Today we are beginning a series on the parables of Jesus. This is a deviation of sorts from the way in which I normally preach. I have never actually done a series before in 15 years of preaching. I always rely on what is called expositional preaching, which takes a book of the Bible and then goes through it verse by verse, and chapter by chapter.
But even though I will be doing a series, I will still be using an expositional style. I’m not going to start doing topical messages where you bounce all around in the Bible trying to find texts to support your thesis. But we will continue to study the word to determine what the Holy Spirit is saying in that passage.
Now that being said, that brings us to the purpose of parables. Traditionally, Bible scholars used to approach parables like interpreting an allegory. They sought to discover all the possible hidden meanings in every word. But that isn’t how a parable should be considered. If you follow that line of reasoning, then you end up deducing all kinds of erroneous observations.
An early church figure by the name of John Chrysostom is quoted as saying, “It is not right to search curiously, and word by word, into all things in a parable; but when we have learned the object for which it was composed, we are to reap this, and not to busy ourselves about anything further.”
The way a parable was intended by Christ was to teach usually one major doctrine or principle. Sometimes there can be more than one, but generally speaking we should try to discern the major central thought that is being presented. Sometimes that is given to us in the scripture. Sometimes it is given in an interpretation. And sometimes it is left up to us to figure out.
But that brings us to another aspect of parables. And that is that generally speaking they are illustrations. When a speaker gives a speech, he will often use an illustration to help explain a point that he is making. And that is primarily the purpose that Jesus uses as well. But I’m afraid that oftentimes today the illustrations that are used in a sermon are not employed to make a point more understandable. But oftentimes they seem to have little relevance to the main point of the message at all. They are often just sentimental stories that are given to break up the monotony of the sermon. After the sermon, people often remember an illustration, but couldn’t tell you what the scripture was.
Jesus, however, is the master of the message, and thus a master of the parable. Parables as Jesus used them are fictional representations taken from real life situations, which teach a spiritual lesson. He spoke as one with authority. Consequently, even His enemies said about Him in John 7:47, “No one ever spoke like this man!” And we know that to be true because Jesus was the very incarnation of truth. He was the incarnation of the word of God. And so what He said was from God.
The word parable is from the Greek word “parabole” which means to come alongside. We see the root of that word in our language today, with words such a parallel, or paralegal. A parable, then, is given alongside teaching in order to illustrate a concept or clarify meaning.
But there is another purpose of a parable, and that is it can also be used to conceal a meaning. It is given to provide a principle or doctrine to those with understanding, but to conceal it to those who cannot understand. For instance, in Mark 4:9 Jesus concluded the parable of the sower by saying, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.” Now why would someone say that?
The answer becomes more apparent in the Greek. The Greek word for obedience is “hupakoue” - which includes “akoue” - the word translated as hearing. So when Jesus says “He who has ears to hear, let him hear” He is saying not just to hear the words that are being
said, but to understand and obey his teaching. To hear and to obey.
So to those who have ears to hear, parables bring a deeper understanding of the things of God resulting in obedience. But to those who do not have ears to hear, parables are instruments of concealing and obscuring the mystery of the kingdom of God. God’s word brings either salvation or condemnation upon the hearer. So Jesus’ use of parables reflects his two-fold mission of salvation and judgment upon the world. As Jesus said in Matthew 10:34-35, I have come not to bring peace but a sword. Jesus is both the cornerstone of the church and a rock of stumbling and offense to those who reject the truth. He offers salvation to all who believe, and judgment upon those who do not. And His use of parables accomplishes both or either of those objectives.
Now today we are looking at the first parable in our series, which may be called the Parable of the Unjust Judge. Sadly, we live in a fallen world. And in this fallen world we find ourselves victims of hatred, of oppression, of persecution, of lies, slander and even worse crimes. Our recourse in society is to go to the courts, to a judge, which can help us get justice. But as is indicated in this parable by Jesus, not all judges appointed by man are people of good character. In fact, often times such unjust judges are corrupt and out for personal gain.
As we have already said, the purpose of the parable is to teach or illustrate one central principle. And to our great advantage, this parable begins with the Holy Spirit telling us that central principle. The key to the parable is hanging on the doorknob, so to speak. In vs 1, it says, “Now He was telling them a parable to show that at all times they ought to pray and not to lose heart.” So at the outset, Luke reveals the goal of the parable of the unjust judge. Jesus tells this parable so that the listeners “ought always to pray and not lose heart.” This parable teaches the value of persistent prayer in the midst of difficulty and trouble.
In order to teach this principle of the effectiveness of persistent prayer, Jesus tells the story of a widow who had no one to protect her against her adversary. In the culture of that day, a widow was practically helpless. Without a husband, she had very little rights. She had very little opportunity for work in that society. Jesus tells the story of a widow who had been treated
unjustly, and whose only hope was to find justice at the hands of the judge. This would have been a civil judge. But as a widow would more than likely have no property or resources to persuade or influence the judge, he had little interest in helping her.
The Bible teaches that we are sort of like this widow. We have an adversary who is the devil. 1Peter 5:8 says, “Be of sober [spirit,] be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.” We have no resources with which to fight him on our own. Our only hope is to go to God, the righteous judge, and plead for help from Him.
In this story, the widow went to plead her case before a judge who does not fear God nor regard man. Notice that description by Jesus in vs 2, “there was a judge who did not fear God and did not respect man.” He was guilty of breaking the greatest commandment, to love God, and the second commandment, to love your neighbor. Obviously, this judge was not concerned about justice. And that was probably a familiar situation in that day, especially in the case of Roman courts. The judges were notorious for accepting bribes and getting paid off to render a sympathetic judgment. That’s why I said the widow was particularly helpless and of little interest to the judge. Because widows typically were without financial resources. That’s why James 1:27 tells us as Christians to visit the orphans and widows. Two groups of people in that society particularly that were socially and financially bankrupt and without resources.
Even today in our society, I am afraid, we have seen a decline in the character of sitting justices in America. Many of them seem more than willing to give favor to an agenda and interpret the law for the sake of their political party. But justice should not play favorites. It should not reinterpret the law. It should not use unbalanced scales.
But this widow doesn’t give up, even though the judge is disinterested. She is persistent. Vs 3, “she kept coming to him, saying, ‘Give me legal protection from my opponent.” Jesus indicates here the value of persistence, of perseverance in prayer. I think that is really the central point that He is making. After all, Luke identifies that thought as the central teaching of this parable saying in vs 1, Jesus “was telling them a parable to show that at all times they ought to pray and not to lose heart.” So her persistence in coming back to the judge is the principle that is applicable to effective prayer.
I’ve read a lot of commentaries about this parable, and some of them want to restrict this prayer to only a prayer that Jesus will return. In other words, the persistent prayer that Jesus wants us to make is the prayer for the second coming. And they derive that idea from the last verse, vs 8, which says, “However, when the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on the earth?” So they say that this prayer is limited to eschatological prayer. But I think that unnecessary restricts this parable. I don’t think that Jesus is trying to narrow it down like that. The widow is pleading for protection from her adversary. That would indicate that our prayers for anything by which we feel we are being attacked, or unjustly treated, or anything which we have no defense against, would come under the same category as the widow’s appeal.
Notice it was her not the content of her pleading that was the deciding factor, but the persistence of her pleading that won her case. It says in vs 4 "For a while he was unwilling; but afterward he said to himself, 'Even though I do not fear God nor respect man, yet because this widow bothers me, I will give her legal protection, otherwise by continually coming she will wear me out.’" Her continually coming to him wore him out. Her persistence was the key, not her plea.
When the widow first sought the judge’s help, he refused to help her. Even when the judge refused to help her a second time, she would not take “no” for an answer. But because of her persistence, her continually coming to Him, the judge finally grew weary and granted her request. The original language of the text literally says she will give him a black eye. Her persistence is buffeting the judge. She is going to war with the judge. It reminds us of Jacob wrestling with the Lord until dawn saying, “I will not let you go until you bless me.” That kind of persistence in prayer is rewarded.
Charles Spurgeon said about this principle of persistence in prayer; ““Too many prayers are like boy’s runaway knocks, given, and then the giver is away before the door can be opened.” I used to love knocking on doors and then running away as a kid. Nowadays, you can’t play that game. They are going to catch you on their webcam on their porch. But persistence is the key to opening the door.
Now the other key to understanding this parable is by recognizing that it shows a contrast between how human judges behave and how God behaves. It is not teaching us that we have to keep coming to God because He is like the unjust judge and doesn’t really care about our problems. But Jesus is showing a contrast between an unrighteous judge and God. If the unjust judge answers the widow’s request, how much more will the righteous judge, our God and Father, answer us when we call upon Him. It’s a contrast of extremes, not of similarities.
We live in a society as Americans when we are always concerned about our rights. Unfortunately we are seeing our rights being taken away at an unprecedented pace over the last year or so. We would hope that our justice system would stand up for our rights and protect them, but sadly that doesn’t seem to be the case more often than not. But even if God’s people are exploited and treated unjustly, we are not to seek vengeance upon those that take advantage of us. Romans 12:19 says “Vengeance is mine, I will repay,” says the Lord.
There is coming a day of reckoning, a day of judgment, when God will right all wrongs. When God will judge every thought, and every act. God will judge the judges. God will judge the rulers, the authorities of this earth. We are assured in scripture that day is coming. And in that way I concur with the interpretation I mentioned earlier that says we are told here to pray for the second coming. Certainly we should. And we can look forward to seeing justice served on that day, especially if we did not see it in our lifetime.
If you do a word search in the Bible for the phrase “how long” you will find 131 references, many of them in the form of a prayer. It was a frequent question of the Psalmists. For instance listen to David in Psalm 13:1-2, “How long, O LORD? Will You forget me forever? How long will You hide Your face from me? 2 How long shall I take counsel in my soul, [Having] sorrow in my heart all the day? How long will my enemy be exalted over me?” And we see it expressed in Revelation as the martyred Christians who were persecuted unto death cry to the Lord, “how long” until they are revenged. Rev. 6:10 “and they cried out with a loud voice, saying, "How long, O Lord, holy and true, will You refrain from judging and avenging our blood on those who dwell on the earth?”
Not every appeal to our Heavenly Father will be answered in our timing. But every prayer will be answered in God’s timing. God will repay. Many of us wonder during our days at the injustice in the world. We wonder about the cheating and the corruption in our political system. In a sense our politicians are our judges. They decide our laws. They interpret our laws and apply or dismiss our laws according to their own corrupt desires. We seem to have no leverage to do get any justice. We feel helpless. But we must not take our own revenge. But as Romans 12:19 says, “Never take your own revenge, beloved, but leave room for the wrath [of God,] for it is written, "VENGEANCE IS MINE, I WILL REPAY," says the Lord.”
In the book of Exodus, God reveals Himself as the one who hears the prayers of His suffering people and liberates them from bondage. They cried out to the Lord for 400 years before He brought about their deliverance. The exodus from Egypt is a foretaste of the greater exodus in the New Testament, when God delivers His people from the world, the flesh, and the devil. But we haven’t seen that deliverance completed as of yet. However, we are assured that it is coming. We still live in the flesh and in the world and the devil still goes about as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.
So we pray, we pray consistently, we pray persistently, and we know that we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, who intercedes on our behalf and who has broken the power of sin and the devil. And so we are confident that He hears us and He will help us in our time of need. But as the text I quoted from Revelation should show, and history shows, we may not always see that deliverance in the time and manner that we would like. We may be persecuted and even die for our faith. We may pass from this earth without ever being vindicated from our enemies and injustices. But Jesus promises that we will prevail with God, because He loves us as His children and their is no injustice with God.
Jesus taught us this parable so that we would persevere in prayer and not lose heart. To lose heart is to be discouraged, to give up hope. I’m afraid that a lot of Christians lose heart because they don’t get the answer to their prayers, and consequently lose faith in God. Jesus indicates that in vs 8, “However, when the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on the earth?” I think that indicates that when Jesus comes again, there will be some who have become discouraged, who have given up hope in seeing a divine resolution to their problems, and consequently have strayed from the faith. Since they feel the Lord won’t help them, they then take whatever natural means they could find to get a resolution to their problems. But our task is to remain faithful. To trust God. To persevere even when we don’t get the response we are looking for.
But Jesus’s own language seems to lend itself to the idea of a quick response to our prayers. Notice in vs 7 He says, “now, will not God bring about justice for His elect who cry to Him day and night, and will He delay long over them?” And in vs 8, there is another indication of a quick response; "I tell you that He will bring about justice for them quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on the earth?”
And I can only believe that Jesus spoke twice about the Lord’s quick response to prayer in order to give us hope that we may receive an answer while we are still living. David, the psalmist, who constantly cried out to God in prayer, “O Lord, how long!” How long will You keep silent? How long will you turn away from me? How long until you answer me? That same David also prayed in Psalm 27:13, “I would have despaired] unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the LORD In the land of the living.”
Thank God that Jesus included those phrases in the parable. But what seems quick or timely to us is not always quick and immediate in the plan of God. Jesus said, “I come quickly.” But it’s two thousand years now and He still hasn’t come back. But God also knows that we are but flesh. He knows that we have immediate needs. And He will help us in real time when it serves the will of God to do so. Our responsibility is not to dictate to God the terms, ours is just to plead our case with persistence until He gives us an answer.
Yesterday I heard a song on some radio station by the late Janis Joplin. Most of you probably know who she was, but if not, she was a very famous rock singer from the sixties. She sang with a rather bluesy, barroom style. The song that I heard on the radio was “Lord, won’t you buy me a Mercedes-Benz.” I think she did it all acoustic.
If you haven’t ever heard the song, it is an irreverent prayer done in song, in which she asks the Lord for three things; a Mercedes-Benz, a color tv, and a night on the town. The song was recorded in one take, and she performed it live that night on October 1st, 1970. That was the last song she recorded. Three days later she died from a heroin overdose.
I’m sure that she sang the song as an irreverent kind of joke. She probably didn’t seriously consider it a prayer. But the fact is, that she asked the Lord for the wrong thing. She never got her requests answered and if she had, it really wouldn’t have changed anything. She probably would still have died from an overdose. But she should have asked the Lord for eternal life. That’s a prayer that God promises to answer. The Bible promises that whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. That prayer for Jesus to save is one that is guaranteed an answer. And it is one that will last eternally.
God is not a genie at our beck and call. We aren’t told to ask for three wishes and He will make them come true. There isn’t some magic incantation that we can recite that assures us of the answer that we want. John said that if we ask anything according to God’s will, He hears us. And God is not willing that any should perish but all should come to repentance.
If you are here today and you have never been saved then that is the prayer that you need to pray. You must come to God in repentance and faith, realizing you are lost and helpless, and your only hope is in Jesus Christ, and call upon Him to save you. And He will do it. You can be born into the kingdom of God, and all the blessings that come from salvation. He is waiting and willing for you to call upon Him. I pray that you don’t wait, for today is the acceptable day of salvation.
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