Well, good morning. If you would care to turn in your
Bibles to the book of Matthew, Matthew chapter 15. We'll continue
our studying the book of Matthew this morning. Before we begin, let's bow before
our Lord in prayer. Our Father, which art in heaven,
holy and reverent, is your matchless name. And Father, we bow before
you. We bow humbly with reverence,
bowing before the God of all the earth. And Father, how thankful
we are to be able to bow before you and call you our father.
Our father that loves and cares for his children. Our God who
directs everything in this creation for the ultimate good of his
people. Father, we're thankful. How can
we ever begin to thank you for your mercy and your grace to
sinners that's found in your son? Father, our words are not
sufficient, but how we thank you, how we thank you for your
mercy and grace, the redemption that's in the blood of our Lord
Jesus Christ. And Father, I pray this morning
that you would, by your spirit, enable us to worship. Enable
us to worship you in spirit and in truth. Enable the name of
our Lord Jesus Christ to be lifted up that your people would see
him and be drawn to him. Father, enable us to forget about
the goings on of this life and feed our souls, comfort our hearts
with another view of Christ our Savior. Father, thank you for
this past week, the week of Bible school that we have with our
young ones and pray you bless your word to their hearts. Bless
the children's classes that you might continue to teach our children
the word that one day you might cause it to grow to faith in
our Lord Jesus Christ. Father, we pray that you'd be
with those who are hurting, who are sick and in trouble and in
need. You already know the need of
all of your people. Father, we pray you'd be with
them. that you comfort their hearts, that you give them a
fulfillment of your promise, that you not leave nor forsake
your people, deliver them with it to be thy will. All these
things we ask and we give thanks in that name, which is above
every name, the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. All right, I want to read our
text this morning, beginning in verse 28 and then go back
or verse 21, excuse me. and make a few comments. Matthew
15 verse 21. Then Jesus went thence and departed
in the coast of Tyre and Sidon. And behold, a woman of Canaan
came out of the same coasts and cried unto him, 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's not me. It's not right to take the children's
bread and to cast it to dogs. And she said, truth, Lord. Yet
the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their 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
this is such a familiar, it's such a comforting story of our
Savior's interaction with the poor and a needy sinner. I'm
sure you're like me, you like to read that story often. Every
time it's read, you enjoy it because it shows the absolute
sovereignty of the Savior. And at the same time, It shows
his compassion for sinners. The Lord will be merciful to
whom he will be merciful. That's his sovereignty. Mercy
is his to give, his to withhold. And his mercy is plenty enough
for all of his people. His mercy is plenty enough for
every sinner who's seeking mercy. There's never been one sinner
who sought mercy from our Lord didn't get it. That's his compassion. His sovereignty and his compassion.
We have great high priest, a sovereign high priest who was touched with
the feeling of our infirmities. Now, this is the truth of scripture.
Almighty God has elected a people unto salvation. That is a plainly
revealed, just plain as the nose on your face, plainly taught
in the word of God. But election alone by itself
is not salvation. Now, it's impossible to have
a salvation of a people without God's election. It must start
there. Impossible for anybody to be
saved without God's election of a people. But election alone
is not salvation. God's election is unto salvation. So when the Lord saves the soul
of one of his elect, he brings several things together, and
that's what I want us to see this morning. First, the Lord
seeks and he finds every one of his lost sheep, his elect.
Now in this story, it sounds like the woman is the one who's
seeking the Lord. It sounds like she's taking all
the initiative, doesn't it? To come to the Lord and ask him
to help her daughter. And it's true. It is true. She's
seeking the Lord. That's absolutely true. But you
know why she's seeking him? Because he sought her first. He sought her first. She never
would have been able to come to the Savior unless he came
where she was first. He came there on purpose where
she was because he's seeking her. He's coming to get her.
He came to this place at this specific time seeking a specific,
certain woman. In Mark's account of this same
story, he calls her a certain woman. And here's why she's come
to the Savior. The Holy Spirit has already been
working on her heart. The Holy Spirit has arranged
some horrible, horrible pain for this woman. It's like Brother
Mike Walker told us Wednesday night how that eagle makes the
nest uncomfortable for the eaglets when it's time for them to leave.
He's got to make it uncomfortable for them so they'll leave the
nest. And the Holy Spirit's doing that for this woman. He's making
her absolutely miserable so that she must come to the Savior.
See, this is all happening. She's seeking the Lord, but it's
because the Lord sought her first. And we would do well to remember
that we do not know what the Lord is doing. We don't know
what the Lord's purpose is when he makes us miserable. You know,
I know we can't help but guess. Could this be the reason? Could
this be the reason? We're better off probably not guessing. We
just, we're the creature, the creature of the dust. We have
no idea what the Lord is doing and what the Lord is going to
accomplish when he makes his people so utterly miserable like
he did this poor woman. But this is what I do know about
trials, about affliction, about when the Lord makes his people
miserable. Part of the purpose in that always is to draw us
closer to him. When the Lord makes his people
miserable, we're gonna snuggle up to the Savior just as close
as we possibly can. That's what this woman did. That's
at least part of the Lord's purpose, to make us snuggle up close to
him, to depend upon him. Now trials and troubles, like
what this woman is enduring here in our text, those things never
produce faith. But the Lord often will use trials
and troubles, misery, to bring his people close to himself.
There's a statement by J.C. Ryle. This was a part of an article
in our bulletin a while ago. This is what he said. Health
is a good thing. I agree with that, don't you?
Health is a good thing. But sickness is far better. if
it leads us to God. Prosperity is a great mercy.
I pray, God bless you, prosperity. But Ryle said adversity is a
greater blessing if it brings us to Christ. And that's what
the Lord does, often uses these things with his children. And
once this pain, once this adversity is over, I just feel very confident
that this woman, she would tell us, I can say with David, it's
good for me that I've been afflicted. I might learn thy statues. She'd
tell us it's good for me that I was afflicted because it brought
me to the Savior. I came seeking him because he
sought me first. He prepared my heart and made
me seek him. All right, number two, the Lord,
when he saves his people, he creates an urgent need in the
heart of his elect. This woman had an urgent need,
is urgent. Can you think of a more urgent
need upon the heart of a mother than this serious sickness? The
devil himself is tormenting her little daughter, her little daughter,
a young one, a tender one, just, oh, it may be it's her only daughter.
I don't know, but this is the only child of hers that's mentioned
her, her little daughter and Satan is tormenting her. You
just can't hit closer to a mother's heart than the torment of your
little daughter, a little child. It would be easier for that mother
to take this suffering herself and watch her child take it.
Every parent in this room knows it. Every one of us would rather
suffer than watch our children suffer something. But this trial
must be sent. This heartache, this urgent need
must be sent because this heathen woman, she's a heathen Gentile
from a cursed race. She never would have sought the
Lord Jesus unless he first created an urgent need in her heart.
And spiritually, that's what the Lord does for all of his
people. He makes us absolutely miserable in our sin. He makes
us miserable in the works of our flesh. Those works that we
think we're doing to make God happy with us. He makes us miserable
in those things. He strikes the thing that's held
the most dear to our heart. It's our works. It's our self. He strikes those things. He strikes
it and makes us see that our good works really are nothing
but sin. and makes us absolutely miserable to see there's no hope
in anything that we do. He creates an urgent need in
the hearts of his people. And it's a good thing he does. I mean, that conviction of sin,
that's a miserable thing, isn't it? A trial that the Lord sends
to his child who already believes him, who loves him and trusts
him, but the trial that he sends that makes us cling to the Savior
all the more, that's a hard thing, isn't it? That's a miserable
thing. But it's good. It's good. We would never come
to Christ. We would never come to the Savior
seeking mercy, seeking salvation, if he didn't make us miserable
first. We're gonna have to be miserable in ourselves before
we'll come to him. You know, the Lord is more ready
to give mercy than we are to beg for it. That's a true statement. The Lord is more ready to give
mercy than we are to beg for it. So you know what the Lord
does? He sends an urgent need to the hearts of his children.
So they'll beg for the mercy he's going to give them. All
right, here's the third thing. God's elect are the most unlikely
of people. You see this time and time again
in scripture. God's elect are found where you
least expect them. They're the people we would least
expect God to choose. Abram, the idolater, Rahab the
harlot, Ruth the heathen, Zacchaeus the publican, the dying thief
on the cross, and Saul, the self-righteous Pharisee, the religionist who
hated Christ, who hated his church. That's who God calls. That's
his elect. And this is another thing we would do well to lay
to our heart and never forget it, to try to think on this every
single day. God saves sinners, sinners, the
chief of sinners. You know, we and our children
don't have a greater claim on God's mercy just because we hear
the gospel every week. No, we don't. We don't. Brother
Earl and I were talking about this before the service. This
is one of my favorite Henry Mahan quotes. You're better off. You're
better off being under the sound of the gospel. You're better
off being taught the word. Absolutely better off, but not
better. And God help us to never forget. God help us. We're not better.
No, we're not. God would be right to pass you
and me by and save a heathen. He absolutely would. He'd be
absolutely right to pass us by and save a freewheeler. Now,
he would. He would. We are absolutely dependent on
God's mercy at all times. We're dependent on his grace
to save us, and we're dependent on his grace to keep us. Absolutely
dependent. No one by birth, by nature, has
any claim on God's mercy and grace. No one. Not your children,
not mine. We're not born deserving God's
mercy. But thank God, no one living on this earth is too far
gone that they're out of the reach of God's mercy and grace
either. Nobody is. God's elect are the
most unlikely of people. Then here's the fourth thing.
When the Lord saves his people, he always gives them faith in
Christ. That's why they come to Christ.
Because God's already given them faith. You know, you don't come
to Christ and then receive faith. No, you come to Christ because
God's already given you faith. You come to Christ for this reason.
You believe He's able to save you. Do you believe He is able? Do you really? I mean, do you
really believe that all it takes to save you is the Lord Jesus
Christ? If you believe that, you'll come
to Him. That's why we come to Him. And
if anyone has this kind of faith, this kind of faith that believes
on Christ, that trusts Christ, that rests in Him, if they have
that kind of faith, God had to give it to them because we can't
make it ourselves. This woman came to Christ and
she refused to leave Him because she was confident He could help
her. Now, how'd she know that? She's
an idolater. She's not read the scriptures and know about the
coming Messiah and think, oh, this man's the Messiah. She's
an idolater. How did she know that this man
could help her? Well, somebody had to tell her,
didn't they? She heard something from somebody.
And you and I will never come to Christ for mercy. We'll never
come to him for grace and salvation until we're convinced. The Lord
can save us. And the Lord gives us faith in
Christ. That's what we'll be convinced of. I don't know a
whole lot of other things, but I do know this. The Lord's able
to save me. And that's why I come to Him.
Well, how do we know that? How can I know? How can you know
that the Lord's able to save? How can we know that? Well, somebody's
got to tell us. Somebody's got to teach us who
He is from God's Word. Faith comes by hearing, and hearing
by the word of God. And if the Lord teaches us who
Christ is, we'll hear a man preaching and teaching. But if we hear
from the Lord and he teaches us who Christ is, we'll believe
on him and we'll come to him. Here's another thing about coming
to Christ in faith. and this ties closely with the
Lord has to give us an urgent need. He has to make us miserable
before we come to Christ. We will only come to Christ when
we find this out. He is my only hope. You hear preachers talking about
being shut up to Christ. That's what that means. It means
I have no other hope but Christ. True faith has one hope. It's
not Christ and a little bit of this, a little bit of that, a
little meows. No, no, no. True faith trusts Christ alone. This poor woman had one hope
that her daughter would be healed, and it was the Lord Jesus. That's
why she came to him. The devil was tormenting this
little girl. I mean, just think how awful
that is. Well, then the Lord Jesus was her only hope. The
Apostle John told us in 1 John 3 verse 8, Christ was manifest
to destroy the works of the devil. That's why he was her only hope
with being released from the devil tormenting her child. And
that's a picture of salvation. If God's going to save you and
me, I'll tell you this, he's going to make us see our need
of Christ and he's going to make us see he is our only hope, our
only hope. Christ came to destroy the works
of the devil and he's the only one able to do it. He also came
to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. He's the only one
able to do it. He's our only hope. He's our
only hope. And this thing about faith, God
gives his people faith. There are degrees of faith. There are, there are degrees
of trusting the Lord. And the Lord said, this idolatrous
woman had great faith, great faith. Great faith, based upon what
the Lord says here, is not being calm and dignified and stoic
like nothing bothers me, nothing's hurting me. Great faith is being
totally distraught, being in great and terrible need and having
no hope, wanting no hope, but Christ. That's great faith. Great faith is casting all of
your hope on the Lord Jesus Christ and waiting on him to deliver
you from being tormented by your sin. You think just a couple
of days, a day or two shortly before this event, this encounter
with this idolatrous woman, the Lord was alone with his disciples
on the sea, remember? And Peter walked to the Lord
on water. Peter, the fisherman, was walking
on the water. And you know what happened. And
what did the Lord tell the apostle Peter? Oh, ye of little faith. The Lord enabled Peter to do
something so amazing. It took faith for him to step
out of that boat and walk on that water, didn't it? Oh, it
quickly evaporated. Oh, ye of little faith. And that
happens to us, doesn't it? Doesn't that happen to us? At
times our faith is so strong where we're resting so completely
on Christ. And other times we're, oh ye
of little faith, because we're trying to do it ourselves. That's, oh ye of little faith.
Oh ye of great faith is when you're resting on Christ alone.
And even on this day, the disciples are, oh ye of little faith. This
is just utterly amazing to me. This poor, tortured woman was
crying to the Lord. The Lord wasn't answering her.
She started crying to the disciples, trying to find a way to get to
the Lord. And instead of them saying, you know, Lord, you could
help this woman. Lord, this is awful. Would you
help this woman? That'd be great faith, wouldn't
it? Trusting him to deliver. Weak faith is saying, Lord, would
you send her away? Mm-mm-mm. That's little faith. And there is no excuse to have
little faith. No excuse whatsoever. Aren't
you glad the Lord didn't kick him to the curb? Aren't you glad? And I'll tell you why he didn't
kick him to the curb. Salvation's of the Lord. Salvation
from its beginning to its ending, to its completion and ultimate
glorification is 100% of the Lord. We always need the Lord
just as much now as the very first day we ever came to him.
Great faith is faith that puts everything on Christ and never
starts thinking, I got better now than I used to be. I hope
we've grown in grace, but you know, if we grow in grace, you
know what growing in grace is? It's growing downward in your
estimation of yourself and what you think you can do. A growth
in grace is not getting stronger by yourself, it's recognizing
more of your weakness. That's what great faith is. And
someone will say, well, you know, I have more faith than this,
that, or the other. I'm so much more, you know, than
this, that, or the other, because I do this or I don't do that.
Well, I tell you, that sounds very pious, doesn't it? That
sounds very religious. The flesh is impressed by that.
And we're impressed by that because we think, well, maybe I can grow
to that. Or I can look down on other believers and other people.
Even look down on other believers. That's very religious sounding,
very pious sounding. But I tell you what, that reveals
the weakest faith at all. That statement, I'm better than
somebody else because I do this. If there's any faith there at
all, it's the weakest of faith. Strong faith is knowing that
we're weak. When we're weak, that's when
we're strong. Because when we're weak, we're
depending on Christ, and that's great faith. If we're gonna have
faith, God's gonna have to give it. If our faith's gonna be great
faith, God's gonna have to whittle us down with trouble and trial. All right, here's the fifth thing. The Lord gives His elect persistence
in seeking Him. Now, this woman had great faith. and it was seen in her persistence,
she would not go away. You know why? Because she believed
that Christ was her only hope. Now we should be warned, if we
can leave Christ, and if we can leave the gospel, we will. You'll
find some excuse. It would be easy to find an excuse
to blame the preacher, blame the folks in the congregation
or whatever. But if you constantly need Christ, if you need the
gospel, if your soul can only be fed by the gospel, if your
soul can only be strengthened and comforted by hearing of Christ,
then you won't leave. And when folks do something that's
wrong or that's insensitive, they won't run you off. Not if
you need Christ, you won't. Not if you need his words, you
won't. And that's the way this woman was. She could not be run
off because of her faith in Christ. because of her need of Him. She
cried after the disciples, but like I said a minute ago, she
was only crying after them. They're not all that important.
They're just a means to an end, to get to the master. That's
why she was crying after them. And the disciples told her, go
away. And then they asked the Lord
to send her away. Doesn't it boggle the mind? It seems like the thought never
crossed their mind to ask the Lord to help her. Boy, that's
what we are. I mean, isn't that our nature?
And at first, the Lord wouldn't even dignify her begging with
a response. He just didn't even respond.
He just acted like she wasn't even speaking. Look at verse
23 again. He answered her, not a word. Now that's insulting, isn't it?
That's insulting for somebody to talk to you and then not even
answer you a word. And then finally, when the Lord did respond, you
know what he told her? He told her, you're not worthy
of the least of God's mercies. That's what he told her. You
don't deserve my attention. Verse 24. But he answered and
said, I'm not sent, but unto the lost sheep of the house of
Israel. Oh boy. Now she's met the doctrine of
election. Now, more importantly, she's met the God of election.
That's why I've titled our lesson this morning, When Need means
election. Now she's met the God of election. God has an elect people. He chose
those people to save those people. He set his love upon them and
Christ came to save those people. He came to save God's elect and
only God's elect. He came to die for those people
and only for those people. When Christ died, he wasn't making
an offering to you and me to see if we decide to accept him.
He was making an offering to the Father against whom we've
seen. He was making an offering to
the Father to pay for the sin of those people that God gave
him to save. Now here's the response of a sinner when they meet the
God of election. When they meet the doctrine of
election, this is how a sinner will respond. They worship. They worship. Now we've just
got to be brought to this place. We only worship when God has
showed us this. We realize that we're helpless.
We'll only worship God when we know this. I can't get God to
do anything for me. He can do whatever he wills with
me and whatever it is he does is right. I'm just utterly helpless. I have no control over this situation. When God brings us to that point,
then we'll worship. You only worship. You only beg
and wait on the master, wait on the king when there's nothing
we can do. Nothing we can do to get him
to do anything for us. That's worship. It's like a dog
licking the master's hand. That's worship. And we meet the God of election.
This is what the sinner will say. Lord, I agree. I agree it's your right to choose
who you will. I agree that it's right for you
to show mercy to whom you will and pass by whom you will. I
agree that that's right. I agree, Lord, it's right for
you to only come and save your elect. I really don't know anything
about if I'm one of the elect or not. This is what I know.
I'm a sinner who needs a savior. Lord, would you save me? Lord,
would you have mercy on me? I don't know if I'm one of the
elect or not, but this I know for sure. I'm a sinner that needs
saving. That's worship. Look at verse 25. Then came she
in worship to him saying, Lord, help me. Oh, She came and worshiped him. But
you know what? Even worshiping the Lord, she's
done everything right so far, hasn't she? Even worshiping the
Lord didn't get her immediate relief. She's going to have to
beg and keep begging. Verse 26, but he answered and
said, it's not me. It's not right to take the children's
bread and to cast it to dogs. Now the Lord insults her again.
She's done everything right. And he insults her again. He
said, just in case you didn't hear the first time, I came to
save my elect. I came to save my sheep. I came
to save God's children. You're not a child. You're not
a sheep. You're a dog, a Gentile dog. Insulted again. But genuine faith is persistent
because it trusts the Lord. And it says, True, Lord. Everything you say about me is
true. You can't paint the picture bad
enough. I am a dog. I'm not worthy the
least of your mercies. I agree. And I'm not begging
for a feast. I'm not begging for a seat at
the table beside the children. I'm begging for crumbs that fall
from the master's table. Now that's persistence. It's
born from a great need and faith in Christ. And here's the last
thing. When God saves his people, he
gives his elect submission, submission to him. God's people are not
stiff-necked people. He gives them submission. True
faith submits, submits to the will of the Lord. And here's
the thing about submission. True submission is not, well,
I submit, I'm gonna quit trying to change the situation because
there's nothing that I can do about what the Lord does. What
the Lord does is gonna stand forever and I can't affect his
will, I can't change his will, so I'm just gonna quit fighting
against it. That's not submission. That's not submission. That's
just like a prisoner being in jails, quiet and still, because
he can't get out of that six by eight cell. That's not submission. I submit to the Lord. because
I know what he's doing is right and it's best, even though I
don't understand him. I don't understand why the Lord's
doing what he's doing. I don't see the purpose in it. I don't
see the end in it. I may never see how he's gonna
bring good out of it. Now he is gonna bring good out
of it, but I may never see it. But I submit anyway, knowing
what he has done is right and it's best. And the Lord says,
that's great faith. That kind of faith receives what
it needs from the hand of the Lord. And if there's anybody
here seeking mercy from the Lord, I tell you, beg him. Beg him
to be merciful to you. And don't quit. Don't quit. Keep begging. Call on the name
of the Lord and then keep calling. Seek him and keep seeking him.
This is just the way the Lord works. There's sometimes he's
immediate, immediate in his help, immediate in his mercy, immediate
in his deliverance. But often he waits, he waits,
he waits to give mercy. When he gives it, you know what
we'll find? We'll find it came at exactly the right time. But
we're not going to know that until we're looking back on it.
I hope that'll encourage you to to seek the Lord and to keep
seeking him. The Lord bless you.