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!’"
And 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. However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?" (Luke 18:1-8)
Growing up, I remember that many churches used to have a Wednesday evening service which they called a Prayer Meeting. This was interesting to me because I noticed that they really didn’t pray very much at this "prayer meeting" service. It seemed to be just another regular church service, albeit a little less formal.
I have attended churches where they actually had a real Prayer Meeting where they spent almost the entire time in prayer. The one thing that stood out to me in those churches was that this prayer meeting was the most poorly attended service they had. I couldn’t help wondering why. Why do people stay away from true prayer services?
I believe one of the main reasons is primarily because they have no real sense of what overcoming prayer is like. Of course, all of us pray, but few people know how to pray for an extended period of time and few people understand the secret of victorious and effective prayer. What about you?
Jesus knew that the business of prayer would be a choice between two contrasts, that of praying always or giving up in prayer. And that is what we do in reality. We either develop a life of prayer, or we pray little.
But Jesus knew the power of prayer. And He knew that we would need power in prayer to live an overcoming life. So He not only lived a life of example, but gave us this story of the Widow and the Unjust Judge.
In this story, we are exhorted to always pray, much like Paul’s exhortation in Thessalonians that we pray without ceasing. And these are strong statements, but Jesus is not talking about occasional prayer, He is talking about the very thing we need most, a life of prayer. So it is to that end that He offers this story as encouragement to show them that they should always pray and not give up.
In this story He gives us several secrets of overcoming prayer. We will examine four of them.
If you would like to pray effectively, you must pray persistently. God desires persistent prayer. It is a mark of sincerity and earnestness when we are not easily discouraged in our prayer life.
Notice that this widow kept coming to the judge with her petition. Here is a picture of persistence.
We do not know who this widow was, but it was not uncommon in that day for a widow to have an adversary who was trying to take advantage of her. She may not have had any family, and a lone woman in those days was pretty defenseless. Someone may have been trying to get her money, or to cheat her out of her land.
In any case, she had an adversary; she had a problem, and this judge was her only hope. So she came. "Grant me justice against my adversary," she said. But she was talking to a hard man.
Notice several things about this judge. It says that he was a man who neither feared God nor cared about men. This may mean that he was not a Jew since Jews had a holy respect and fear for God. It seems that he was very secure in his position and in his authority because he did not care what men said.
Those who came before him, came in fear unless they had a bribe, or great power and influence. But this widow came. And when He did not act, she came again. "Grant me justice against my adversary!" No result. But did she stop? No, she only came again, and again. "Grant me justice against my adversary!" She had a cause, and she cried out, persistently.
And the judge, though unjust, finally relented. We must recall that he was unjust. He might have given her justice for a price, but she had no bribe. He did not fear God, so he had no moral pressure from conscience to help her. He wasn’t Jewish, so why should he do anything for this poor Jewish widow? What could she do for him? And he did not regard man, except for one man, himself.
And that is precisely why he relented. He was worried about getting a "black eye." You see, that is the word in Greek translated here "bothering me." He was afraid she would make a scene, and make him look bad in they eyes of others. He was proud, and that is why he gave in to her.
But God is not like the unjust judge! All that the unjust judge is, God is not. We are not exhorted to be persistent in order to twist God’s arm like this judge, but on the contrary, this judge is pointed up as an example of the goodness and mercy of God, and of the speed with which He answers serious praying. That is the point of persistent prayer. Persistent prayer is overcoming prayer because it is serious prayer. And when we get serious, God gets serious. We need persistence; we must never quit.
There was this football coach who showed his players several films of games in order to inspire them. In one there was a big guy who hit another player and slammed him to the ground. The player who was hit just lay there, and finally limped off the field. In another film there was that same big guy who hit another player and slammed him to the ground. But this player jumped up. The next play the big guy slammed him to the ground again. Again he jumped up. Again and again it happened. He was slammed to the ground and jumped up again. Finally the coach said to his players, "Now which player do we want on our team?" The enthusiastic players responded in unison, "The guy who keeps jumping up!" The coach replied, "NO!, we want that big guy doing all that slamming down!" Well, maybe we can’t be like the big guy in prayer, but we can be persistent.
Not only is overcoming prayer persistent prayer, but overcoming prayer also is …
She had a definite request. She knew what she wanted and presented her petition to the judge. Today when someone goes to court in a lawsuit, they have to have specific and definite requests for damages. To go to court with only vague ides about what someone has done to you and what you want the court to do about it is sheer folly. What if someone came to court and when asked about the complaint said, "Well, they kind of said some bad things about me and I didn’t like it." What things? What do you want us to do? Slap their hand? … wash their mouth out with soap? … give you some money for damages? "Oh, give me some money!" Well, how about ten dollars? No? Well then how much is some?
So often we are that vague in our praying. O Lord, bless me. Help me to live right. Help me to be what you want me to be. We pray this way many times without ever asking God what blessing He would like to give us; or what things we can or should do to live right; or what He wants us to be, what our goals in life should be.
This can be a hindrance to believing prayer. We are exhorted to pray believing. James says we must ask in faith. But Hebrews 11:1 says that "faith is the substance of things hoped for." There must be an object for our faith, a thing we are believing for.
Of course, this "thing" should be a thing gotten from the Lord in prayer. It should not be a thing of our own carnal choosing. It should be goal leading us to the ultimate goal of the high calling of God in Christ. And if we ask, God will give us those intermediate goals along the way.
Specific praying can revolutionize your prayer life. When we start praying specifically, God begins to bless us with specific answers to our prayers.
I remember a time when we lived in Raleigh and we found ourselves a little short on funds. I had discovered that we needed about $200.00 more that month than we had. So I began to pray. I asked God for $250.00 because I figured that by the end of the month I would need the extra $50.00. Well, I didn’t tell anyone that I was praying for that amount of money. One day when I arrived home, my wife was standing at the door with something in her hand. It turned out to be a check for $250.00. And further, it was a Cashier’s Check for $250.00 I had no one to thank but God. It was an answer to prayer.
When we pray specifically, we receive specific answers to our prayers. And that confirms that God has answered our prayer, which in turn gets us excited about prayer and builds our faith in God. We begin to experience an upward spiral of what the Bible talks about as going from "faith to faith." And then other people get excited about what is going on in our lives as well. This kind of prayer becomes an exciting adventure of faith for us.
But how many of us have specific goals from God we are praying toward? This widow had a goal, and she persisted in specific petition until she got through. Many of us need to sit down with the Lord and ask, inquire of Him what we should be praying for, and then go at it.
This widow was gripped by her request. She cared what happened, and she cried unto the judge like she cared. "Grant me justice!" Grant me justice!" Continually she called to him. Remember, he said that by her continual coming she was going to black his eye. She might make a scene! Only those who make impassioned pleas make scenes. She cared, so she cried out with her whole heart.
Could God be asking how much we really care? Paul said in Acts concerning the prophecies of his impeding trouble and imprisonment in Jerusalem that none of these concerns "moved" him. In other words, he was not concerned for his own safety or possible harm. He was not "moved" by it. But something did move him. And that was that the Gospel of Christ be preached to all. He was involved, moved by that. That was his passion.
Sometimes need can move us. I don’t know if you heard of the community in which a glorious revival occurred. God did such a work there that even riffs between people many years old were set right. The whole town turned to Jesus, and people began to love one another. Well, on one Sunday a lawyer, whose business had all but dried up because of the revival, was called on to pray and said, "Lord, stir up strife amongst thy people, lest thy servant perish." He was moved to pray.
What moves you? Perhaps you are a mom or dad concerned for a child who is in trouble or needs Jesus. Perhaps you are a husband or wife with an unsaved mate. Perhaps you are facing a difficult problem and you can’t seem to fin the solution. Whatever it is, you are involved not only spiritually, but emotionally in it. You feel the burden of it before the Lord, and you cry out to Him with all your heart. "The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective," the Bible says.
Some of you may say, "I’m not really passionate about anything in prayer. How do I become passionate?
We become passionate when we catch God’s vision. We need a vision of what God wants for our lives, for our families, for our church, and for our community. And the only way we receive such a vision is to spend time in fellowship with Him.
As we seek God in prayer, we tap into the mind of God. As we begin to inquire concerning His plan, we begin to catch a glimpse of what He wants. And some of what we see may surprise us. When God gives you a glimpse of His fantastic plan for your life, you will become so excited about it, you will hardly be able to contain yourself. God has great things in store for you. Take time to seek them out. Friends, that will move you!
What a glorious opportunity is ours to prevail with God. We all want to have power with God and man. And we can through prayer. It is not that God is our enemy, like the unjust judge could have been to the widow. In fact, the whole point of the story is to illustrate the contrasts. The Lord is the opposite of the unjust judge. He is merciful and kind, looking out for the interest of his children. He will not put us off. He will not tarry in His answer. This story is an encouragement to us to call upon the Lord, for He is near unto all who call upon Him in truth. He will hear your cry.
Now He may not give us everything we want, and he may not do it in our time, but He will hear, and He will answer us. We can trust Him completely.
Ah, but that is the test. Will we be faithful? Jesus asked whether He would find faith when He returned. Will we remain faithful even when the newness wears off? One preacher entitled a sermon "Life Is Just So Daily." And it’s so true. Life is routine, even monotonous many times. And that is where we are weak. But that is where faithfulness needs to take over so that the vision we have can come to pass.
You know, it’s easy to do the work of the lord when the zeal of the Lord is burning within. I can enlist people to serve in many needed capacities in the work of the church when they are zealous. But we find it hard to do even those things we know to do when we do not feel zealous. And let’s admit it, we don’t feel zealous all the time. Life IS just so daily." Andy many times we get kind of apathetic with the routine.
But is the work of the Kingdom is ever going to get done, if our goals are going to be accomplished, we cannot be apathetic. So what’s the answer? The answer is that when zeal lags, faithfulness must take its place. That is what faith produces. As a matter of fact, faith and faithfulness are many time interchangeable in Scripture.
If we will be faithful in our prayer life, we will prevail with God. God always honors faithfulness. The welcoming words to heaven’s glory are "Well done, thou good and faithful servant." They key to our success in the Christian life; and the key to our success in prayer is faithfulness. If we are faithful, we will prevail with God.
So, we have seen that overcoming prayer is PERSISTENT prayer; that it is PRECISE prayer; that it is PASSIONATE prayer; and that it is PREVAILING prayer.
That’s the kind of prayer God is certain to answer. That’s the kind of prayer that makes our lives exciting and expectant. That’s the kind of prayer that will change circumstances. That’s the kind of prayer that will change us, to make us more like Jesus.
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