There are three phases in our Lord’s teaching about prayer—that of Matthew 6, this chapter, and the words of John 14 and 15. In Luke 18:1-8 he exhorts to uniformity and urgency. There is an aspect of prayer that we are in danger of overlooking when the skies are blue and the sun is shining, and that is, the need of holy violence.

This lesson is taught, in the parable of this paragraph, by a striking contrast which may be stated thus: If an unjust and ungodly judge will finally grant a just petition, out of base and selfish motives and merely to save himself from being worried by a defenceless and oppressed woman, how much more shall the just and merciful God hear the cry and avenge the cause of those whom he loves. If answers to certain prayers, which we have offered in an agony of tears, are slow in coming, we may be sure, either that the time is not ripe, or that he is going to do something better.