This chapter is based on Luke 18:1-8. The Parable of the Persistent Widow
When trials arise that seem unexplainable, we should not allow our peace to be spoiled. However unjustly we may
We destroy our own confidence in God, and grieve the Holy Spirit. There is by our side a witness, a heavenly messenger, who will lift for us a standard against the enemy. He will shut us in with the bright beams of the Sun of Righteousness. Beyond this Satan cannot penetrate. He cannot pass this shield of holy light.
While the world is progressing in wickedness, none of us need flatter ourselves that we shall have no difficulties. But it is these very difficulties that bring us into the audience chamber of the Most High. We may seek counsel of One who is infinite in wisdom.
The Lord says, “Call upon Me in the day of trouble.” Psalm 50:15. He invites us to present to Him our perplexities and necessities, and our need of divine help. He bids us be instant in prayer. As soon as difficulties arise, we are to offer to Him our sincere, earnest petitions.
By our prayers we give evidence of our strong confidence in God. The sense of our need leads us to pray earnestly, and our heavenly Father is moved by our supplications.
Often those who suffer reproach or persecution for their faith are tempted to think themselves forsaken by God. In the eyes of men, they are in the minority. To all appearance their enemies triumph over them. But let them not violate their conscience. He who has suffered in their behalf, and has borne their sorrows and afflictions, has not forsaken them.
The children of God are not left alone and defenceless. Prayer moves the arm of Omnipotence. Prayer has “subdued kingdoms, worked righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire”—
quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, became valiant in battle, turned to flight the armies of the aliens. Hebrews 11:33, 34.
If we surrender our lives to His service, we can never be placed in a position for which God has not made provision. Whatever may be our situation, we have a Guide to direct our way; whatever our perplexities, we have a sure Counsellor.
Whatever our sorrow, bereavement, or loneliness, we have a sympathizing Friend. If in our ignorance we make missteps, Christ does not leave us. His voice, clear and distinct, is heard saying, “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life.” John 14:6. “He shall deliver the needy when he cries; the poor also, and him that has no helper.” Psalm 72:12.
Amid the anthems of the celestial choir, God hears the cries of the weakest human being. We pour out our heart’s desire in our homes, we breathe a prayer as we walk by the way, and our words reach the throne of the Monarch of the universe.
They may be inaudible to any human ear, but they cannot die away into silence, nor can they be lost through the activities of business that are going on. Nothing can drown the soul’s desire. It rises above the noise of the street, above the confusion of the multitude, to the heavenly courts. It is God to whom we are speaking, and our prayer is heard.
You who feel the most unworthy, fear not to commit your case to God. When He gave Himself in Christ for the sin of the world, He undertook the case of every soul. “He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?” Romans 8:32.
Will He not fulfill the gracious word given for our encouragement and strength?
Christ desires nothing so much as to redeem His heritage from the dominion of Satan. But before we are delivered from Satan’s power without, we must be delivered from his power within. The Lord permits trials in order that we may be cleansed from earthliness, from selfishness, from harsh, unchristlike traits of character.
He suffers the deep waters of affliction to go over our souls in order that we may know Him and Jesus Christ whom He has sent and what else? That we may have deep heart longings to be cleansed from defilement, and may come forth from the trial purer, holier, happier.
Often we enter the furnace of trial with our souls darkened with selfishness; but if patient under the crucial test, we shall come forth reflecting the divine character. When His purpose in the affliction is accomplished, “He shall bring forth your righteousness as the light, and your judgment as the noonday.” Psalm 37:6.
There is no danger that the Lord will neglect the prayers of His people. The danger is that in temptation and trial they will become discouraged, and fail to persevere in prayer.
It was Christ who gave the pleading widow courage and determination before the judge. It was Christ who, centuries before, in the mysterious conflict by the Jabbok, had inspired Jacob with the same persevering faith. And the confidence which He Himself had implanted, He did not fail to reward.
He who dwells in the heavenly sanctuary judges righteously. His pleasure is more in His people, struggling with temptation in a world of sin, than in the host of angels that surround His throne.
In this speck of a world the whole heavenly universe manifests the greatest interest, for Christ has paid an infinite price for the souls of its inhabitants. The world’s Redeemer has bound earth to heaven by ties of intelligence, for the redeemed of the Lord are here.
Heavenly beings still visit the earth as in the days when they walked and talked with Abraham and with Moses. Amid the busy activity of our great cities, amid the multitudes that crowd the thoroughfares and fill the shopping centres the people act as if business and sport and pleasure were all there is to life.
where there are so few to contemplate unseen realities, even here heaven has still its watchers and its holy ones. There are invisible agencies observing every word and deed of human beings.
In every assembly for business or pleasure, in every gathering for worship, there are more listeners than can be seen with the natural sight. Sometimes the heavenly intelligences draw aside the curtain which hides the unseen world that our thoughts may be withdrawn from the hurry and rush of life to consider that there are unseen witnesses to all we do or say.
We need to understand better than we do the mission of the angel visitants. It would be well to consider that in all our work we have the co-operation and care of heavenly beings. Invisible armies of light and power attend the meek and lowly ones who believe and claim the promises of God.
Cherubim and seraphim and angels that excel in strength—ten thousand times ten thousand and thousands of thousands—stand at His right hand, “all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation.” Hebrews 1:14.
By these angel messengers a faithful record is kept of the words and deeds of the children of men. Every act of cruelty or injustice toward God’s people, all they that suffer through the power of evil workers, is registered in heaven.
“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.”
Hebrews 10:35 Therefore do not cast away your confidence, which has great reward.
Hebrews 10:36 For you have need of endurance, so that after you have done the will of God, you may receive the promise:
Hebrews 10:37 “FOR YET A LITTLE WHILE, AND HE WHO IS COMING WILL COME AND WILL NOT TARRY.
James 5:7 Therefore be patient, brethren, until the coming of the Lord. See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, waiting patiently for it until it receives the early and latter rain.
James 5:8 You also be patient. Establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand.
The long-suffering of God is wonderful. Long does justice wait while mercy pleads with the sinner. But “righteousness and judgment are the establishment of His throne.” Psalm 97:2.
Nahum 1:3 The LORD is slow to anger and great in power, And will not at all acquit the wicked. The LORD has His way In the whirlwind and in the storm, And the clouds are the dust of His feet.
The world has become bold in transgression of God’s law. Because of His long forbearance, men have trampled upon His authority. They have strengthened one another in oppression and cruelty toward His heritage, saying,
“How does God know? and is there knowledge in the Most High?” Psalm 73:11.
But there is a line beyond which they cannot pass. The time is near when they will have reached the prescribed limit. Even now they have almost exceeded the bounds of the long-suffering of God, the limits of His grace, the limits of His mercy. The Lord will interpose to vindicate His own honour, to deliver His people, and to repress the exponential phenomenon of corruption and crime.
In Noah’s day, men had disregarded the law of God until almost all remembrance of the Creator had passed away from the earth. Their iniquity reached so great a height that the Lord brought a flood of waters upon the earth, and swept away its wicked inhabitants.
From age to age the Lord has made known the manner of His working. When a crisis has come, He has revealed Himself, and has interposed to hinder the working out of Satan’s plans. With nations, with families, and with individuals, He has often permitted matters to come to a crisis, that His interference might become marked. Then He has made manifest that there is a God in Israel who will maintain His law and vindicate His people.
In this time of prevailing iniquity, we may know that the last great crisis is at hand. When the defiance of God’s law is almost universal, when His people are oppressed and afflicted by their fellow men, the Lord will interpose.
The time is near when He will say,
Isaiah 26:20 Come, my people, enter your chambers, And shut your doors behind you; Hide yourself, as it were, for a little moment, Until the indignation is past.
Isaiah 26:21 For behold, the LORD comes out of His place To punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity; The earth will also disclose her blood, And will no more cover her slain.
Men who claim to be Christians may now defraud and oppress the poor; they may rob the widow and fatherless; they may indulge their Satanic hatred because they cannot control the consciences of God’s people; but for all this God will bring them into judgment.
They “shall have judgment without mercy” that have “showed no mercy.” (James 2:13.) Not long hence they will stand before the Judge of all the earth, to render an account for the pain they have caused to the bodies and souls of His heritage.
They may now indulge in false accusations, they may deride those whom God has appointed to do His work, they may consign His believing ones to prison, to the chain gang, to banishment, to death; but for every pang of anguish, every tear shed, they must answer.
God will reward them double for their sins. Concerning Babylon, the symbol of the apostate church, He says to His ministers of judgment,
Revelation 18:5 For her sins have reached to heaven, and God has remembered her iniquities.
Revelation 18:6 Render to her just as she rendered to you, and repay her double according to her works; in the cup which she has mixed, mix double for her.
From India, from Africa, from China, from the islands of the sea, from the downtrodden millions of so-called Christian lands, the cry of human woe is ascending to God. That cry will not long be unanswered. God will cleanse the earth from its moral corruption, not by a sea of water as in Noah’s day, but by a sea of fire that cannot be quenched by any human devising.
“There shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time; and at that time Thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book.” Daniel 12:1.
From garrets, from hovels, from dungeons, from scaffolds, from mountains and deserts, from the caves of the earth and the caverns of the sea, Christ will gather His children to Himself. On earth they have been destitute, afflicted, and tormented.
Millions have gone down to the grave loaded with infamy because they refused to yield to the deceptive claims of Satan. By human tribunals the children of God have been adjudged the vilest criminals. But the day is near when “God is judge Himself.” (Psalm 50:6). Then the decisions of earth shall be reversed. “The rebuke of His people shall He take away.” Isaiah 25:8.
White robes will be given to every one of them. (Revelation 6:11.) And “they shall call them the holy people, the redeemed of the Lord.” Isaiah 62:12.
Whatever crosses they have been called to bear, whatever losses they have sustained, whatever persecution they have suffered, even to the loss of their temporal life, the children of God are amply recompensed. “They shall see His face; and His name shall be in their foreheads.” Revelation 22:4.
NEXT TIME
Choosing places of honour