How do you feel about the return of Jesus? I suspect many of us give it little thought. Others may see it as something terrifying—that is how it can be portrayed in the movies. We may have questions about it—for example how can Christ appear to the whole world at one time? (He is God, I am sure he can sort that one out!)
Christians should live in anticipation of the Lord’s return. It is something that we should be looking forward to. Think of the disciples on the day that Jesus was taken up into the clouds before their sight. What would they have longed for more than anything else? They would have wanted him to come straight back down and be with them again. For the Christian the Lord’s return should not be a fearful prospect by a joyful one.
I suspect that some of us might want the Lord to delay his return. ‘I don’t want him to come back before I get married’, ‘I would like him to delay until I see my grandchildren grow up’, ‘could he wait until after my holiday?’, ‘I want to see my grandchildren grow up first’. How foolish we are! How our minds are settled here on earth. Don’t we realise that if he were to return tonight then tomorrow would be better for the Christian than anything this world has to offer?
There is,
however, one legitimate reason why we might want the Lord to delay his
return. We should be praying for people
to become Christians and we don’t want Jesus to return before they do. God actually shares this concern. Peter writes to Christians who are impatient
that the Lord has not yet returned, saying, The
Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to
perish, but everyone to come to repentance (2 Peter 3:9). He is delaying his return so that all who
will come to faith will have repented—when Jesus returns all who are going to become
Christians will have turned to Christ.
Jesus will return and establish justice
The Saturday
before last I was at a table quiz. We
were raising money for Claire and Alex’s trip to
You may have
noticed that although we are looking at the beginning of chapter eighteen our
reading included the end of chapter seventeen.
The context into which Jesus speaks these words is his teaching on his
second coming. That day will be like
those of Noah—people will be going about their business, eating, drinking and
being married, and the judgement came and destroyed them all. It will be like the day of
After the parable Jesus explains, ‘and will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones … he will see that they get justice and quickly…’ This parable is focusing on a prayer that justice would be done. The widow wants justice from here oppressor. Jesus promises that God will bring about justice for his people. While, at times, God brings about justice for his people now ultimate justice awaits his return. Take some of the Open Doors literature and read of those being persecuted for their faith. Christians discriminated against, marginalised, beaten, imprisoned and even killed. In our own society people act as if Jesus is utterly irrelevant and they live as they please. I love going to the cinema, but one of the things that saddens me there is the language that is used, in particular how Jesus’ name is used flippantly. All these things should create in us a longing that Jesus would come again, vindicate his people, establish justice, and be recognised by all. So we pray, ‘Come, Lord Jesus!’
If you are sitting here this morning and you are resisting Christ I hope that these verses will be a wake up call. Have you prayed with the tax-collector ‘Lord, have mercy on me a sinner’? Have you responded to Jesus command to take up your cross and follow him, as you submit all of you life to his loving rule? Unless you turn to Jesus you will be condemned on the last day. Before a perfectly holy God our sin is far worse than we imagine. We will see that is right that he should punish us eternally for it. Jesus died on the cross that we might be forgiven, but if we ignore his offer of grace we will pay guilt forever in Hell.
Keeping
on praying until Christ returns
Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up. He is teaching them about how we should live in this time when we are anticipating the Lord’s return. We are to keep on going until the end. We are to be a praying people. Praying and giving up are mutually exclusive. As one preacher points out, ‘The one sure way to give up your Christian faith is to stop praying, for praying is the expression of our personal trust and confidence in God the king.’
We have failed to fully grasp the gospel if we think that Jesus promises us an easy life. The gospel pattern is suffering now, glory to come. The expectation is that we will be opposed. When we stick up our hand and say ‘I belong to Jesus’ we will be marginalised. When we talk about the gospel we are going to be considered to be a ‘fundamentalist.’ As society moves further away from a Christian understanding of morality our views will be labelled narrow-minded, intolerant and bigoted. We are strangers and pilgrims in this life, we are not meant to simply fit in.
So why doesn’t Christ return and end his people’s suffering? We might be tempted to lose heart and give up praying for justice. After all in this life God’s people are often denied justice, and we have been waiting a long time for Jesus to return and establish perfect justice. So Jesus tells us a parable about a heartless judge and a helpless widow to encourage us.
We
bring our prayer to a good God who delights to answer
I suppose we could read this parable and misunderstand what Jesus is saying. If we ignored the verses leading up to this passage we might not realise that it is primarily concerned with Christ’s return. We might also think that Jesus is teaching us that God is like the judge and we are like the widow. Therefore the only way to get our prayers answered by God is to hound him until he reluctantly gives us what we want.
However, God is not like this judge. This cruel person neither feared God nor cared about men. God is not so much being compared with the unjust judge as contrasted to him. The relationship the widow had with the judge is not like the relationship we have with God. In that culture widows were amongst the most vulnerable of people. She had no one to stand up for her to ensure she got justice. She meant nothing to him. Unfortunately she has an adversary—she is being denied justice, perhaps someone is denying her access to her husband’s estate. Her only hope was pester-power. Even though she is a ‘nobody’ to the judge, and he is not interested in justice, she persists with her request.
A woman told a Bible-teacher, ‘I don’t pray about the details of my life because I reckon the Lord Almighty has enough to do in ordering the universe.’ Perhaps she was merely using this as an excuse not to pray. She certainly didn’t understand the sort of relationship God invites people to enjoy with him. Unlike the widow before the unjust judge, Christians are precious to God. Unlike the judge God is generous and delights to respond to his people.
So if a woman persisted in making her request known, to a cruel judge who considered her to be a ‘nobody’, how much more should we cry out to God day and night in the knowledge that he is good and that he cares for his people. He will not keep putting us off? I tell you, he will see that we get justice, and quickly.
Conclusion—
One objection remains. If this parable is primarily about God establishing justice on the day that Christ returns, how can Jesus speak of God seeing that we get justice quickly? We have been waiting for two-thousand years!
It is quickly in the sense that God is not delaying without reason. The only reason he has not yet returned is because he has purposes to be fulfilled. We have already seen that he delays his return until all those who are to become Christians have repented. We also see a similar reason for this delay in Revelation 6. There people who had been martyred for their faith are with God in heaven and cry out to him, “How long, Sovereign Lord, holy and true, until you judge the inhabitants of the earth and avenge our blood?” They are waiting for Jesus to return and bring perfect justice. Then each of them was given a white robe, and they were told to wait a little longer, until the full number of their fellow-servants and brothers who were to be killed as they had been completed. The delay was because God’s purpose had yet to be fulfilled—which involved the martyrdom of some of his people.
Amazingly our
crying out for justice, our praying ‘come, Lord Jesus’, has an influence on the
Lord’s return. He will come in response
to our prayers. This is part of the
mystery of God’s sovereignty and our responsibility. God will do has he planned, but it not be
independent on our actions. He is not
delaying because he does not care about restoring justice, he is not delaying
because he is unmoved about the suffering of his people, and he is not delaying
so that we have a chance to go on that holiday or get that promotion. He is only delaying because he has glorious
purposes in this age that have yet to be fulfilled. At the right time he will return and
establish perfect justice. However, when the Son of Man comes, will he
find faith on earth? He will look
for are praying and awaiting his return.
We will we be among that number?
Preached in Richhill before 2011
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