yet because this widow keeps pestering me, I will give her justice. Otherwise, she will wear me out with her perpetual requests.’”yet because this widow bothers me, I will defend her, or else she will wear me out by her continual coming.’”Yet because this widow troubleth me, I will avenge her, lest by her continual coming she weary me.yet because this widow troubleth me, I will avenge her, lest she wear me out by her continual coming.
4 sermons cite this verse
He obviously thinks of speedily different than I do. He says, I'm going to answer speedily. And I'm thinking, man, I've been banging on this door for 15 days. You know, when is this thing going to open? He says, I'm going to answer speedily. and he does there's a tipping point tipping point in prayer in which the answer is released and the answer always comes quickly but to get to that place where things shift sometimes takes persistence Prayerlessness actually allows circumstances to be... prayerlessness allows the absence of breakthrough to become the norm. And generally we come to the conclusion, well, I prayed and it just, God sovereignly did not answer. So the absence of an answer falls under the category that we call the sovereignty of God. And yet Jesus is saying persistence would have got the breakthrough. So we're talking now not just about a prayer prayed, but a lifestyle of anchoring into something. Now I mentioned this, I've done this teaching here several years back, and I mentioned it in our conference this week. And let me give you like the two minute version. Jesus said that we're not to use vain repetition of prayer. In other words, you're not to repeat a prayer over and over again, because he knows what you have need of before you ask. …
This is the word of God for the people of God. Thanks be to God. What a fall series we've had, friends. We have been taking seriously this challenge to imagine a new creation through the stories told by Jesus. We've been taking it seriously by inviting a clown into worship who juggled swords and showed our senior pastor how to twirl a plate on his head. We've been taking it seriously by passing out red clown noses. We've dropped confetti from the ceiling. We've even had a whole flock of these miniature plastic sheep running wild through the sanctuary and the sanctuaries of each home in our online campus. It's been fun, right? Yeah, okay, reluctantly fun, all right. Maybe that hesitation is because it feels like a precarious time to be investing so many sermons on a jester, on silliness. Is it frivolous in times like these? yet biblical scholarship describes the times of the gospel writer luke as years of fear and persecution the early church would have hung on the telling of this parable learning as they were how to live under unjust rule theologian tom long tells us that these folks wagered their lives on the truth that Jesus, not Caesar, not Herod, was Lord, that the meal shared in common was more important than a private feast in luxury, that love is stronger than death, and that the lowly will be lifted up and the hungry fed, and to live this way invited scorn and often persecution. …
There are many benefits that we ask of God in our prayers, which are every whit of as great importance to us as those benefits which Christ asked of God in his agony were to him. It is of as great importance to us that we should be enabled to do the will of God, and perform a sincere, universal, and persevering obedience to his commands, as it was to Christ that he should not fail of doing God’s will in his great work. It is of as great importance to us to be saved from death, as it was to Christ that he should get the victory over death, and so be saved from it. It is of as great, and infinitely greater, importance to us, that Christ’s redemption should be successful in us, as it was to him that God’s will should be done, in the fruits and success of his redemption. Christ recommended earnest watchfulness and prayer-fulness to his disciples, by prayer and example, both at the same time. When Christ was in his agony, and came and found his disciples asleep, he bid them watch and pray, Matt. xxvi. 41. “Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation: the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak. At the same time he set them an example of that which he commanded them, for though they slept he watched, and poured out his soul in those earnest prayers that you have heard of; and Christ has elsewhere taught us to ask those blessings of God that are of infinite importance, as those that will take no denial. We have another example of the great conflicts and engagedness of Christ’s spirit in this duty. Luke vi. 12. “And it came to pass in those days, that he went out into a mountain to pray, and continued all night in prayer to God.” And he was often recommending earnestness in crying to God in prayers. In the parable of the unjust judge, Luke xviii. at the beginning; “And he spake a parable unto them to this end, that men ought always to pray, and not to faint; saying, There was in a city a judge, which feared not God, neither regarded man; and there was a widow in that city; and she came unto him, saying, Avenge me of mine adversary. And he would not for a while: but afterwards he saith within himself, Though I fear not God nor regard man, yet because this widow troubleth me, I will avenge her, lest by her continual coming she weary me. And the Lord said, Hear what the unjust judge saith.” Luke 5, &c. “And he said unto them, Which of you shall have a friend, and shall go unto him at midnight, and say unto him, Friend, lend me three loaves; for a friend of mine in his journey is come to me, and I have nothing to set before him 1. And he from within shall answer and say, Trouble me not: the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot rise and give thee. I say unto you, though he will not rise and give him because he is his friend, yet because of his importunity, he will rise and give him as many as he needeth.” He taught it in his own way of answering prayer, as in answering the woman of Canaan, Matt. xv. 22, &c.“And behold a woman of Canaan came out of the coasts, and cried unto him, saying, Have mercy on me, O Lord, thou Son of David; my daughter is grievously vexed with a devil. But he answered her not a word. And his disciples came and besought him, saying, Send her away; for she crieth after us. But he answered and said, I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Then came she and worshipped him, saying, Lord, help me. But he answered and said, It is not meet to take the children’s bread and cast it to dogs. And she said, Truth, Lord; yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their master’s table. Then Jesus answered and said unto her, O woman, great is thy faith; be it unto thee even as thou wilt. And her daughter was made whole from that very hour.” And as Christ prayed in his agony, so I have already mentioned several texts of Scripture wherein we are directed to agonize in our prayers to God. …
3. The absolute necessity of using this means, if we would receive any gift from God, yet farther appears from that remarkable passage which immediately precedes these words: “And he said unto them,” whom he had just been teaching how to pray, “Which of you shall have a friend, and shall go unto him at midnight, and shall say unto him, Friend, lend me three loaves: And he from within shall answer, Trouble me not; I cannot rise and give thee. I say unto you, though he will not rise and give him, because he is his friend, yet because of his importunity, he will rise, and give him as many as he needeth. And I say unto you, Ask, and it shall be given you.” (Luke 11:5, 7–9.) “Though he will not give him, because he is his friend, yet because of his importunity he will rise and give him as many as he needeth.” How could our blessed Lord more plainly declare, that we may receive of God, by this means, by importunately asking, what otherwise we should not receive at all? 4. “He spake also another parable, to this end, that men ought always to pray, and not to faint,” till through this means they should receive of God whatsoever petition they asked of him: “There was in a city a judge which feared not God, neither regarded man. And there was a widow in that city, and she came unto him, saying, Avenge me of my adversary. And he would not for a while; but afterward he said within himself, Though I fear not God, nor regard man, yet because this widow troubleth me, I will avenge her, lest, by her continual coming, she weary me.” (Luke 18:1–5.) The application of this our Lord himself hath made: “Hear what the unjust judge saith!” Because she continues to ask, because she will take no denial, therefore I will avenge her. “And shall not God avenge his own elect, which cry day and night unto him? I tell you he will avenge them speedily,” if they pray and faint not. …