“Then He spoke a parable to them, that men always ought to pray and not lose heart,
saying: “There was in a certain city a judge who did not fear God nor regard man. 3 Now there was a widow in that city; and she came to him, saying, ‘Get justice for me from my adversary.’ And he would not for a while; but afterward he said within himself, ‘Though I do not fear God nor regard man, yet because this widow troubles me I will avenge her, lest by her continual coming she weary me.’ ”Then the Lord said, “Hear what the unjust judge said. And shall God not avenge His own elect who cry out day and night to Him, though He bears long with them? I tell you that He will avenge them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will He really find faith on the earth?” Luke 18:1-8
Jesus told His disciples that they should always be praying otherwise they will be fainting. If we don’t have this discipline of prayer in our lives then there is the danger of us losing heart or fainting. Another translation says you will give up. This tells us that if we are not praying then we are fainting.
This reminds me of those verses in Isaiah 40:29-31
“He gives power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increases strength. Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall: But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.”
Here we read that even young people (who are known for their strength) grow weary and faint, but when they begin to pray there is a divine exchange. They receive strength for weakness as they wait on the Lord. Prayer is so important in the lives of Christians for its there that the breath of God is breathed into our lungs. We are energized by the power of the Holy Spirit. I knew a minister who came out of the Welsh Revival and he said that the prayer Meetings in the Church were the Power House of the Church. In other words the Church meeting was just the tip of the Iceberg. The substance was all under water.
Jesus said at the end of Luke 18:1-8, would He find that kind of faith when He returns? He doesn’t answer the question but leaves us with a challenge. Will you be praying when He comes back? Will you have an expectancy of God? Will you have faith? The opposite of faith is fear and the bible says that in the Last Days many will be overcome with fear at what is happening in the world. Luke 21:26
Does this mean that we need to be those who are pestering God all the time like this widow was? I don’t think so, for as you read the gospels and the epistles of Paul you see that the Lord wants us to mature into a people who know who they are in Christ and their new relationship that they now have with the Father. This woman who came to the Judge pestering him wasn’t a born again Christian like we are. She didn’t have Christ in her or know the authority that we now have. We are in the Kingdom.
Jesus was always training His disciples to come to the place where they would live like Him on the earth. They weren’t just to follow Him but become transformed to be like Him. We see this in Mark 11:22-24
“So Jesus answered and said to them, “Have faith in God. For assuredly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be removed and be cast into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that those things he says will be done, he will have whatever he says. Therefore I say to you, whatever things you ask when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you will have them.”
Some translations say that Jesus said we should have ‘the faith of God’, which is a big difference to having ‘in God’. Another version says that we should have the ‘God kind of faith’. He wasn’t wanting them to beg the Father for the mountains to be removed but to speak to the mountains themselves in faith, just like He was doing. He knew that He had authority and He wanted them to know that they had it too.
Jesus said in Luke 18:8 that when He returns will He find faith or this kind of faith on the earth.
When you look at Mark 11:24 you see that there is a shift in attitude, to that of praising God for the answer even before it happens. The asking and speaking has stopped and there is now a display of confidence. Declaring that you have it even before you see it happen. This is a mature faith.
I believe that we need to be those who are praising God after we have asked and then spoken to the problem. Praising Him in faith. Will Jesus find this kind of faith in the earth among Christians when He returns? I hope so for I see a lot of Christians fainting today and I believe that its because they are not praying as they should. They may be begging but are they believing?
When I first came into the Church 50 years ago, the prayer meetings were always well attended, but I don’t find it like that anymore. Jesus said that we need to be praying always otherwise we will faint, lose heart and give up. As we pray we can expect a divine exchange so that we can rise up like an eagle and not only walk, and run, but fly.
I don’t know about you but whenever I have gone to a prayer meeting I always come away invigorated with negative thoughts being dispelled. Its not just in a public prayer meetings where this happens but whenever I have put aside times to pray.
We should always pray so that we will not faint. Amen