The Persistent Widow, Part 2

If you have your Bible, I would invite you to turn with me to Luke chapter 18 as we continue our study in the parables, search lights for the soul, as God sheds light on your soul and mine by helping us to understand what the word of the Lord has to say for us. But tonight we're just going to talk about the persistent widow. Let me read for you the parable and then we'll begin by looking at our outline, the one that's been the same throughout our study of the parables: the introduction, the instruction, and then the implications.

Luke chapter 18, verse number one: "Now He was telling them a parable to show that at all times they ought to pray and not to lose heart, saying, 'There was in a certain city a judge who did not fear God and did not respect man. And there was a widow in that city and she kept coming to him saying, give me legal protection from my opponent. And for a while he was unwilling, but afterward he said to himself, even though I do not fear God nor respect man, yet because this widow bothers me, I will give her legal protection lest by continually coming she wear me out.' And the Lord said, 'Hear what the unrighteous judge said. Now shall not God bring about justice for his elect who cry to him day and night? And will he delay long over them? I tell you that he will bring about justice for them speedily. However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?'"

By way of introduction this evening, I want to talk to you number one about the priority of prayer, and number two, the problem of prayer. Prayer is a pretty big thing in the life of the believer, believe it or not. Maybe you didn't pray today. Maybe haven't prayed since Sunday. I don't know, but prayer is a great privilege of the believer. I mean, the greatest privilege that we have is to be able to go before the throne of grace and go boldly before that throne and go to our God and talk to him about our situations, talk to him about our lives, knowing that he is the high priest who can sympathize with us in our weaknesses and that we can trust in what he's going to do. I mean, that's the great privilege of the believer. I mean, I can't think of a greater thing that you and I can do individually than go before the throne of grace and pray to God and beseech him and plead with him for our situation.

Not only that, prayer is that aspect that was a priority in the early church. I mean, when you open the book of Acts, you got 120 non-descript disciples up in the upper room praying. They're having a prayer meeting, and before you know it, the Spirit of God descends upon them and great things begin to happen. And the next thing, you know, 3,000 souls are saved and the church is born because 120 people decided to get together to have a prayer meeting. You see, prayer is a priority. You go through the book of Acts, you realize in Acts chapter 2 that these people were devoted to prayer. They were devoted to the Apostles' teaching, they were devoted to the breaking of bread and the fellowship, and they were devoted to prayer because that was an important part of their life. And so you can read all through the book of Acts and see where these people were committed to praying on a regular basis. If somebody was in prison, they prayed. Somebody need help, they prayed. They didn't know what else to do but pray. That's all they knew. They couldn't watch TV. There was no TV. They couldn't go to the ballgame. So what do they do? They prayed. They prayed.

Wouldn't it be great to be on an isolated island with no TV and no radio and no ballgames and just nothing? Wouldn't it be great? We'd have to pray. We'd have to read our Bibles. God forbid, huh, that our lives would come to praying and reading the Bible? But as you read on in the book of Acts, you realize that those who led in the church were committed to prayer and the ministry of the word. That was a priority to them. And you can read through the Bible and you can see how Paul would exhort the church to be, as Romans 12:12 says, devoted to prayer. He says over in the book of Ephesians, the sixth chapter, these words down in verse number 18: "With all prayer and petition, pray at all times in the spirit, and with this in view, be on the alert with all perseverance and petition for all the saints, and pray on my behalf that utterance may be given to me in the opening of my mouth, to make known with boldness the mysteries of the gospel."

Over in Colossians chapter 4, verse number 2, Paul says this: "Devote yourselves to prayer, keeping alert in it with an attitude of thanksgiving, praying at the same time for us as well, that God may open up to us a door for the word, so that we may speak forth the mystery of Christ, for which I have also been in prison." You can read about it in Colossians chapter 1, Philippians chapter 1, 2nd Timothy chapter 1, Acts chapter 6, Ephesians chapter 1. All throughout the Bible you read of people coming together and praying, and the Apostle Paul or the Apostle Peter or John himself exhorting us to a life of prayer.

I love what E.M. Bounds has said in his classic work on prayer when he says, "There is not the least doubt that much of our praying fails for lack of persistency. It is without the fire and strength of perseverance. Persistence is of the essence of true praying. It may not be always called into exercise, but it must be there as a reserve force. Jesus taught that perseverance is the essential element of prayer. Men must be in earnest when they kneel at the footstool of God. Too often we get faint-hearted and quit praying at the point we ought to begin. We let go at the very point where we should hold on strongest. Our prayers are weak because they are not impassioned by an unfailing and resistless will."

The Lord says in Luke 18, "men ought always to pray and not to faint." You have one or two options: you can pray or you can faint. You can pray or you can lose heart. If you're losing heart, you're not praying. If you're praying, you won't lose heart. Jesus says the end time is coming. I'm going to return. So let me give you a parable as to what you need to be doing in light of my return. You ought always to be in prayer and not lose heart. Unfortunately, most of us find ourselves fainting and losing heart and giving up.

It was Andrew Murray who said, "Little of the word with little prayer is death to the spiritual life. Much of the word with little prayer gives a sickly life. Much prayer with little of the word gives an emotional life. But a full measure of both the word and prayer each day gives a healthy and powerful life." He was right. But unfortunately, most of us are like Robert Brown has said: "Prayer is like a foreign land. When we go there, we go as tourists. Like most tourists, we feel uncomfortable and out of place. Like most tourists, we therefore move on before too long and go somewhere else." Isn't that true? We go to prayer and it's almost like we've never done this before. And so instead of living a life of prayer, we find ourselves going somewhere else, doing something else, instead of doing what God said we ought to be doing, and that is praying.

The alternative is to lose heart. Remember the story of the disciples in the Garden of Gethsemane on the eve of the crucifixion? Christ takes the inner group of men with him to go into the garden to pray. Peter, James, John. Says, "You pray. Wait here a while and pray lest you enter into temptation." What would you do? I'd be praying, man. What do they do? They fell asleep. How do you fall asleep on the eve of the crucifixion? How is it you're not interested in the future life of your Savior? How is it you lose heart? Simply by not praying. So Jesus comes back and says, "Hey guys, wake up. Well, could you not pray with me for one hour?" And they're like, "Oh," groggily eyes, "I'm sorry Lord, man, we were, but we fell asleep." So he goes away again and what? They fall back asleep. What is that? He says, "Pray lest you enter into temptation." "Men ought always to pray and not lose heart." So what happens? That night and the next day and the next day and the next day, they've all lost heart. Why? Because they didn't pray.

How many times does that ring true of us? God says, "Did you pray?" "I'm sorry. I got too much to do." I like what one author said: "No time to pray? Oh, who so fraught with early care as not to give a humble prayer some part of day? No time to pray? What heart so calm, so pure within, that needeth not some check from sin, needs not to pray? No time to pray? 'Mid each stage dangers, what retreat more needful than the mercy seat? Who need not pray? No time to pray? Must care or business urgent call so press us as to take it all each passing day? What thought more drear than that our God his face should hide and say through all life's swelling tide, 'No time to hear'? No time to pray."

"Oh Lord, we got so much to do. If you knew my schedule, Lord, You'd let me off the prayer thing for a while." Then God says, "On the contrary, because you have so much to do, because you have so much responsibility, because you're under such great pressure, you need to spend the bulk of your time talking to me about how you're gonna handle all those things." "Men ought always to pray and not faint." "Men ought always to pray and not lose heart." That's the priority in prayer.

But there's a problem. What's the problem in prayer? There are several of them, but there's one main one that I will share with you from the text. One of the problems in prayer is that we have unconfessed sin in our lives, and that causes a great problem in our prayer life. Another one would deal with the fact that we have an unforgiving spirit. Matthew 6:14 and 15 talk about the problem in our prayer life when it comes to having an unforgiving spirit. If a husband and a wife have a bad relationship, first Peter 3:7 says that God's not going to hear the husband's prayers if he's not treating his wife as the most precious vessel that he has. That's a big problem in prayer. Lack of faith, according to the Bible, is another problem in prayer.

But all those problems that I just mentioned come under one category. Let me read it to you. It's in verse number 9 of our text: "And he also told this parable to certain ones who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and viewed others with contempt." You know what the problem in prayer is? The main problem in prayer is that we trust in ourselves. That's our problem. We really believe in ourselves. We trust in us. We really think that we can do it. Christ says, "Listen, your prayers need to be marked by two characteristics. One is they need to be habitual, and number two, you need to be humble. You need to be humble."

But the problem is we trust in ourselves as if we know what is best. We trust in ourselves instead of trusting in God. Notice what the text says in verse number 10 of Luke 18: "Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax gatherer. The Pharisee stood and was praying thus to who? Himself." What is that? He's praying to himself. You see, that's what happens when you trust in yourself. You pray to yourself. You see, the Pharisee said a prayer, but the publican, as we will see this week, truly prayed. There's a big difference between saying a prayer and praying. Those who say prayers trust in themselves. The Pharisee was praying, but there was nobody at the other end of the line because he was praying to himself.

I love what one author said: "The self-satisfied do not want to pray, the self-sufficient don't need to pray, and the self-righteous can't pray." That's true. Unfortunately, we don't think that's us. Let me show you how that so easily becomes us. Turn with me in your Bible to Luke chapter 5, just turn back a couple of chapters. Luke chapter 5, we have a classic illustration of how we trust in ourselves. And I know that most of you are not this way, so let's just pretend that this tape is gonna go to millions of people across the world and they're gonna hear it because they need to hear it. All right, I know you folks, you're not this way, so just indulge me just for a moment.

Luke chapter 5, verse number 1: "Now it came about that while the multitude were pressing around him and listening to the word of God, he was standing by the lake of Gennesaret. And he saw two boats lying at the edge of the lake, but the fishermen had gotten out of them and were washing their nets. And he got into one of the boats, which was Simon's, and asked him to put out a little way from the land. And he sat down and began teaching the multitudes from the boat. And when he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, 'Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch.' And Simon answered and said, 'Master, we worked hard all night and caught nothing, but at your bidding, I will let down the nets.'"

Now you have to understand the setting here. Here is Jesus. He's in the boat. He says to Peter, who is the fisherman. That's his job. That's what he does. And who knows fishing better than a fisherman, right? I mean, I don't know anything about fishing, but a fisherman, he knows all about fishing. And Jesus, who by the way is a carpenter, says, "Simon, why don't you just launch out there into the deep and cast your nets out on the other side?" And Peter says, "Lord, you don't understand. Been there, done that, ain't gonna happen. We've already done that. But Lord, to indulge you, just to make you happy, this is what I'm gonna do. I'll do it just for you, Lord, because that's what you've asked. I'll do it for you."

"And when they had done this," verse 6, "they enclosed a great quantity of fish and the nets began to break. And they signaled to their partners in the other boat for them to come and help them. And they came and filled both of the boats so that they began to sink. But when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus's feet saying, 'Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord,' for amazement had seized him and all his companions because of the catch of fish which they had taken." You know what Simon said? Simon Peter said this: "Oh Lord, Lord, I see that even in those areas where I see myself as self-sufficient, I still need you."

You see, Peter was a great fisherman. He didn't need a carpenter to tell him how to fish. He knew how to fish. It's like us. We're great businessmen. We don't need Jesus telling us how to run our business. We don't need Jesus telling us how to be a father, how to be a mother. I mean, come on, Lord. And so the things that we think we're good at, in our areas of expertise, those are the things that we don't even commit to the Lord. Why? Because I can do those things. I mean, come on, how much difficulty can it be to prepare a sermon each week? I mean, I'm a pastor. I work two days a week, Wednesdays and Sundays, right? That's what my kids say. "Come on, dad. You're not gonna work though. You're not preaching. Stay home." You say, "So how much work's gonna be to prepare a sermon? Come on, Lord." Or, "I mean, all I do is sell cars. I mean, what's the Lord know about selling cars, right?" Or, "You know what? All I do is stand behind a counter entering a cash register. That's no big deal. I don't need God's help for that." Oh yes, you do. See, that's the point.

See, we trust in ourselves. We don't need to pray. And Christ says, "Men ought always to pray and not lose heart and not faint in every situation." Not just in some situations, and especially in the situation that you think you are great in. That's where you need it the most. See, that's so important. The lady once asked Campbell Morgan, "Do you think we ought to pray about even the little things in life?" To which he replied, "Madam, can you think of anything in your life that is big to God?" Think about it. There's nothing big for God. Everything is little to God. So we say, "Don't we pray about our dog going to the vet? Do we pray about getting my flat tire fixed? We pray about the little things in life? You know, I'm starting to lose my hair and the Lord says that all the hairs on my head are numbered and I don't want to lose all my hair. It's like, should I commit it? It's just a little thing. So I commit that to the Lord."

Is there anything big to God? I mean, come on, they're all little things to God. Even what you think is so great is just a little thing to God. But he says, "Men ought always to pray and not lose heart." You see, if you're losing heart tonight, it's simply because you're not praying. "Say, well, I have been praying. I have been, and nothing's happening." I'm glad you asked, because the parable tells us very simply in Luke chapter 18 about two characters. Let's move to the instruction. Point number two: two characters, a judge and a widow.

The judge is very clear about what he believes. He has no fear of God and no respect for man. This guy is so autonomous he didn't care about anybody. He didn't care about God. And the problem is, if he's Jewish, he missed the central element of his judgeship, for it was King Jehoshaphat who said in the book of 2nd Chronicles 19, verse number 6, "Consider carefully what you do, because you are not judging for man, but for the Lord who is with you whenever you give a verdict. Now let the fear of the Lord be upon you. Judge carefully, for with the Lord our God, there is no injustice or partiality or bribery." Jehoshaphat said, "Listen, if you're gonna judge and render a verdict on someone's life, you must do it in the fear of God." This judge had no fear of God, had no respect for man. In fact, he had no ethical code by which he was going to live by.

The other character is a widow. This poor widow, she's got a problem. She has an unjust situation that needs to be taken care of, and the only way for it to be taken care of is for this judge to step in and redress the issue and make an unjust situation just. And he won't do that. He won't do that. Now, widows in Hebrew society were basically defenseless people. The Old Testament refers to them in Malachi 3 as people who were oppressed. Exodus 22, as people who were easily taken advantage of. In Isaiah 1, it speaks of them as often as legal victims, which this widow was in Luke 18. In fact, over in Luke 20, Luke describes men as devouring certain widows' houses.

This widow had an unjust situation that she wanted to be made right. This widow wasn't looking for vengeance, wasn't looking for payback. She was just saying, "Hey, wait a minute. I need protection. I need you to watch over me. I need you to pass some kind of law where my life will be protected and I will not be taken advantage of anymore. Will you do it?" He said, "No, I don't fear God. I don't fear man. I don't fear you, lady. I'm done. I'm out of here. Goodbye." "Very closed," she's waiting, waiting. "You can't do that."

And so this woman, this widow, she would go after him. The language is such that she continuously went after him. I mean, she met him in the marketplace and said, "Excuse me, judge, you know I got that situation you saw me in court yesterday, and I gotta get..." "No, what, lady? I'm not talking to you." She'd go to his house. "Judge, listen, I got an unjust situation. Something's gotta take place here. This is not right. I need protection." BAM, shut the door. She'd meet him in the office. She'd say, "Judge, I need some help here. Please, you got to step in." And he just wouldn't do anything until she wore him out. She wore this guy out.

He says very simply this: "And for a while he wasn't willing, but afterward he said to himself, 'Even though I do not fear God nor respect man, I don't care what God thinks and I don't care what anybody else thinks, yet because this widow bothers me, I will give her legal protection lest by continually coming she,' here's the word, 'wears me out.'" Or in other words, she gives me a black eye. That's the literal translation. It's a boxing term. I mean, she literally wore this guy out. She backed him into a corner and she gave him a spiritual black eye. And that could mean that he was looking bad in the marketplace. He wasn't looking too good in the judge's chambers. This woman was relentless. She was banging on his door. She was banging on his car door, if he had one, in his house door. Wherever he was, she was always there. He'd wake up, open the door, he's gonna go to work, there she'd be, always there.

And he says, "This woman, she has literally punched me right out. She has worn me down. And even though I don't fear God and even though I don't fear man, let alone this woman, I am so sick and tired of this woman banging on my door. I'm gonna give her legal protection. Get her out of my hair." He does. The old rogue met his match. We'll see just the contrast. We'll have to cover the rest next week. Let's pray together.