Now this passage begins with a call to attention. It's calling us to look, to take notice, to pay attention, to observe. That's what the word means, to inspect or examine. And what are we to examine? A woman. Look at this woman. Why would the Lord call our attention to a sinner? Was there something remarkable about her? There was, but not about her appearance or her achievements or accomplishments or her status. What was marvelous and wonderful and beautiful about her was that the grace of God is seen in her. She is a trophy of the grace of the Lord. And Christ delights to all through the scripture, we see how he puts his trophies on display. Just like anybody who has trophies, they put them on display.

In Matthew chapter eight, we read of that centurion who came to the Lord pleading for mercy for his servant. One of his servants was on death's door, and the Lord said, I'll come and heal him. And the centurion said, Lord, I'm not worthy that thou shouldest come under my roof, but speak the word only, and my servant shall be healed. For I'm a man under authority, having soldiers under me, and I say to this man, go, and he goeth unto another come, and he cometh unto my servant.

Do this, and he doeth it. And when Jesus heard it, he marveled and said to them that followed, Verily I say unto thee, I have not found so great faith. No, not in Israel. Why would he brag on that man and call attention to his faith? Well, because he likes to put his trophies on display. Paul said in Jude verse 24, now unto him that is able to keep you from falling and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy. Now, if I had, if you came over to my house and I had a trophy case and I had trophies in there, what would be the purpose of those for you to, remark on how beautifully they decorate the house or how shiny they are.

No, the point of that would be to say, look what I did. Look how great I am. Look what I've accomplished. And if I did that, it would be there'd be some vanity involved in that. But when the Lord Jesus does that. It's because he's worthy. When I call attention to myself and am pretentious or braggadocious regarding myself, it's selfish and vain. When the Lord does that, it's just right. It's just right.

Paul, in rebuke of those who reject the truth of God's electing grace, which is so clearly, beautifully displayed in this story. He answered this way in Romans 9 in verse 20, Nay, but O man, who art thou that replyest against God? They said, God made us this way. If God is sovereign and he made us this way, how can he blame us for being this way? Who are you to reply against God?

Hath not the potter power over the clay of the same lump to make one vessel unto honor and another unto dishonor? What if God, willing to show his wrath and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath, fitted to destruction? God is willing to show his wrath He is willing to put on display in His Word His inflexible justice and condemnation and punishment against sin. That's an aspect of the scripture that a lot of so-called preachers don't like to talk about and don't want to even acknowledge exists. But if you want to understand the remedy, you've got to learn what the disease is. And our Lord is not unclear about that in the Word of God. There is none that doeth good, no, not one. We are all together going out of the way. All flesh is grass. There is none that seeketh after God.

And we're all under his wrath. We're all vessels of wrath by nature, the children of wrath. He's willing to show his wrath. And he did that on Pharaoh. Pharaoh is given as an example in the text that we're reading in Romans nine. What if God willing to show his wrath and to make his power known? Nobody can oppose him. Nobody can oppose the Lord Jesus Christ. Nobody can stay his hand or say unto him, what doest thou? Pharaoh rose up and said, who is your God that I should listen to him?

I'm the king of this realm. I'll do as I please. And the Lord made his power known and said, I raised him up for the purpose of destroying him in the Red Sea and putting him in hell. He's willing to do that. He's willing to make his power and his wrath known.

But look at, listen to verse two, I should have had you turn to Romans nine, but listen to verse 23 carefully. And that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy. That's why behold a woman. because she's a vessel of his mercy, and by those means he makes known the riches of his glory. The very glory of God is displayed in that woman. She's a vessel of his mercy, and he making known the riches of his glory on these vessels of mercy, which he had aforeprepared unto glory.

He knew exactly what she would say, His response to her is recorded in the Lamb's Book of Life. All of it was according to His purpose. He knew what the disciples would do. They'd tell her to shut up. And they'd tell Him to tell her to shut up when she didn't shut up. He orchestrated the whole thing that He meant to make known the riches of His glory on that vessel of mercy.

That's why we're looking at a woman this morning. Even us, who He hath called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles, on every one who is His, and experiences His grace that was foreordained from the foundation of the world, that He have foreprepared us for this. All of our life, everything that happened, every second, every moment, every contingency, every circumstance brought us to the Savior's feet. and will take us to His throne. So the Almighty Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ, is willing from all eternity to make known the riches of His grace and glory on His vessels of mercy. Vessels of mercy, by the way, as we read that He makes from a worthless lump of corrupt clay. the same worthless clump of clay from which the vessels of wrath are made.

And the difference is his grace. And that difference of grace displays his glory and his glory is in the face of his son. Behold. A woman. This passage, like Romans 9 and countless others, all through the Word of God, it sets forth clearly the doctrine of God and His electing grace and love towards sinners.

God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief in the truth. Therefore, we give thanks unto Him. We thank God for you because He chose you from the beginning. The Lord Jesus Christ lifted up his eyes to his father and he said, I thank you God, Lord of heaven and earth that you've hidden these things from the wise and prudent and revealed them to babes. And this passage that's before us in the harshest possible reality of our condition before God reveals that truth.

It's one thing to be told in your rebellion and your disinterest in Christ and the things of God that you're not worthy to receive anything from God. This passage puts us in our place, does it not? Does that not shut up all of the satanic-minded, and I say satanic-minded because this is what Satan said in the garden, and it's what he's saying at the Free Will Baptist churches this morning, and all the other Free Will churches that despise the Christ of the Bible. This ought to shut up the mouths of every Free Will, God-hating, anti-Christ, satanic person that says it's not fair. Wait a minute.

What is fair for you is for God to ignore you in your wretchedness and your misery and let you suffer in it and let you go to hell in it and not do anything for you. It's true enough that we're not worthy, but to come begging for mercy and to be told it would not be right for me to do anything for you.

The judgment of God does not allow for mercy. The truth and righteousness of God does not allow for mercy. But in Christ, truth and mercy have kissed each other. In Christ Jesus, there's the God-man who came and is the very embodiment of the mercy of God.

He can satisfy God's wrath, He can make good on it wouldn't be right for me to do anything for you. And yet at the same time, have mercy on her. You are not worthy, he said to her, of anything from me. You're not worthy to be ignored. to be disdained, to be left in your misery, to endure it alone, without help, without hope, without Christ.

And all of these such encounters in the scriptures and these miracles teach us the spiritual truth of how God saves a sinner. And we better start getting interested in that. If the Lord hasn't saved you now, this is how He does it. And if He has saved you, and you'd kind of like to see somebody that you love with all your heart be saved, this is how God does it. Mercy and grace and salvation and life are in His Son. And to come to his son, begging for mercy, to come. You don't come saying, I think I'll decide to do something. You come crying for mercy before God. He doesn't care what you've decided. You don't decide anything. God does. He's God for crying out loud. You're not. And he'd be right to put you in hell. There is the very true and devastating sense in which it would not be right for God to have mercy on a wretch like me. It's not according to the justice of God.

The only one that can is Christ who satisfied that justice for me in my place on Calvary. He bore the wrath of God for my sin. He can satisfy the justice of God and satisfy every need of a sinner at the same time. And here's where the gospel begins now. The good news begins with bad news.

You and I are unworthy of any pity, any mercy. If we were worthy of it, it wouldn't be mercy. The Scriptures teach us what mercy is. Let's learn it. If we had any claim on it, if it had anything to do with fairness, it wouldn't be mercy. We're not worthy of God even looking on us. Who am I that you would even look on a dead dog like me? We deserve to be left in our horrible condition of sin Condemnation, guilt, and wrath ultimately.

And coming and begging for mercy doesn't make us worthy either. You notice that here? Just the fact that she begged for mercy, that didn't make her worthy. She's still a dog. The mercy beggar is not any more worthy of mercy from Christ than the hardened rebel who shakes his fist in God's face outwardly.

But we have this promise from God, from God the Son, we have this promise this morning. And I repeat it to you now because this is the most important thing that you're going to hear today and in your whole life. If you come to the Lord Jesus Christ and plead for mercy, if you believe on Him, if you cast your soul upon Him, It's not a decision you make like, you know, I better, you know, get life insurance because that's just the prudent thing to do. It's just kind of prudence to get to get heaven insurance. You know, I better take care of that. No, no. This is I've got to have him. This is I'm sinking down closer to hell every second.

And there's one lifeline. If you're trusting with your very soul, And if you acknowledge that He and He only is able to save you from your sins, then He will save you from your sins. He will in no wise cast you out. He will have mercy on you and make you whole. This woman was confronted with every discouragement. The truth, the very wrath of God was on her, rightly so.

It's not right for anything else to happen, but for you to suffer alone without my help and suffer my wrath for eternity. Her case was desperate though. It was desperate. She had nowhere else to go. Do you think if she had another option, she would have maybe, it might've been time to maybe go that way since the Lord himself said, I'm not gonna help you.

In effect, that's what he's saying. That's what she's hearing. It wouldn't be right for me to do anything for you. Shunned and discouraged her, her, his disciples said, shut up, you're bothering us. You're troubling the master. And the Lord ignored her at first. The Holy Spirit is careful here to specifically record that He answered her not a word, not one word of comfort, not one word of compassion.

Why did He do that? You know that His heart was hers. You know that His heart belonged to her. from the foundation of the world, he loved her. The Lord doesn't change his mind. He's not a man that he should repent. He loved her from the beginning. She had his very heart from the beginning. Why did he treat her like that?

Because as sinners, we must understand our desperate condition and what we deserve before God. We've got to understand that or we'll start saying things like, well, it's not fair for God not to give everybody a chance. And that is the song of the hell bound. He did this to show us that a real sinner will never be offended by the truth once they hear it by faith. She could have gone away mad. Why didn't she go away mad? You would have gone away mad, wouldn't you? I would have too, except for the grace of the Savior.

We're utterly unworthy and we're helpless, we're unable to do anything about it. And the Lord says, leave me alone. What did he say to Jacob? We just sang that song. There appears before me steps unto heaven. You know who those steps are, who they represent? The son of God. He's the way from the wretchedness of our sin into the very presence of God. And Jacob saw that ladder and he wrestled with the Lord all night and the Lord said, let me go. And you remember what Jacob said?

I can't, I can't. But when you're in the condition that this woman is, and she knows it, we see from the text that she knows she has no claim on mercy from Him. She doesn't deserve it. He's saying, in effect, you ought to go to hell. You ought to suffer in your misery. Her miserable case, the incurable situation that broke her heart there, is representative of our condition before Him, spiritually. There's no hope but Him. And she was at rock bottom with one hope. She wasn't trying, Jesus. She'd already done all that. She'd already weighed all of her other options. This was, it's Christ or I'm a goner. If she'd had anywhere else to go, she would have you reckon. When she's utterly rejected by the disciples and their Lord. Ignored and then rebuffed. Rebuffed on the basis of just justice, rightness.

But Jacob was in that same place. You see, he was desperate. He had no hope but the Lord Jesus Christ. So when the Lord said, let me go, he said, I will not let you go except you bless me. I've got to have your blessing. I'll to the gracious King approach, whose scepter mercy gives. Perhaps he will receive my touch, and then the sinner lives. I can but perish if I go. I am resolved to try, for if I stay away, I know I must forever die. That leper had no claim. In Matthew chapter eight, he had no claim on mercy. And he wasn't about to impose his will. He wasn't about to appeal to his own will.

He said, Lord, if you will, you can make me clean. I'm resolved to try. I'm resolved to go. He knew that Christ was able to make him whole. If you will, you can. You can make me whole. And what he had to find out, what he had to know, when he came to the Lord, to find out that day was would he do it? Would he have mercy on a wretch like me? And the Lord said, I will be thou clean.

And then that's it. Just like that, because of who he is and what he accomplished on Calvary, all of that man's problems, all of them, physical and spiritual, disappeared with a word. That doesn't mean he didn't have rough times after that. We do, we suffer, we have affliction, we have tribulation. But if we also have the mind of Christ, if we have faith, if we trust him, we know that all of it works for our good. All of it.

So this woman, and I love that you see the grace in her heart, don't you? She's talking about somebody else being in trouble, but she said, have mercy on me. That's how we're to plead for those that we love. Lord, you've had mercy on me. concerning my own soul. Now have mercy on me concerning theirs. Have mercy on me. Have mercy. And we see the example in scripture now. He doesn't have to. Mercy is all about not having to.

But when those people lowered that bed down, I can't forget these words. When he saw their faith, he made that man whole. When he saw their faith, he said, Thy sins be forgiven thee. Who was he having mercy on? Them or him? Both. Both. He's plenteous in mercy. He delights to show mercy.