Seeking for the help of the Lord
I direct your prayerful attention to our first reading in Matthew,
Matthew chapter 15 and we read for our text verse 25, verse
25 Then came she, and worshipped
him, saying, Lord, help me. Matthew chapter 15 and verse
25 I just want to say at the beginning
just a few things concerning the situation here surrounding
our text. And the first is this, that this
woman obviously came to the Lord in a personal way. This is the
time when our Lord was upon earth as a real man. He stood upon
this earth, walked upon the earth, and that men and women could
see Him, speak with Him and come to Him in a literal way. And this is what this woman was
doing. She was coming to the Lord in
a literal way, coming to Him as a man, as Jesus of Nazareth,
but coming to Him, worshipping Him. And we might say, well,
how can we gain that benefit and teaching and help from this
account when we cannot come in that literal way? Our Lord has
ascended up into heaven, He lives in heaven, He is not here in
person, He has given His promise, Lo, I am with you all the way,
even unto the end of the world. That presence is through His
Holy Spirit. And we would then ask ourselves,
well, how can we come as this woman did? what would be the
equivalent in this way if we were to do as she was doing here
we know the Lord has appointed for us the path of prayer and
may we be clear on this that prayer is a sinner or man speaking
to God it is the way God has ordained that he will hear from
his people. I will be inquired of, he says,
by the house of Israel to do it for them, that is through
Ezekiel, he says that. And our Lord says, ask and it
shall be given you. Seek and you shall find not,
and it shall be opened unto you. And while on earth he encouraged
in prayer, in fortunate prayer, constant prayer, and he himself
led with example in that way by spending whole nights in prayer
unto his father and yes we might say in prayer there is communion,
there is fellowship and one with another, we speak one with another
but specifically I want to notice that as this woman came to the
Lord making her petition and speaking to the Lord on earth,
it is through prayer that we speak to God and come to Him
now that He is in heaven. Prayer, of course, was walked
in the path by all the Old Testament saints as well, but it is appointed
unto the Church of God, and that men ought always to pray and
not to faint. But what about the other side
then? Because our Lord was to speak
to her. How does the Lord speak to us
in this equivalent way? How are we to expect to hear
His voice to us? We know from John 10, our Lord
saying that my sheep, they hear my voice, And they follow me. Well, how do his sheep hear his
voice? How do the equivalent of this
Syrophoenician woman, this woman of Canaan, hear the voice of
the Lord? Well, the way the Lord speaks
to his people is through his word. He is the Word, the written
and incarnate Word are the same. And the Lord has said that the
Holy Spirit shall take of the things of mine and shall show
it unto you. He shall bring to your remembrance
whatsoever I have said unto you. And what the Lord has said unto
mankind, has said unto the church of God, is recorded in the Holy
Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, is the Word of God, the Lord
gave the Word, great was the company of them that published
it, and all Scripture is given by the inspiration of God, and
that it is profitable for instruction, for teaching in righteousness,
and it is that a man of God might be truly prepared unto all good
works, And it is through the Word that God then speaks. He says, My Word shall not return
unto me void, it shall accomplish the thing whereto I sent it. And the commission given to us
in the ministry is, preach the Word. And it hath pleased God
through the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. So
God speaks to His people through the Word of God and through the
preaching of the Word. We think of the case with Samuel,
when Samuel was a young lad, we read that Samuel did not yet
know the Lord. And when the Lord first appeared
to him in a vision and spoke to him, he thought that it was
Eli speaking to him. And it was in the second time
that he went asking of Eli thinking that it was Eli calling and Eli
perceived that it was the Lord that had spoken to him and so
he said that when he speaks again say speak Lord for thy servant
heareth and that was the first time that Samuel then knew the
voice of the Lord and of course his long life as a prophet of
the Lord he was to hear the voice of the Lord again and again. And we read in those early chapters
of Samuel that the Lord appeared unto Samuel again by the word
of the Lord. And that is how the Lord speaks
to his people. We need to be clear in that way
in gospel day. When we're thinking of the account
that is before us here, We walk in a path of prayer, presenting
our petitions to the Lord, and we then listen to the Red Word,
we read the Bible, we listen to the preaching of the Word,
and we listen for answers from the Lord through the preached
Word. And we need to be clear on that
as to how we are to expect the answers, as the Lord is not here,
He is in heaven, and yet by His Spirit He is here, where two
or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the
midst, and it's a sacred thing to realise that, the great mystery
of the Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, And the heaven of
heavens, they cannot contain the Lord, He is so great, He
fills all things, and He is with His people when they gather together. So may we think of this then,
firstly, as we look at the case of the woman that is before us,
that came speaking the words of our text, she came and worshipped
Him, saying, Lord, help me. Now the second thing I bring
before your attention is that it was something that brought
her to the Lord and in her case it was a trial. I think many of us, we prove
this that when everything is going well, how very easy it
is to be very slack in prayer, there's not an urgency, there's
not a real felt need at all But the Lord is pleased to use means
to bring us to prayer and to make our case an urgent and a
pressing case. And very often that is in the
case like this woman. It was a trial, certainly not
a pleasant trial at all, really in one sense it was her daughter's
trial because it was her daughter that she says is grievously vexed
with a devil and it was her daughter's case that was weighing upon her
and so with this trial it was her loved ones her daughters
but weighing upon her though you might say well she was healthy,
she was strong, there was nothing wrong with her but fearing for
the condition of her daughter brought her with this urgent
case to the Lord and the point I want to make is that each of
us and each of God's people may have a different way that The
Lord is pleased to bring them to Him. We read that no man cometh
unto me, says the Lord, except the Father which sent me draw
him. And affliction and trials and
troubles and crosses very often are used by God. They do not come by chance. They're
appointed by God under His hand. to revive us in prayer, in seeking,
they are a warning to us of our mortality, of our weakness, of
our frailty, of our need to come before God very soon when life
ends here below, and it brings us then to a real time of need. Think of how it was with Hezekiah
when Hezekiah had several trials made together, One of them was
the king of Assyria, Sennacherib, sending Rabshakeh, his general,
and to cry out against Judah and the very real threat of being
invaded and to be overcome by the enemy. But at the same time
as that, he was sick unto death, and Isaiah was sent to him and
told him to put his house in order, for thou shalt die and
not live. And so Hezekiah, he turned his
face to the wall and he prayed unto God and he cried unto God. It can't have been a very long
prayer because it wasn't far that Isaiah had got before God
told him to go back and tell him that he would add unto his
years 15 years. And of course one of Hezekiah's
trials was If he had of died childless, then the line to the
promised seed would have been broken. It needed Manasseh to
be born to make up that line. And so, no doubt, as Hezekiah,
a godly king, that was an added burden. And some of us, we may
feel in that way. If we are sick, if we are unwell,
if we think, and the devil says, well look, your life is going
to be taken away and then we think yes but what of what of
my position and and and what of where I have been placed or
the ministry or what of my loved ones and there's other things
that are compounding it how it will open the mouth of the adversary
how they will gain ground and what they will say they'll rejoice
over what has happened and so there's an added thing like it
was with with Hezekiah, one thing there was the Assyrians, the
other thing is sickness himself, with however difficult and hard
that was, then being told he should die and then what that
meant because of no child and no succession. And so we think
of the Hemriter, when united trials meet, show a path of safe
retreat. But the Lord will use something.
with David it was that when he was in the Philistines land and
well there were many times with David when Saul was pursuing
him many times brought him urgently to the Lord and but when Ziklag
was burned with fire and his own men that they were talking
of stoning him and David encouraged himself in the Lord his God and
and prayed unto the Lord and sought that help and obtained
deliverance at that time. But he'd had the zig-zag burn
with fire, his wives had been taken captive, their children
and all of their things had been taken. It was a time of real
distress. It's easy for us to read these
accounts and not really enter into what a great trial and burden
these were actually walking through. And so your trial, my trial,
might be a different thing. It might be only ours, only concerning
ourselves, our own illness, our own sickness. And we might think,
well, my trial, that's a great burden to me. How can that be
a burden to someone else? And yet, maybe our affliction
is also a concern and a means of bringing someone else, as
it was in this case, being the mother of this child to the Lord,
and it's good for us to discern what is it the Lord is using
to bring us to the Lord, and however painful that is, to realise
that the Lord does use this, and even to see it as the merciful
hand of God to stir us up from being careless, prayerless, lethargic,
and bring us to seek Him more earnestly. The hymn writer says
the flesh dislikes the way, but faith approves it well. The flesh
certainly does not like a path of trial, or even the thought
that it might come. It shrinks from that. And yet
when you're in a situation with a trial, when that has already
come, you're already afflicted, or a loved one's already afflicted,
then to know, to be clearly told from the Word of God, the Lord
uses these things, uses them as a messenger to bring us to
his throne and to hear from us, that he wants to hear from us,
is an encouragement, is a balancing of the clouds and of the afflictions
and in that we would notice in here what is actually used to
bring us to the Lord, and may it be a help to shine some light
upon our path, not just now perhaps, but what we have walked, and
what we may walk, but may it minister to what we are in now. And thirdly, I just notice the
Lord's sovereignty in how he deals with every case. And I want to say this because
I don't want to preach from this word as if the only way the Lord
deals with one coming in their need to Him is in this way. we only read just a few verses
later, how that great multitudes came unto him, and in this case
we're not told any specifics at all, nothing special as the
procedure, but we read that those that were lame, blind, dumb and
maimed, and many others cast down at the feet of our Lord
and that He healed them. And just healed them just like
that. We know with those that were
blind, some He opened their eyes instantly, others it was gradually,
they saw men as trees walking at first and then saw things
more clearly. and with the case of Lazarus
he allowed that he should die first and then raised him up
from the dead so the Lord deals with each one in a different
way and the Lord is the sovereign in that or how he does it and
we will not lay lines down and say the Lord must walk in this
way and must work in that way, in the way he deals with his
people, the way he deals with men and women that are coming
to know him and brought to be with him. So with these introductory
remarks I want to now look with the Lord's help at how this woman
came to be blessed and then what the Lord said of her. Not only going to this evening
use my usual three points but just speak to you in some five
points, one at a time, just tracing out how this woman came to the
Lord. We read that she was a woman
of Canaan. She comes out of the same coast
that is out of Tyre and Sidon. She was not one of the Israelites,
but she was a Canaanite, Syrophoenician, we are told. Well the first thing
is this that we would notice here, that she came to Christ
as Lord, the Son of David, and she came worshipping Him. We
read in verse 22, how that she said, O Lord, Thou Son of David,
and she calls Him by this name. She, in doing that, she is really
saying, This man, Jesus of Nazareth, is the son of David. He is of
David's line, and that meant so much because the Jews, they
expected rightly from the Scriptures that it should be from David's
line that the Christ should come. Indeed, If we look in Matthew,
in the first chapter of Matthew, then we see the line through
the kings, through David, through Solomon. If we then look into
Luke chapter 3, and he's traced back from Mary, the mother of
our Lord, right back down to Adam it also goes through David
through David's other son Nathan so David was a common ancestor
if you like both of Mary and of Joseph and of our Lord and
so she comes here and she is speaking to him and worshipping
Him as the Messiah, as the One that should come. The very attitude
of worship, of homage that she is giving unto Him. She sees
past the man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. She sees past Jesus
of Nazareth. She sees past what is said in
Isaiah 53, that He is a root out of dry ground. There's no
form nor comeliness that we should desire Him. And she sees past
what they were saying of Him. He's not this Jesus, this son
of Joseph, the carpenter's son. They just viewed Him as a mere
man and there were many especially of his brethren that despised
him and we think even of Nathaniel who said could any good thing
come out of Nazareth and she was able to look past all of
this and it may be that we also in a situation Where are we? Those that despise the Lord Jesus
Christ, that ridicule Him, that mock the name of the Lord, that
speak evil of Him, that were discouraged from Him. And remember,
those that were speaking against the Lord here were often the
religious leaders of the land. They were the scribes and the
Pharisees those that were professed to know better than others who
the Christ should be and yet they were blind to see who He
was, they could not see, they could not understand who He was
at all. We think of how it was when the
Lord healed the man that was born blind And there are those
Pharisees that heard him say, for judgment I am coming to this
world, that they which see not might see, and that they which
see might be made blind. And the Pharisees, they said,
are we blind also? Jesus said unto them, if ye were
blind, ye should have no sin. But now ye say, we see, therefore
your sin remaineth. And remember, that before that
the blind man he was testifying that this man was of God and
he says that the man answered why herein is a marvellous thing
ye know not from whence he is and yet he hath opened mine eyes
now ye know that God heareth not sinners but if any man be
a worshipper of God and doeth his will him he heareth." If
this man were not of God, he could do nothing, and yet those
that were listening to him, they reviled him, they cast him out,
and yet this man had been born blind, he knew, he said, one
thing I know, whereas I was blind, now I see, and he believed. Don't think if we are to be brought
to believe, worship, and follow the Lord Jesus Christ, that we'll
have others, and even religious others, congratulating us, and
helping us, and encouraging us, but very often ridiculing, despising,
and discouraging us. And yet this woman, she comes,
and in spite of all of those around, she might have said and
thought within herself, were the Jews themselves, from whom
Christ come, of the lineage of David. They don't see him as
Christ. They don't believe him. Why should
I? How can I? How can it be for
me? And so we had noticed in how
she came was how she viewed the Lord and how that affected her
worship and how she came to him. It is a vital thing that he that
cometh to God, and Jesus is God, must believe that he is, and
that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him. She was not discouraged in seeking
after Jesus. And don't you be, and may I not
be, And none of the people of God, blessed are they, the Lord
said, that are not ashamed of me. This woman was not ashamed
to come and to own him as Lord and to worship him as such and
to seek that help from him. The second thing is that she
came on mercy's ground. we read that her first words
as she cried unto him saying really the very second word that
she uses is mercy have mercy on me have mercy on me oh lord that's how she came the mercy
is never deserved it cannot be deserved and it excludes all
works. You might have been hindered
in seeking unto the Lord, thinking that you have got no works to
plead. You're ashamed of your prayers,
you're ashamed of your life, you're ashamed of your sins,
you've got nothing to recommend you to God at all and yet a sense of that will
bring us to come like this woman came otherwise it is like where
the Lord spoke of the Pharisee and he came in prayer speaking
of all of his good works, his tithes, his offerings and bringing
that before the Lord That Pharisee didn't go away blessed, this
woman did, and she comes on mercy's ground. Mercy is welcome use
to sinners deep in debt. The hymn writer says, nothing
in my hand I bring, simply to thy cross I cling. By nature
we actually cling to our own righteousness, we do not like
to let go of it, as a hell-deserving sinner that has nothing to bring
but guilt. We are full of wounds and bruises
and putrefying sores. There is no part sound or healthy. Mankind is fully fallen from
the righteousness and holiness and image of God. And there is
nothing that we can bring that is not stained with sin. The
word clearly says that all our righteousnesses are as filthy
rags. There's no part sound or healthy. And so really the only right
way to come is the way that this woman came. Have mercy upon me. If anything tonight, may the
Lord be pleased through me to give you the beginning of prayer
to the Lord. Have mercy upon me. Have mercy upon me. She came then on mercy's ground. But then thirdly, she came and
she came with many discouragements. She met with many discouragements
in coming. Now there's four specific things
I want to set before you. The first is this. She met with
silence from the Lord. As she prayed unto the Lord,
as she asked the Lord, or as you or I might pray to the Lord,
and then wait upon the Lord through the word and through the ministry
to speak to us with her the Lord answers her not a word and it may be you will say yeah
and the Lord hasn't answered me with the word either not a
word not a word For this was the discouragement that she had. The psalmist, he says, be not
silent unto me, lest, if thou be silent unto me, I become like
them that go down into the pit. How Job, he cried and shouted,
but the Lord shut out his prayer. The trials of the people of God when the Lord is silent, when
the Lord doesn't answer. Elijah, go again seven times,
and yet the Lord had, when he prayed for fire, answered straight
away. But seven times, no answer. This woman had this discouragement. It's a discouragement that you've
had. The Lord is answering. not a
word. The second discouragement that
she had, because she had no answer from the Lord, she cried after
the disciples. Many of the Lord's people, many
of those that are first seeking the Lord and wanting that help
from the Lord, because they don't get an answer straight away,
Then they go to the disciples of the Lord. They go to the Lord's
servants. They go to those who do know
the Lord. And they ask them, you know,
am I coming wrong? What should I do? How should
I walk? What way should I go? And really the people of God,
as these disciples here, they could not help her. Yes, we may
direct and we may point in the right direction, the right way,
it's right also to go to the people of God, but it's very
obvious with the disciples here they couldn't help, and in a
way we might say with this, what a good thing they couldn't, because we don't want to find
an alternative source of help apart from the Lord. The hymn
writer says, could the creatures help or ease us? Seldom should
we think of prayer. Few if any come to Jesus to reduce,
to self-despair. And so the disciples then, they
bid the Lord that he send her away. She crieth after us, send
her away. What must she have felt to hear
that? The Lord is silent to her, but
the disciples are then saying, in effect praying to the Lord,
she's troubling us, this is now a trial to us, send her away. Sometimes we receive hurtful
blows even from the people of God. even from those that we've
sought help from, so that we might get some relief and direction
and guidance, wounded as the Lord was in the house of his
friends. And yet in this case we can see
how the Lord overruled it for good. And if you're walking this
path, if I am, may we remember this, and that we might cease
from man whose breath is in his nostrils. Yes, though we have
said it is right to ask and to approach brethren, but when we
see this reaction, may we take it as from the Lord, as if the
Lord would say to us, don't despair on me, don't turn away from me,
come back to me, and ask me directly and so with this woman she hears
she hears the Lord answer and this is in the third place here
she sees hears him answer as it were them because the disciples
send her away for she crieth unto us and he answered he answered
them but he didn't answer her He answered them and he said, I am not sent but unto
the lost sheep of the house of Israel. What a thing to hear. She is not of Israel. She's a
Gentile. She's from Canaan. And here is
the Lord saying that he's not even been sent for her. He sent just the lost sheep of
the house of Israel. We think, though, what is said.
They are not all Israel that are of Israel. It was so in the time of our
Lord on earth. There were many with the name
of an Israelite who were not truly the Lord's saved people,
who did not have faith, who were never heard. and so it is true that he is
only sent unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel his lost
sheep those thine they were thou gavest them me the sheep of God
the people of God that are lost he came to seek and to save that
which was lost was proved later on that this woman was of the
lost sheep of the house of Israel but in a very literal way It
must have been very discouraging that the Lord answered and responded
to the disciples but not her, and when He did respond, He responded
in a way that seemed to rule her out. Now perhaps one way
we could liken this is where the Lord seems to speak through
the ministry of the Word, and He tells us that actually the
Lord has only come to save His elect and His chosen people. Now that is very, very true.
The Lord did come to save His people and His elect. But those
of His elect are hidden amongst the people. They're only known
when He draws them out and when He calls them. And this woman
here, herself, it was proved she was amongst the elect by
the blessing that he gave her and so we may have this truth
set before us and many of the Lord's people felt this as they
had that truth set before them said but that excludes me then
because what if I'm not one of his what if I'm not elect what
if I'm not chosen then the blessing can't be mine and so one of the
precious truths of God, for the people of God, that secures the
people of God, that is the cause of every blessing, the eternal
love of God to His people, His knowledge of His people, becomes,
as if it were a discouragement, something that pushes them out. And yet we notice this woman,
though this must have been such a discouraging thing, a great
discouraging thing, she still presses on. And so I want to
highlight this as this is one of the many, not just one, but
many discouragements that she had. And the fourth discouragement
that was being told that it was not right to take the children's
bread and give it unto dogs. And we might think of it in that
way, it's not right to take The word of God, remember the Lord
has said, and it's said in Deuteronomy, and by the Lord, that man shall
not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out
of the mouth of God. And thy words were found, says
Jeremiah, and I did eat them, thy words of the joy and rejoicing
of my heart. And the command to us, preach
the word. My word shall not return unto
me void, to be met with this, that the Lord only gives that
bread of life to his children, his people, and he's not right
to take that bread, that food, the word of God, and to give
it to those that are not his children. And what the Lord is
saying here really is that it's, again, it's a comparison between
the Jews and the Gentiles because the children, as the Jews, the
dogs, that is how the Gentiles were referred to. But we may
view this as those that are the people of God and those that
are not. We know in the New Testament,
in the Lord Jesus Christ, the Jew and Gentile are reconciled
and brought together. The blessings of the gospel There
is now in every nation kindred and tongue. There's no division
amongst the nations whatsoever in the blessings in the Lord
Jesus Christ. But there is a division between
those that are the people of God and those that are not. And
we wouldn't think of a farmer if he had a flock of sheep and
hay was scarce or precious and he had a good lot of hay. that he then go and take the
hay for his sheep and he'd go and dump it all over the fence
and feed his neighbour's sheep or his enemy's sheep and you
think that well that which he'd got was for his sheep it was
for the provision for his sheep and in a way it's a double thing
it is shown who's the sheep are and who the shepherd is, is that
the shepherd feeds them. We think with our families, as
parents, we feed our children. And yes, if in need, we'd feed
the neighbours and feed others as well. But generally speaking,
each family, they feed their own children. And in that, the
children have a token each mealtime that they are a part of that
family, they belong to the family, and that provision is for them.
But to be told then, well, I'm not going to take the children's
bread and give it to you, it implies you're not a child, you're
not one of my children. And for one that desires to be
a child of God, one that his whole being longs that they might
know that they're a child of God, to be told that, or to be
tempted with that, is a very grievous thing and so I want
to say here she met many discouragements and dear friends you might have
I'm sure you will have many discouragements as well and yet the Lord used
these discouragements that she met and so the next thing the
path in that she walked was that though she had these discouragements
she kept coming in spite of them. And I'd really impress upon you
that, encourage you in that way. If you have felt that some of
those discouragements that she had, they are discouragements
that you have had, then may you continue to walk in the path
that she walked, that in spite of them, she still came, she
still prayed, or in our case, we still pray, We still wait,
we still seek the Lord, we still give Him no rest. There's that
importunity, there's that, like the hymn writer says, I will
not let thee go, except a blessing thou bestow. Or like Jacob says,
I will not let thee go, except thou bless me. It is an urgent
case that presses home, and this is what she did. I'd say in this,
may we walk in her path, if we walked her path in discouragements,
may we walk her path in still coming in spite of them. But
then lastly, she comes in a very humble way. Her very last words,
as it were, she is content to be as the dogs that eat the crumbs
from the master's table. She doesn't want great blessings,
but she wants something from the master's table, something
from his hand. As long as it is seen, it is
from the Lord. That is the important thing that
I might know, that I might even join with the man that has been
born blind and to be able to say one thing I know, you know
if we were to go down to the ocean and we just get a little
thimble full of water, it's still the same water that is in all
that ocean. We don't have to have the whole
ocean to say we've tasted a little bit or we've got a little bit
of that water. It is to really realise that
what we've received, we've received from the Lord. The Lord has spoken
to us. We've heard His voice. The Word
has come to us. And so this dear woman, she then
comes in this humble way. Pride and self must be brought
down. But in the place of humility,
at the foot of the Lord, then she hears some most blessed,
blessed words. The Lord answered her, verse
28, said unto her, O woman, great is thy faith, be it unto thee
even as thou wilt. So how was her faith? seen to be great? What made her
faith great? In the path that she'd walked,
the things that we've noticed. Have you? Have I those marks
of faith like that? Coming to the Lord, seeing Him
who He is. To whom else can we go? Thou
hast the words of eternal life. in spite of discouragement, still
pressing on, willing to take the lowest place, even to have
a crumb. The Lord commends it as great
faith. We might pass over many things
the Lord has given us and done for us and caused us to do, and
not being able to see that this is the faith of God's elect by
grace you are saved through faith and that not of yourselves it
is the gift of God and this woman had great faith and do notice
how that was evidenced and may the Lord turn it around and show
you what he has given you and that you have that same like
precious faith that she had. Well, you know, the Lord added
to this. He said, Be it unto thee, even
as thou wilt. Her daughter was made whole from
that very hour. The trial, the thing that had
brought her to the Lord, was all made right, it was all set
right. But you know, I think even greater
blessing to her than that was the faith that she'd been given,
the blessing that she'd been given. You know, when all the
trials of this world are done, when we're brought through them
all, what shall remain is that which the Lord has given us in
them, the faith in Him, to believe in Him, to trust in Him, not
just for these temporal things, but for eternity. to trust in
his precious sin-atoning blood, to be wrought to see our sins
put away by him at Calvary, to know that the God that answers
prayer and shows mercy is the God that bought that mercy with
his precious blood at Calvary, that every blessing comes to
us through Jesus' precious blood. So the very blessing that is
given, the healing or the answer to prayer, the help, is all traced
to the Lord. The leper, where are the nine? But one leper returned to give
glory to God. And there is a blessing where
we are seeing that the Lord has blessed us and favoured us. And
it's a sweet thing when those things that have brought us to
the Lord, and I think of Hannah, When she said, for this child
I prayed, the Lord has given me my request that I asked of
him. But we read later on when she
so praises the Lord and the child is not mentioned. Why? Because she is glorying in the
Lord, she is blessing the Lord as she brought to see him. And
we see the Lord using these things to make himself precious, to
bless us not just with temporal blessings, that spiritual blessings,
with blessings of seeing our Redeemer, our Saviour, and seeing
our interest in Him. This dear woman, she'd received
the children's bread, she'd received the blessings that the people
of God have. We might have gone years ago
and we've seen her far off and seen the blessings the people
of God have, and the Lord giving us a godly jealousy thought,
I desire that I might know that. And some of you now might look
back and you think, the Lord has blessed me with that. I am
now in a position that I saw my father, my grandparents, they
had these blessings and I saw their blessings. I coveted them.
I valued them. But now I have them. And to realise
that is a great blessing, a great wonder that we should be numbered
amongst the people of God. and that we should part alike
and share with those blessings that come from our Lord. The
Lord's salvation is for a people that He draws to Himself, makes
them feel His need, and then reveals Himself in satisfying
that need. And for a needy soul, a sin-sick
soul, a soul that needs a Saviour, a Redeemer, their sins pardoned
and forgiven, to see at Calvary those sins put away, to see in
the life of our Lord Jesus Christ a righteousness provided to clothe
us, to take away our rags, and to fit us for heaven, to see
that those blessings are ours, to be able to say with you, Thomas,
my Lord and my God, this is our God, he shall be our God, our
guide, even unto death. Surely goodness and mercy shall
follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the
house of the Lord forever. May the Lord bless us with the
path of this dear woman, and we might be in it now, but the
end of it, and the blessing at the end of it. Give him no rest. Pray on, seek on, and the Lord
comes. and bless, as he did with this
woman, be it unto thee, even as thou wilt. May the Lord add
his blessing. Amen.