And so the topic that's before
us in these passages of scripture is the total depravity of man. And the Lord Jesus takes his
disciples in Mark's gospel, he takes them away from the Pharisees. In chapter 7, in verse 14, he
called the crowd... I wouldn't have a clue what's
going on. Anyway, you'll have to erase that norm. But in verse
14, he takes the crowd away from himself and he talks about the
nature of the hearts of men. There's nothing outside. The
Pharisee's religion was an external religion. There's nothing outside
that defiles. The defilement, and defilement's
an interesting word. It means to be common. And so
rather than being sanctified and set apart for God, it's a
common thing. And it's not by accident that
the Holy Spirit has left that word there before us in terms
of what defilement is, because defilement is common to all humanity. And it comes out of our hearts,
they proceed out, and they are the things that defile a man.
But only those who have ears to hear, in verse 16, will hear.
And then he takes his disciples away and they still don't understand.
And the Lord Jesus goes on again to talk about defilement, defilement,
what defiles. Evil things proceed. from within. And in verse 22
and 21 there's the list of them. They proceed from within and
defile a man. But today I wanted to actually
show us, Lord willing, from the scriptures that we have lessons
in words, but the Lord Jesus in the Gospels gives us lessons
in pictures and in life. And I remind you again that the
Gospels are written after the problems in Galatia, after the
problems of the church in Philippi and in Corinth. The gospel writers
are giving us the message of Romans and the message of Philippians,
the message of the gospel. They're giving it in the words
of the Lord Jesus and the words of his enemies, but they're also
giving us this in picture form. And so he gives us practical
examples. He takes us and shows us the
religion of the Pharisees. Then he talks about the nature
of evil of a man's heart, man's heart, all men's hearts. And
then he shows us the picture of this Canaanite woman. And he shows us what she is. And I believe she's a picture
of all of God's children. And she's a picture of God's
church in this world. She was a woman from an outcast
race, a cursed race, a woman who was living in a land outside
of the promises of God. in Mark chapter 7, these men
from Jerusalem come to the Lord Jesus and it's extraordinary.
that they come before the Holy Lord God Almighty, and they bring
the filthy rags of their own works, and they bring them to
Jesus, to God, and they use their rags, their filthy rags, to judge
Him, and to judge what He is doing in the lives of His people.
Such is the nature of human depravity. It's blindness. And it's always
reflected in personal pronouns. I will not have this man rule
over me, the Israelites said. I will decide what's best for
me. I will make decisions that suit me. And their religion ends
up being the same. I will have God make much of
me. I will decide which truths I
will believe, and those that offend me and my goodness and
my rights, I will deny. I might deny them by not proclaiming
them openly. I might deny them by marginalising
their significance. And like the Pharisees, I will
decide how I will worship God. And in my worship of God, I will
get some glory for myself. These men, these Pharisees, thought
that they were the true servants of the Lord God of Abraham, Isaac
and Jacob. They had a righteousness under
the law. Paul, who was one of them for a time, says in Philippians
3 that he was blameless. before the law according to their
understanding of things. They thank God for their devotion
and its outworking in their lives and they are incredibly moral
people. If they were amongst us today,
we would promote them to be the heads of churches, Bible colleges,
denominations, and send them out as missionaries. And we'd
be amazed at their knowledge of the Scriptures and their ability
to teach with great insight and deep understanding. But the Pharisees
are given to us. as an example and a warning. An example of how far one can
go in religion and be lost, and a warning as to how dangerous
it is to examine outward activities which are not linked to the honour
and glory of our God and Saviour as He reveals Himself in the
Scriptures. The Lord God Almighty stood before
these men and they sought to judge him on the basis of their
righteousness. And the question before all of
us at this passage raise is what is true worship of God like? What is true faith like? What does it look like? True
worshipers will worship God in spirit and in truth, and they
will worship Him from transformed hearts. I will take the heart
of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. The
gospel, the proclamation of who Jesus is and what he does in
the saving of his people exposes and keeps exposing the hearts
of men and it separates and it divides. There's a wonderful
picture of the gospel doing this in Exodus when the people of
Israel are brought to the edge of the Red Sea, the pillar of
cloud goes from in front of the Israelites as it leads them and
it stands behind them and separates the Israelites from the Egyptians. And for one it is light and for
the other it is deep, deep darkness. The same sun that melts the wax
hardens the clay. And so the gospel comes to this
land and comes to these people. And there we have before us,
we have two pictures of what happens when the gospel comes
to people. And the real teaching is, what's
it look like to be clean before God? They thought that they were
clean because of their human activities. She comes as an unclean
Gentile with a demon-possessed daughter. She goes away clean
by faith, faith that God has granted, faith that God has nurtured,
faith that God has rewarded, and faith that God will sustain. She spent now 2,000 years rejoicing
in the Lord's presence. The Pharisees come thinking they're
clean but they are really unclean and they leave unclean and they've
remained unclean. The Lord Jesus said of them in
John's Gospel that they die in their sins. horrifying thought
that they die surrounded by their sins for the rest of eternity. Her crumbs have become an everlasting
feast. They had before them a feast
from God in His word, in His covenant promises. And so the Lord Jesus wants us
to see, I think, clearly, and it's why the story of the wickedness
of the human heart is repeated twice in this passage of scripture. It highlights the depth of the
problem. It highlights the seriousness
of the problem that's in my heart, and it's in your heart, and it's
in the hearts of all of Adam's children. no sooner than it is
exposed and brought to the surface and we see how horrible it is
and we think that we've dealt with it, all of a sudden it just
rises up again. again and again. This lady is a wonderful picture
of what it is to be one of God's children. She not only falls
at his feet, but God's children continually fall at the feet
of the Lord Jesus. In our Adam flesh, we often parade
ourselves around like Nebuchadnezzar, looking at all the things that
we have done and we walk on the walls of the tower of our achievements,
very proud of our beautiful creation and admire the work of our own
hands. And we admire the fact that we
are fashioned a bit better than the others. I mightn't be perfect,
but I'm pretty good. And I'm not like those so-and-sos
down the road. I'm not like those losers. I'm
so much better. And we never come, we never come
to the end of needing our sinful hearts exposed and to be seen
for what it is. until the Lord takes us home. It's just life for us, isn't
it? It's just life. God exposes us
again and again, and we come like this lady. So this matter of the heart is
what the Lord Jesus is on about, isn't he? I can't see your hearts
and you, thankfully, can't see mine. But David cries out to
God, search me, O God, and know my heart. And it's one of the
reasons why the Lord Jesus had to represent us in the totality
of our being on the cross. It wasn't just for external things
that He died. He had to deal with our heart
issue. He had to deal with what we really
are in the totality of our being. And that's why Hebrews gives
us that wonderful promise that He cleanses our guilty consciences
from dead works. He's got to cleanse us from the
inside out, which is why he had to represent us in the totality
of our being. And he represented all of his
people in the totality of all of their being. And so let's
just look at the 10 contrasts I've got laid out before you
in your notes there. Just look as we go through this
list quickly and to see the difference between a religion which is external,
a religion which is the yeast of the Pharisees, which is with
us today as it ever was, a yeast that's exposed by the gospel. and this woman, this wonderful
woman who's a picture of God's people, saved by His grace. And so firstly, the Pharisees
come from Jerusalem. This is a privileged place in
a privileged race. They were the leaders of the
religious world of that time. They thought that they were the
ones who had the inside track with God. They were the ones
who were the children of Abraham. They were the ones who had the
covenant promises. They were a special people. They
were a privileged people. And this lady, rather than coming
from a background of privilege, came from a place of cursedness. Mark says that she was a Syrophoenician,
which is a description of that area. Matthew calls her a Canaanite. The Canaanites were the descendants
of the son, the grandson of Noah, who was cursed. And in Deuteronomy
7, God says of the Canaanites, you shall utterly destroy them.
You shall make no covenant with them, nor show mercy to them. So you can just imagine what
these Pharisees thought of the Lord Jesus going to the land
of the Canaanites and dealing with a woman there. Continually,
the Lord Jesus does things which are extraordinarily provocative
to self-righteous religion. These men, secondly, came to
judge the Son of Man. She came and fell at His feet. In fact, in Matthew's Gospel,
1525, the word is that she worshipped Him. There are three words that we
translate for worship in the New Testament, and one of them
is the thing that the pagans do. They bow down to a piece
of wood or they bow down to a piece of stone or a bit of metal, and
there are more and more of them popping up all over this district.
They bow down to Buddhas and Hindu gods. That's the word that's
describing the Pharisees' religion in verse 6. in verse 7 of Mark's
Gospel, Chapter 7. That worship is equivalent to
pagans worshipping their idols. And there's another worship in
the scripture which is more often rendered service, the service
of the people who worked at the temple, who honored God by their
activities of service. And then there's a word, a special
word, which is describing most particularly the activities of
the high priest as he takes in the blood, representing the blood
of the covenant and sins forgiven, and he worships before the altar
of God. That, extraordinarily, is the
word that God uses to describe the worship of this lady. She came and fell at his feet. She's commended as having great
faith. Great faith looks to the Lord Jesus alone, but great faith
involves repentance. She turned from her sin, her
religion, her God. She turned to Jesus. She had
nowhere else to go. That refuge of lies, which is
self-righteousness and all other religious activities that's not
centred on who Jesus is and what He has done, is just a refuge
and it had been washed away in the storm of God's providence
in her life. And you can't bring and fall
at God's feet and bring your works. You can't bring your activities
and fall. They came as proud men, proud
of their religion, proud of their activities. She came and took
her place as an unworthy beggar, falling at his feet. And what
a wonderful place to fall. It's the place of mercy is at
the feet of the Lord Jesus. She was in trouble, in desperate
need. She heard about the Lord Jesus.
She came to the Son of God. She fell at his feet. That's
the place of mercy is at the feet of the Lord Jesus. It's
a place of humility. It's the place of reverence.
It's the place of worship. It's the place of love. It's
the place of obedience. It's the place of blessing, the
place of honour, the place of peace. And for all of God's children,
it's a place of contentment. We're at our best. As Spurgeon
said, we're at our best, we're kings on this earth when we're
bowing before our saviour. So they were proud of their race,
their religion, their religious obedience, the tradition of the
elders. But she acknowledged, in verse
27 of Mark's Gospel, she acknowledged his sovereign right to choose
whom he will. She was told about election and
she acknowledged it. They came parading their works
as means for judging him and others. She came helpless, weak,
with no power and no strength. They thought they could see clearly,
but in fact they had God standing before them and they thought
He was a sinner. They thought they could see clearly,
as 2 Corinthians 4 says, that Satan has blinded the minds of
unbelievers and they cannot see the glory of God in the face
of the Lord Jesus. Whereas Satan had blinded them,
she acknowledged Satan's grip on her family. And she acknowledged
that she was powerless before God, before the enemy of our
souls, I'm sorry. And she had to seek help from
outside of herself. They honoured God with their
lips, but their hearts were far from Him. In vain do they worship
Me, teaching as doctrines the precepts of men." When she is
seemingly rebuked by the Saviour, she just continues to plead. And even though she has tough
words said to her, that she's a dog, She won't leave the Lord
Jesus. When he speaks to her with boldness
and directness, she still clings to him. They thought that they
were the elect. But when the Lord Jesus speaks
to her of election, talking about the children and the dogs, She
worships Jesus when he talks to her of election. When he called
her a dog, she acknowledged what she was. And then she turns and
uses Jesus' acknowledgement of her state as an argument before
him for mercy. Even the dogs get the crumbs
that are left over. So true faith bows to the word
of God. True faith is not going to argue
with God about his character and about the way he saves his
people and his reasons for doing so. Faith, true faith, won't
rebel against God's words, or Christ's words, or His deeds. It bows, and it will be made
continually to bow. Because faith acknowledges Christ's
place, acknowledges Christ's dominion. It acknowledges the
fact that He is Lord. She has remarkable testimony
from someone who's come from a pagan background and had only
heard rumors about the Lord Jesus. She acknowledges in verse 27
of Matthew 15 that He spoke the truth. He is speaking truth. But she pleads, she keeps praying
to Jesus and true prayer comes out of a heartfelt need for mercy
and grace and God's help. These men who judged the Lord
Jesus, they've turned from the Word of God. They start by neglecting
it, then they set it aside, Mark 7 verse 9. Finally, by their
traditions, they invalidate it, and they have nothing of the
Word of God left for them. All they have is their human
traditions. They honour me with their lips,
but their heart is far away from me. But she honors God's Word. She'll accept it as the Word
of God without any argument. So great faith, as the Lord Jesus
commends her, is based on the naked Word of God. She calls
Him, O Lord, Son of David. She believed the Lord Jesus to
be the Christ because of who He was and what He had done. When they are rebuked, Jesus
calls them hypocrites. It only serves to harden their
hearts. In Mark chapter 6, they all gather
together to plot to kill the Lord Jesus. By the time chapter
14 comes along, they are looking for some sly way to kill Him. Their hearts were hardened and
just continue to be hardened. She suffers any rebuke from him
just to stay and plead her case because she'd heard of who he
is and what he does. Verse 28. The great faith, the great faith
that she exhibited cannot be driven from the Lord Jesus. It'll
accept his verdict on us, but it'll stay clinging to him, it
never gives up. True great faith, it won't quit. This poor soul, this poor lady
just clings to the Lord Jesus, because she has nowhere else
to go. The Lord Jesus, in judgment,
leaves these people to themselves. He hands them over. He gave them
over in the words of Romans 1. they wouldn't worship God, and
God gives them over. And He commands us to leave them
alone as well. Any religion that's based on
the works of men, the traditions of men, the activities of men,
that isn't purely founded on the Word of God and the grace
of God that flows freely to condemn sinners, just flows freely as
a fountain to condemn sinners from the finished work of the
Lord Jesus. God says to leave it alone. We don't have to go
and argue with them, we just leave them alone. And she's rewarded. It shall be done for you as you
wish. And she goes away rewarded with
the healing of her daughter and commended by God. Oh woman, great
is your faith. And at the end of it, great faith
will always get what it wants. It will get great mercy from
a great God. And so this woman reminds us
to seek and you shall find. Ask, Matthew 7, 7, and it will
be given to you. Seek and you will find. Knock
and it will be opened to you. Keep seeking, keep knocking.
And there are several lessons that we need to take away from
this. The unbelief of men and the opposition to the gospel
never hinders God's purpose. God's purposes will prevail.
He goes on a great journey away from these men and he goes on
a great journey into a land of cursedness. He walked maybe a
hundred miles and the scriptures say he walked that distance for
this woman. He walked there for her. So grace
will always come to the most unlikely. You like me probably
have looked around and you've seen your friends and you think,
dear oh dear, they're so caring and they're so kind and if I
bring the gospel to them, surely, surely these people will believe.
And hardness of heart comes out of them in extraordinary ways
which has stunned us. And then the Lord brings someone
else along who you would write off. Through worldly eyes we
would write them off. God's elect. Please remember
it. God's elect are going to be found
where we would least expect them to be found. It's grace which
saves, not place. It's grace, not race, that determines
who shall obtain faith. This woman was a woman from a
cursed race. She was a pagan idolater, but
she was a vessel of mercy. And all of this, we need to bear
in mind, is a result of the Lord Jesus coming to her, just for
her. When she had great need, he came
to her, because she typifies the lost sheep of God. They're
in bondage, unable to help themselves, and they're living in unclean
places. And we have a wonderful quote
there from Ezekiel 34 verse 15. The great promise of this shepherd
of our souls says, I will feed my flock. I will lead them to
rest, declares the Lord God. I will seek the lost, bring back
the scattered, bind up the broken, and strengthen the sick. That's
what the Lord Jesus is doing in this world. He's doing two
things in the same process. Just read the second half of
that verse. But the fat and the strong I will destroy. He's not talking about people
who need to go to Weight Watchers. He's actually talking about religious
people. He's talking about religious
leaders. You eat the fat. You feed yourselves,
says Ezekiel 34 verse 2, woe to the shepherds of Israel. You
feed themselves and they don't feed the flock. You eat the fat
and you clothe yourselves with the wool. You slaughter the fatlings
but you do not feed the flock. The weak you have not strengthened,
nor have you healed those who are sick, nor bound up the broken,
nor brought back that which was driven away, nor sought what
was lost. But with force and cruelty you
have ruled them. Such is the religion of the Pharisees. It's cruel religion. And as I
said last week, the activities of the Pharisees in our day are
the same as the activities of the Pharisees in the days of
the Lord Jesus. They wanted to crucify the Lord
Jesus in the flesh. The Pharisees in the religious
world today want to crucify in our hearts the perfect finished
work of the Lord Jesus. They want to diminish His work
and they can simply do it by being extraordinarily religious
and then adding a little bit of their yeast, a little bit
of their works, a little bit of their free will, a little
bit of their law keeping. Add that to the work of the Lord
Jesus Add that to the work of the Lord
Jesus and you are denying His work completely. You cannot touch the work of
the Lord Jesus with these unclean hands and not defile it. We accept the work of the Lord
Jesus. We accept it coming to us by
grace through faith. It must be all of Him. It cannot
be Him plus us. We cannot take defiled hands
and defiled hearts and mould for ourselves anything that's
acceptable to God. The Lord Jesus is acceptable. God's people are accepted in
the beloved, accepted from eternity, accepted when He walked on this
earth, accepted when He died on the cross to take away our
sins, accepted now. And the Lord Jesus' activities
that He was doing 2,000 years ago are still the activities
He's doing now. He's going about this world seeking
and saving the lost. Everything He does in providence
and by His Spirit is the Lord Jesus' working errands of mercy
and love for His people and He cannot change So this entire story is a great
illustration of Romans 8.28, that God works all things for
the good. And for you, and for some of
us, that'll mean affliction, great pain, and great suffering,
but God is the one in control of it. And our God continually
goes to places of our uncleanness to rescue His bride from the
depravity that she falls into hour by hour and second by second. But He comes and He's intimate
with us. He touches the leper. He brings
a bleeding woman to touch His clothes. He touches the dead
girl and He goes into this defiled land to bring this woman to Himself. He's always going, our Saviour. And He'll never leave us nor
forsake us. And He won't give up until His
work of grace and mercy is finished. And He'll take us through storms,
but He'll be there with us. Everything that comes into our
lives is an activity of God's grace and His love for us. May we, like this woman, be commended
by God that we take Him at His word, we trust His promises,
we look to His provision. And may we, like this woman,
go away from our times falling at His feet, lifted up and rewarded
by our Saviour. rewarded with the greatest reward
of all, which is His presence and His being with us. Let's
pray.