Title: BELIEVE AND PRAY, FOR JUSTICE WILL BE RENDERED.
Focus: Standing on God’s promise to render justice in due time calls for persistent, unceasing prayers.
Function: To move the people to draw strength and inspiration from the Christian faith by seeking God’s justice or shalom through persistent prayer.
Text: Luke 18:1-8
When the truth of the holocaust came out after WW. II—the truth that 6 million Jews had perished at the hands of the Nazis—millions of Christians gave up on the Christian faith. They could not live with the seemingly unanswered question how a just and holy God could ever allow such a horrendous evil to happen. Their disillusionment with the God of the Bible has led to a deep-seated secularism in Europe.
Each one of us, at times, must struggle with the forces of secularism or unbelief. For we, too, have our unanswered questions; and sometimes we, too, are baffled about the injustices and evil things that come our way. Lewis Smedes, in his book How Can It Be All Right When Everything Is All Wrong? writes:
“Too many people…hurt too much to let believing come easy. People close to me get cancer and die too soon; my prayers do not take away the pain or hold back the tolling of the bells. My friends’ marriages turn into battlefields and their children go through a hundred kinds of mini-hells. God does not do many miracles for my crowd.”
In other words, how do you pray in the face of evil and injustice? How do you persevere in faith and in trusting God while your world is crashing in?
What do you say to Christians who die at the hands of persecutors and who receive no earthly justice at all from their governments? What do you do when your uncle gets away with the horrendous abuse he perpetrated against you when you were a child, while you struggle with the aftermath of that abuse for the rest of your life?
Where is the justice, where is the shalom that comes from justice we all so desperately need and desire? For many, the absence of justice and shalom is reason enough to stop praying and believing.
But that’s a huge mistake. For the Scriptures remind us that God is just and holy, and God will render justice, for he will reveal himself as righteous Judge on the great Day of Judgment. That’s a promise. Standing on God’s promise to render justice in due time, then, calls for persistent prayers.
Jesus tells us a story to draw strength and inspiration from the Scriptures and the Christian faith’s teaching on God’s justice and judgment. Let God’s promise of rendering justice be the fuel for persistent prayers each day.
It’s a simple and short story about a widow seeking justice from a local judge. But there are some puzzling features in the story. For example,
From the story you would expect that we are to learn a lesson or two from the woman’s persistence (and we certainly can); but Jesus is very emphatic that we must take a cue from the unjust judge: (vs. 6) “And the Lord said, ‘Listen to what the unjust judge says.’” So, if Jesus wants us to pray persistently, then why should we note what the evil judge has to say?” Here’s another thing that easily throws us off:
story about this woman and the judge, you are inclined to equal the judge with God. This tends to be an intuitive reaction, but it’s wrong because such a notion leads to wrong and puzzling conclusions. The unjust judge is not a mirror of God. Rather, the unjust judge stands in stark contrast to God. For the faith as expressed in the Scriptures is this: God is just and renders justice in due time. The evil judge, however, could not care less about justice or people.
So, how must we approach and hear the story and learn from it? We must ponder a number of clues.
For example, the story is about the rendering of justice to God’s chosen ones (God’s people) and Jesus tells us the story with a view to inspire persistent prayer. It is Jesus’ goal that our faith life is laced with prayer; Jesus desires that our daily living breathes the air of prayer. So, then, the search for justice and shalom and the practice of persistent prayer belong together.
Pay attention, then, to this clue in vs. 7 and 8: “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.” In other words, Yes, God will render justice for his people who pray to him day and night, persistently.
Here’s another clue: (vs. 8b) “However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth.” The Son of Man—who is he? The reference is to an end-of-the world-figure found in the book of Daniel. Jesus applies that same reference to himself. He reveals himself as the “Son of Man” who will judge the heavens and the earth at the very end of time.
In fact, chapter 17 of Luke is all about the coming of God’s kingdom by way of the Son of Man at the end of time. Speaking about that day of his final coming, Jesus said: “Just as it was in the days of Noah, so also will it be in the days of the Son of Man. People were eating, drinking, marrying and being given in marriage up to the day Noah entered the ark. Then the flood came and destroyed them all. It was the same in the days of Lot. People were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building. But the day Lot left Sodom, fire and sulfur rained down from heaven and destroyed them all. It will be just like this on the day the Son of Man is revealed.”
So, in the context of Jesus talking about his final coming as judge--as the Son of Man--Jesus then tells us the story about this persistent, justice-seeking woman and the evil judge. And Jesus tells us the story with a view to inspire or encourage us to be persistent in our daily prayers—persistent in seeking justice or shalom for others and ourselves.
For the story itself tells us that if persistence can move an evil judge to render justice, then how much more will our righteous and just God render justice for his people who pray to him persistently to make things right!
So let’s take our inspiration and encouragement to pray persistently from this Biblical truth:
More often, however, God delays justice. Suffering and pain and death may come first, and then justice. As in the days of Elijah and King Ahab and Queen Jezebel, for example. The Israelites continued to drink from the well of idolatry fueled by Ahab and Jezebel and the priests of Baal. God was patient and inflicted suffering on Israel by way of a 3 ½ year stint of drought. Only in the end did God render quick judgment against King Ahab and Queen Jezebel.
Very often, justice from God may not come in our own lifetime. Stephen, the first Christian martyr, died at the hands of persecutors; so have millions of other Christians after him. They are now with Christ in heaven; they are in the very presence of God. And what are they saying and waiting for? Listen: (Rev. 6:10) “How long, Sovereign Lord, holy and true, until you judge the inhabitants of the earth and avenge our blood?”
Folks, the teaching of the Bible is this: God will render justice in due time! Let that promise shape your faith about God’s justice and righteousness. And let that promise of justice in due time be the fuel for daily, persistent prayers.
That is, will Jesus when he comes again at the end of time—will he find people like you and me who live with the article of faith that says: God will render justice in due time? Will you and I draw strength and comfort from this biblical teaching and thus NOT fall away in discouragement and unbelief when everything in life seems so unfair, unjust, and when God seems so far removed from us, not directly answering our cries for shalom and justice?
In other words, cling to and live with the conviction that Jesus will return as Judge over all. And therefore, pray fervently each day, especially in the face of injustice and all kinds of evil and wrongs.
That also means that we take our cue from this widow in the story. She is persistent, tenacious, relentless in approaching the local judge. Thus she expresses her faith and conviction that she is entitled to justice as promised by the laws of her community. Likewise, we flex the muscles of the Christian faith by praying day and night for God to bring salvation, newness and shalom to all who experience the misery of evil and sin today.
Here are some ways to persevere in prayer and to flex the muscle of the Christian faith that says: God will render justice in due time!
b. Use the time of unanswered prayers as a time to wait patiently upon the Lord. Take to heart the Bible’s teaching that says: (II Peter 3:8) “…With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient (longsuffering) with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.”
As the Lord is patient, let us take the time of waiting as a time to persevere, not only in terms of prayers, but also in terms of reaching out to others in the name of Christ, sharing the good news, calling people to repentance, and living a life of love and service.
I don’t like waiting. I don’t like uncertainty; I don’t like to be stuck in the muck of sin and misery not knowing how to get out of them. But I am learning more and more that waiting upon the Lord, and listening to the silence in my struggles often give rise to moments of grace and encouragement. For Christ is in the waiting and sometimes he speaks in the midst of silence with a clear whisper: I am coming again. I will make all things new. Justice will come to you and all my people, and then my shalom, my rest will be forever secured.
So, through persistent daily prayers, let us draw strength and inspiration from the faith that reveals Christ Jesus as righteous Judge over all.
In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.