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This is not an exact comparison of God to this unjust judge, teaching us that we should badger God until we weary Him and He grants us our request.
Rather, Jesus is contrasting His willingness to answer our prayers with this unjust judge's unwillingness. The parable is a contrast, not a representation.
Not only do we have God who is a just judge who will avenge His elect speedily, but we also have Jesus as our advocate or attorney who is always making intercession for us. However, we have an adversary (the devil) who is constantly accusing us and misrepresenting God (the judge). This causes men to give up (faint) and not even plead their case with God because they doubt that He will answer them anyway.
Jesus is saying that our Father is...
THE GOSPEL OF JESUS CHRIST
This scripture and the parallel scripture in Matthew 24:27 make it very clear that the second return of Jesus will be no secret to anyone. In Matthew's account, it is especially clear that this statement about the lightning was made so that we wouldn't be deceived by false Christs. Just as lightning is visible to everyone, so the second return of Jesus will be witnessed by the whole world. That's the reason we don't have to be fearful about missing His second coming and anxiously follow every report that Christ has come.
These verses completely destroy the claims of the Bahai religion and others who claim that Jesus has secretly come back the second time.
Just as Jesus had warned His...
Relatively few people who receive the goodness of the Lord return to give Him thanks for what He has done. That does not keep the Lord from doing what is right for us. He healed all ten of these lepers according to their request - not just the one who was thankful. However, there was only one out of the ten that was made "whole."
The Lord desires that we prosper in spirit, soul, and body. He wants us to be whole - not just healed. Part of the reason God meets our physical needs is to prove to us His willingness and ability to meet our emotional and spiritual needs. The Lord is concerned about our temporal needs (Mt. 6:30), but He is even more concerned about our eternal needs. All of these lepers needed physical healing and the Lord was moved with compassion and met their...
Symbolically, Lazarus is like many Christians. The Bible speaks of us passing from death unto new life when we get born again. But it is also true that in the physical and emotional realm, we bring our "graveclothes" from our old life with us (i.e. habits, attitudes, etc.), and we need to be "loosed" to fully enjoy our new life.
Our emotions and attitudes follow what we think. When we focus our attention on our problems, they are magnified out of proportion. When we neglect our problems and think on God's provision, the answer is magnified and the problem shrinks. Whatever we think upon is going to dominate us. If we think on depressing things, we'll be depressed. If we think on uplifting things, we'll...
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The Greek word that is translated "groaned" expresses that Jesus was deeply moved, but not necessarily with sorrow. It was more a groan of anger at Satan who had caused all the grief Jesus was seeing around Him. Jesus came to "destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil" (Heb. 2:14), and He was grieved to see the pain that His enemy had inflicted on those He loved.
This is the type of groaning that the Holy Spirit does for us. It is not just the Holy Spirit sympathizing with us, but it is the Holy Spirit doing battle for us when we don't know how to pray. In this case, it was the Holy Spirit doing battle through Jesus against death and the doubt of those present, that would have kept Lazarus in the grave.
Everyone...
