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Luke chapter 18. And, you know, as we sing that
song, bring them in, bring them in. Help the shepherd. Bring them in. You know, much of our belief
in the doctrine of election and that God has mercy on whom He
has mercy and He hardens whom He hardens comes from the Apostle
Paul. We wouldn't say that doctrine
led Paul to inaction. On the contrary, we read of the
missionary journeys of the apostle Paul and the other apostles. We believe this doctrine. God
will save his people. He will. And he'll use you, and
you, and you. He will. He's purposed to save
sinners by the hearing of the gospel. And he's purposed to
put it in earthen vessels. Fragile people, like you and
me, to go share the good news. So let me encourage you, be bold. Don't be afraid. They will think
you're strange, probably. Because they think darkness is
light. And that light is darkness. Their world is flipped upside
down. And they might think what you're telling them as good news,
they might hate it. But it doesn't change the fact
that it is good news. There is ultimate truth. And
the gospel is good news. So please, I encourage you. Okay,
chapter 18, the persistent widow. Starting in verse 1, He 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. And 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?" May
God bless the reading of His Word. Oftentimes, when we read
parables, it's unclear Or it takes some digging to find out
exactly what Jesus' purpose for the story is. Oftentimes his
disciples, they'd been with him all the time. Right? They're in on it. They're in
the loop. They're in the know. And he would
teach in a parable and afterwards they would say, what do you mean?
They didn't understand it. And often that's the case in
parables. If we didn't have clues and sometimes
later Jesus explaining it to them, we would be left foggy
as to the exact meaning of it. But this parable, there's no
doubt as to why he taught this parable. Luke tells us, he told
in the parable that they ought always to pray and not lose heart. We know Jesus' intention in teaching
this parable, so that we'll pray and not give up. We'll keep praying
and keep praying. So let's look at the text. He
said, that is Jesus, in a certain city there was a judge who neither
feared God nor respected man. So, a judge in a certain city. He's not a God-fearing man, and
he could care less what other men think about him. And a widow
in that city who kept coming to him saying, give me justice
against my adversary. And oftentimes when I've thought
about this parable, I've pictured an older woman, maybe in her
60s or 70s or 80s. People didn't live to be that
age very often in that time. This is probably a 30, 40, 50
year old. And it doesn't matter, but let's
not have a picture and say it only applies to a certain age. And she kept coming to him saying,
give me justice against my adversary. And we're not really told what
is the fault. Somebody did wrong. It was in
the judge's power to help. She, a widow, is one of the most
powerless in society. No power, no voice, And she comes
to the judge and says, help me with this case. Verse four, for
a while he refused. So notice this judge, he knows
what justice is in the case. The text says he refused to do
it. He didn't fear God. He doesn't
care that somebody else is in the wrong and that she's in the
right. He doesn't care. He refused. No. Go out. But afterward, he thought, excuse
me, he said to himself, it's not because I fear God and it's
not because I have respect for man. But I'm going to give in. I'm going to give her justice. Because she keeps bothering me. She keeps coming again and again
and again. So that she will not beat me down
by her continual coming. There's an interesting note on
that, beat me down. It could literally mean a strike
on the eye. And that he would sort of become
this person that denies justice. And everyone sees the black eye
that this widow has caused him. But either way, she's bothering
him. He finally gives in. OK. And now Jesus is doing something
here that we know. It says, if A is true, then B
is even more true. Okay? If A is true, if this unrighteous
judge, he could care less about the commandments of God, or perverting
justice, or men complaining and saying, why are you being this
way? He doesn't care. If the unrighteous
judge will finally give in because of repeated asking, repeated
coming, what about God in heaven? Verse 6, And the Lord said, Hear
what the unrighteous judge says. And what does the unrighteous
judge say? He says, If you keep coming enough, I'll give it to
you. In the text. Will he not give justice to his
elect who cry to him day and night? So listen to the picture. Here's a widow. The judge, he
doesn't care about her. We don't see any friendship in
the text or relation or she's from the same town as him or
any reason for him to care about her. But that's not what we see
that Jesus says about God. Will God not give justice to
the elect Who he's loved forever and ever? That he sent Jesus to redeem
them, to purchase them? Will he not give justice to his
elect? I remember Dr. Brunson preaching
one time about this, the elect, that God had a good thought toward
us. Forever. These people who are the apple
of his eye, that he spared not his own son, will he delay? Will he not give justice? And
the rhetorical answer is, of course he'll give them justice.
He loves them. They're his people. Of course. I tell you, verse 8, He will
give justice to them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of
Man comes, will He find faith on the earth speedily? Now this is interesting, because
people have been in situations of injustice for months and months
and months and years and years and years and years, even until
death, and not seen the answer. Now, how do we reconcile that
with Jesus saying He will give justice and speedily? Well, I'd
say that there are a couple of things. One, do not consider
the patience of the Lord a thing that to us is Him taking too long. When God acts, it's the exact
right time. It's not late. And I could give you a short
thing from Lord of the Rings, which I love, the book and the
movie. And in the movie, Gandalf shows
up late. And the Hobbit character there,
he says, Frodo says, you're late. And he says, a wizard is never
late. He arrives precisely when he
intended to. God is never late. You might wear out. Your faith
might wane. You might be tired. And you pray
and pray and pray and lose hope and say, God's late. I needed
the answer six months ago before they cheated me out of my property.
God is never late. Don't consider. He has a reason
for what He does. And it's not an arbitrary reason.
It's a good reason. He loves us. He's perfecting
us. He's completing the good work
that He started in us. And sometimes, Dr. Cindy, He
leaves us in a precarious situation for a time. And He does it because
He loves us. And it's not just because we
need to experience adversity in general. He loves us. He's
working it out in us. He's teaching us to love Him,
to trust Him, even though we can't see the end. We have a
very difficult situation and we think only God can help and
we cry and cry and cry and don't see the answer. The text says, always pray and
don't lose heart. He will give justice to His elect. He will. In verse 8, I tell you, He will
give justice to them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of
Man comes, will He find faith on the earth? Will the virgins be waiting with
their lamps when the Lord comes? Will they be heading back to
town because they ran out of oil? Will you be praying continually
when the Lord comes? Will you believe until the end
that He will give justice to the elect? Though in this world
you're often mistreated, there will be justice. And it might
not happen until Judgment Day. But don't think somehow that
that doesn't count. You know that sometimes when
we say, they'll get what's coming. You see a wicked person who in
this life they are prosperous beyond any measure that we have. And we think, that guy doesn't
believe at all. Why is God blessing him like
this? And somebody will say, he'll
get what he deserves. And somehow to us that feels
like a cop-out answer. It's not. God is keeping track. Every idle
word will be called to account. Those who are not covered in
the blood of the Lamb will pay for those sins. Justice will
be done. But the question is, will the
Lord find faith when He comes? Will you pray and pray and pray
and pray and pray and pray and not complain? We have a habit
of complaining in our hearts while praising on the out. As
our brother taught us this morning, sins of the mind. To complain
in your heart is the same thing. Surely I'd rather you complain
with your heart than with your mouth. But God looks at the inside,
not as we do. We look at the outside only.
We say, he's such a nice guy. We don't know what's on his inside. God knows what's in a man. We're
told in the Gospels that Jesus wasn't entrusting himself to
them, for he knew what was in them. God knows what's in us. Will he find faith, or will he
find complaining? Murmuring, how long in this wilderness? I despise this worthless food. Sound familiar? It didn't turn
out well for those who spoke that way. I know I've spoken
to you recently about complaining, but in the context of prayer, Don't let prayer be the last
thing you do. I know God does that purposefully
in our lives to drive us to prayer. He delights when his people pray. When his people don't pray, he's
not happy. He wants us to pray. But will
you wait until you're in just such a desperate case Won't we pray always? Pray without
ceasing? Is there a time that you shouldn't
pray? Is there a day that is not important? A season? And you know this in
your own lives. When things go well, you pray
less. I'm sorry that's the case, but it is. We pray prayers of
thanksgiving, But pleading and pleading and pleading and coming
again and again and again for our friends and our family and
our neighbors and our co-workers and those who are in situations
of injustice. We grow tired and lax until it
starts to touch us directly. This is the point. You should
pray always. Don't lose heart. Don't give
lip service to praying without ceasing. Pray without ceasing. Listen. Pray without ceasing. Our church needs it. Everybody
in this church, be praying for each other. Make a list. Mark
it off when you've prayed for those people. Be careful that
you don't forget one family, one person. They need prayer. They're being barraged with temptation
and struggle with their own flesh every second. Pray for them that
they would be faithful, that they'd withstand the temptation. Even in the desert, the Bible
says that the angels came and ministered to Jesus afterward.
It's almost like a soldier who's been in battle and he needs some
attention. This is Jesus. What about us? Do we need prayers? And we thank others for praying
for us. I do pray for them. This is where the text starts,
that we should pray always and not lose heart. And then verse
8, will he find faith when he comes? Will the Son of Man, will
he find faith on the earth? I know prayer is difficult, and
especially to persevere in it. And it shows our unbelief when
we pray and we don't see the immediate answer. Even though
God may have dispatched answers already, but we don't see the
immediate answer and we stop praying. We lose hope. We start
to doubt. Jesus' parable is designed to
teach us to persevere in prayer. Church, please pray. Trust God. It's one of the things
that we have that the wicked don't have. They don't have an
audience with the Most High God. And you know this as it relates
to our government. Especially in Cambodia too. Sometimes
there's things that you can't get done. But if you know somebody,
you can talk to them about it and they know somebody who'll
get it done. Do you see? You know somebody who has infinite power and most
kind and good And knows everything. And has infinite wisdom. Ask Him. Cry out. Lord, we want to see
the Gospel in our generation. Move. Even in Plano, where everybody
thinks they're rich. And they have need of nothing.
Yet they don't realize they're naked. They need everything. Cry out to God. Ask Him to do
work in our generation, in our towns, in our neighborhoods,
among our families. And how often, often, without
ceasing, continually. And by the way, a side note,
we're not bothering God. That's the unrighteous judge
who said, she's bothering me. He didn't give her justice because
it was the right thing to do. He just wanted her to go away.
Our God is not that way. He delights in our continual
coming. He wants to hear us come. And if I was going to preach
longer, I would. But the next section talks about
the Pharisee and the tax collector. And what type of attitude you
should have as you come to God continually. These parables are
not out of context with one another. The next parable. The Pharisee. He thought he was righteous. that in himself he was righteous,
and he treated others with contempt, the text says. That's not how
we should pray and say, God, thank you. I'm not like these
other wicked men. I do thank God that he saved
me and delivered me from the power of sin. And we should. We should. But not in a way that
treats others with contempt. God had mercy on you. You were
a beggar. He gave you food. We should be
humble as we pray. God, have mercy on me. I'm a
sinner. I'm asking you for these things because you've told me
that I shouldn't worry, but I should pray. And you've promised to
give justice to the elect. Father, give justice to the elect.
Do you see what I mean? We can presume that God wants
to hear us and that we have an audience with him. But we shouldn't
presume on how he should answer our prayers. He's wise. We should cry out like babies.
Help us. Help us. He knows how to answer. And I pray that God will bless
you as you try to do this. Pray continually. Pray without
ceasing. Again and again and again. Don't
lose heart. Believe. Be hopeful. And as we've
started to have a list and pray for things in the church, it's
not that we never prayed before. Certainly we did. But when we
have it on the list and then we see, we take that thing and
move it from a request to thanksgiving, we see God answered. He used
the prayers of His people. He stirred us up. And I hope
I'm stirring you up now. Don't give up on prayer. Pray. Pray for Edward and I. We need
it. Pray for our deacons, that they
would serve well. They need it. Pray for this church,
that it wouldn't just be sustainable, but that it would thrive. that
men and women and boys and girls would come to know Christ and
be brought up in the most holy faith. Do you pray that? I hope you do. But let's pray
it harder, more. And not just until it fills up.
See, that would be the tendency of us. When it filled up, then
we'd say, well, God answered. Pray always, don't lose heart. And in this text, the widow was
asking for justice. But I think we can apply it to
other situations. Pray always, don't lose heart.
Whatever it is, don't worry. Worrying is a sin. Jesus said,
don't worry. If you then worry, you've disobeyed
the command not to worry. Don't worry. Pray. Let's pray. Brother Edward, would you close
us?
The Righteous Judge
| Sermon ID | 219121436497 |
| Duration | 26:07 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday Service |
| Bible Text | Luke 18:1-8 |
| Language | English |
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