Post by Cindy on Feb 27, 2016 9:49:59 GMT -5
Listen to what a pastor in 1909 said about the world and church today - he really nailed it!
Luke 17:26–28: The prominent sin of the antediluvian, he reminds them, was sensuality in its varied forms. The torch of religious feeling will have waned in that unknown and possibly distant future when Messiah shall reappear, and will be burning with a pale, faint light. The bulk of mankind will be given up to a sensuality which the higher culture then generally reached will have been utterly powerless to check or even to modify. Men, just as in the days when the ark was building and Noah was preaching, as in the days when the dark cloud was gathering over the doomed cities of the plain and Abraham was praying, will be entirely given up to their pursuits, their pleasures, and their sins.
Next is the parable of the persistent widow in Luke 18:1–8, and again this was explained in a way that really relates it not only to our day but shows how it's related to what Jesus had said before. I find that we often don't take things in the bible in context, if only because it's a "new chapter" or there's a new heading in our bible, so we tend to think it's about something new, instead of what it often is: a continuation of what was said previously. The way the author captures the condition of the world and the Church in our day is amazing to me, especially as this was written in 1909:
This parable-teaching was a continuation of what had preceded. Indeed, the connection between the first of the two parables, which urges restless continued prayer, and the picture which the Lord had just drawn of men’s state of utter forgetfulness of God, is obvious. The Son of man has been rejected; he has gone from view; the masses are plunged in gross worldliness; men of God are become as rare as, in the days of Abraham, they were in Sodom. What, then, is the position of the Church? That of a widow whose only weapon is incessant prayer. It is only by means of this intense concentration that faith will he preserved. But such is precisely the disposition which Jesus fears may not be found even in the Church at his return.
The petitioner was a woman and a widow, the latter being in the East a synonym for helplessness. With no one to defend her or plead her cause, this widow was ever a prey to the covetous. Not once nor twice in the noble generous words of the chivalrous Hebrew prophets we find this readiness on the part of those in power to neglect, if not to oppress these helpless widow-women, sternly commented upon. So in Isaiah we read (Isaiah 1:23), “They judge not the fatherless, neither doth the cause of the widow come unto them.” While Jesus (Matt. 23:14) includes this cowardly sin among the evil deeds of the rulers of the Israel of his day: “Ye devour widows’ houses, and for a pretence make long prayer.” A more desperate situation, as regards any hope of obtaining the object of her earnest prayer, could not well be pictured—a careless, corrupt judge of the lawless Herod period for the tribunal in Israel, and a poor helpless widow for the suppliant.
The forlorn woman of the parable represents the Church or people of God in dire straits, overborne by an unbelieving world and seemingly forgotten even of their God. The story is a reminder that there is hope even in that extreme situation sketched in the parable, if the petitioner only continues persistent in her prayer. The argument which lies on the surface of the parable-teaching is obvious: if such a judge will in the end listen to the prayer of a suppliant for whom he cares nothing, will not God surely listen to the repeated prayer of a suppliant whom he loves with a deep, enduring love? Such is the argument of the story. Importunity, it seems to say, must inevitably triumph. But underlying this there is much deep teaching, of which perhaps, the most important item is that it insists upon the urgent necessity for us all to continue in prayer, never fainting in this exercise though no answer seems to come. “The whole life of the faithful,” as Origen once grandly said, “should be one great connected prayer.”
The Master tells us that God permits suffering among his servants, long after they have begun to pray for deliverance. But we are counselled here to cry day and night unto him, and, though there be no sign of reply, our prayers shall be treasured up before him, and in his own good time they will be answered. With whom does God bear long? With the wrong-doers, whose works and words oppress and make life heavy and grievous to the servants of God; with these who have no claim to consideration will God bear long. And this announcement gives us some clue to the meaning of the delay we often experience before we get an answer to many of our prayers. The prayer is heard, but God, in the exercise of mercy and forbearance, has dealings with the oppressors. It were easy for the Almighty to grant an immediate answer, but only at the cost often of visiting some of the oppressors with immediate punishment, and this is not his way of working. God bears long before his judgments swift and terrible are sent forth. This has ever been his way of working with individuals as with nations. Was it not thus, for instance, that he acted towards Egypt and her Pharaohs during the long period of the bitter Hebrew bondage? We who would be God’s servants must be content to wait God’s time, and, while waiting, patiently go on pleading, sure that in the end “God will avenge his own elect, which cry day and night unto him.”
God will act in accordance with his servant’s prayer, not soon, but suddenly; sure and sudden at the crisis the action of Divine providence comes at the last “as a thief in the night.”
St Luke Vol. II. 1909 (H. D. M. Spence-Jones, Ed.). The Pulpit Commentary
Luke 17:26–28: The prominent sin of the antediluvian, he reminds them, was sensuality in its varied forms. The torch of religious feeling will have waned in that unknown and possibly distant future when Messiah shall reappear, and will be burning with a pale, faint light. The bulk of mankind will be given up to a sensuality which the higher culture then generally reached will have been utterly powerless to check or even to modify. Men, just as in the days when the ark was building and Noah was preaching, as in the days when the dark cloud was gathering over the doomed cities of the plain and Abraham was praying, will be entirely given up to their pursuits, their pleasures, and their sins.
Next is the parable of the persistent widow in Luke 18:1–8, and again this was explained in a way that really relates it not only to our day but shows how it's related to what Jesus had said before. I find that we often don't take things in the bible in context, if only because it's a "new chapter" or there's a new heading in our bible, so we tend to think it's about something new, instead of what it often is: a continuation of what was said previously. The way the author captures the condition of the world and the Church in our day is amazing to me, especially as this was written in 1909:
This parable-teaching was a continuation of what had preceded. Indeed, the connection between the first of the two parables, which urges restless continued prayer, and the picture which the Lord had just drawn of men’s state of utter forgetfulness of God, is obvious. The Son of man has been rejected; he has gone from view; the masses are plunged in gross worldliness; men of God are become as rare as, in the days of Abraham, they were in Sodom. What, then, is the position of the Church? That of a widow whose only weapon is incessant prayer. It is only by means of this intense concentration that faith will he preserved. But such is precisely the disposition which Jesus fears may not be found even in the Church at his return.
The petitioner was a woman and a widow, the latter being in the East a synonym for helplessness. With no one to defend her or plead her cause, this widow was ever a prey to the covetous. Not once nor twice in the noble generous words of the chivalrous Hebrew prophets we find this readiness on the part of those in power to neglect, if not to oppress these helpless widow-women, sternly commented upon. So in Isaiah we read (Isaiah 1:23), “They judge not the fatherless, neither doth the cause of the widow come unto them.” While Jesus (Matt. 23:14) includes this cowardly sin among the evil deeds of the rulers of the Israel of his day: “Ye devour widows’ houses, and for a pretence make long prayer.” A more desperate situation, as regards any hope of obtaining the object of her earnest prayer, could not well be pictured—a careless, corrupt judge of the lawless Herod period for the tribunal in Israel, and a poor helpless widow for the suppliant.
The forlorn woman of the parable represents the Church or people of God in dire straits, overborne by an unbelieving world and seemingly forgotten even of their God. The story is a reminder that there is hope even in that extreme situation sketched in the parable, if the petitioner only continues persistent in her prayer. The argument which lies on the surface of the parable-teaching is obvious: if such a judge will in the end listen to the prayer of a suppliant for whom he cares nothing, will not God surely listen to the repeated prayer of a suppliant whom he loves with a deep, enduring love? Such is the argument of the story. Importunity, it seems to say, must inevitably triumph. But underlying this there is much deep teaching, of which perhaps, the most important item is that it insists upon the urgent necessity for us all to continue in prayer, never fainting in this exercise though no answer seems to come. “The whole life of the faithful,” as Origen once grandly said, “should be one great connected prayer.”
The Master tells us that God permits suffering among his servants, long after they have begun to pray for deliverance. But we are counselled here to cry day and night unto him, and, though there be no sign of reply, our prayers shall be treasured up before him, and in his own good time they will be answered. With whom does God bear long? With the wrong-doers, whose works and words oppress and make life heavy and grievous to the servants of God; with these who have no claim to consideration will God bear long. And this announcement gives us some clue to the meaning of the delay we often experience before we get an answer to many of our prayers. The prayer is heard, but God, in the exercise of mercy and forbearance, has dealings with the oppressors. It were easy for the Almighty to grant an immediate answer, but only at the cost often of visiting some of the oppressors with immediate punishment, and this is not his way of working. God bears long before his judgments swift and terrible are sent forth. This has ever been his way of working with individuals as with nations. Was it not thus, for instance, that he acted towards Egypt and her Pharaohs during the long period of the bitter Hebrew bondage? We who would be God’s servants must be content to wait God’s time, and, while waiting, patiently go on pleading, sure that in the end “God will avenge his own elect, which cry day and night unto him.”
God will act in accordance with his servant’s prayer, not soon, but suddenly; sure and sudden at the crisis the action of Divine providence comes at the last “as a thief in the night.”
St Luke Vol. II. 1909 (H. D. M. Spence-Jones, Ed.). The Pulpit Commentary