Lessons From the Canaanite Woman

Q: What does the Bible say about God's election?

The Bible teaches that God chooses individuals for salvation based on His sovereign grace, not on their merits or actions. The doctrine of election indicates that before the foundations of the world, God chose certain individuals to receive His grace and be saved. This is illustrated in passages such as Ephesians 1:4-5, where it states that God chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, predestining us for adoption as His children. The Canaanite woman exemplifies this election as she is a member of a cursed race, yet God appointed her to receive mercy. This demonstrates that it is grace, not race or works, that determines one's standing before God, affirming the sovereignty of God in salvation.

Q: How do we know God's grace is sufficient for everyone?

God's grace is sufficient for all because His mercy reaches those whom we least expect. The sermon emphasizes that God's grace does not adhere to human standards or expectations; rather, it is freely given to whom He wills. The story of the Canaanite woman illustrates how God's mercy can rest upon individuals from unexpected backgrounds. Despite being from a cursed lineage, her faith in Christ brought her into the fold of grace. Romans 10:12 affirms this, declaring that there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, indicating that God's grace is extended to all who believe. This underscores the idea that no one is beyond the reach of God’s saving grace.

Q: Why is faith important for Christians?

Faith is crucial for Christians as it is the means through which we receive God's grace and mercy. Faith acts as the conduit through which God's grace is dispensed. The Canaanite woman exemplifies great faith, as she sought Christ alone for mercy and acknowledged her unworthiness. This great faith, defined in the sermon, looks solely to Christ, is based on the Word of God, and cannot be deterred. Hebrews 11:6 states that without faith it is impossible to please God, reinforcing the concept that faith is essential for experiencing the fullness of His grace. Furthermore, faith in Christ assures believers that they will receive mercy and have a relationship with God.

Q: How does providence relate to God's grace?

Providence is God's guiding hand that works in all circumstances to fulfill His purposes and show grace. The sermon illustrates that God's providence plays a crucial role in the application of His grace. It is through various life circumstances, often including trials and afflictions, that God leads His elect to Himself. The Canaanite woman faced immense heartache with her daughter, yet this suffering drove her to seek the Savior. Romans 8:28 supports this by declaring that all things work together for good for those who love God. This means that every hardship can serve as a means of grace, directing us towards the grace and mercy found in Christ.

Q: Why did the disciples initially reject the Canaanite woman?

The disciples rejected her due to their prejudices and their misunderstanding of Jesus' mission. In the sermon, it is highlighted that the disciples acted out of a sense of superiority and prejudice, showing a lack of understanding of Jesus' inclusive mission to save sinners regardless of their background. When the Canaanite woman cried out for mercy, rather than showing compassion, the disciples urged Jesus to send her away. This serves as a lesson for believers today to guard against pride and prejudice, recognizing that all are welcomed in God's grace, regardless of their past or social standing. In Christ, there is neither Jew nor Gentile, and we are called to embrace all who come seeking mercy.

Matthew chapter 15, we will begin reading with verse 21. Then Jesus went thence and departed into the coast of Tyre and Sidon. 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. 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'm not sent, but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Then came she and worshiped him, saying, Lord, help me. But he answered and said, it is not meat to take the children's bread and cast it to dogs. And she said, truth, Lord. Yet the dogs eat the crumbs which fall from the master's table. Then Jesus answered and said unto her, O woman, great is thy faith.

Be it unto thee even as thou wilt. and her daughter was made whole from that very hour. Now every word in this passage is rich in instruction and deserves to be thoroughly studied, meditated upon, and laid up in our hearts with fondness. In these verses we have a woman with a great need who shows great faith in our great Savior and obtained great mercy from him.

The circumstances attending this miracle are themselves instructive as well as interesting, and we will look at them in order as they come before us in the passage. My message this evening is lessons from the Canaanite woman. I want to show you five lessons in these verses that we have read. Let's look at them in order. The first lesson to be learned from this story is this.

The Lord Jesus Christ, the Good Shepherd, always seeks and finds his sheep wherever his sheep may be. In verse 21 we read, then Jesus went thence and departed into the coast of Tyre and Sidon and behold a woman of Canaan came out of the same coast and cried unto him. Now The natural man reading this text of scripture with spiritually blinded eyes might say, this is not a story about the shepherd seeking his sheep, this is not a story about Christ seeking the lost, but rather it's a story about a woman who saw her need and sought the little.

And I fully grant that this woman did seek the Lord. There's no question about that. But I urge you to read the scriptures carefully. Read the scriptures carefully and see clearly what is written in the scriptures. This woman came to Christ earnestly seeking him, but she would never have come to him seeking him in verse 22 if he had not come to where she was in verse 21 seeking her. The good shepherd goes after his sheep and seeks and searches for his sheep until he finds them.

And always, when a sinner comes to the Savior, it is because the Savior has come to the sinner. If you read Mark's account, when Mark describes this event of this woman coming out of the coast of Tyre and Sidon, this Canaanite Syrophoenician woman, he says a certain woman. a certain woman. When you read through the scriptures and the Lord Jesus is coming to show mercy upon some, almost inevitably, one of the gospel narratives will tell us there was a certain man, a certain woman, a certain people. And so the Lord Jesus came to the coast of Tyre and Sidon so that he might have mercy upon this certain woman. Eternal election had chosen the woman. God's eternal decree had marked the spot and the time when this meaty soul would meet her all-sufficient Savior. And so when the time of love arrived, he came to the spot to perform the foreordained act of mercy on behalf of this woman and thus to fulfill his everlasting purpose of grace toward her and in her.

You remember when our Lord was going to show mercy to the woman of Samaria in John chapter four, the scripture says, he must needs pass through Samaria. And I'm telling you that for all of God's elect, there's an appointed place, an appointed time, called the time of love, when the Savior must needs meet the sinner whom he's chosen and whom he's redeemed, and meet them he will.

Turn over to Ezekiel 16, hold your hands here. Let's read this text one more time. Ezekiel 16 in verse 8. Here we are like Ezekiel's aborted infant, cast out from his mother's womb, polluted in his own blood, naked, dirty, defiled, decaying, rotten, none to pity it.

And it says in verse six, when I passed by thee, I saw thee polluted in thine own blood, and I said unto thee, when thou wast in thy blood, live. Yea, I said unto thee, when thou wast in thy blood, live. I have caused thee to multiply as the bud of the field, and thou hast increased in wax and grape, and thou art come to excellent ornaments. Thy breasts are fashioned, and thy hair is grown, whereas thou wast naked and bare. Now when I passed by thee, and looked upon thee, behold, thy time was the time of love.

When will God save his own? In the time of love. When will the Holy Spirit call the sinner whom Christ has redeemed and God has chosen? In the time of love. Now you can mark it down, these things always go together, always. Those whom the Father has chosen in eternity. Christ redeemed at Calvary. The Spirit calls in the time of love and gives them faith according to the measure of his grace and preserves them unto everlasting glory.

There are no exceptions. Election, redemption, calling, faith, and perseverance all go together because the Good Shepherd seeks his sheep, he finds his sheep, he lays his sheep upon his back, and he carries his sheep all the way home. In all his movements while he was upon this earth, the Lord Jesus was seeking his sheep. And in all his movements of providence now, the Lord Jesus is still seeking his sheep.

So that everything that comes to pass in time, comes to pass because God chose to save a people and at his appointed time, he must needs come where they are that he might cause them to seek after him. So understand that wherever you find the seeking center, you will also find the seeking savior. And it is the seeking savior who causes the center to seek after him. When a man first comes to Christ, to all outward appearance, And as far as experience is concerned, he comes seeking the Lord.

But as you seek the Lord, when you call on him, when you see him, when you believe him, you realize that all the while it was he who sought you and not you who sought him. Secondly, learn this. Mark it down, lay it to heart. It's a lesson never to be forgotten. God's elect are often found I might say most often found where we least expect to find them. God's elect are most often found where we least expect to find them.

We all still have in us naturally the tendencies of Arminian free will works religion because that's the religion of natural depraved men. And somehow we think that we can put people in a better position to obtain grace. We think somehow that if we will do certain things, if we will somehow place ourselves before God or place our sons and daughters before God, and that's our responsibility. We must train them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.

But somehow we think that we can put God in some kind of a straitjacket and say, now God, have mercy on our sons and daughters. It can't be God. It can't be God. The fact is, Grace, not place, determines who will be saved. It is grace, not race, that determines who will obtain faith. This Canaanite woman was a Syrophoenician. She was from the coast of Tyre and Sidon. Would you like to see who she was? She was a woman of a cursed race.

Turn back to Genesis chapter 9. Genesis chapter 9. Now I realize that our whole human race is cursed. And we have all, by our own acts of sin and rebellion against God, brought ourselves into greater condemnation. But here is a woman who comes from Cain, a man who was specifically cursed of God, a race specifically cursed because of their father's sin. And so the Jews and the Gentiles alike look upon Cain and his descendants and say, now there, those are people that are altogether unlike us and we're not likely to find any companions in the kingdom of God down there among the children of Cain.

Read what the scripture says here. Genesis chapter nine and verse 22. Ham, the father of Canaan, saw his father's nakedness. the nakedness of his father, and told his two brothers without. Verse 25, Noah awoke from his sleep, and this is what he said, cursed be Canaan. Cursed be Canaan, a servant of servants shall he be to his brethren. Turn on over to Deuteronomy chapter seven. Deuteronomy chapter seven, and see again what God says.

The Lord God sends Moses and the children of Israel into the land of promise. He gives Moses the commandment. Moses, of course, didn't carry them into the land of promise because he struck the rock when God said, speak to it. But the command of God was clear.

He said, when you go into the land of Canaan, drive out the Canaanites and show them no mercy. Show them no mercy. See what it says. When the Lord thy God shall bring thee into the land, whither thou goest to possess it, and hath cast out many nations before thee, the Hittites, and the Girgashites, and the Amorites, and the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and mightier than thou. And when the Lord thy God shall deliver them before thee, thou shalt smite them and utterly destroy them. Thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor show mercy unto them.

And yet here's a woman, a Canaanite woman, a Syro-Phoenician woman, a woman of Tyre and Sidon. Now all of those things are said concerning her to make us understand not only was she of a cursed race, but she was a woman who practiced idolatry. She was a pagan idolater. She was an idolater among the Syrophoenicians, the vilest forms of idolatry found among those people. But this woman was an elect vessel of mercy.

God sees not as man sees. God looks not on the outward appearance. It is not a person's place, but rather God's grace that determines who will be saved. It is not a person's race, but rather God's grace that determines who will enter into glory. The Lord Jesus came to this certain woman and made himself known to her and gave her faith.

Because it's his custom. It's his custom. to fetch his own from the places and the people among whom we would least likely expect to find them. Can I read it to you one more time? The Apostle Paul says, for you see your calling brethren. Now that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are called, but God has chosen the foolish things of the world. to confound the wise, and God hath chosen the weak things of the world, to confound the things which are mighty, and base things of the world, and things which are despised hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to naught the things that are.

I suppose every sovereign grace preacher in this country has got his own favorite Rothbard story. My favorite one, I suppose, was a story Roth used to tell about time when he was preaching somewhere up north. I don't remember where it was. And preachers used to take you around to visit all the time. Preachers in most places aren't accustomed to studying anyway, so I guess preachers are supposed to go around and knock on doors and try to twist arms and get folks to come to church. So he would have been out visiting all day long with his preacher. And he started to walk by this one place and a little white picket fence around it.

Roth opened the gate and started up in there and the preacher said, Brother Bartlett, I wouldn't go up there by you. And of course that's wrong what he said. He said, he said, why not? He said, well, I just wouldn't go visit there. Ross said, we visit everywhere else in this town, why not visit this place? And the preacher said, well, there's a lady there that has a reputation and you wouldn't want to be seen up there. So Ross walked right up, knocked on the door. Lady came to the door about half dressed and she said, well, what do you want big boy?

Ross said, I'm the preacher. Yes, the evangelist down here at the church, right down the corner there. You can see it from where you are. Said, I've come to invite you to come to church tonight and listen to me preach. She said, you're kidding. He said, no, I want you to come hear me preach. She said, those folks would drop dead if I came in there. He said, it'd do them good. Come on. And so he left.

And we got up to preach. Just about time he started preaching, that woman came in and sat right where Mark sat. right on the back row, and he preached the gospel. And before he got done with his sermon, he said, she came walking down the aisle, tears streaming down her eyes, took him by the hand, and said, preacher, God saved me. I want to confess Christ and be part of this church. And Roth just stopped everything. He said, this dear lady says, God saved her. She wants to confess Christ and be part of this church.

What are you going to do? Things stayed quiet for a little bit, and finally one old lady came, walked up front, hugged her, kissed her on the cheeks, and said, welcome home, sister. God finds his alleged in the place where we are least likely to expect him. Least likely, most of the time.

Many like Elisha's servant, Gehazi, live in the homes of God's prophets. and hear God's prophets declare his word, and hear God's prophets expound his grace, and yet live and die without Christ, without grace, without life, and without faith. Others, like this Canaanite woman, rise up from the darkness and debauchery of idolatry, sin, and utter paganism by God's grace and are brought to Jesus Christ in faith and made righteous and made to walk in righteousness with him unto eternal life.

That's because it is grace, not place. Grace, not race, that determines who shall enter into heaven. Understand this, the grace of God does not run in bloodlines. It doesn't. The grace of God cannot be chained to us by something we do. Not one of us has any claim upon God's grace by nature or by our circumstances or by our raising or by our relationship to someone else. Not one of us has any claim upon God's grace by the fact that we have mama and daddy who are believers, brothers and sisters who are believers, or because mama and daddy served the Lord, because daddy's a preacher, or for any other reason. We cannot lay claim to God's grace. You say, well, nobody thinks like that. I hear folks think like that all the time. I hear folks who think like that all the time.

There are multitudes who bring their babies to a preacher shortly after they're born and have them, they call it baptized, have a little water sprinkled on their face, and they bring them into the church with the notion that somehow that child now can be raised into the kingdom of God.

It can't be done. And there are multitudes who imagine that somehow they're going into heaven on the coattails of daddy or mother or somebody else whom they admire as Godmen. I can't tell you how many times somebody's introduced me as a preacher or pastor, and the immediate response is, I mean, the immediate response, my daddy used to be a preacher. The immediate response, I had a cousin who was a preacher one time. And somehow they think that's going to merit something for them before God.

Now I'm telling you, it's impossible for me to constrain grace by something they are or something they do. And yet at the same time, hear this, you sons and daughters of God, hear it well and tell it wherever you can tell it. No one, no one is beyond the reach of God's grace. No one.

All it takes is for the Savior to come to where the center is, to meet the chosen object of mercy, the redeemed blood-washed soul. You can call them by his name. That's all it takes, and he can do it. The third lesson to be learned from this event is this. Providence is the handmaiden of grace and mercy. This entire story really is a commentary upon and an illustration of Romans 8,

28. We know. We know. I hope you know. I hope it's not a matter of speculation. We know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. Affliction is often the means of grace to God's elect and proves a great blessing to a person's soul. Let me give you an illustration. I have a very good friend.

He's been down here two or three times. He's a member of 13th Street Church in Ashland. A long time ago now, he found out he had multiple sclerosis, Brother John Howson. He was in the Air Force. When his wife found out he had multiple sclerosis and understood what the disease would entail, she said, I'm not going to live with that. And she left him. She just packed up. She's gone. John was at his house one Sunday morning in Ohio and started listening to Brother Mahan preaching on television and heard the gospel of God's grace.

He gets every one of our tapes. This fellow, he can't do much anymore. He's so disciplined, he makes model airplanes every day to maintain some dexterity, but he sits in his room, he gets every one of our tapes, videos and cassettes, watches them all, listens to them all, sends tapes literally around the world. His own experience, his own work, he just, that's what he does. That's his ministry.

He sends them literally around the world. But that man would never have been in that position at that time to hear the gospel of God's grace if he hadn't been crippled by God's hand of prophets. We know, we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.

This poor woman had been put through the wringer Her heart had been crushed. Her darling daughter, as we read this passage and marks together, it appears her only child was grievously vexed with the devil. I don't know what the problem was. I don't know what the evidence of her vexation was. I don't know in what way it displayed itself.

All we're told is she is grievously vexed with the devil. And here stands her mother. utterly helpless. I can't think of anything more tormenting than this. Her only child, grievously vexed with the devil, and there's not one thing on this earth mama can do to help or to relieve her. Not one thing. And yet this is the very thing, this thing that caused her such pain, Such great heartache, such tremendous sorrow. This is the thing that brought her at last to Christ and taught her to pray.

Now, I recognize adversity will never produce faith, but God often uses adversity to bring chosen sinners to the Savior. If you'll take your leisure, I keep telling you to read Psalm 107 in this regard, but in your leisure, read those 43 verses of Psalm 107 and understand this is the way of God. This is the way of God. God moves in a mysterious way, his wonders to the fore. He plants his footsteps in the sea and rides upon the storm. deep and unfathomable minds of never failing skill, he treasures up his bright designs and works his sovereign will. God always uses his hand of providence to save his elect. That's the purpose of providence. If this woman could speak to us now from heaven, I know exactly what she would say with regard to these things. You wanna read it? Psalm 119. Psalm 119, she would speak these words of David exactly as David spoke them. Verse 71.

It is good for me that I have been afflicted. It is good for me that I have been afflicted. Every trial, every providential adversity, every difficulty in life is a message from God. Our troubles in this world are sent by our Heavenly Father and are intended by Him to draw us to Christ, to wean us of this world, to break our hands grip of this world, to send us to the Word of God, to teach us to pray. And as our trials are used of God initially to bring us to Christ in faith, so too our trials are used of God in his grace and mercy to keep us clinging to Christ, to keep us believing Christ, to keep us holding Christ, to keep us persevering in faith, to keep breaking us off from this world. That's the purpose of God's chastisement. Turn to Hebrews chapter 12. Hebrews the 12th chapter, and read this with me. And understand why God chastens. God never punishes his elect for sin. The punishment of sin was done in Christ.

But God chastens us, chastens us. and every loving father will. He chastens his sons and daughters. And ye have forgotten, verse five, ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children. My son, despise not the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him. For whom the Lord loveth, he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. If ye endure chastening, God deals with you as with sons. For what son is he whom the father chasteneth not? But if you be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards and not sons.

Furthermore, we've had fathers of our flesh which corrected us and we gave them reverence. Shall we not much rather be in subjection to the father's spirits and live? For they've barely for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure, but he for our profit. that we might be partakers of his holiness.

Now, no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyless, but grievous. If it didn't cause pain, it wouldn't do any good. You mommas and daddies, swatted kids, and they turn around and kind of laugh at you, that didn't do any good. That doesn't help any. When you cause the pain so that there is reason to hurt and think about what's been done, then there's some profit to take place. No chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous but grievous. Nevertheless, when it's over with, when God gets done with us, it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby.

Let me read you something here I got from J.C. Ryle today. It's so good. I'll read it carefully. Hope you can not miss a word. Health is a good thing, but sickness is far better if it leads to God. Prosperity is a great mercy, but adversity is a greater one if it brings us to Christ. Anything. Anything is better than living in carelessness and dying in sin. Better a thousand times to be afflicted like the Canaanitish mother and like her to flee to Christ than to live in ease like the rich fool and die at last without Christ and without hope. That's just so. Fourthly, there is a very sad but a very needful lesson here about believers, one that we need to learn. The best of God's saints in this world sometimes act as if they didn't know the Lord at all. The very best.

Here is a woman, a poor, broken-hearted woman, whose darling child is grievously vexed with the devil and her heart's crushed. She's crying out for mercy. And here's a band, just about the size of this group right here, a band of disciples blood-washed sinners, who had themselves obtained mercy, looking down their noses at this woman, who was a poor, Canaanitish, Syrophoenician woman from down here in these lousy coasts of Tyre and Sidon, from which nothing good ever came. They're looking down their nose on her in a hardened corner. Hardened words. They looked down their noses on her as though she was not worthy of being identified with them.

What a pity. You see what the text says? This woman cries for mercy and the Lord didn't say anything to her, so apparently she turned to the disciples and she must have been asking something like, how can I get him to hear me? How can I get his ear? How can I get his attention?

And in verse 23, his disciples came and besought him saying, send her away. Our master is far more gracious than we are. Oh, he's far more gracious than we are. Let us ever beware of and guard against our natural prejudices, pride, and hardness of heart toward those who are around us.

Let me give you an example of what I'm saying. I don't think Brother Dumas would mind me using this example. I'm sure he wouldn't. The first time I was in Aaron's house in Kingston, Jamaica, been a long, long time ago, he made a statement to me shortly after I got there.

We were involved in conversation. He said, he said, we're colorblind. We don't see black or white. We have no prejudice. I'm sorry, but that's just not so. That's just not so. You have prejudice, and I do too. As believers, however, we recognize the evil of our prejudice, and we learn to deal with it graciously for the glory of God and one another's good. Now you, children of God, recognize the evil of vile, baseless prejudice. and deal with it as our Lord teaches us to deal with it. And then having said that, let us be careful, be careful that we avoid being hard toward our brethren.

The only place in this world where race and class really makes no difference, and the one place where it ought certainly to make no difference, He's the King of all. In Christ, you're nothing and I'm nothing and all of us put together are nothing. We're just nothing. But in Him, we're the fullness of Him that filleth all in all. And we're one in Him. We're one in Him.

So don't try to determine who He is and who is not sincere and true. Don't. People constantly And we're as guilty as anybody else. Constantly try to decide whether that person's, if he's saved, if she's saved, if they really knew the Lord. Don't talk like that. Just don't talk like that.

If many women give any reasonable display of a confession of faith in Christ, take them at their word and deal with them upon the basis of God's grace toward you as a sinner in need of mercy. And don't be doubtful of those who profess faith in the Savior.

One of the saddest things recorded in the history of the early church concerning church itself. Do you remember when Saul of Tarsus was converted and he is saying to join himself to the church? The scripture says in Acts 9 26, the disciples believed not. They didn't believe God had saved him. They didn't believe this man could be saved. They remembered only that he had persecuted the church, and they didn't believe that now he was numbered among those who pray.

That same apostle Paul writes to the Romans and to us in Romans 14.1, and he says concerning the weak received them, but not with doubtful despotentions.

Don't hold one another in suspicion. Don't do that. I've talked to folks so very often who speak as though they have brethren in the assembly of God, brethren in the congregation of the Lord, but they're just a little suspicious. They don't know whether he's really one of us or not. He's not very spiritual after all. I'm going to tell you something. Peter, James, and John didn't act very spiritual here, did they? They didn't act much like believers. They're hard. Send her away. She cried after us. She bothered us. Send this woman away. She doesn't belong here. Oh, God. Don't behave like that.

And then lastly, learn this. There are varying degrees of faith. I thought as I was preparing this last point in the message this evening, Let's make a good study sometime. The scripture talks about little faith and great faith. Faith is a grain of mustard seed. Dead faith and living faith, common faith. But our Lord referred to his disciples when they were fearful on the ship. He referred to their faith as little faith. He referred to Peter's faith as he was walking across the water and then began to sink. He referred to his faith as little faith.

But when speaking of the centurion and when speaking of this woman, he refers to their faith as great faith. Oh, woman, great is thy faith. Great is thy faith. He holds her up then as an example, this newly converted Gentile woman. He holds her up as an example of what great faith is. In doing so, he demonstrates clearly that there is little faith and there is great faith. And if a man or woman has even faith as a grain of mustard seed fixed upon Christ, that faith is saving faith in the sense that it is attached to the Savior. But there is also this encouragement that we should seek to walk before him with great faith. And when I read those words, great is thy faith, I want to know what great faith is. Our text gives us some hints. First, great faith looks to Christ alone.

This woman didn't come to the disciples seeking help, she came to him. This woman came directly to the Son of God He said, Lord, thou son of David, have mercy on me. Great faith looks only to him. I bid you look to Christ alone. Look to Christ alone for everything with regard to salvation, wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, redemption. Look to Christ alone, he's everything. Look to Christ alone for your daily sustenance and providence in all the details of life. Walk with patience before him, he rules this world.

Secondly, great faith is based upon the naked word of God. This woman called Jesus Christ the Lord the son of David. That is, she said, O Lord, thou Messiah of God, have mercy on me. For one word she based her faith on, only this one thing. The Lord Jesus, by his miracles and by his word and by his deeds, fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah, declaring this is what will be characteristic of the Messiah when he comes. She read the word, she saw the master, said, that's him. That's him. She received Christ and believed him on the naked word of God with nothing else to sustain her faith. And I'm telling you that faith rests right here on this book. That's it. You believe God and you perish.

Occasionally, young folks trying to act smart and old folks trying to act smart. They'll come and say, well, now, what about and what if? And they want to argue and debate. How do you know? And they want to try to find some justification for not believing God. And there are often questions that could be answered. But when someone comes with an attitude of cockiness and haughtiness, they're questioning. I think it's smart to question everything. Question everything.

My general response is, you either believe this book or go to hell, but I'm not going to argue with you about it. We don't have to bow to God's Word. Faith is based on the Word. That's all. That's all. And when you believe God, everything falls into place. And until you believe God, you can't understand anything.

Thirdly, great faith involves repentance. this Canaanite, this Syrophoenician, this woman from Tyre and Sidon, left behind her sins, her religion, and her gods, and turned to the Savior. Now, that's what repentance is. We talk about repentance and faith as though they were two separate things, but they're not separate at all. Repentance always accompanies faith. Faith always accompanies repentance. You can't divide the two. Again, great faith bows to the word of God.

This woman came to the Savior and he talked to her about election. He said, I'm only sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. You know what she did? The scripture says she worshiped him. That's good enough for me. Whatever you say is all right. She bows to the Savior. When he called her a dog in verse 26, she acknowledged it and used it for as an argument for mercy. She said, I acknowledge that. I'll take the ground you give me. I am a dog, but a dog receives the crumbs from his master's table.

See the difference between this woman and most religious folks who get upset at the drop of a hat. get peed because they don't like the way somebody said something or don't like what was said from the Word of God, they get upset and they just fly off the handle. The difference between her and religious folks is she needed what nobody could give her but the Son of God, mercy.

And she would not be driven away. That's the next thing. Great faith simply can't be driven from Christ. It never gives up, it never quits. This poor soul hangs on to Christ with a grip of one who had to have him. She says, give me Christ or else I die. She had nowhere else to go. Lord, to whom shall we go? That has the words of eternal life. I can't get what I need anywhere else.

And lastly, great faith always gets where it wants. Now, I know religious fools will go crazy with that. Our Lord said, be it unto thee even as thou wilt. And what is it? Jan and what, Paul, is that the fool's name? I can't remember. That means, boy, if you want a Cadillac, just believe it. God'll give it to you. If you want a million dollars in your bank account, just believe it. God'll give it to you.

That's nonsense. Faith don't want a cataract. And faith don't want a million dollars. Faith doesn't even want a new suit of clothes. Faith wants mercy. That's all. Mercy. God deal with me in mercy. I ask nothing else. Nothing else. I leave it to you to determine what mercy is for me. I leave it to you to determine what mercy brings for me. I leave it to you to deal with me in mercy. That's that.

Remember this woman when you witness to people. God's elect may be found anywhere, anywhere. So if God gives you opportunity to witness to somebody in the White House, his elect may be found there. And if he gives you opportunity to witness to somebody in the prison house, his elect may be found there. Remember this woman when you pray.

Don't give up. Don't give up. God burdens your heart for your sons and daughters are mine. Your neighbors, God burdens your hearts for mother or daddy. God burdens your heart for your neighbor, your friend. God burdens your heart for your most implacable enemy. Don't give up. The effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. Importunity always succeeds. Always. It has never failed, this word from God, Seek and ye shall find. The only failure, buddy, comes from us.

We quit seeking. And you know what it means when you quit seeking? It means you don't really need what you seek. It means it doesn't really matter. So if you got something you got to have, Mercy you've got to have. Grace you've got to have. Seek, and seek him, he shall find. Remember this woman, when you're trying, your soul is troubled. And cry out, speak Lord, I serve you here today. God, what are you teaching me? I want to hear your voice, show me, show me your way, teach me your will, cause me to walk in your statutes. Amen.

Lessons From the Canaanite Woman

Key Quotes

What does the Bible say about God's election?

How do we know God's grace is sufficient for everyone?

Why is faith important for Christians?

How does providence relate to God's grace?

Why did the disciples initially reject the Canaanite woman?

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Lessons From the Canaanite Woman

Key Quotes

What does the Bible say about God's election?

How do we know God's grace is sufficient for everyone?

Why is faith important for Christians?

How does providence relate to God's grace?

Why did the disciples initially reject the Canaanite woman?

Sermon Transcript

About Don Fortner

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