 5:20 ― always giving thanks for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God…

Ephesians 6:18 ― praying at all times with all prayer and petition in the Spirit…

1 Thessalonians 5:17 ― pray without ceasing.

But what does it mean to pray at all times or without ceasing?

What it doesn’t mean is to repeat prayers constantly. Jesus warned against that just before he gave us our example prayer in

Matthew 6:7 ― “And when you are praying, do not use meaningless repetition as the Gentiles do, for they suppose that they will be heard for their many words.”

Explain Pray Without Ceasing

And so, you may have wondered before, okay, don’t repeat myself but also pray without stopping. How do those two fit together. To put it as simple as possible, it means to make prayer as natural to us as breathing is. We never think about breathing, unless we are having trouble breathing. But it’s so natural, we just do it automatically. Likewise, prayer should be a natural habit of our lives.

To go to prayer in every circumstance, in every situation, every time we wake up, every time we eat or drink, every time we walk out the door, every time we drive, or we walk, or before we start a conversation or before we go work, and before we lay our head down at night.

May Not Be Praying Correctly

And if that seems taxing, you may not be praying correctly. Yes, there are times in formal prayer or corporate prayer, we start off with adoring God’s attributes, giving him praise, then going to confession, then thanksgiving and so on. We aren’t doing that in everyday situations that we just talked about necessarily.

Imagine every time your spouse asked how are you doing, and you had to give this whole 20 minute presentation that has nothing to do with how you are doing. That would get exhausting and it would drive us to not communicate with that person.

There is a time and a place to formally pray; to have corporate worship like we do here on Wednesday evenings but praying at all times or without ceasing means constantly having an attitude of prayer and just talking with God, bringing Him the desires of our hearts which should be in line with His will and being constantly in loving communion with Him. Put it another way: You share your heart with the One who longs for your companionship.

Proverbs 15:8 But the prayer of the upright is His delight.

Example: you wake up. Lord, thank you for sustaining us through the night. You walk outside to go to work. Father, bless this day and my travels.

- You want to pray more, go for it, I’m definitely not trying to limit you, but in case you have been burdened by the idea of long, elaborate prayers all the time without ceasing, be free of that.

Don’t think that your lengthy prayer will get God’s attention more. He hears you. Is praying long prayers a good thing, yes, there is a time and a place. But not always.

The Parable in Ancient Context

I think verse one could be it’s own sermon. But let’s get into the parable now. Before we start, it’s good to see it in it’s eastern setting. The courtroom was not a building but a tent that a judge traveled around with. The judge set the agenda, not the law. The judge had assistants that would help him, anybody could watch the proceedings from outside, but only those who were approved could have their cases tried. A lot of times this meant bribing one of the assistants to get the judge to listen to their case.

The widow had major obstacles to overcome.

1. Being a woman, she had little standing before the law.

2. Women did not go to court, so their husband stood in for them.

3. Widows were very poor; they couldn’t make ends meet in that time without a husband. She couldn’t pay the bribe even if she wanted to.

So, her only option to be heard by this judge was to march around the judge’s tent yelling out, give me justice from my opponent, lit. avenge me.

For a while, the judge was unwilling to listen or to do anything. But she kept coming and coming and coming, and shouting: give me justice. And we see that this judge was not God fearing and did not respect man.

In verse 6, Jesus says, listen to what the unjust judge said. “Even though I do not fear God nor respect man, yet because this widow is bothering me, I will give her justice, lest by continually coming she wears me out. That phrase “wears me out”, literally means poke me in the eye. Can you imagine how annoying it would be for someone to stand there and keep poking you in the eye. That’s how annoying it was for this judge.

Understanding the Contrasts

We have to be very careful with this parable. Reading it face value, questions will start to arise, like are we supposed to bribe God? Or are we supposed to bother him into submission, what’s going on here. But remember what I said earlier, this is a parable of contrasts.

The first contrast was pray or lose heart.

2. The Widow vs. God’s Elect

The second contrast is the widow contrasted with God’s elect which we see in verse 7. (a quick sidenote) We need to be discerning when studying also. Always go back and look deeply at Scripture. I read a lot of commentaries while studying. I don’t only read commentaries, but they can be helpful. But I read many that said we are like the widow, poor and destitute on this earth, sadly waiting while our husband is preparing a place for us. And I thought, no, that’s not the point.

Whole Context

The context is to encourage Jesus’ followers in continuing to pray. Verse 7 shows us that: because we are not like the widow, we should be encouraged in our praying. If a poor widow got what she deserved from an unjust judge, how more will God’s children receive what is right from their loving Heavenly Father!

Not Like The Widow

Let’s look at the contrast. We are not like the widow. The widow was a stranger whom the judge didn’t know. But we are children of God who cares for us.

Turn with me to Hebrews 4:14-16 (Read below)

The widow could not bribe the assistants to let her voice be known. We the elect, don’t need to bribe anyone. We don’t need an assistant; we have a great High Priest and Savior who is currently at the right hand of our Father interceding for us.

Read Hebrews 4:14-15

The widow did not have access to the judge. We have open access into God’s presence and may at any time come and receive the help we need.

Read Hebrews 4:16

The widow came to a court of law. We come to throne of grace.

Turn with me to Romans 8:26-27 (Read below first)

The widow had no promises she could claim as she tried to convince the judge of her case, no hope to hold onto. We not only have God’s unfailing promises, but also the Holy Spirit, assisting us in our prayers.

Read Romans 8:26–27 “And in the same way the Spirit also helps our weakness, for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words; and He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.”

The 3rd Contrast: The unjust judge and the Father.

This one is easy to see, that God is not this judge. He is a loving Father who does not need argued with or bribed in order to answer our prayers.

1. He hears our every cry.

1 John 5:14 ― And this is the confidence which we have before Him, that, if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us.

2. He generously gives us gifts.

Romans 8:32 ― He who indeed did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him over for us all, how will He not also with Him graciously give us all things?

3. He is concerned about our needs.

Philippians 4:19 ― And my God will fulfill all your needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus.

4. He is ready to answer when we call.

Isaiah 65:24 ― And it will be that before they call, I will answer, and while they are still speaking, I will hear.

- I’ve heard by other Godly men, that the most effective prayer they’ve ever said is, God, help. God knows, and it’s admitting, I don’t even know what I need right now, I just need you. What a powerful prayer. (Don’t use this as an excuse not to pray)

Judge vs. God Answering Requests

The reason the judge helped the widow was because he was afraid she was going to ruin his reputation. Remember, poke him in the eyes or give him a black eye. God answers prayers for His glory and for our good.

Turn with me: Romans 8:28 ― And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to His purpose.

Being a widow in that timeframe was hard enough, but then adding someone bringing a charge against a widow in order to reduce her to nothing was probably the worst situation she could be in.

Romans 8:33-34 ― Who will bring a charge against God’s elect? God is the one who justifies; who is the one who condemns? Christ Jesus is He who died, yes, rather who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us.

The entire courtroom was antagonistic toward the widow. The entire throne of grace is on our side.

Explaining Quickly

Jesus says in verse 8 of Luke 18:8 I tell you that He will bring about justice for them quickly. Back to earlier when I said 2,000 years are not quick for us. Also, how do we explain delays in answers to prayer?

Warren Weirsbe tells us to remember that God’s delays are not the delays of inactivity but of preparation. He goes to prepare a place for us. The Spirit is perfecting us in faith. (broken down car – shiny new car) individual level vs. universal level.

2 Peter 3:9 ― The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some consider slowness, but is patient toward you, not willing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.

Warren Weirsbe continues to say that God is always answering prayer, if he wasn’t, Romans 8:28 could not be true, that God is working all things at all times, causing all things to work together to accomplish His purposes. And He does that through prayer.

Sovereignty and Prayer

To answer the question of God being sovereign so why pray? Meaning He is going to work out everything, everything will happen according to His plan. He will only do things according to His will, He will save whom he wants to save, and that’s true, but guess what, God chooses in His sovereignty to do all of that through our prayers.

- MacArthur said, “This, therefore, means that man’s faith and prayer must be consistent with God’s sovereignty. And it is not the believer’s responsibility to figure out how that can be true, but simply to be faithful and obedient to Jesus’ clear teaching on prayer.”

God works through prayers. It was God’s will to not destroy the Israelites at Mt. Sinai, but He waited for Moses to ask Him not to. God wanted to help Joshua in his battle with the 5 kings and God could’ve helped him a million different ways, but Joshua prayed for the sun to stand still so that’s what God did. God could’ve shown the Israelites His power on Mt. Carmal vs. the prophets of Baal but He waited until Elija prayed. God could’ve opened the eyes of the servant to see the angel army on the hilltops, but God waited until Elisha prayed.

James 4:2 ― You do not have because you do not ask. God wants to graciously give you things, but He won’t do it unless you pray. God does work out all things according to His plan, but He won’t do it unless His children pray about it. Prayers are powerful. Again, we don’t know fully how it works, but it works.

Do we pray perfectly at all times? No, we don’t, that’s why the Holy Spirit is in us, interceding for us, sending the correct prayers up to God, even if we just groan.

Mark 11:24 ― For this reason I say to you, all things for which you pray and ask, believe that you have received them, and they will be granted to you.

- As long as our prayers are according to God’s will, there is no limit to them.

Main Context: Second Coming

Back to the main context, we should not stop praying about the Lord’s second coming. He says at the end of verse 8: “However, when the Son of Man comes, will He find that faith on the earth?” Not general faith but that faith. Meaning the faith in Christ’s second coming and praying for Christ’s second coming.

Luke 17:26-30 ― Just like in the days of Noah and Lot, there was no faith in a coming judgement. Only 8 people were saved from the flood, only 4 from Sodom and Gomorrah and one perished along the way.

- This is not a question of ignorance, but Jesus is saying, when He returns, many will have lost faith in his second coming. I keep telling people and you may not like it or disagree and that’s okay, but it will happen at a time that we least expect it.

Luke 12:40 ― You too, be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour that you do not expect.”

- So, with our generation, everyone is talking about the end times, everyone is excited about the rapture, or the kingdom, everyone is saying it’s eminent, even false cults and religions. And if that is happening, guess what, it’s not going to happen. It will be a time when most everyone except the truly saved elect will all lose faith in the second coming.

But that doesn’t mean lose heart, it means keep praying. Pray about all things.

John 14:14 ― If you ask Me anything in My name, I will do it. Pray about anything. If it’s in accordance with God’s will, be assured it will happen. Have faith in that. Amen.

Let’s pray.