The Gospel of Luke 18:1-14 – Prayer, a Pharisee & a Publican
Luke 18:1-14 · Vern Peterman · May 1, 2016
Gospel of Luke, No. 68
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/4926532354215

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Good morning. We're going to be stepping our way through this passage here, Luke 18, 1-14. And we have a couple of parables here, parables about prayer, a Pharisee and a publican. not a Republican, a Republican, okay? Jesus tells the disciples two parables about prayer, and the second one is actually directed with the disciples present, directed at apparently a Pharisee who is exalting his own righteousness at the time. So with all of the parables, one of the things we're going to find out is that these parables are very realistic as opposed to fables like Aesop's fable where you got the tortoise and the hare and things like that. So these parables go through all Jesus' parables. They're very realistic kinds of scenarios. As a matter of fact, in many cases, people would have said, yeah, I've seen that.

The culture would have said that the Pharisees are the admired heroes. One of the things that's interesting is In all the literature about the Pharisees around this time and even for some time afterwards, only the New Testament and largely in the Gospels is it pointed out that these Pharisees are hypocritical. Most people in the culture thought that these guys were good guys and heroes. And it's only in the New Testament and mostly in the Gospels where you'll find out that they're hypocrites. Now, on the other hand, the publicans, or tax collectors, considered the worst of the worst by the Pharisees and a great many others.

I'll give you an example. You know, of course, that the Ten Commandments contain, you know, you shall not bear false witness. The rabbis, however, reasoned that it was okay to lie to a Roman tax collector. because they're so awful that that's okay, right? And so they made an exception to that, you shall not bear false witness.

Jesus will turn the culture's values here upside down. That's one of the things we're going to see. He's going to end up doing something quite opposite of what the culture would have said. Here's Luke 18 verses 1 and 2. Now he was telling them a parable to show that at all times they ought to pray and not to lose heart, saying, in a certain city there was a judge who did not fear God and did not respect man.

So Jesus spoke in parables that were typically realistic, as we've seen, and were best understood clearly by viewing in their cultural context. Jesus spoke in parables to convey spiritual principles. Sometimes he said them directly to the disciples, as we see in this case. Sometimes he said them to those who were opponents to convey a message that couldn't possibly be received if he said that truth directly. And so in this case, this first one is said to his disciples, the others with the disciple present, as we'll soon see.

In this case, the intended spiritual principle is that believers ought to pray at all times. And of course, that's not just said here in this parable, but in other places in scripture as well. Also, that they should not lose heart or be discouraged in prayer. So that's the other point of this parable to come across here. Now, one of the things that this is a parable that has to do with the judges.

And so one of the things we're going to point out here is judges were first set up under the law under the law of Moses so that the Jews were in fact to have judges in Deuteronomy 16 18 through 20 reads like this you shall appoint for yourself judges and officers in all your towns which the Lord your God is giving you according to your tribes and they shall judge the people with righteous judgment and you shall not distort justice You shall not be partial, and you shall not take a bribe, for a bribe blinds the eyes of the wise and perverts the words of the righteous. Justice, and only justice you shall pursue, that you may live and possess the land which the Lord your God is giving you." So judges, yes, and they were to have a particular character, and they were to only do things justly, and only that.

In 2 Chronicles 5-11 there are certain instructions that Jehoshaphat, that's the one about they do all the jumping, I don't know why he jumps, but anyway, Jehoshaphat gives these instructions to the judges. In verse 6 he said to the judges, Consider what you are doing, for you do not judge for man, but for the Lord who is with you when you render judgment. Now then, let the fear of the Lord be upon you, and be very careful what you do, judges. For the Lord our God will have no part in unrighteousness, or partiality, or the taking of a bribe.

So what that says is the judges must judge, realizing that they will also be judged. God's with you and God knows what's going on, right? So that's what he's telling them. And he continues on, he sets up in Jerusalem, he sets up the Levites and priests to act as judges there and gives them similar instructions. In verse 9, Then he charged them, saying, Thus you shall do in the fear of the Lord faithfully and wholeheartedly whenever any dispute comes to you from your brethren who live in the cities, between blood and blood, between law and commandment, statutes and ordinances. You shall warn them so that they may not be guilty before the Lord, and wrath may not come on you and your brethren." The Lord will judge you if you don't judge correctly, right? That's the message he's got here. So the Jews were given clear instructions. And in fact, there are a great many more similar passages that I could show you, but we won't need to do that.

This particular judge did not fear God and did not respect man. And it seems like he hadn't read this passage that we just read, right? This judge spoke of or did not have the very character of heart regarding God and man that was required of him by the law of Moses.

Just what we just read in Deuteronomy, right? So Jesus spoke about the judge in that way. And that unjust and selfish judge was supposed to be judging by the law of Moses among the ones he judged in the land of Israel. Supposed to. What we'll find is that he was everything that a judge in Israel was not supposed to be. And we'll find out why momentarily here. There's a reason.

By New Testament times, the judges of Israel had become infamous. for being exactly like Jesus described this judge in the parable. It was terrible in the parable. So what had gone on here is, by New Testament times, they had judges that were horrible. And so when Jesus began telling this parable, the disciples are all going, uh-huh, that's exactly the way we've heard it. The judges in Israel are officially titled the Judges of Prohibition. It's Deanei Gezeroth. But they were commonly called judges of thievery. Deanei Gezeroth. They just switched one consonant and made them judges of thievery.

And that was the common term. These judges, and here's what we find out, these judges were appointed by and paid by the Roman governors, most of whom in Israel were descendants of Herod. And you know, if Herod likes you, That's a problem, right? If the Herod family likes you, that's a problem.

And that's what was going on with these guys. And it was real common. So they had hired judges who would have to sit at appointed times and people would get in line and wait in line. And when the person came up, you know, he would make a judgment. But these were all friends of Herod or friends of Herod's family. And they were all crooked, crooked as can be.

So here's Luke 18.3, there was a widow in that city and she kept coming to him saying, give me legal protection for my opponent.

Now let's talk about widows in Israel. Widows in Israel were commonly seen as the most vulnerable of citizens right along with orphans. And as a matter of fact, almost two dozen times widows and orphans are in the same verse together. The two categories of the most vulnerable people. So a widow's estate often became the target of strategies to gain property and other valuable possessions. And you won't believe who did it. The scribes were often the ones taking the property away from the widows. Yes, the scribes and the Pharisees. And there's a reason why the scribes could do that.

Here's an example in Luke 20 that we'll be getting to eventually here, verses 45 through 47. And while all the people were listening, he said to the disciples, beware of the scribes who like to walk around in long robes and love respectful greetings in the marketplaces and chief seats in the synagogues and places of honor at banquets who devour widows houses. And for appearance sake, offer long prayers. These will receive greater condemnation.

Right in the middle of that, all this honor and everything, but who devour widows' houses. It was the scribes who were often the ones who were taking the matters before these crooked judges. And if the judge wasn't quite persuaded, you could slip them a little something. So these scribes were the ones who were doing it. The scribes were in a particular position to take advantage of widows.

Why? Because the widows would come to them for marriage certificates. Oh, I know who you're married to. For wills and inheritance documents and deeds. They had everything in writing. They themselves had done all the recording for these things. And now they'd come up with some kind of concocted reason why they now could own what this widow had inherited. It was them. Can you imagine? Well, this widow kept coming to him. The widow was very, very persistent. Kept going back.

Though the usual pattern was for the widow to succumb to the strategies of those who wanted to take their property. That was the usual. And as Jesus told this, the disciples said, yep, that's the way it goes. The crooked Judges will give the property to these scribes. And it happens again and again and again. And we know of stories where that's taken place.

And so the widow would come to the judge, and the judge would say, off with you! Away! And guess what she'd do? She'd get in line and come back. So she'd plead her case again. And the wicked judge Get away! Get away! And so she'd get in line again. Aha! She'd keep coming again and again and again. And He would say, Away! Off! That's enough! And guess what she'd do? She'd come back again and get in line. And He'd go, Oh! Enough! Away with you! She kept coming to him. She was very, very persistent. And so she kept coming, and coming, and getting in line again, and coming, and again, and again, and again. She came to him. Away! Off!

The widow stood on the right side of the law, so she actually had a good case. This particular kind of judge was always available, so she'd get right back in line. She had no money or clout, but boy, was she persistent. Very. So she'd get in line again, and come to the judge again, and the judge would send her away. And she would demand, you must do justice.

The laws were in place for the judge to protect the widow who was in the right. She had a right to keep her property, right? The judges were often inclined to bend to the appeals of the influential and the wealthy ones, especially if they kind of gave some extra to help the judge make his decision. Since the widows on the right and laws to protect her were in place, she was just really, really persistent in saying, to put it literally, you must do justice for me. You must do justice for me. And she come again. You must do justice for me. And so she went to him again and again and again. And then she'd get in line again and come and make another appeal, right?

And he'd send her away. Well, so Luke 18, 4 and 5 reads like this, For a while he was unwilling, but afterward he said to himself, Even though I do not fear God, nor respect man, yet because this widow bothers me, I will give her legal protection. Otherwise, by continually coming, she will wear me out." So the unjust judge was inclined to just keep going and doing things the way he always did, where he didn't care about God and really didn't care about man, but he sure liked the extra money that came with closing these deals. Let the usual corrupt path follow its way. That would be typical. and let the widow's property be taken from her, and everybody was happy except the widow. But since she was so persistent, even though he was an unprincipled man, didn't care about God, didn't care about people, he figured that she would really wear him out. Her persistence was getting to bother him a great deal.

Oh, she's in line again! Ah! Right? The unjust judge made a just decision after all. Now there's a figure of speech in here. We've been going through figures of speech in the elective right before this. This figure of speech for wear her out or wear me out, the literal meaning is to hit under the eye. To hit under the eye.

And these boxers here, this Hall of Field versus Valiuev. They fought in 2008. Believe it or not, both of them are Christians. Anyway, Valiyev is seven feet tall, right? Can you imagine that? You have to reach up to get the guy. So here's this expression, you know, to hit under the eye. The idea is, by many blows, she's just going to completely wear me out by coming again and again and again, right? That's the expression. It pictures a boxer wearing his opponent down with blows until the opponent collapses from the persistent accumulation of blows, right? So the witter's persistence will wear him down and he will eventually not be able to keep going as a judge, just completely collapse because of her persistence.

So guess what she does? She gets in line again. She comes to the judge and appeals again. He sends her away. Finally, though, he gets to the point, I can't take this anymore. She's coming to me again and again and again. I can't handle it. Okay, I'll give you what you want. Just get out of my court. And so he gives her a just judgment. And she's thanking God for this. Woo-hoo! Right?

So now, so here's Luke 18, 6 through 8, and the Lord says, hear what the unrighteous judge said. Now, will not God bring about justice for his elect who cry to him day and night? And will he delay long over them? I tell you that he will bring about justice for them quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?

Now, Jesus has used in this a rabbinic principle. This is a principle that the rabbis would use. And so the rabbis would use various rules of logic. And this was one of the times when Jesus employed that. This rabbinic principle is called lesser to greater.

So it moved from the unjust judge and the widow to God and ourselves. If an unjust judge will yield to persistence, then certainly God, who loves you, will respond to your persistence. So don't be discouraged in prayer. That's his message here. How much more will the infinitely just God of the universe respond to our persistent prayers, the One who loves us and gave Himself up for us, right?

When the Son of Man comes, now last Sunday we looked at the second coming and the events surrounding that. So when the Son of Man comes again, will He find faith on the earth? Let's answer that question. Jesus had talked about the time surrounding a second coming in the passage we looked at. That's Luke 17, 22-37. We were looking at last week. Jesus did turn this around into a question. Why? For the disciples to ponder. Notice He didn't come and answer it, but for them to think about. Because He had just talked about, in chapter 17 at the end, about the second coming. So He's tying that into faith here with this question. The Bible says that when he comes, he will find faith and even all Israel will be saved at the end, but many will be lost. We went over the details of that this last Sunday.

So here's Luke 18.9.

They also told this parable to some people who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and viewed others with contempt. So while the previous parable was presented to his pupils to prod them to pray with persistence, this parable is told to those who are self-righteous and arrogant about it. So the target audience for this parable is likely the Pharisees and scribes. That's the sort of thing they would do with his disciples listening in so as to gain insight and not get sucked in.

Because remember, it's only in the New Testament, mostly in the Gospels, that these Pharisees and scribes are looked at as hypocrites and bad people. Right. So he doesn't want because the rest of the culture has gotten sucked in. So he didn't want them to get sucked in. So he tells this parable for the benefit not only of those Pharisees and scribes that are there, but for the benefit of his disciples, that they won't get sucked in like the rest of the culture.

So here's Luke 18.10.

Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. So these two men went up, a Pharisee and a publican, also known as a tax collector. Both went up to the temple, though a Pharisee would never be walking up to the temple with the tax collector.

Let me assure you of that. They certainly would not be together. The word for temple in this case does spell out that these two are both not specifically in the most sacred area, although they could have been. But the word for temple includes the temple courtyard and that kind of thing. So they may have been around the perimeter colonnade, which is another common place to gather.

Possibly in the court of women, which is the front part of that the inner temple that you see there So in the culture of the day the Pharisees would looked upon by most Jews as the heroes The Pharisees were also missionary that is they went out into other parts of the Roman Empire and other parts of the Parthian Empire to the east and they went around to different places like that and And so the Jews looked upon them, boy, these are the good guys.

The tax collectors, on the other hand, would be seen as the epitome of the worst possible sinners. They were the people who were pointed to as these are the worst of the worst of the worst. And so in the culture, people would have said, yeah, they are the worst. Everybody would have agreed.

The Pharisee is the good guy. The tax collector is the bad guy. And so, in the mind of the Jews, of course, a Pharisee would go up to the temple and pray. And you'd expect a Pharisee to do that. But the tax collector is just wasting his time and likely wouldn't pray anyway. But there's another consideration.

A tax collector coming into the temple will be looked upon as a defilement of the temple. They may even send the temple guards after him to get him out of there. As if, for instance, one could not receive alms from the tax collector since his money was assumed to be embezzled. So even if he was giving money away, and you say, I don't want that, you're a tax collector.

I don't want any of that filthy money. that you've embezzled from my fellow Jews. So like the parable of the Good Samaritan, this parable would be seen as shockingly conflicted. In the parable of the good Samaritan, one of the things we noticed that the fellow that Jesus was talking to could not say the Samaritan was the one who did right. I suppose the fellow that helped, he couldn't pronounce Samaritan as a good guy. This would be similar in that Jesus saying both the Pharisee and that tax collector went up to the temple, they would be shaking their heads and shuddering at that thought.

So here's Luke 18, 11, and 12. The Pharisee stood and was praying this to himself. God, I thank You that I'm not like other people. Swindlers, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector over here. I fast twice a week and I pay tithes of all that I get. So God, I thank You. Isn't that a great way to start a prayer? Sounds good, doesn't it? God, I thank You. He's starting off with, God, I thank You, and he prays to himself, which is good because he's not broadcasting this message. I suppose that's a good thing. The Pharisee thanks God that he is not like these other sinners, swindlers, the unjust, which is kind of a general term for unrighteous, right? For adulterers, and this tax collector right over there. He says, I fast and pay tithes.

Now, fasting, which I do slowly, fasting is only required of Jews under the law on the Day of Atonement. So once a year would they actually by law be required to fast. However, as an extra measure of piety, It was the custom that Jews of Jesus' time, it says in here, fast twice a week.

That would be Monday and Thursday. Those are the fasting days, if you want to be really pious. So he fasted on Monday and Thursday. Only one other thing, he wouldn't call it Monday and Thursday, because those are names from pagan gods. Sunday is the first day of the week, so it's the second day of the week, and then the fifth day of the week. That's what they would call it. Not Monday and Thursday.

But I'm just telling you, that's what it is. All the Pharisees tithed everything, even down to little garden herbs. And by the way, the tithe, the tithe isn't giving money. The tithe is giving food. It was food for the priests and Levites. And by the way, that was also available for the widows and orphans, or supposed to be.

But the beginning of the legal attainments of the Pharisees. You see, a good Pharisee did a lot more than this, so this is just an example of their legal attainments and accomplishments. Here's Paul, lists his seven human credentials. Because Paul's a Pharisee, by the way. Paul was trained up as a Pharisee under Gamaliel, one of the most famous rabbis of the time. So here are his credentials in Philippians 3, 5, and 6.

Circumcised on the eighth day. Okay, can he take credit for that? Probably not. Not too many babies self-circumcised. Okay. And the nation of Israel, okay, was that something that he accomplished? No, he was born into it, right? How about of the tribe of Benjamin? Was that an accomplishment that he did? No. It wasn't his accomplishment, but these were all little things that kind of, okay, got this checklist, right? Hebrew of Hebrews. He says, I am the symbolic Hebrew. I am the very picture of a Hebrew, right? But all four of those things were things he was born into, not his own accomplishment. Next, as to the law of Pharisee. The Pharisees were looked upon as, we do it all right. As to the law of Pharisee, I did everything just right.

As to zeal, a persecutor of the church, oh, that's especially good, right? Very zealous. Paul said in Acts, whenever I had a chance, I voted for death. And he's happy about it, right? Until later. As to the righteousness which is in the law, found blameless. Oh, I did it perfectly.

So it's as if this Pharisee is saying this, God, You have me to thank that I'm so much better than all the swindlers, the unjust, the adulterers, and this horrible, disgusting, filthy, corrupt, criminal, double-crossing, traitor, extortionist, thieving, lying tax collector. I'm so glad I'm better than him. And he sings songs like, glorify my name, glorify my name, right? So here's Luke 18, 13.

But the tax collector standing some distance away was even unwilling to lift up his eyes to heaven, but was beating his breast, saying, God be merciful to me, the sinner. So he's some distance away, probably knowing that the Pharisee doesn't like him standing right nearby anyhow. A tax collector, not even willing to lift up his eyes to heaven, his head's bowed. recognize his own unworthiness to openly and freely face God. Beating his breast would have been seen as mourning and repentance, perhaps both.

The tax collector has no long list of accomplishments. He doesn't come and say, God, I did this. God, I did that. He doesn't look to anybody else either. Instead, the tax collector just begs for mercy from God, showing great distress. Rather than compare himself to any others, as the Pharisee did, or claiming any moral superiority, he just refers to himself as the sinner and begs for mercy. He sees himself as the exemplary and specific sinner. Just me, the sinner.

Luke 18, 14, I tell you, this man went to his house justified rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted. Oh, and of course, the Pharisees loved to hear this kind of stuff, right? Maybe not. He says he went home justified. All the speaking in this parable is to God, not others.

It's important we clarify because Paul uses in Romans justified in a different way than in James. People oftentimes won't recognize the difference. In Romans, where Paul speaks about justified, it is God declaring someone righteous. In James, justified means other people declaring you righteous, right?

Different thing. This is about God justifying someone. Jesus says, justified, it was before God rather than before men. The Pharisee's comparison of himself to others was in the wrong direction. God's righteousness is the standard of measure, not, I'm better than that rotten guy. And what sense does it make to say, this rotten guy is a lot better than that rotten guy?

So that's not what the Pharisee does. The Pharisee got it all wrong. And the Jewish culture of New Testament times had the Jews generally looking down on the Gentiles, and then among the Jews, on other Jews who didn't measure up to the moral and external standards. So these Pharisees got to look down on just about everybody.

They were the best of the best. But Jesus says, no, it's humility. It counts. The Gentile culture of the New Testament times looked on humility as a character defect. You are not to be humble in the Gentile culture. That's a character defect. That's something wrong with you if you're humble.

Both Jesus and the apostles then, had to teach and exhort toward humility and away from pride. This is where the Apostle Paul writes to the Philippians in chapter two. And he said, Christ, have this mind in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though God, though he's deity, lowered himself. Be humble. There had to be a constant urging by both Christ and the apostles to be humble because neither the Gentile nor the Jewish culture admired humility. This had to be something that was taught and learned different from the culture.

So a question to ask, do we pray differently because we are church age Christians? Do we pray differently than those who were Jews, believing Jews even, before the time of the cross? I think the answer is yes. We in the body of Christ pray differently than even believing Jews during the time of the gospel.

So this is something I think for us to learn from. Jesus told a couple of parables that have to do with prayer. But there are things that we also get from the New Testament letters, which add to our understanding of how we uniquely, how we uniquely can pray as believers. We in the body of Christ are indwelt by the Holy Spirit all of the time.

And He has a ministry in our prayer, which these Jews did not have. Right? Which these Jews did not have. Additionally, only those in the body of Christ have the universal capacity and urging to pray in the Spirit at all times. Why? It's because unlike those Jews who were there in the gospel, even the ones who believed and had faith in Christ, unlike them, we have the indwelling of the Holy Spirit universally, all of us, all the time. And that makes our prayer different. There's something else for us to remember, and that's that God values believers' prayers. We can oftentimes get the idea, well, you know, why persist in this?

You know, I don't even know if God's listening. Well, one of the things that God makes clear is Revelation 5, 6 through 8. And by the way, this contains some things I won't have time to explain. And I saw between the throne with the four living creatures who are angelic creatures. and the elders who are the rapture church, a lamb standing as if slain, having seven horns and the horns stand for power. Seven is the number of totality and completeness and seven eyes having observation and insight, perfect observation and insight. which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth. And he came and took the book out of the right hand of him who sat on the throne. Christ took the scroll with the seven seals out of the hand of the Father. And when he had taken the book, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each one holding a harp and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints." Your prayers? What are they in?

Golden bulls. God values them. And they don't just go through the floorboards of heaven and then bounce back. He doesn't say, oh, that's nice and toss it. They're kept in golden bulls. God greatly values our prayers. So to understand, the Lord is not just saying, oh, that's nice and passing it along. The Lord values our prayers.

He has plenty of time for you. As we put it previously, you have God's undivided attention. Because He is an infinite God, He's not looking down at His watch and saying, hey, you've got two minutes, I've got to hurry on to the next one. You have God's undivided attention. He values your prayers. And He wants you to be persistent in those prayers.

And He wants you to come to Him humbly But boy, do we have great privilege. We get to run into the throne room of God and say, Papa. We have great privilege and great standing. And our prayers are highly valued. That's a great thing. Let's go to that throne room right now. Okay?

Lord, we thank You as we look at this passage, as we look at other passages on prayer. We thank You for the things that You have given us insight and understanding on. And even the prayers that we say here this morning, those are things that you value and you value greatly. And we do just give you thanks for this awesome privilege of being able to take our concerns, our thoughts of hearts, everything, and lay it before the king of the universe. We just pray in Jesus' name. Amen.