Keep On Praying!

(A magazine article by Vern Sheridan Poythress) For about fourteen years my wife and I have prayed that God would put a stop to abortion. For fourteen years we have prayed that God would end the persecution of the house churches in Mainland China. For years we have prayed for deep revival to come to our country. In all these cases, we haven’t seen much change. Are our prayers doing any good? Will there ever be an answer?

It is easy to give up hope if God does not answer our prayers right away. Jesus knew that we were prone to become discouraged, so he told the story in Luke 18:1-8. “Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up.”1

How Do We Respond to a Hopeless Situation?

Jesus tells about a widow who had every reason to give up. We must picture a situation where some wicked person has wronged a widow. Perhaps he had taken over her home and kicked her out.2 Whatever the details, the widow desperately needs help.

The woman’s situation looks especially hopeless for several reasons. To begin with, she is a widow. Without a husband, she has no steady income or shelter in social situations.

She is also legally insecure. In ancient Jewish society the man who headed a family or clan would normally handle legal disputes. He would be familiar by experience with legal matters, and would probably know the judge personally. But this widow has no man to represent her—no husband, not even a father or a brother. She has to go herself, without the experience or social leverage that a man would have.

Now the situation worsens. The judge to whom she goes is unjust.3 He cares nothing for her plight. Can the widow perhaps hope to persuade him nonetheless? She can point out to him that God threatens to punish judges who pervert justice.4 But no, the judge does not fear God.5 Or the widow can argue that the people of the town will despise him for not helping her. No, this stratagem will not avail either. The judge “neither feared God nor cared about men.”6 He is indifferent to human opinions about him. Can she appeal to the man’s conscience, and make him realize how low he has sunk? No, the judge is already well aware of his position, and admits it freely to himself: “Even though I don’t fear God or care about men ... .”7 The judge has so hardened himself that no human appeal can get through. Apparently nothing that the woman might say will have the least effect. There is no hope for a change.

Have you ever suffered through a situation as bleak as this one? Have you felt despair because there seemed to be absolutely nothing you could do? “Just give up,” the Devil tempts us. “Curse God and die!” Job’s wife says.8 Jesus understands how despair may sometimes grip us like an iron vise.

Amazingly, though everything is against her, the woman does not give up. “For some time he refused,”9 yet the woman persists. She continues to bother him, to pester him. Finally, the judge wakes up to his own selfish interests. He decides to give justice, but only because otherwise she will “eventually wear me out with her coming.”10 The woman gets relief because she persevered.

What Kind of Perseverance Do We Have?

Now what is Jesus’ point? He tells us to pray and not give up. God will answer. Jesus 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.”11

Jesus is making a comparison. The persistence of the widow is like the persistence that characterizes “God’s chosen ones.” The widow cries out to the judge to give her justice.

Likewise, God’s chosen ones cry out to God to give them what they need. After awhile, the unjust judge gave justice to the widow. After awhile, God will answer his people, the chosen ones. Jesus gives the parable to encourage “God’s chosen ones.” To them he says, “Don’t give up. Persevere in praying to God. He will do what is right.”

How Does God Respond to Our Prayers?

But this comparison leaves many people uneasy. “What?” they say, “Is God unjust and reluctant and in need of being pestered like this horrid human judge?”

Jesus assumes that we know enough about God to see the point of the comparison. The Bible indicates that God is both compassionate and absolutely just.12 Far from being reluctant, God is like a father eager to give his children good gifts. “If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!”13

The comparison with an unfair judge shows how much more we can expect from God. If even an unfair judge can be persuaded, how much more can we expect God to answer us for our good? If even someone who has no love or care for us can decide to help, how much more will God respond to us in outpoured love? The Bible well expresses the depth of God’s love and commitment to us in Romans 8:32: “He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?”14 How tremendous a commitment God has made! We are to come boldly to God, knowing that he will answer us fully and compassionately. He has proved his faithfulness and eagerness to provide for us by giving the most spectacular gift of all, his own Son!

Note that these promises all come to God’s children, his “chosen ones.”15 Not all prayers are equally acceptable. Speaking to hardened, sinful Israelites, God warns, “When you spread out your hands in prayer, I will hide my eyes from you; even if you offer many prayers, I will not listen.”16 For our prayers to be acceptable, we must receive forgiveness for our sins and be cleansed by the blood of Christ.17 Then we may have confidence that God loves and receives us even as he receives Christ his only Son.18

For What Do You Pray?

Is God’s promise to answer prayer like a blank check? No, even an earthly father knows how to give good gifts to his children. Not everything that a child asks for is good. A wise father takes into account the whole situation. How much more so with God our heavenly Father! We can be thankful that God in his wisdom does not always give us everything for which we foolishly pray. God must renew our hearts and minds so that we begin to pray for his goals rather than for our own selfish goals.19

The story that Jesus tells in Luke 18:1-8 points to the same truth. The widow in the story asks for a fair resolution of her case. Likewise, your prayer and mine should be for God to establish his righteous will.20 God answers such prayer: “his ears are attentive to their prayers.”21

But now we must understand God’s justice, his righteousness. God cares not only for just decisions in human courtrooms, but for what is right in every sphere of life. Every mean remark from a child, every social snub, is a violation of God’s righteousness. Every instance of right living and self-control expresses his righteousness. We are to pray for nothing less than the coming of God’s kingdom, the coming of his rule in all aspects of life. We pray, “Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”22 “Come, Lord Jesus!”23 Come and set things straight, wipe out evil, and make a new earth.24

God is so perfectly righteous that he cannot ignore sin. He showed his zeal against sin by the terrible punishment that he inflicted on sin when Christ bore our sin.25 We have only to look at the meaning of the cross to understand that God is utterly serious about righteousness, and utterly serious about punishing sin.

But the suffering of Christ issues in victory, in the glorious achievement of right when he is vindicated in his resurrection. “Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name.”26

God now works out true righteousness in history as people submit to what he accomplished in Christ. He abolishes sin in the souls of abortionists and liars and disrespectful children alike as people submit to Christ’s rightful authority: “that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”27 Thus, we are to pray for all people everywhere to submit to Christ’s universal rule, to acknowledge him as Savior and Lord. We are to pray even for those who sin against us.28 This is His command.

God’s plan is to exalt Christ. We can pray no greater prayer. So we pray for revival. We persevere in true prayer when we understand this goal and yield ourselves to Christ in our praying. “Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done.”29 We pray for Christ to come and bring his reign to completion.30 We plead for righteousness to come in our own lives, and for others to be saved and come to Christ. When we are praying for these goals, the goals of God’s own kingdom, we can have confidence. God himself tells us to persevere. He hears. He will accomplish his purpose in us and around us.

We do not know the details. We do not know how long we will have to wait for God to answer a particular prayer, like the prayer for persecuted Chinese Christians. We do not know just how he will answer. But we know that God is all wise and full of mercy and love. He has shown it through giving Christ. We can have perfect confidence in him. Keep on praying!

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1 Luke 18:1 NIV.
2 Such a seizure apparently took place in the case of the Shunammite widow in 2 Kings 8:1-6.
3 Luke 18:6.
4 Deuteronomy 27:19.
5 Luke 18:2.
6 Luke 18:2 NIV.
7 Luke 18:3 NIV.
8 Job 2:9 NIV.
9 Luke 18:4 NIV.
10 Luke 18:5 NIV.
11 Luke 18:7-8a NIV.
12 Psalm 119:137-144.
13 Matthew 7:11 NIV.
14 Romans 8:32 NIV.
15 1 Peter 1:1; Ephesians 1:4.
16 Isaiah 1:13 NIV.
17 Hebrews 4:14-16; 10:19-22.
18 Ephesians 1:6; John 17:26.
19 James 4:3.
20 Luke 18:7 NIV.
21 1 Peter 3:12 NIV.
22 Matthew 6:10 NIV.
23 Revelation 22:20 NIV.
24 Revelation 21:1-4.
25 1 Peter 2:24.
26 Philippians 2:9 NIV.
27 Philippians 2:10-11 NIV.
28 Luke 6:28.
29 Matthew 6:10 KJV.
30 Luke 18:8; 1 Corinthians 16:22.

This article was taken from Decision magazine, October 1998 [Published in Decision magazine 39/10 (Oct. 1998) 31-35]; ©1998 Billy Graham Evangelistic Association.

Persistent Praying Presupposes Faith

1Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up. 2He said: "In a certain town there was a judge who neither feared God nor cared about men. 3And there was a widow in that town who kept coming to him with the plea, 'Grant me justice against my adversary....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? 8I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?"
- Luke 18:1-8

The main thing that we need to see in the parable and the concluding statement made by our Lord Jesus in verse 8 is that God will vindicate His elect. God will give justice to His people who have been crying out day and night for vindication. In other words, we can keep on praying for the kingdom of God to come because God will surely hear us and will deliver us from all our woes in this life.

Notice that in the parable, the idea of giving justice or vindication is quite prominent. There are two main characters in this parable. One is a helpless widow who desperately cries out for justice because someone had wronged her.

The other character is an ungodly and uncaring judge who keeps on denying and putting off the widow's request for justice. He was refusing to grant her request for a while because he doesn't care for her. But the widow would not take 'no' for an answer.

So when the widow keeps on coming to him to the point of bothering him and wearing him out, he finally yielded to her request.

I like the way one pastor described a modern version of her persistence. He said, “[The judge] no sooner leaves the courtroom to go home for lunch, than this woman dogs his steps all the way to his house. When he comes out to go back to work, there she is. When he goes home at night, she’s there again. Every morning she is parked at the door of the courthouse, waiting for him to show up. Every day he tells her to get lost, but she keeps coming back. He can’t get rid of her! She’s beginning to dominate his life. He begins to hate going to work, because he’s going to be confronted by this nagging woman!” That's a good description of her persistence.

The judge realized that the only way to get rid of her is to grant her request. So 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 what's the point that Jesus made out of this parable? It is this: If an unrighteous judge can be moved to grant justice to the persistent widow for the wrong reason, HOW MUCH MORE will the Righteous Judge vindicate His people who cry out to Him day and night out of His love and compassion for them?

Indeed, God is unlike the unrighteous judge. In fact He is the opposite of everything the judge was. God loves us and takes care of us as His children in our Lord Jesus Christ. Yes, we were enemies of God because of our sin and disobedience. Yes, we were dead in our sins and trespasses and were objects of His wrath.

But because of His great mercy and grace, God freely saved us from His wrath through the propitiatory [wrath-removing] death of our Lord Jesus Christ. Because of His kindness He forgave us all of our sins, justified us and made us His children by faith in Jesus Christ. Such is the love of God toward us, dear people of God.

Don't you ever think that He has forgotten you when you're suffering and struggling in your life! Don't you dare to say that Christ doesn't care when you are assaulted by the world and the devil each day! Don't even think that God leaves you when you're tempted. No!

Even though Christ is in heaven and waiting for the right time to return, He doesn't leave us like a widow or an orphan. He is not totally remote and uninvolved in your daily struggles. In fact, as the book of Hebrews says, Christ sympathizes with us and he prays for us in time of need. He looks at us with compassion and He does something for us so we can deal with our struggles and pains. When sometimes God is silent to your prayers and longings, don't give up.

Again this is where you must see the role of the Holy Spirit as vital in the Christian life. We confess that both the Father and the Son have sent the Spirit as our Comforter and Enabler. The Spirit's work in us and through us is part of God's providential care so we will not give up but persevere in prayer. The Spirit empowers us to do the will of God and to resist every impulse of our sinful nature to sin (Gal 5.16-25).

He helps you and me to endure every trial and affliction even with joy (1 Thess 1.4-7). He strengthens you in your weakness and even intercedes for you when you do not know what to pray (Rom 8.26-27) and do not WANT to pray.

So you see, Christ's compassion toward us moves Him to equip us with His Spirit so we can keep on praying at all times in spite of the many trials in life.

But dear brothers and sisters, Christ is coming again. We do not know when but He tells us to be ready at all times. And the way to prepare for His coming is to be always on our knees praying, “May your kingdom come, may your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”

When Jesus comes again He will completely and swiftly establish His eternal kingdom of justice and righteousness. He will put an end to all our pain and suffering and to all our struggles against the forces of this world. But when He comes will He find us persistently praying? Will He find FAITH in us? That's the challenge of Christ's instruction to persevere in prayer.

Perseverance and Prayer

"Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up." - Luke 18:1

As disciples of Jesus Christ and citizens of the kingdom of God you and I are engaged in constant battle. We live in a day not unlike the days of Noah and Lot when wickedness has reached its limit and when people were more interested in goods and good times than God. Probably the only difference is that wickedness and perversity in our day is more sophisticated than their time. But the struggle for the righteous to remain faithful to the Lord remains the same.

And sometimes the battle can be fierce and tiresome, when unbelievers become aggressive in persecuting or marginalizing Christians, as in the case of many places around the world like North East Africa, the Middle East and China. Surely many Christians from those regions long harder for relief and vindication from the Lord.

But this battle can also be subtle. I say that because we wage war not only against the evil one and against the wickedness around us but also against our own sinful nature that constantly clings to us, against our own complacency and lukewarmness to the things of God. And it comes to us in the ordinary situation at home, at work, in school, even in church, when we eat and drink, when we're on our business trip. For college students the battle rages when they're in the dormitory or inside the classroom.

Whatever our status or situation in life is, our struggle is how to remain faithful to the Lord God and loyal subjects of His kingdom. Whether the heat of conflict escalates every passing moment and relief is not visible in the horizon, retreat or withdrawal from the battle line is not an option.

So what should we do? We can't give up. What we need to do is to persist. In order to persevere, we need to pray. We need to pray with our eyes of faith focused on God, not on the fierceness of our battle.

So we read from Luke 1 that our Lord Jesus instructs us to persevere in prayer and not give up until His return. He told this parable in order to drive the point that we need to pray at all times and not to be discouraged when circumstances in life sap our energy and sanctity, and our prayers seems to be unanswered.

The Lord Jesus knows our weakness and that we all are prone to give up. In light of that, He graciously gave His disciples and us this parable of the persistent widow to show that we always ought to pray until God vindicates us, His people.