Persistent Prayer

Do we persist with God? Do we give up praying too soon? Let’s learn that God encourages persistent, demanding prayers. Let’s discuss prayers for ourselves, aggressive prayer and God’s justice in Luke 18:1-8.

Purpose

“Then He spoke a parable to them, that men always ought to pray and not lose heart” (Luke 18:1 NKJV)

This is Jesus’ purpose statement, the reason for the parable. Jesus says “ought” meaning in context “a necessity of law and command, of duty.” Jesus says that we not “lose heart” meaning in context “to be utterly spiritless, to be wearied out, exhausted.”

Do we pray about something once or twice and then give up? Do we lose heart or get discouraged because God has not yet answered a particular prayer? Do we not realize that God will answer but in His time not ours? Do we realize that sometimes there are circumstances that we are unaware of such as God giving others space to repent? This was the case with the sexually immoral church Thyatira.

“Nevertheless I have a few things against you, because you allow that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess, to teach and seduce My servants to commit sexual immorality and eat things sacrificed to idols. And I gave her time to repent of her sexual immorality, and she did not repent.” (Revelation 2:20-21 NKJV)

Parable

How did Jesus illustrate His point?

saying: “There was in a certain city a judge who did not fear God nor regard man. (Luke 18:2 NKJV)

He neither feared God nor cared about people. Fear of God is a prerequisite for judges. What did Jehoshaphat say?

Then he set judges in the land throughout all the fortified cities of Judah, city by city, and said to the judges, “Take heed to what you are doing, for you do not judge for man but for the Lord, who is with you in the judgment. Now therefore, let the fear of the Lord be upon you; take care and do it, for there is no iniquity with the Lord our God, no partiality, nor taking of bribes.” (2 Chronicles 19:5-9 NKJV)

How does Jesus judge?

“His delight is in the fear of the Lord, And He shall not judge by the sight of His eyes, Nor decide by the hearing of His ears; But with righteousness He shall judge the poor…” (Isaiah 11:3-4 NKJV)

This judge also has no shame. He doesn’t care what people think of his wrongdoing. Yet, a widow’s persistence got through?

Now there was a widow in that city; and she came to him, saying, ‘Get justice for me from my adversary.’ And he would not for a while; but afterward he said within himself, ‘Though I do not fear God nor regard man, yet because this widow troubles me I will avenge her, lest by her continual coming she weary me.’ ” (Luke 18:2-5)

The welfare system of the Old Testament law gave the firstborn son a double inheritance, to look after family widows and orphans. If a widow had no son, then her welfare passed to her husband’s oldest brother. We live in a world where the family often ignores the elderly and abandons them to old folks homes, not always for legitimate reasons. Old Testament law was far superior.

Old and New Testaments demand that widows and other needy be cared for, but people disobey and widows are often left destitute. This widow demands justice from a reluctant judge. God encourages us to make requests, unabashed. The widow was persistent and demanding in prayer. Are our prayers like that?

Is it wrong to be so persistent with God? Unjust judges still ignore the pleas of the needy. God will hear and answer our cries for daily help even when others will not.

Should our faith be docile? Should Christians passively accept injustice? Are aggressive cries for equity and fairness only for those without faith? Should we just wait patiently on God and keep silent? Jesus commended a persistent widow for aggressively demanding justice from an uncaring judge. Let’s persistently and aggressively pray?

Judgment

Then the Lord said, “Hear what the unjust judge said. And shall God not avenge His own elect who cry out day and night to Him, though He bears long with them? I tell you that He will avenge them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will He really find faith on the earth?” (Luke 18:6-8 NKJV)

We all want mercy, and must learn to give it. Even the false preacher Jezebel who encouraged sexual immorality in the church was given time to repent. Rushed justice hurts too many people. True justice takes time because of mercy and space for repentance. The key is not to quit.

Let’s not be like the unjust judge, where the world’s poison resides deep within our own souls. We don’t have the capacity to judge the thoughts and motives of every evil in this world. Let’s leave it to the only righteous judge, God. Every criticism of injustice that we level against others in the world points a finger right at our own hearts. Pray always and we will be delivered even from our own unjust hearts.