All right, we're gonna be in
Mark, actually, for this one, Mark 7. Mark 7, and we'll be in verses
24 through 30. And I'm gonna read the first
three verses for now. Mark 7, verse 24 through 26. And from there, that is, when
he concluded his words to the Pharisees, he arose and went
into the borders of Tyre and Sidon, and entered into an house,
and would have no man know it, but he could not be hid. For a certain woman, that is,
a woman of Canaan, Matthew tells us, whose young daughter had
an unclean spirit heard of him, and came and fell at his feet.
The woman was a Greek, a Syrophoenician by nation, and she besought him
that he would cast forth the devil out of her daughter." Now,
her country, where she was from, was bordering Syria. Bordering Syria. And so, this
people, they were traditionally, historically, enemies of the
Jews. She's a Gentile woman. But what
the Lord is showing us is that the flesh doesn't matter. The flesh, this outward, doesn't
matter. The Lord doesn't look on the
external the way we do. We have a lot of people that
are racists, that are against people of another race, because
man looks on the outward. He looks on the external, but
God doesn't look on the external. God looks on the heart. He looks
on the heart. And actually, if you consider
the timing and the placement, the one thing that I see so vividly
as we go through the Gospels is the timing and the placement
of each account that we come across, that we look at. Because
it's actually very revealing. It's very telling. Christ had
just been speaking to the Pharisees. And you see there people that
on the outward appear righteous. They look good. They look like
faithful servants of God on the outward. But inside we know they
were full of dead men's bones. They were corrupt. They were
wicked. They were sinners. Their hearts were evil. And they
were of the nation of the Jews. They had all the oracles of God.
And the Lord turns from them, these hypocrites, these self-righteous
hypocrites, turns from them and goes into a land where there's
Gentiles. And here comes a Gentile woman
who should be a hater of God, an enemy of God, and yet she's
heard of Christ. and has gone to him to plead
mercy from him. And so what we see here is, alright,
you saw what the false hypocrite looks like, and now we see what
a true child of God looks like in this woman. We see this account
of someone, a true child of God. And so we see here the Lord showing
mercy to an unworthy sinner, and it should ring sweetly with
us. If we know something of what
we are and what we are by nature, then seeing this woman should
be very meaningful to us and a blessing to us. We who know ourselves to be nothing,
and sinners deserving of his rejection and his wrath, but
to find mercy and peace and forgiveness through him. We should be rejoiced
by looking at this account here of this woman. Our title is Mercy
Needed, Sought, and Given. And we'll have a number of divisions,
about five, so each one will be relatively short with the
first one being a little bit longer. The first one is prompted
to seek. We know this woman, it's Mark
and Matthew that record this. These two were inspired to record
this account. We know that from reading them
both, she was a woman of Canaan, and she came seeking mercy from
the son of David. So Matthew 15.22 tells us, So
once you go there, maybe just put your finger or a marker in
both Mark 7 and Matthew 15. Matthew 15, 22. He lets us know that she knew
that this is the son of David, and that's very telling. Matthew
15, 22 says, And behold, a woman of Canaan came out of the same
coast and cried unto him, saying, Have mercy on me, O LORD, thou
son of David! My daughter is grievously vexed
with the devil. That means she has an understanding
that this Jesus of Nazareth, this Jesus here, he is the Christ. He's the Christ, the seed of
woman, the promised seed of woman that should come and deliver
his people from the death and the condemnation of sin. So the question that we have
therefore is, How did this woman know? How did she know these
things? Who taught her these things that
this is the Christ, that he's the son of David? Now we know
from the scriptures, when we read the scriptures, that it's
God who teaches a sinner, right? She heard, she did hear, someone
told her, but it's the Spirit of God that takes those words,
the true gospel that we hear, and he's the one that applies
it to the heart, he's the one that stirs up the heart of the
sinner to know the plague of their own heart, to know what
they are, and to see all their help, all their hope, in the
Lord Jesus Christ, that we're not like the Pharisee looking
to what we do in the flesh, but we see and know that we're nothing
apart from Christ and that we need his mercy and his forgiveness
and the life which he gives. Mark tells us in Mark 7, 24 and
25 that Christ would have no man know that he was there, but
he could not be hid. A certain woman heard of him
and came and fell at his feet. So someone declared to her that
this is Christ, but it was God who laid it to her heart, who
applied that word to her heart, and she knew, I've got to get
to this one. "'cause there's no other name
under heaven given among men "'whereby we must be saved.'"
I've got to get to him, and that's where she went. Isaiah 54, 13
says, "'And all thy children shall be taught of the Lord,
"'and great shall be the peace of thy children.'" And so it
is with every heaven-born child of God. So it pleases God to
use the preaching of the Gospel. He uses the means of the preaching
of the Gospel so that we hear of Christ. In Romans 10, Paul
writes of this. Romans 10, 12, he says, There
is no difference between the Jew and the Greek, for the same
Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon him. This was
a very major point back in the early church, and he's saying
it doesn't matter that this woman's a Gentile. It doesn't matter
that she's not of the natural seed of Abraham according to
the flesh. because whosoever shall call
upon the name of the Lord shall be saved." You're a sinner, you
have a need, you call upon Christ and you shall be saved. That's the promise of God because
he's the Christ. He's the only one sent to do
this work. He's the only one able to save
his people. So both Jew and Gentile, what
he's showing us is that whether you're a Jew or Gentile, we're
saved the same way. We've all got to come under this
gospel. We've all got to come under the
preaching. We're going to know the truth
of God. We're going to know the true
gospel. We're not going to hear a lie
of a gospel, a counterfeit of a gospel, but if we're the Lord's,
we may be there for a time, but the Lord's going to call us out
of it. He's going to bring us under the sound of the true preaching
of Christ. We're going to know who Christ
is. Because we're not going to believe a lie concerning Christ.
We're not going to believe an idol Jesus. And Paul writes of
this in Romans 10, 14. He says, So clearly this woman
heard. It says it right in the text. She heard of him. She heard
of him. Someone told her, that's the son of David. No one does
what that man. does. No one's like him. That man there is the Christ.
She heard that, and the Lord laid it to her heart, and she
went to him and sought after him. Because without faith, it's
impossible to please God, and faith is a gift of God, we know
from Ephesians 2. That's the gift of God. No man
can take that boast to himself and say, it was my faith that
saved me. Now, the other beautiful thing
is that It appears like it's this woman seeking out Christ,
but the reality is Christ sought her out. He knew exactly what
he was doing, right? The scriptures teach us that
we love him because he first loved us. So, you know this story. Well, you who read the scriptures,
you're familiar with this story. And sometimes we wonder, why
did the Lord speak so harshly to this poor woman? She was seeking
mercy. Why did he speak the way he spoke
to her? But his wisdom in this can't
be questioned. He knew exactly what he was doing,
and it was definitely for her good, because in the midst of
these sifting words, these words that seem like he's putting her
off, he wants nothing to do with her, the reality is we see that,
that it was Christ who arose and went out to these coasts,
to the coasts of Tyre and Sidon. He's the one that went out there
because that's where she could reach him. If she's got a daughter
who's possessed of a devil, she probably doesn't get very far
from the house. And so he went out there and
hid himself, and it shows us what a condemned sinner will
do to get to Christ. He was hid so that no man could
know it, and yet she found him. She found him. The Lord did all
that work. He's the one who brought that
to pass and he did it for her good and certainly for our good
to see that that's a child of God. not these outwardly religious-looking
people, but that's a true child of God, one who must have Christ. You'll know who the children
of God are because they must have Christ. They're not satisfied
with the outward trappings of religion. They're not impressed
with the outward show of religion. They may dabble in it for a time,
but eventually it's going to be dry and dead and lifeless,
and they're going to be thirsty and hungering for righteousness,
and they're going to cry out to the Lord, have mercy on me,
Lord, have mercy on me, save me from my sins and my condemnation. But the Lord is the one who came
to her. And just as the scriptures say, before they call, I will
answer. And while they are yet speaking,
I will hear. The Lord does that for his people. Now, she was in a great deal
of pain. Her daughter was grievously vexed
with a devil. And we who have children, can
definitely empathize with this or you who have, you know, even
a sick parent and a sick loved one, you know this. It grieves
you in your heart to see them in pain and suffering. It really
bothers you. And so you can imagine this woman
was greatly troubled by the fact that her daughter, I mean I just
think about how when your children are growing up and you see them
struggling just to fit in or someone speaks harshly to them
or some kid comes and knocks them down and you feel that,
it gets you and you feel for them and here's this girl who's
possessed and troubled by a devil and just knowing that that must
have tore her up, but we see in this picture, and it helps
us, it's for our good, just as it was for her good, to see that
as painful as this thing was, for what she was going for, the
Lord gave that to her. Because the Lord loved that woman
from before the foundation of the earth and it was that which
prompted her to seek him. It was that which made her to
go after him and to find him and created that hunger and that
thirst in her. that she needed to get to Christ
to beg for mercy. So it was a good thing. When you look at those Pharisees,
all they had was that external, vain, dead-letter religion. And they should have been expecting
the Lord. They should have been looking for the Lord. But they
weren't. And when the true Christ stood before them, they wouldn't
hear Him. Their hearts were blinded. They had a veil over their heart.
And they refused Him and wanted nothing to do with Him. And so
he turns to the Gentiles here, he turns to this woman, goes
out there to show us plainly, this is what a heaven-born child
will do. This is what they'll do, they'll stop at nothing to
get to me. And it's a good example of what
Paul meant when he wrote in Romans 3, verses 3 and 4, for what if
some did not believe? shall their unbelief make the
faith of God without effect?" You see, those Pharisees, they
didn't believe, they refused to hear Christ. They just showed
forth that enmity that is in the heart of man against God. But God's not frustrated by that,
because he knows them that are his, and he knows how to draw
them and to give them life and to preserve them and keep them
from self. It says, God forbid, yea, let
God be true, but every man a liar, as it's written, that thou mightest
be justified in thy sayings and mightest overcome when thou art
judged. And so, carnal man comes in many
different disguises and puts on a good show, but the child
of God is always going to be found out because Christ going
to be hit. And the child of God was found
out because she came and fell at his feet before Christ and
cried out to him for mercy. She made her petition to Christ.
And so that brings us to our next point, the petition. In
Matthew 15, 22 through 25, Matthew 15, our parallel text, it says,
she cried unto him, saying, have mercy on me, O Lord, thou son
of David. My daughter is grievously vexed
with the devil. But he answered her, not a word.
And his disciples came and besought him, saying, send her away, for
she crieth after us. But he answered and said, I am
not sent, but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel, Then
came she and worshipped him, saying, Lord, help me, help me. She came to Christ who is himself
mercy. He's the compassion and the mercy
and the grace of God shown to sinners. She's coming to the
Son of God. This is Emmanuel, God with us. She's coming to the Son of David. This is the Christ, God manifest
in the flesh to do for us what we cannot do for ourselves. Christ
came for this very purpose. to save sinners, to save his
people who are lost and condemned under the law, lost and condemned
because their own hearts are guilty. We're the sinners. We're
the ones who have earned the wages of sin, which is death,
eternal death, and to be cut off from God. And so God provided
his son in mercy and compassion, graciously sent his son to be
the very righteousness of his people, to establish a righteousness
for them, because we cannot save ourselves. That's what Christ
being here declares to us, that there's nothing we can do, no
law we can keep, no goodness that we can fulfill, to persuade
God to put away and forget about our sins. But the blood of Christ
is that precious, it's that holy, that righteous, That powerful,
that wonderful, that he by himself put away the sins of his people,
and all who believe him will come to him and fall at his feet
crying out for mercy, and they shall find it. That's how wonderful
Christ Jesus is. And so she came to the one who
could help her. And so I've spoken to several
people in my life and one fairly recently who told me, I read
my Bible in the morning, I read my Bible at night. I pray in
the morning, I pray at night. I do all these things, everything
I'm supposed to do, and yet I don't feel anything. I don't feel anything. I don't understand what's going
on. Why don't I have a heart and a desire for the Lord? And
my question to them is, are you a sinner? Are you a sinner? Because until you're a sinner,
until you know your need, what's Christ? He's just a religious
ornament. There's really not much there. There's nothing beautiful
to behold or to look at there. But when you're a sinner, then
he's precious, he's beautiful, he's glorious. He's the fairest
of 10,000. He's more precious than silver or gold. He is the
hope of the hopeless. He's the righteousness and the
forgiveness of those that are sinners and have no hope in themselves. So she's confessing. She's crying out, have mercy
on me, O Lord, thou son of David. Help me. She's confessing this
is the Christ. You're the one who could save
me and no one else. Please, Lord, have mercy on me." All right.
Now, let's look at for whom Christ came. He's making it very clear
now in this, in whom he came for. When she cried out and he
answered her not, and the disciples come and say, well, do something. Get rid of her because she's
just bothering us now. And the Lord tells us whom he
came for. It says in Matthew 15, 24, Christ
said, I am not sent, but unto the lost sheep of the house of
Israel. And he's saying more there than
just that I only came at this time for the physical nation
of Israel. He's saying more than just that.
There are commentators that think, well, Christ is just making it
clear that his time now is just to But if you think about it,
we had already seen how he went over the Sea of Galilee and healed
that man, that Gadarene man, who was possessed with the Legion
of Devils. He was a Gentile. Christ did that for him, and
he was a Gentile. What Christ is making clear to
us, again, think of the placement where we find this, and who he
had just been talking to. with those self-righteous, externally
good-looking Pharisees, he was just talking to them, and now
he's saying, I came to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. And what he's saying is, I'm
here, you know, not all Israel is Israel. I'm here for those
that are of faith. I'm here for the sons and the
daughters of Abraham. That's who I came for. He's making
it clear so that we get the message that this woman is a child of
Abraham. She's a blessed child of Abraham. She's a child of faith. She's
a child of promise. His reply to her, when he says
what he says to her, In the flesh, we're put off and we're dejected
and rejected and denied, but he's proving, he's exercising
her faith. He's proving what he's done for
her. He's proving that which he's
given to her and he's making it known to her, he's making
it known to the disciples and the apostles who are going to
be feeding the Church of God, the entire Church of God, the
Jews and Gentiles, And he's making it known to us, especially us
who are Gentiles, that we too have a hope in this Savior. So he's revealing that mystery
that Christ is the Savior of the whole world, in the sense
that not every individual. Christ didn't come to lay down
his life and to shed his blood for each and every individual,
because then We know that there's many in hell. We see the enemies
of God in the scriptures, and he didn't shed his blood for
them. That would make Christ a failure.
And there are some who teach and believe that, that hell is
a monumental testament to the failure of Christ to save his
people, to do what he came to do. They actually are bold enough
to say it, but they're being honest with their false lie that
they're holding on to, their false gospel. But the reality
is that Christ came to put away the sin for his people out of
every kindred and tongue and people and nation, as we see
there in Revelation 5-9. You know, and it's so foolish,
you know, seeing that episode that happened with the young
Catholic boys wearing their MAGA hats in Washington and that man,
Nathan Phillips, who came into their space to provoke them and
get in their face and how the hatred of all of America. They wanted names of those boys.
They wanted to shame those boys because he stood there and did
his best to be respectful and just had a smile on his face
that they wanted to punch right off his face. I mean, it was
incredible, the hatred that they had for them just because they're
white kids wearing MAGA hats. And they didn't do anything wrong.
They were the ones being provoked. But behind them, the other stories
that There's men, I forgot all about these, but there's these
black guys that are Hebrews, black Hebrews they call themselves,
and they hate every white person just because you're white. And
you have them and you have the KKK and each one feeling justified
in their own minds for their hatred of the other side. And again, it just shows how
foolish man is when he looks on the external, when he's looking
on the outside, and the scriptures are so clear that out of every
kindred, every tongue, every tribe, every nation, Christ is
calling his people, because it's not on the external. That's what
man looks at. But God looks on the heart, and
he's looking especially on that which he's done, what he's formed
and created in the heart. Turn over to Isaiah 49. Isaiah
49. And look at verse 6, Isaiah 49. Even if the Hebrews were a black
race, we have a hope. We have a hope. Even if they
are right in what they're saying. Isaiah 49.6 says, And he said,
It is a light thing that thou shouldest be my servant to raise
up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the preserved, the elect
of Israel. I will also give thee for a light
to the Gentiles, that thou mayest be my salvation unto the end
of the earth. 11 And I will make all my mountains
a way, and my highways shall be exalted. Behold, these shall
come from far, and lo, these from the north and from the west,
and these from the land of Sinai. Sing, O heavens, and be joyful,
O earth, and break forth into singing, O mountains, for the
Lord hath comforted his people, and will have mercy upon his
afflicted. And so Christ intends mercy for
this child, this dear woman who's begging him for mercy, to have
mercy on her child, because she's a child of faith, she's a child
of Abraham. Paul wrote to the Galatians 3.28
and 29, he said, So Christ came and laid down his
life for the children of promise. Don't look on the external. Don't
get caught up in that outward, that hatred that men and women
have. The Lord said that the love of
many will grow cold and don't be moved by those things. Don't
get angry when you see it. Pray and don't be angry because
all races are, you know, when all they are is flesh, they're
just, they're equally doing wickedly against another race just because
of the color of their skin. And that's, we ought not to do
that because there's always somebody who isn't like that that gets
hurt. It's always someone who never
did anything to somebody else like that that ends up being
the one that gets hurt and just keeps that cycle going. But Paul
said, they which are The children of the flesh, these are not the
children of God, but the children of the promise are counted for
the seed. All right, let's move on here
onto persistence, her persistence, right? Because she's a child
of Abraham, because she's a child of promise, she's not gonna fall
away. Though the Lord is silent to
her first, though the Lord says things that are hard, on the
flesh, hard on the ear of the natural man, she's not going
to be turned away. She must have Christ. She needs
to have Christ. She's not going away until she
has what she's asked for. Mark 7, Mark 7, 27 and 28 says,
But Jesus said unto her, Let the children first be filled.
These children of promise, let them be filled. For it is not
meat to take the children's bread and to cast it unto dogs. And
she answered and said unto him, Yes, Lord, yet the dogs under
the table eat of the children's crumbs." It's so sweet. The Lord gave her that little
space. He gave her that little bit,
and she took it. If a dog is what I am, then a
dog is what I'll be. That's enough for me, Lord. If
you'll have mercy on me, then that's good enough for me. When
you think about it, there's going to be many sinners that wake
up in hell because they were too proud and too arrogant to
bow before the Lord's Christ, before Him who is exalted and
lifted up on high, the Lord Jesus Christ. They won't bow because
They aren't that unrighteous. They aren't that bad that they
should be called dogs. They're not going to take the
place of a dog, but a child of promise who knows themselves
to be sinners, who knows that we, I'm the unworthy one, I'm
the sinner. I don't deserve to be at the
table with the children. But if the Lord will let me into
his house and lick the crumbs of grace off the floor, if that's
all that is my lot, then Lord, I'll take it. I want to be with
you and not down with those in the fires of hell. And the Lord
gives us that hope because her hope is that even a human master
who is wicked and evil in his heart, even he from time to time
will allow the dogs in to lift the crumbs up off the floor that
his children have dropped and do that. So she knows if a human
can do that, then certainly the Lord God is kind and gracious
and will do that for me. Job said in 13.15, he said, though
He slay me, yet will I trust in Him. Though He cut me down
and I'm taken apart and dismantled and have nothing, Lord, who else
will I trust? You're God, You're good, and
I trust You. You know what You're doing for
me, and it's right. The Lord gives that heart to His people. Peter said, well, think of these
words if you're going through a trial. This is for our good.
Peter said in 1 Peter 1, 6-9. You could turn there, 1 Peter
1, 6-9. Peter writes, unto praise and honor and glory
at the appearing of Jesus Christ, whom, having not seen, ye love,
and whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice
with joy unspeakable and full of glory, receiving the end of
your faith, even the salvation of your souls. So, the purpose
and the trials that we're going through and the proving of the
faith that He's given to us, it isn't to prove to God that
we're His. He knows who are His. It's to
prove to us that we are His, that He's done this work in us. And because He started it, He's
certainly going to finish it. He's going to preserve us unto
the end so we endure. And the Hebrew writer says, let
us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace that we may
obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. So we find here how she's acknowledging
this is the Christ, because she gives him his place as Lord,
as having dominion and authority and the right to do what he's
doing. She gives him that, and she bows before him. And that leads us to our final
point, which is where faith honors Christ, Christ honors faith.
Faith is the gift of God, so he's revealing and proving that
which he's given to his people. Mark 7, 29 and 30. And he said
unto her, For this saying, Go thy way, the devil is gone out
of thy daughter. And when she was come to her
house, she found the devil gone out, and her daughter laid upon
the bed." Well, that tells me that that woman was brought into
the church. When Christ arose and ascended
to heaven, that woman was brought into the church because they
knew the end. They saw the full circle of that story. Because
she added that, yeah, when I got home, she was just lying in the
bed, healed, just like the Lord said, the devil had gone out
of her, but we see that faith and that humility that Christ
worked in his child of promise. And that's what true faith will
do in a believer. We see that we'll take sides
with God, though it be against ourselves. We're willing to accept
that. We confess, Lord, you're right
and just. For you to condemn me to hell,
You're right and just, because I'm a sinner. The Lord have mercy
on me. I hope in Christ. I have no hope
but Him. And we know that He honors, that
He loves the Son, and He's the one who gives that to us. And
that's why He accepts that faith and that hope, because our trials
and afflictions are always for our good. They're always for
our good. The Scripture saith, Whosoever believeth on Him shall
not be ashamed. Though you're going through a
trial and you're humbled by it, and shamed by it, and brought
low by it, those who are humbled under the hand of God know His
word promises, He will lift you up. When the trial has worked
its purpose, God Himself will lift you up. He'll raise you.
He'll exalt you to that place where He would have you. He won't
leave you as a dog under the table. for long, because she
wasn't a dog, she was actually a child, and she fed on his grace
and his mercy to her, so he does that. So, have you heard of this
Lord? Is he the Christ, or isn't he? Are you a hard-hearted Pharisee
who refuses and will not hear and will not bow to Christ and
be humbled? by Him, or are you a desperate
sinner who has no hope but Christ? You see, this is the Christ,
and in Him is salvation and life and liberty. If you see He's
the Christ, then fly to Him. Ask, and you'll receive. Seek,
and you shall find. Knock, and the door will be opened
unto you. He is merciful and gracious.
He's only drawing you out to Himself to show you how precious
He is and that you need Him. I need Him and we need Him. We're
nothing apart from Christ. He is everything. So faith that
honors Christ shall be honored by Christ because He's the one
that gave it. So let's pray. Our gracious Lord,
we thank You, Father. We thank You for Your mercy.
Lord, we thank You that You cannot be hid from Your people, Lord,
because You are a light shining in. You remove our blindness,
our natural blindness, and the enmity that's in our heart, Lord.
And you humble us and bring us low. Father, we thank you for
that. Don't let us be Pharisees and
be content with just vain, dead, external religion. But Lord,
warm our hearts. Give us that need and that hunger
for Christ, that hunger which only Christ can satisfy. We pray
this in Jesus' name, our Lord and Savior. Amen.