Luke 18:1-8
Turn in your copy of the New
Testament to the 18th chapter of Luke. Today we read verses
1 through 8. This is the parable known as
the parable of the persistent widow. Some have called it the
parable of the unrighteous judge, and still others have called
it the parable of the righteous judge. Now, one of the things
I want you to notice as we read through this parable, oftentimes
when we come to a parable, we have to try to figure out what
it means. Parables are a little bit mysterious, but this one
is an easy one. The very first verse tells us
exactly what it means. And so since it does that, as
we read through these verses, keep in mind what it tells us
in verse one. The parable is meant to tell
us always to pray, and never to lose heart. I mean, that’s
easy enough, right? Always to pray and never to lose
heart. So let’s give our attention now
to the word of the living God. And Jesus told them a parable,
speaking to his disciples, and 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 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? Pray with me. Lord,
bless us now with eyes that see and ears that hear and hearts
that perceive. And most of all, give us hands
and feet and lives ready to go from this place and do what you
call us to do in your word this day. Hear us and help us and
bless us in the name of Christ. Amen. In about six weeks, this
wild year will be over. It will be 2021. We’ll hear lots
of shouting of Hallelujah when this year ends. It’s been a crazy
one, a wild one. Every year end, I receive a certain
news magazine and it has the year in review. And it’s interesting
to see who passed away throughout the year. It’s interesting to
see international events. You know, it’s of interest to
read, it’s curious to look at the things that have gone on
around the world in our nation, the cultural events, the life
events, the ups and the downs of the economy, and all sorts
of interesting facts. We zip through the year and we,
well, it’s good for us to look back and see what took place.
Well, this year’s list will be rather interesting. On some of
the lists there will be lots of trivial things. For example,
I can remember back in March, leaving work early on a Thursday,
as I’ve done for a lot of years during the ACC tournament, going
home, turning on the television, only to be told the ACC tournament
has been canceled. That was probably good for the
Tar Heels, some of you who are Carolina fans. But we lost our
sports, right? We lost schools. We’ve lost our
social outings. Many of you have not traveled.
You’ve not been on vacation this year. And on the list might go.
But others in our congregation have lost loved ones. We’ve had
a handful in our church who’ve lost loved ones to this year’s
disease. And so The list this year may
have some trivial things like the loss of sports, but it will
have some very serious items on the list. And so, what do
we think of life under the sun in 2020? Some of you will remember
back in June, people were calling June March the 90th. You know,
it was March extended. Many of us will remember the
bleak conditions of the year. You might say, as others will,
it’s been an abnormal year. It’s been a strange year. But
if you really think about it in the span of human history,
if you think about this year in the light of all of human
history, this has really been a normal year. Oh, maybe it’s
had a few abnormal things pop up. But friends, we need to be
reminded these hard things that we have faced this year are simply
life under the sun in a cursed world, life under the sun in
a fallen world. Some of you are Readers of C.S. Lewis, you’ve read the Chronicles
of Narnia. You’ve maybe seen the films.
And you remember when Lucy and her siblings are carted off out
of London to the countryside to live with a long lost family
member. They find the wardrobe. They
go through the wardrobe and they enter Narnia. Narnia is under
a frozen curse. And one of the things they realize
quickly is that everybody in Narnia is under the frozen curse
of the White Witch. Narnia is under her spell. And
they bump into Father Christmas at some point in the story, and
he says something like this. He says, the White Witch’s spell
over Narnia is fading. It’s not going to be always winter
soon. It will be Christmas. And so
there’s that wonderful phrase. There’s that wonderful refrain
in the story of Narnia where Lucy, I believe, says, will it
always be winter and never Christmas? And that’s a bit how we can feel
in the year 2020. Or in the middle of other years, perhaps. I read
this week about the 1918 pandemic. I read a little bit about what
was taking place then. You know, certainly not modern
science and medicine on their side back in those days. But
you could list all sorts of years where all sorts of difficulties
took place. Will it always be winter and
never Christmas? Well, we must be reminded of
the story of redemption in the scriptures. And people have these
little ways to break down the story of the scripture and easy.
Easy to remember nuggets. And the best really is creation,
fall, and redemption. God made the world and everything
in it. He made it very good. He blessed it. On the seventh
day, he rested. He told Adam and Eve, you’ve
got wonderful life in paradise. The only rule I have for you
is don’t eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of
good and evil. For in the day you eat of it, you will surely
die. Well, remember they ate. They were naked, they were ashamed,
and God cursed the world and everything in it. Not only was
work cursed and childbearing cursed, but we began to see a
decay fall upon this creation. And so we have creation, we have
fall. The world is affected greatly
by sin. In fact, in Romans chapter eight,
one of our, many of our favorite passages in scripture, we have
the apostle Paul saying that all creation All creation groans
under the travail of the curses of this life and eagerly awaits
the adoption of the sons and the daughters of God. Our call
to worship and our opening hymn today were from Psalm 98. And
in just a few weeks, we’ll sing another version of Psalm 98 that
we call Joy to the World. And in Psalm 98, joy to the world
are wonderful reminders that God is not going to always leave
us in winter. It will be Christmas. God is
going to come one day and he’s going to make all things new.
He’s going to give us a new heavens and a new earth. He’s going to
take away our pain, our suffering, our sorrow. He’s going to take
everything that is cursed and make it bright and new and happy
and wonderful and everlastingly so. And so while we may live
in bleak conditions, while we may live under the curse of the
white witch or for us, the curse of Satan, the curse of evil and
sin in this world, we can do two things. Jesus teaches us
in this passage. We can always pray and we can
never lose heart. And that’s the simple message
of this parable, isn’t it? In fact, Jesus puts it out there,
plain and simple. He told them a parable to the
effect that they ought to always pray and not lose heart. Let’s walk through this parable
for just a moment. There’s a lady, she’s a widow,
and she goes before this judge fairly often. The passage tells
us he’s a fairly respected man. Well, fairly respected man, you
got to take that a little loosely. This guy loves to have his back
scratched. And if you scratch his back when
you come before his bitch, guess what? He will scratch your back. But what else does the passage
say about this man? He neither feared God nor respected
men. He was worldly. He was secular.
He was covetous. He did not care about his profession,
which was to give justice to those who deserved it. And before
his bench comes a widow. She comes often. She comes desperate. And our text tells us she kept
coming. I did a little breakdown of this
passage and I broke apart all the different words that are
used about her persistence. She keeps coming. She says, give
me. She bothers him. She beats him
down. She continually comes and she
cries day and night. And these are the words that
Jesus gives us. These are the words that Jesus
gives us for our prayer life. Now, there’s one specific prayer
item on the list. This isn’t about being persistent
for Aunt Susie’s cousin’s uncle who once had a friend that you’re
praying for, right? We often think of messages on
prayer about being persistent in our prayers for the things
that burden our hearts. There is one prayer request here.
And it’s the prayer, give me justice. Now, this particular
woman wants justice. We don’t know what her issue
is, but Jesus is saying, while we who are saints live on this
earth, we are not getting justice. We are living under the curses
of this world. And you can name some injustices.
I’m sure maybe you’ve, uh, Received a fine you did not owe. Maybe
an economic downturn has hurt your family’s finances. Maybe
you got sick and it set you back a good deal. And on and on we
could go with the list. There are injustices that we
face as we live life in this world. And Jesus is saying, always
pray. Don’t lose heart. God will give
his elect. the justice that they deserve
when the Son of Man comes at the last day. And so we read
on in this passage about this widow who kept coming to him
and kept saying, give me justice against my adversary. And he
kept refusing. He was a judge, would not give
her justice. He kept refusing and she continued to come. She
bothered him. She said, give me. She beat him
down. Literally, she was giving him
a black eye, as it were. by her continual coming, it was
well known in the community, no doubt. You can imagine when
she came to the city gate for justice, the whisperings, she’s
back. Here she is again. Let’s see
what her case is today. But she kept bothering him, desperate. without bribe, without influence. She was going to beat him down
until she got her justice. And what does Jesus say of this
man and this woman to teach us about always praying and never
losing heart? Well, he gives an example of
the greater. Verse six, hear what the unrighteous
judge says. And then will not God give justice
to his elect who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long
over them? No, I tell you, he will give
justice to them speedily. This is a wonderful challenge
to us as we look at the news headlines, as we watch our 2020
year in review, as we we feel the weight of life in this particular
year. It’s a good reminder to us to
pray like the Apostle Paul, come Lord Jesus, come make all things
new. One of my favorite passages of
scripture is found towards the end of the book of Romans, and
it just simply is a random statement by the Apostle Paul, Satan will soon be crushed under
the feet of Jesus. Just throws it out there. That’s
a wonderful reminder to us, isn’t it? This is not how it will always
be. It will not always be winter
and never Christmas. God will not delay long. He knows
the struggles that we face, the injustices that are all around
us. One of the things I believe we
have to remember, we’re seeing a world that believes justice
can be found in this life. No, I think the longer we live,
the worse it’s going to get. And there is only one who can
come make all things new. There’s only one who can come
make all things right. And so this is a good reminder
for us, isn’t it, that we ought to put our faith in Jesus, our
confidence in the Savior. We cannot put our confidence
in presidents and justices and who are all the people we just
went about electing or not electing or whatever in the world is going
on. Maybe we’ll know in a month or so. But we cannot put our
hope and our trust in these things. We have to have a greater perspective
of human history that, well, it’s been this bad before, probably
worse, but we also have to have a greater understanding of who
God is and what he’s up to in this world. Creation, fall, and
redemption. The sky will open one day, and
Jesus will return, and he will give justice to his elect who
cry to him day and night, and he will not delay long. I want
you to look at one last verse of this passage that is so important. Verse eight. Verse eight is the
question of the day, really. Jesus says, I tell you, God will
give justice to them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of
Man comes, will he find faith on earth? What’s he asking here? Is he asking will he find a few
Christians? Will he find a group of people in a sanctuary on a
Sunday morning singing praise to God and listening to his word
read and preached and explained and all the rest? No, I think
what he’s asking here is When the Son of Man comes at his second
coming, will he find faith like that of this persistent widow
who kept coming, who kept saying to the judge, give me, who kept
bothering him and beating him down and continually coming,
crying night and day? Will God find a people like that,
a faith like that when he comes upon the earth? That’s the $64,000
question, isn’t it? And I guess really the answer
to that question will come, do we understand human history?
Do we understand that gazing at our navel in 2020 is really
not a good exercise? It’s been bad since human history,
right? And do we understand what God
is up to in this world? Will he find faith like that
of this persistent woman on the earth? Well, I hope he does.
I hope he finds a church that’s not putting its trust in presidents
or the evangelical right. We’re not putting our trust in
Supreme Court justices or Do we get the tip of the house of
the Senate and all the rest? But I hope that he finds a people
who are putting their faith and their trust in the Savior and
her daily begging him for mercy and for justice. Pray with me.
Our Lord, we bless you for this reminder, this simple reminder
to always pray and to never lose heart or keep us faithful. Keep us strong. Give us. comrades
in the faith to be like Aaron and to be like her and to hold
up our arms that we might prevail in the battle against sin and
this cursed world. Lord, we have hope that it will
not always be winter, but Christmas is coming. Bless us and help
us. In the name of Christ, we pray.
Amen.