| It is the glory of God to conceal a thing:
but the honour of kings is to search out a matter. Proverbs 25:2 |
Fellow Believers,
Does the parable of the persistent widow in Luke 18 teach that if we nag God long enough with our prayers, He will give us what we want? Not really. We can never impose our will on the sovereign God. Even the Lord Jesus stopped asking that He'd be spared the cup of God's wrath after praying for it three times.
What, then, ought we to always pray and not faint? Let's read what the Lord Himself says: "Hear what the unjust judge saith. And shall not God avenge his own elect, which cry day and night unto him, though he bear long with them? I tell you that he will avenge them speedily" (vv. 18:6-8a).
Notice that Jesus is not talking about answering specific requests of individual believers. Rather, He is promising that He will avenge His elect, who cry day and night unto Him. One such anguish cry is recorded in Revelation 6:10: "And they (the souls of martyred saints) cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?"
In other words, Christ is telling us not to give up anticipating His return. He will surely come back for us. But then, He closes the parable with this rhetorical question: "Nevertheless when the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?"
Why does He say that? For one thing, at the end of the final tribulation period, there obviously will be a huge number of professed Christians who do not really have saving faith. But I believe Jesus, speaking to the disciples, is also suggesting that even among believers, He shall find little faith not saving faith; but faith in what His Word is revealing as to the timing of His return.
Indeed, even though "the time of the end" has come and God has begun to open up those passages relating to His return to the "wise" something He promised in Amos 3 and Daniel 12 most Christians greet the information with unbelief. If nothing else, they are missing out on the great joy of knowing that all their earthly cares and worries will be over in just a few months and of being able to concentrate more on loving and serving Christ in the meantime!
Second Quarter, 1994