Text today, coming from Luke chapter 18 and verse 1 through 8 in the New Living translation.

Notice there these words.

One day Jesus told his disciples a story to show that they should always pray and never give up.

There was a judge in a certain city, he said, who neither feared God nor cared about people.

A widow of that city came to him repeatedly saying,

give me justice in this dispute with my enemy. And the judge ignored her for a while,

but finally he said to himself, I don't fear God or care about people. But this woman is

driving me crazy. I'm going to see to it that she

gets justice because she's wearing me out with her constant requests. And then the Lord said,

learn a lesson from this unjust judge. Even he rendered a just decision in the end. So don't you think God

will surely give justice to his chosen people who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep

putting them off? I tell you he will grant justice to them quickly.

But when the son of man returns, how many will he find on the earth who have faith?

And we're talking today from the subject,

faithfulness precedes fruitfulness.

Faithfulness precedes fruitfulness.

You may be seated.

I do want you to understand in this parable that Jesus is sharing here.

Please understand that the unjust judge here is not a type of God. God would never use an analogy

where he is represented by somebody who is unjust. He says that the judge does not fear God,

neither has any regard for people. They don't care about people. But God is

teaching us a lesson here about persistence when the world is harsh to you and mean to you.

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