THE REFORMED WITNESS HOUR
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prca.orgDear radio friends,
Jesus’ public ministry was drawing to a close. His life was in constant peril. The wicked Jews were out to kill Him in one
way or another, and they showed their open hostility and hatred of Him in every
way, even going to the extent, mind you, of excommunicating from the church and
the synagogue anyone mentioning His name.
He could not walk freely in
Matthew tells us in verse 21 that Jesus “departed into the
coasts of
It seems her daughter had a devil or an unclean spirit in
her. And it vexed her grievously, that is,
it forced her daughter to do all kinds of things that hurt her. Her mother was worried sick over her. So much so, that she was willing to leave
Well, it is the humble attitude of this woman that we wish to
examine. It is not so much the miracle
itself that stands on the foreground, but it is God’s word as it is found in
the actions and confession of this woman.
What she acknowledges to Christ here is what we are called to
acknowledge to God when we confront ourselves and our sins. We are to view ourselves in no different
light than what she saw herself. That
was the divine intent of our Lord when He dealt with this woman, to lead her to
express her faith in Him. And we pray
that this passage of God’s Word today may do the same for you and me.
The Gentile woman of this passage makes the most humble
expression of her faith in Christ. But
it was not something she spoke immediately.
It was drawn, it seems, from her heart and lips
by means of the actions and words of our Savior. You see, this woman evidently stood outside
the house where Jesus sat with His disciples, and started shouting loudly to
Him. And her words were that of a plea,
a sincere, really heartrending plea:
“Have mercy on me, O Lord, thou son of David. My daughter is grievously vexed with a
devil.” Who could resist hearing and
answering this woman in her need? It was
not for her, after all, that she was pleading, but for her daughter. Her daughter was the object of
demon-possession, a horrible malady that fell upon many people,
it seems, in Jesus’ day. A devil would
enter into a person and take over not only his or her soul, that is, her mind
and desires, but also the body. And that
devil would force a person to do things that normally that person would give no
thought whatsoever of doing. That was
true of this daughter, too. So this
woman was crying, not for herself, but for her daughter.
Matthew tells us in verse 23 of this passage, however, that
Jesus answered her never a word.
Evidently this cry of the woman was not spoken just once, but
repeatedly. She called again and again
from outside the house to Jesus. And the
disciples, knowing that Jesus wished no one to know where He was, became rather
upset with the woman. In their minds,
Jesus was not going to do anything anyway.
He did not answer the woman, after all, but
just let her continue to cry out to Him.
So His disciples besought Jesus.
They asked Jesus simply to send her away in order that she might stop
crying out.
Instead of giving in to the request of the disciples, Jesus said
something to them, which, evidently, was loud enough for the woman to
hear. We read of that in verse 24, “I am
not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of
Now, this statement is striking from a twofold point of
view. First of all, it points out
clearly that God had not intended to send forth the gospel at this time to
Gentile people. It would happen later
on. But it was not time yet. Salvation must come first to the lost sheep
of the house of
Secondly, Jesus spoke this loudly enough for this woman to
hear. And that, in
order to teach her something. She
in her heathen land and among her heathen people stood outside of God’s church
in this world. She had walked in
unbelief and sin. She and her nation had
placed their trust in pagan gods and walked in rebellion against the true
God. She was in herself, therefore,
unworthy of any mercy from Jesus. She
was an alien from the
Well, this statement of Jesus sparked a second exchange of words
between the two of them. She came to the
door of the house, or maybe even into the house, and, we are told, she
worshiped Jesus. That term there for
worship means that she bowed down before Him.
She paid homage unto Him. In
humility, she fell on her hands and knees before Jesus and with pleading eyes
once again looked upon Jesus and said, “Lord, help me.”
There is reason to believe that the words Jesus now spoke were
still not addressed personally to her, but to His disciples. And I say this because in verse 28 we find
that Jesus finally answered and said, “unto her.” But in this verse we simply read that He
answered and said. In other words, Jesus
kept talking as it were to His disciples, ignoring her altogether, though she
bowed before Him with her plea.
And then the words He spoke seem so very hard and callous,
without any pity whatsoever. Jesus was,
of course, emphasizing in them what He had first said, that He was sent to the
lost sheep of
In other words, Jesus in essence called this woman a dog, a
stray, a no-count, a mongrel that deserved nothing from Him because she was not
of the household of faith. Now, I would
think that by today’s standards Jesus would not be labeled the best of
missionaries, would He? Talk about
turning a person off! But Jesus knows
the heart. The words that this woman now
spake to Jesus completely amaze me. Listen to her reply (v. 27): “Truth, Lord:
yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table.” This confession is at one and the same time
clever, but also shows the greatest humility.
“You are exactly right, Lord. Truth, Lord. I am not
worthy of anything from you. I do not
deserve a thing. I am a dog. But I am not a stray. I am not a cur. I’m not a mongrel. I am a puppy.”
That is the meaning of the term “dog” that she uses as opposed
to the term that Jesus used. “I am a
puppy that sits around the table of the master and I eat the crumbs that the
children allow to fall to the floor. I
may not be a Jew, I may not be one of the house of
Oh, that you and I could exhibit that kind of humility in our
own lives! We, too, must bow before God
and say, “Lord, have mercy on us,” because we are no better in ourselves than
dogs. We deserve nothing from God. We deserve in ourselves, really, because of
our sins, only condemnation and punishment.
Who are we to boast in ourselves. Our boast is in Christ alone, and in the
salvation that He earns for His people at the cross. There is redemption alone. Nowhere else can it be found. Certainly it cannot be found in us.
The admission this woman made could only have flowed forth out
of a heart of faith. Notice her
faith. First, she addresses Christ as “O
Lord, thou son of David.” She had heard, she must have heard, that somehow Jesus was that Messiah
who had been sent by God. She was given
by God, therefore, a certain knowledge by which she embraced Christ for who He
is. The Lord of lords. The King of the Jews. The rightful Heir unto the
throne of David. This Jesus was,
in her estimation, that promised Messiah who had
finally come.
Second. She worshiped
Him, we learn. She bowed humbly before
Jesus’ feet and paid homage unto Him. To
her, He was God. She was confident that
He was able to cast out devils, something only someone with divine power was
able to do. She believed that Jesus, as
Messiah, was capable of casting out the devil from her daughter. That is faith.
And, third. She was mindful of her sins and her own
unworthiness. She realized that the only
way Jesus would heal her daughter would be by forgiving her, first of
all, of her own sins. Notice her initial
request: “Be merciful to me.” It was not, “Show mercy to my daughter.” But, “Show mercy to me.” She knew her daughter would not be healed
unless Christ would, first of all, be merciful to her, forgiving her of her sin
and unbelief and accepting her into His presence.
That is the faith that this woman exhibited.
And that must be the faith we reveal in our lives. We must believe that only for the sake of
Christ’s death on the cross will God not impute to us our sins, but Christ’s
righteousness. We must cast ourselves on
the mercy of our Savior, knowing that it is in Him alone that our sins are
forgiven us. Only they will be accepted
of God as members of His household and family whose sins are forgiven.
Listen now to the response of Jesus to this woman in verse
28: “O woman, great is thy faith: be it unto thee even as thou wilt.” What a blessed gift this woman received of
Christ. Her daughter was made
whole! The devil was cast out at that
moment. Mark tells us in his account
that, when she was come to her house, she found the devil gone out and her
daughter laid upon the bed.
Christ knew her faith. Of
course He did. He worked it in her. To the eye and the ear it seemed that Jesus
was being hard on her. But divinely
Christ was working in her heart such faith.
And now He acknowledges His own work in her: “O woman, great is thy faith.” Then He granted her the longing desire of her
heart. Her daughter was made whole.
But let us take a look at the real miracle performed here. Let us not overlook that. The blessed gift that this woman truly
received was not the healing of her daughter, though that was blessed in
itself. It was really this: she had obtained mercy with God. Christ would not have healed this Gentile’s
daughter if her sin and unbelief stood in the way. But God was merciful to
her.
Oh, let us not forget what God’s mercy is. It is His love and compassion by which He
pities, feels sorry, for His people in their sin. And in that pity towards them in their misery
and sin, He for Christ’s sake delivers them from that sin and makes them
righteous in Christ. In other words, in
His great compassion and in His pity for His people, He reaches down and He
picks us up out of the miry clay of sin and He leads us to the cross of Christ.
Christ was sent by God in His mercy in order to cover the sins
of those whom God pities. That is His
mercy. And the Syro-Phoenician
woman obtained that mercy. It is that
same mercy that we desire in our lives.
We are sinners. We are no more
than dogs when we stand exposed before God in our sins. We know that.
We confess our sins before God:
“Have mercy on me, O Lord.” And
then, you know what? God does have mercy
on us. He grants us that blessed gift of
His mercy. He gives to us the joy of our
salvation in Christ. He tells us that
though our sins are as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow.
We are made whole in His blood.
The power of sin and the devil are destroyed, and Christ has become our
Lord. That is the blessed gift we
receive from God through Christ.
There is one more thing of which we ought to take note in this
passage of God’s Word.
The humble attitude of this Gentile believer was a work of God’s
grace in her heart. If she would have
come to Jesus in unbelief, she would have turned away from Him in anger and
bitterness, hating Him and probably the Jews with Him all the more. I mean, look at the account. She comes to Jesus with a plea, a cry for
help to help her daughter. He did not so
much as acknowledge her. He acted as if
He did not hear what she was saying. How
many of us listening today, if that happened to us would we not already have
turned away in anger from Jesus? When
someone turns their head on us and shuns us, that hurts. And we often retaliate in anger and leave
them. This woman did not do that. When Jesus spoke, He did not even speak to
her. He spoke to His disciples. That would have rubbed salt into a pride that
was already wounded. But then the
clincher: He called her a dog! That would have done me in. If left to myself, I would have stomped away
in pride and anger and never turned around again. And if this woman had come in unbelief, that is exactly how she would have reacted
too.
But she came in faith.
And the reason she came in faith can be explained by only one
thing. God revealed Himself to her. And He revealed His Son to her. God worked in her heart by His Spirit and
grace, revealing to her who Jesus was and what Jesus had come to accomplish. She knew her sin. She knew her own unworthiness. But she also knew that forgiveness was His to
give. She wanted that. And Christ gave it to her.
By grace alone can you or I come humbly acknowledging our sin to
our Savior.
Neither you nor I can come to God unless God Himself, in His grace,
draws us to Him and reveals to us who He is.
We cannot come to Jesus except He draws us to Him. We need that Savior.
May we be characterized by faith and may we, today, bow at the
feet of our Savior and Lord. God be
merciful to us who are sinners and give us that salvation that is found in the
cross of Jesus Christ alone.
Let us pray.
Our Father in heaven, we thank Thee again that Thou hast shown
mercy unto us. For we confess before
Thee that we are such sinners, and that we are unworthy of anything from
Thee. We are unworthy of even coming
into Thy presence, unworthy of the salvation that Thou hast freely given. We thank Thee for that salvation. And we look to the cross of Jesus Christ
alone, where we know we can find it. We
can find it nowhere else; there is no other way into Thy presence and into Thy
kingdom. Bless us, therefore, with this Word, that we always might be humbled before Thee and be as
this woman. We pray these things for
Christ’s sake. Amen.