Luke 18:1-8
Parable of the Persistent Widow
1 Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up. 2 He said: “In a certain town there was a judge who neither feared God nor cared what people thought. 3 And there was a widow in that town who kept coming to him with the plea, ‘Grant me justice against my adversary.’
4 “For some time he refused. But finally he said to himself, ‘Even though I don’t fear God or care what people think, 5 yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice, so that she won’t eventually come and attack me!’”
6 And the Lord said, “Listen to what the unjust judge says. 7 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? 8 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?”
The Parable of the Persistent Widow has many lessons and intertwined with many of the characteristics of Jesus...When Jesus ask will there be faith when He returns in His Second Advent is a very interesting question for me...Did He ask it because it has been over two thousand years since He left earth and ascended to Heaven, and we have not physically seen Him since then?...Or was there other reasons?...And He asks the question right after a lesson on God bringing us swift justice...It is like He changes subjects in the middle of the Parable from justice to faith...
But back to the question about faith on earth in His Second Coming, the early believers who did not see Him physically after His ascension...And they did not have this problem...They were willing to be persecuted to death for their belief in Him...The early Christians were persecuted for about 300 years and many died for their faith in Jesus...So, there were 300 years of persecutions of death happening to Christians as God evolved it into a religion...And as Paul believed two thousand years ago, when he was on trial about Jesus...When Paul's accusers rose to speak about his crimes, and Paul's judge, named Festus, he was perplexed...The accusers did not charge Paul with any of the crimes as Paul's judge had expected...The accusers only had some contentions with him regarding their own religion and a certain Man named Jesus who had died, but whom Paul affirmed and believed to be alive...And today this is still a point of contention for faith in Jesus, did He resurrect and is He alive or is He dead as the old accusers believed and He means nothing to the meaning of Life...
Jesus precedes this question of faith with justice...The lesson is still the same...Justice and Goodness will prevail...Today He brings it to the current times by telling us that we will see that people will still get justice and justice will happen quickly...This statement is in the Parable, as a widow returns to an unfair judge over and over again is ageless...The unjust judge is getting worn down by the widow's persistence for justice and finally gives in to her...Jesus teaches us that we should be persistent in prayer, and not lose heart...This tells me that He may be thinking that since He is not here physically, that we may not be as persistent and not lose heart if He were right here physically beside us...And somehow persistence, justice, righteousness, and faith are all intertwined in this Parable and Teaching by Jesus...Goodness will in the end overcome evil...
But Jesus is here Spiritually with us and has given us the Holy Spirit of God...He has Risen...Jesus has the Divine Power to bring an unjust judge or person to a mind set of righteousness...He has the authority to bring the world to righteousness for its current status...He still can correct the injustices of the current world...So His statement of faith maybe a challenge to all believers that we must follow His example of faith, giving thanks, and praying and talking to His Father...He maybe wants us to continually examine our own faith and where it is everyday...He certainly did, when He walked the earth...He was always thinking and talking about His Father...God was the Center of His Life...But Jesus gets us, and He knows that there will be times when our faith is low and He and His Father are out of our minds...He knows there will be times when we are critical and judgmental toward our neighbors...
When Jesus talks about His Second Coming, we hear that there have been and are going to be all kinds of tragedies, famines, problems like tornadoes and hurricanes...And during these times of tragedies, it is easier to lose faith and give up...Therefore, Jesus does not want us to be static in our faith, but be on guard, be watchful, and examine our faith on a regular basis...As we learned from Job that faith can overcome an insurmountable number of problems and troubles...
Faith is the assurance of events that happen in God's Plan and in things we cannot see, yet hope for...By faith we understand and believe that the entire universe was formed at God’s command, that He spoke Creation into existence and we can see the Creation by looking outside and to Nature...We can believe that all things are made through Jesus...We can see that Nature did not come from anything that we did and did not happen at anytime where we could see it...We can believe that it is impossible to please God without us having faith...So anyone who wants to come to Him must believe that God exists and that He rewards those who sincerely seek Him...And if God and Jesus are unchanging and always here yesterday, today, and forever, then we can believe since God is LOVE and LOVES us that there will be faith when Jesus returns to earth...
Hope was born on a starry, starry night in Bethlehem...Faith is the Great Hope...We read the gospels and see this hope...Our faith sustains us until we will see Jesus again...Faith is what saves us by God's LOVE and His Grace...The Great Hope that Jesus has many rooms where He exists right now...And He has prepared a place for each one of us...So whenever it is our time, everything will be ready in Heaven and He will come and get us, so that we will always be with Him and His Father in Heaven...By having faith and believing and loving Him, even though we have never seen Him, we can believe our faith in Him and His Holy Spirit sustain us...Though we do not see Him now and it has been a long time since He was seen on earth, we can trust Him; and we can rejoice with a glorious, inexpressible joy...The reward for trusting Him will be the salvation of our souls...Salvation is found in no other name...
Those who believe in Jesus, are all clothed in Christ...This shows that we are all children of God through faith in Christ Jesus...We are all brothers and sisters who believe...He teaches us that whoever does the will of His Father in Heaven is His brother and sister and mother...Now, in Jesus, it doesn’t matter if we are a Jew, white, yellow, back, red, a slave or free, male or female...We are all the same in the eyes of Christ Jesus...We belong to Christ, so we are all Abraham’s descendants...Each one of us get all of God’s blessings because of the promise that God made to Abraham...God will NEVER break a promise...
Our faith is very much a part of our relationship with Jesus...And in any relationship, it must be nurtured and worked at...If one does nothing in a relationship, the get nothing...We must always be seeking Him...So we must walk with Him and talk with Him and pray to Him...Otherwise our relationship becomes static and is not active and sharp and loving and caring...This relationship not only unites us with Jesus and His Father, but also with each and everyone one of our neighbors...All the Bible go back to two of God's commands... Love God and love neighbor...So let us have a positive and lasting relationship with both our Father and those around us...So when the Son of Man returns to earth, He will find peace on earth and our faith will be strong in Our Father and His Son...