Unjust Judge vs. Persistent Widow

Scripture: Luke 18:1-8 (ESV)

And he told them a parable to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart. ² He said, “In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor respected man. ³ And there was a widow in that city who kept coming to him and saying, ‘Give me justice against my adversary.’ 4 For a while he refused, but afterward he said to himself, ‘Though I neither fear God nor respect man, ⁵ yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will give her justice, so that she will not beat me down by her continual coming.’ ” ⁶ And the Lord said, “Hear what the unrighteous judge says. ⁷ And will not God give justice to his elect, who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long over them? ⁸ I tell you; he will give justice to them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”

Devotion:

            The parable Jesus tells his disciples here is pretty much straight to the point. There is one central meaning here and Luke states it right up front. That point being that God hears and will respond to our prayers. Still, it seems to us mortals that God behaves more like the unjust judge than most of us would like to admit. God can seem cold and distant. And He appears very inconsistent because He appears to answer some small request right away and some large petition, He may take years to answer. Sometimes it seems that he does not care about our prayers at all.

            So, how are we to hear this parable in our 21^st century world. First of all, we must consider God’s general record of accomplishment over the 2,000 years or so since this parable was told. When taken in the long view God has proven faithful to His church more often than not. Chances are that of the requests the church has made that have not been answered according to our wishes God may have a very good reason to delay or seemingly ignore answering our requests. We may hear these words from Isaiah echo in our ear “For my thoughts are not your thoughts,

neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord.

            ⁹           For as the heavens are higher than the earth,

so are my ways higher than your ways

and my thoughts than your thoughts.” (Isaiah 55:8-9 ESV)

 

            When God appears to us to be the unjust judge, we must always remember who created who. God is big enough to handle all our questions and in the end his purposes will always be made clear. God never tires of hearing the cries of His people and cares very much for us.

 

            That may be the purpose of the rather cryptic comment at the end of our passage. “Will God find faith on earth?” The answer is, of course he will find a faithful remnant of the church on earth. How many faithful there will be is a mystery known only to the Father. Let us pray that we may be found faithful at that last day.

 

Prayer:

            Thank you, Father, for giving us your Son that we might see your power to answer prayers in the flesh. Jesus blessed us with all types of healing, physical, emotional, spiritual pain were all vanquished by the very word that created the universe. Thank you for caring so much for your disobedient image bearers. Grant us the faith to keep on believing even when it seems all hope is lost. God is a righteous judge and will be perfect in His judgment in end. Amen.