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LUKE 18:1-8
1 And he told them a parable, to the effect that they ought
always to pray and not lose heart.
2 He said, "In a certain city there was a judge who neither
feared God nor regarded man;
3 and there was a widow in that city who kept coming to
him and saying, 'Vindicate me against my adversary.'
4 For a while he refused; but afterward he said to himself,
'Though I neither fear God nor regard man,
5 yet because this widow bothers me, I will vindicate her, or
she will wear me out by her continual coming.'"
6 And the Lord said, "Hear what the unrighteous judge
says.
7 And will not God vindicate his elect, who cry to him day
and night? Will he delay long over them?
8 I tell you, he will vindicate them speedily. Nevertheless,
when the Son of man comes, will he find faith on earth?"
An entire message on this woman will be posted. For now we
can just say that she illustrates that a woman can be the best
illustration Jesus can find of persistence and perseverance.
She was a prayer warrior that matches any man on record.
LUKE 18:15-17
Who could they be but mothers, and so we see another
picture of women in the life of Jesus. Women loved their
children and wanted the best for them, and so they brought
them to Jesus. The men thought women and kids were best
kept out of the picture. They were something of a nuisance,
but Jesus gives His view of the values involved here, and He
comes on strong in favor of the mothers, which was a rebuke
to His disciples. Dr. Luke, of course, was delighted to record
this event, for his life's work involved a procession of mothers
with their children. Who brings children to the doctor more
than mothers?
In Mark 10:13-16 we see Jesus is quite angry at this point.
Jesus took the children in His arms and blessed them, and
laid hands on them. This could be an imparting of gifts to
these little ones. Jesus was motherly in His relation to babies
and little children. We see Jesus not only as the friend of
sinners, but as the friend of children and mothers.
A child knows how to receive freely without feeling an
obligation. To try and work for the gift and to be worthy of
it is not in a child's mind. The Pharisees were so concerned
about legalistic obedience to the law that they could not be
childlike and receive the gifts of God by grace.
LUKE 21:1-4
1 He looked up and saw the rich putting their gifts into the
treasury;
2 and he saw a poor widow put in two copper coins.
3 And he said, "Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put in
more than all of them;
4 for they all contributed out of their abundance, but she out
of her poverty put in all the living that she had."
Here we see Jesus using a woman as the highest illustration
of sacrificial stewardship. When it comes to equality of the
sexes, it is likely that women are superior rather than just
equal in this realm. It is the widows of the world that are
noted for their support for so many of the Christian
ministries around the world. Seldom is it ever noted that
widowers are so involved. They, of course, are much fewer in
number, but they just do not stand out as great supporters.
LUKE 22:54-57
54 Then they seized him and led him away, bringing him
into the high priest's house. Peter followed at a distance;
55 and when they had kindled a fire in the middle of the
courtyard and sat down together, Peter sat among them.
56 Then a maid, seeing him as he sat in the light and gazing
at him, said, "This man also was with him."
57 But he denied it, saying, "Woman, I do not know him."
It was to a woman that Peter denied he knew the Lord. It
had to be an embarrassment for the rest of his life that he
denied his Lord because of the accusation of this woman.
This text does not say anything so great about women, but it
does point out how frightened a man can become when a
woman is on to his deception.
LUKE 23:27-31
27 And there followed him a great multitude of the people,
and of women who bewailed and lamented him.
28 But Jesus turning to them said, "Daughters of
Jerusalem, do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves and
for your children.
29 For behold, the days are coming when they will say,
'Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that never bore, and
the breasts that never gave suck!'
30 Then they will begin to say to the mountains, 'Fall on
us'; and to the hills, 'Cover us.'
31 For if they do this when the wood is green, what will
happen when it is dry?"
Here was a good crowd of weeping women. This reveals
the impact of the ministry of Christ upon women. The
women were more sympathetic to the life and teaching of
Jesus than were the men. They may have known little of the
theological debates of the men, but they knew Jesus was
good, loving, and that He met their needs. Sadler writes, "He
seems to have removed the curse from the sex, so that they
are now more ready to receive His truth than men." Many
feel they were not disciples, but people who were very
emotional about seeing this man suffering. Even tender
hearted pagans could be moved to tears by the cross, but
tears are not proof of commitment. Pilot's wife was a pagan
woman, but she pleaded with her husband to spare Jesus.
Spurgeon writes, "As for the words themselves, they are
especially noteworthy, because they constitute the last
connected discourse of the Savior before He died. All that He
said afterwards was fragmentary and mainly of the nature of
prayer. A sentence to John, and to his mother, and to the
dying thief: Just a word or two looking downward, but for
the most part he uttered broken sentences, which flew
upwards on the wings of strong desire. This was his last
address, a farewell sermonette; delivered amid surroundings
most sad and solemn, restraining tears and yet at the same
time causing them to flow. We reckon the words to be all the
more weighty and full of solemnity because of the occasion,
but even apart from this, the truths delivered were in
themselves of the utmost importance and solemnity. This last
discourse of our Lord before His death was terribly prophetic
to a world rejecting Him, portentous with a thousand woes to
a people whom He loved, woes which even He could not
avert, because they had rejected His interposition and
refused the mercy which He came to bring. "Daughters of
Jerusalem," said He, "weep not for me, but weep for
yourselves, and for your children." Not many hours before
He had himself set them the example by weeping over the
doomed city, and crying, "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that
killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto
thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together,
even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye
would not!"
Spurgeon goes on, "He said to the weeping women,
"WEEP NOT." There are some cold, calculating expositors
who make it out that our Lord reproved these women for
weeping, and that there was something wrong, or if not all
together wrong, yet something very far from commendable in
their sorrow-I think they call it "the sentimental sympathy"
of these kind souls. There is no being much more unnatural
than a cold-blooded commentator, who bites at every letter,
and nibbles at the grammatical meaning of every syllable,
translating with his lexicon, but never exercising common
sense, or allowing even the least play to his heart. Blame
these women? No, bless them again and again. It was the
one redeeming trait in the dread march along the Via
Dolorosa; let it not be dreamed that Jesus could have
censured those who wept for Him. No, no, no, a thousand
times No! These gentle women appear in a happy contrast to
the chief priests, with their savage malice, and to the
thoughtless multitude with their fierce cry of "crucify Him,
crucify Him!" They seem to me to have shown a noble
courage in daring to express their sympathy with one whom
everybody else hunted to death with such ferocity. To
espouse his cause amid those hoarse cries of "crucify Him,
crucify Him," was courage more than manly; those women
were heroines more valiant than those who rush upon the
spoil. Those lamentations in sympathy with him who was
being led to die are worthy of our praise and not of our
criticism. Our Lord accepted the sympathy they evinced,
and was only His great disinterested unselfishness which
made Him say, "Spare your grief's for other sorrows." It
was not because they were wrong, but because there was
something still more necessary to be done than even to weep
for Him."
Jesus is giving a warning. He is not rejecting their
sympathy, but redirecting it. He is saying, "I can handle this
ladies, but you are facing a trial even tougher to handle."
His agony would be short and quickly turned to victory.
There's would be long. Jesus was not self-centered as He
marched to the cross, focusing on self-pity. He was thinking
of the terrible consequence upon them for what they were
doing. The wrath of God would fall upon Israel. Jesus was
sad for them, and for Himself. He was weeping over
Jerusalem, and said don't weep for me for the real tragedy is
the price you will have to pay for what you do to me. There
is no escape from judgment, for they must reap what they
sow. Spurgeon wrote, "Jesus points and says, "Weep for the
national sin, weep for the national curse, which will surely
come upon you, because you are putting the just One to
death."
The agonies of the future would be such that the most
blessed state of womanhood for Israel would be to
curse-motherhood. Mothers will so suffer and see their
children parish so that it would be a blessing never to have
had any. This is not what Jesus says, but what men will then
say. You have heard people say the world is so terrible they
don't want to bring children into it. That was the case in
70A.D. when Jerusalem fell.
Here is a picture of people hiding in caves and so fearful
of facing the enemy that they pray for the mountain to cave
in and cover them. The fall of Jerusalem is a symbolic event
of the final judgment of the world. What happened to Israel
then will happen to the whole world for its rejection of Jesus.
Jesus quotes a proverbial expression. If the fire consumes
green wood what will it do to dry wood? If judgment even
falls upon that which has some life and possibility of fruit,
what kind of judgment will fall on dry dead fruitless
branches. In other words, the heat is going to be so intense
that the best will burn. If the Son of God had to go through
the fire of persecution, what about the body with its dry and
fruitless branches? Jesus is the green wood, and Jerusalem is
the dry wood. Sadler writes, "If the Roman practice such
cruelties on me, who am a green tree, and the very source of
life, what will they do one day to your nation, which is like a
barren, withered trunk...."
LUKE 23:49,55-56
55 The women who had come with him from Galilee
followed, and saw the tomb, and how his body was laid;
56 then they returned, and prepared spices and ointments.
On the Sabbath they rested according to the commandment.
The idea that women cannot take the pressure like men
will not fit the facts. The men had all fled, but the women
were there to see the worst; to see their Lord crucified. They
no doubt wept, but they were there. Fulton Sheen asked,
"Which stands up better in a crisis-men or women?" He
answers, "One can discuss this in a series of historical crises,
but without arriving at any decision. The best way to arrive
at a conclusion is to go to the greatest crisis the world ever
faced, namely, Crucifixion of our Divine Lord. When we
come to the great drama of Calvary, there is one fact that
stands out very clearly. Men failed; on the other hand, there
is not one single instance of a woman's failing Him."
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