The Parables of the Lord Jesus Christ
4 - The Persistent Widow
We are discovering this time a parable of Jesus found in the Gospel of Luke chapter eighteen verses one to eight. The message of this parable is found in the very first verse. As someone has said, "the key to this parable is hanging at the door." Luke writes:
"Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up. He said: In a certain town there was a judge who neither feared God nor cared about men. And there was a widow in that town who kept coming to him with the plea, 'Grant me justice against my adversary. For some time he refused. But finally he said to himself, 'Even though I don't fear God or care about men, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice, so that she won't eventually wear me out with her coming!' Then the Lord said, 'Listen to what the unjust judge says. And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will He keep putting them off? I tell you He will see that they get justice, and quickly.'"
So this story told by Jesus is about being persistent in our prayers and not losing heart when the answer seems a long time coming. The parable is about an encounter between a judge and a widow woman. Now the judge does not represent anyone in particular, certainly not God. Neither does the widow stand for anyone in particular This parable is a vehicle used by Jesus to illustrate one important fact - that it is the duty of Christian believers to be diligent and constant in their prayer-life.
What do we know about the judge in this parable? As the administrator of the law in the town under his jurisdiction, he was a powerful and important person. We are told that he was a self-centred individual who had regard for neither God nor his fellow men. He was a judge without concern for justice, without sympathy or compassion for the oppressed. Not an attractive character at all!
What of the widow? If the judge was the most powerful person in town, then she was the least powerful, having no authority or the means to stand against the one who had wronged her in some way. She wanted the matter to be put right and so she brought her case to the judge, but he was not in the least bit interested. He was not concerned about her situation at all. In his story Jesus goes on to tell how this widow kept coming back to the judge with her plea for justice, but he kept on refusing her. She gave him no peace, always at his office, stopping him in the street, pleading for him to act.
She was like a tune that you get on your mind and it will not go away, and in the end it becomes irritating. So it was with the judge, for in the end she became a bother to him. Eventually he gave in to her pleas, not because he cared about her or her reasonable request, but because she would not give up and he became weary of her persistence. He said: "I will see that she gets justice, so that she wont eventually wear me out with her coming."
What then is the lesson we discover in this parable? The Lord says, in verse six, "Listen to what the unjust judge says." Now the lesson is this: if a godless, uncaring man like this judge responded to the persistent pleading of a needy widow, how much more will God bring about justice for those whom He has chosen - his elect people. Who are God's elect, his chosen ones? They are all true believers in the Lord Jesus Christ. God will not fail those who belong to Him. He will hear and answer their pleas. So God and this wicked, uncaring judge are actually opposites.
Perhaps as a Christian you feel that, like the widow in Jesus' story, you are powerless against those who oppose you. You may feel that there is no solution to the situation in which you find yourself. Jesus is saying to you in this parable, "Always pray. Don't give up!" You have a heavenly Father who does care and is interested in your case! Keep on praying because the Lord has promised that his people will see justice in the end and an answer to their pleas.
Let us remind ourselves of some evidences or marks of the true believer in Christ, that they are among God's elect - his chosen ones. They are, first, those who have placed their faith in Jesus Christ as their Lord and Saviour. They are people who love and trust Him and desire to obey Him, and importantly, they are people who pray. Faith and the spirit of prayer go together because we are to pray in faith, doubting nothing, and the Lord will hear us.
Sometimes we find it easy to pray. If you have been to a Christian meeting where the Holy Spirit's presence was very real and every word was powerful, and there was a holy stillness, you will know that it is easy to pray at times like that. But we have to acknowledge that it is not always easy to pray. Perhaps we have been praying for a particular person or situation for a long time and it seems there is no answer, and our prayers have become difficult. Sometimes we can shorten our prayertime or neglect it altogether because of other cares and concerns. When we do this we are weakened in our walk with the Lord. In this parable the Lord calls his people to persevere in prayer; to keep on in faith, petitioning our loving Father, not giving up until we have his gracious answer.
God has a very special concern for his own people. We face many adversaries and the worst of these is Satan. But God is at work preserving and protecting his elect. He requires of us that we always look to Him and pray to Him and cry to Him day and night. We must pray urgently, earnestly and frequently. There are times when we must, as it were, wrestle with God. We must give Him no rest. Yes, there will be discouragements, but we must persevere and be patient. We must not lose heart.
The widow in this parable had no one else to turn to, but we come to our heavenly Father. She came solely on her own account, but we are called on to plead the cause of the lost. She had no one to help her, but we have One who pleads our cause before the Father - our Lord Jesus Christ. We have the Holy Spirit to help us to pray, as Paul writes to the Romans in chapter eight verse twenty-six: "In the same way the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what (or how) we ought to pray, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express." She was limited as to when she could approach the judge, but we can come day and night. She irritated the judge by her constant coming, but God delights in the prayers of his children. He delights to see our faith in Him.
Jesus finally sums up this parable with these words: "However, when the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on the earth?" As we look around our world today we have to say how little evidence there is of true faith in God. How few there are who faithfully petition the throne of God, not just for their own needs, but for the needs of a lost and dying world. What a challenge this little parable is.
How do we measure up to this clear teaching of our Lord Jesus? He tells us that "Men ought always to pray and not lose heart." Will you make this your aim from now on?