I invite you to turn with me
to Mark chapter 7. Mark chapter 7. We'll be looking
at verses 24 through 30. And this is the account of the Syrophoenician
woman who came to the Lord concerning the demon possession of her daughter. Now let's read through these
verses together and then I'll make some comments. In verse
24, Mark chapter 7. And from thence he arose and
went into the borders of Tyre and Sidon and entered into a
house and would have no man know it. He was, you could just imagine
in our day if a man was a faith healer and could really
do it, could really do that work, could really raise the dead and
cleanse the lepers and so on. You could just imagine the multitude
of people that hounded him and followed him for no other reason
than to bring sick folk to him and for him to heal him. And
that's why he said he would have no man know it. There's a time
when you have to rest. There's a time to work and there's
a time to rest. But it said he could not be healed. I hid. Everybody knew him, knew
where he was, knew where he was going, and those who were desperate
found him. For a certain woman, 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. But Jesus said unto her, Let
the children first be filled, for it is not meat to take the
children's bread, and 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. 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 up on the bed. Now what I propose
to do this morning is to point out to you how this beautiful
picture of a sinner coming to Christ is very real and accurate
picture of you and I. You know we read these ancient
accounts of these people and their needs and their coming
to Christ and I used to read them all the time and I would
think to myself there's some kind of a lesson in this, but
I couldn't see any, I couldn't see how all of that, what that
had to do with me. How has this, how has this got
anything to do with me? And so that's what I want to
do this morning. And our lesson is titled Crumbs for Dogs. So let's begin with this. Let's
consider who she was. Let's see if we can find some
similarity between ourselves and her. The scripture tells us she was
a Greek. The Greeks seek after wisdom,
our Lord said. They're philosophers, they're
wise men. And she was a Greek, a Syrophoenician
by nation. Now, if you look at a map, you'll
see the Mediterranean Sea here, and you'll see this strip of
land, which includes Jerusalem and all that. You'll see it going
up the coast. And right up, about three quarters
of the way up, you'll see a long strip of land here in Syria,
and it's called Phoenicia. That's where this woman was from.
She was from Phoenicia. It's just, Phoenicia is just
above Samaria. And it was also the home of these
two cities. Phoenicia was the home of these
two cities, Tyre and Sidon. And you remember our Lord cursed
those two cities for their indifference to the gospel. And all of this lie in Syria,
thus the name Syro-Phoenician. So what does all this have to
do with you and I? Just this. She was a Gentile
woman raised in the general idolatry of her nation. She was raised
from the time she was just a baby. She was raised in the general
idolatry of her country. Now I know there was different
Images, different gods, different beliefs, just as there is today.
But she was raised among that general idolatry of her country. And she was taught from the time
she was a child to respect these different beliefs. Are we not taught that from the
time we were little children? There's a little bit of good
in all these things. We're just folks in a wheel.
We're all going to the same destination. Got different ideas and different
concepts and different ways and so on. But you say, we don't bow down
to images like she did. Really. You need to look around. Need to look around. Now there's
two types of images. The first begins in the mind
and it's called the imagination. Actually, the dictionary says
the imagination is the formation of a mental image. That's what
your imagination is. A mental image or idea or concept. And the second is the formation
of one of our mental concepts into some kind of physical shape.
A statue, a picture, a symbol. And speaking of the Gentiles
in Romans 1.23, it says, they changed the glory of the uncorruptible
God into an image made like unto man, and to birds, and to four-footed
beasts, and creeping things. They took those images that were
in their mind and they hired them a carpenter, Isaiah said,
and they carved it out and then they got a metalsmith and he
overlaid it with silver and gold or brass or whatever they could
afford and they created an image and then they bowed down to it
and worshipped it. Now our nation, along with every
other nation in this world, is filled with practicing idolaters. surrounded by images depicting
God. If you ask somebody, you say,
oh, that's an idol. Well, that's not an idol. That's
not an idol. It's just a visual aid. That's
what I'm told. We're surrounded by images. depicting
God or something concerning God, like fish. You ever see that
symbol? Fish, and serpents, statues,
paintings, symbols like the cross. Everywhere you look now, there's
a cross. You see them all down the side of the road where somebody
had a wreck and was killed and somebody will go over there and
they'll nail down a cross. Or sometimes you'll look up on
hills, especially going up through the mountains. You look up there
and up on a hill, they'll be all mowed off and everything,
these three crosses. And they're standing up there. Nowadays we're surrounded by
the same things, the same things as she was, under different names. And the average pulpit, and you
don't have to take my word for it, all you have to do is go
home and turn your TV on, turn your radio on. The average pulpit is no more
than a mental canvas upon which they paint their wicked imaginations,
that's all it is. They're talking about a God that
they know nothing about. Their God is the God of their
mind. I heard people, they used to talk
to me, I'd try to witness to them, and I by no means had any
kind of knowledge to be able to witness, but I'd try to witness
to people, and they'd say, well, my God's not like that. So you're saying I have a God,
and you have a God, and they have their God, would do us well
to learn who the true and living God is, because all the rest
of them are idols. And that's what their pulpits
are. Satan's using them. They don't
know they're being used, but Satan's using them. And they're
setting before the people a God who's not the true and living
God. He's nothing like the true and living God. It's just a mental canvas upon
which they paint their wicked imaginations. And this woman
was raised in the general idolatry of her nation. And any religion
that preaches or promotes an inaccurate image of God practices
idolatry. We're strictly forbidden to make
any kind of an image. And he's quick to tell us no
man has ever seen God at any time. How are you going to make
an image of the invisible God whom you've never seen? And yet
they've been doing it from the beginning. Christ is the only revelation
of the true and living God. It says in the scripture He's
the brightness of the Father's glory and the express image of
His person. If we are to have any kind of
a concept of God, we're going to have it from what we know
from Christ. He is the revelation of God. He said, no man knoweth the Father
save the Son, and he to whom the Son will reveal it. So first of all, I see myself
and you in this heathen woman raised in the general idolatry
of her nation. I can see that. And then secondly,
I see myself having the same problem. Her daughter was possessed
by a devil. Now, daughter, son, cousin, niece,
take it any way you want to. This whole world walks according
to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now worketh
in the children of disobedience. His presence as a spirit cannot
be felt or sensed in any way. He works in you. Satan works
in you. And you can't sense it. You can't
feel it. Yet we know it so because of
what he does in us. That's how you know. The same
as you know how the Spirit of God dwells in you. You know it
by what he does in you. The scripture said he works in
us with all deceivableness of unrighteousness. In other words,
that person who's possessed by that spirit who now worketh in
the children are disobedient. That person who has that spirit
working in him, he can't feel it, he can't sense it. But I
know it because of what he does. He finds a righteousness not
of God, a self-righteousness, And he finds satisfaction in
that, and he believes God finds satisfaction in it, and he rests
in it as his righteousness. He works in us with all deceivableness
of unrighteousness. The scripture said, by his lying
wonders, he causes men and women to hope in his lies. and find
refuge in his lies and rest in falsehoods and to pray to a God
who cannot save. His primary business is religion,
and that religion is anti-Christ religion. And this woman's daughter
was possessed by a wicked spirit, an evil spirit. And every unregenerate
child of man is possessed by such a spirit. They rebel against authority,
against truth, they reject instruction, and they hate the true and living
God. Now, the God in general, the God of worldly accepted religion, the
God that everybody out here rejoices in, they don't have a problem
with Him, because He's got no power, number one, to do anything
unless they let Him. And he's got no power to do anything
about you. He leaves that up to you. He
leaves that up to your determination and up to your will and up to
your decisions. All he can do at best is just
hope to influence you a little bit. Those of us who know something
of what it is to be delivered from such spiritual wickedness
We make petition to our Lord knowing he is the only one who
can do anything about it. Now that's why this woman was
there. She could do nothing about what possessed her daughter,
what controlled her daughter, what was causing her daughter
unrest. She couldn't do a thing about
it, not a thing about it. And her daughter couldn't do
anything about it. All right, the third thing I
want you to consider in this picture of the sinner coming
to Christ is what brought her to him. It says in Mark 7.25,
a certain woman whose young daughter had an unclean spirit heard of
him and came. She heard of him. The scripture's quite clear on
this. You cannot call on a God in whom you have not believed,
and you can't believe in a God of whom you have not heard, and
you can't hear without a preacher. You're never gonna come... Now,
people were going to these priest and they were going to these
idolatrous places and they were going to this religion and that
religion and bowing down to this image and that image. But none
of those things could really deal with the real problems that
people had. It was just something sensual,
something imagined. They walk in a vanity of their
minds. But she heard of him. The scripture, after telling
us those things that I just quoted to you, it says, so then faith
cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. What did
she hear? See, I know what she'd been hearing.
But what did she hear about him? What did she hear that brought
her to him? Well, she heard enough to convince
her to come to him. Scripture doesn't say here at
all, and we might speculate about it a little bit, and I will. But it never really gives you
the details. Matthew's account said she called
him Lord, thou son of David. Now, when you see that phrase,
Lord, thou son of David, he's talking about the promised Messiah. He's talking about the prophecies
concerning the coming Redeemer. So she at least heard that much. And she knew who he was. He's
the promised one. He's that one David spoke of
in the spirit. He's that one that Isaiah and
Daniel and all the rest of them talked about. He's the coming
Messiah. He's the Christ. You remember that woman at the
well? Our Lord told her she worshiped, she knew not what. But she said,
after he said that, she said, we know Messiah's coming. And
he said, I that speak unto you am he. I'm he. Now this woman learned
that he was the promised Messiah, or had a good hope that he was.
But it'll be sufficient for us just to know that she heard of
him. And true hearing, this is what
I want you to do, here's what I'm getting at. True hearing
always results in a person's coming to Christ. He don't just
hear and say, okay, I'm gonna file that over here with the
rest of the facts. I've learned some facts, you
know. I'm growing up and I've been to school and I've been
around the block and I've got some facts and now I've got some
more. So I just put this over here
in my file of facts. No, that's not the kind of hearing
that brings you to Christ. It's an effectual hearing. Effectual hearing. True hearing always, always brings
a person to Christ. You say, well boy, they're hearing
something. Not if they're not coming to Christ. True hearing always results in
that. And our Lord said, they shall
all be taught of God. Every man therefore that hath
heard and hath learned of the Father cometh unto me. What do
they do? They come to him. He said, all
which the Father hath given me shall come to me. They're all
gonna hear, all gonna be taught of God, and they're all gonna
come to me. The distinguishing mark between
sheep and goats is that sheep hear and come to him. And faith works in the believer,
persuading him of the power and the ability, the willingness
and the mercifulness of Christ to make whatever you're made
he can do what none other than that he can say to the other most
all those who come on the god listen what paul said he said
i don't know who might have believed and and persuaded that he's able
to keep that which i've committed on him against that What have
you committed unto Him? Everything. All your hope, your
eternal souls. You ain't gonna commit that to
Him until you're absolutely persuaded that He can keep what you're
giving Him to keep. He can do what you're coming
to Him to have Him do. All right? How did she come? How'd this woman come? Did she come believing he was
obligated to do something for her? Name it and claim it? Is that
how she comes? She come down that aisle with
her head up in the air? I come to claim the promises
of God. No, that's not how she came.
Did she come to him believing he was in her debt? I've done
this. Now you do this. I've made my
decision. I've made my commitment. Now
you're obligated to do this. You're in my debt. No, that's
not how she come. It says she came and cast herself
at his feet. She fell down at his feet as
one with, number one, nothing to lose. Nothing to lose. She'd already been everywhere
else. You can write that down. She'd already been to all these
churches. She'd already listened to all
these men. And they weren't saying anything that could do her any
good. We'll put you on a prayer wall.
They kept telling me that when my relatives found out Kathy
had cancer. We're going to put her on our
prayer wall. I'd rather you just take her
to Christ. You're going to pray for somebody. It's the only one
that can do them any good. And she fell down to his feet
as one who had nothing. What did she have to lose? Everything
else had failed. She was desperate. And she came
to him, desperate. and cast herself at his feet. If you and I ever hear of him
and come to him believing him to be who God says he is, we'll
fall at his feet too, just as this woman did. Desperate. Desperate. We'll bow down in
recognition of his glorious person. This is the Christ. She not only called him Christ,
but she fell down at his feet. In Matthew's account, when she
did this, here's this woman you can just imagine, and she came
into this house and just fell down at his feet and began to
beseech him concerning her daughter. Now listen to what Matthew's
account says. This is in Matthew 15. It says the Lord ignored her
and answered her not a word. Huh? I'm telling you, religion's
got him running down the aisle to meet you halfway. This woman came and fell down
her feet with a real need and a real spirit of God in her and
he ignored her like she wasn't even there. Totally ignored her. And then his disciples, after
he ignored her, this woman went to them and started beseeching
them to to ask Him, to plead with Him, to be a go-between
between her and Him. And His disciples said, let us
send her away because she cries after us. And so the Lord said, I'm not
sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel. And in
spite of everything that was said and done, Matthew 15, 25,
then came she and worshiped him. Wow. He ignored me? Huh? His apostles, his followers wanted
to send her away. She came right back and fell
down his feet and worshiped him. Still hadn't received anything.
But I'm gonna tell you something, whether you receive something
or not, he's still worthy of worship, isn't he? Worship has
to do with who he is. Who he is. And true faith knows our condition
and bows to it and knows his ability and bows to it and knows
his authority and submits to it. And it's persistent. It's born
out of the fact that nobody else can do you any good. There's
nowhere else to go. So you stay right there. You
stay right there. Now here's the last thing. Our Lord said to this woman,
for this saying, go thy way, the devil's gone out of thy daughter. In Matthew's account, our Lord
said, O woman, great is thy faith. Great is thy faith. Be it unto
thee even as thou wilt. I'm gonna tell you something.
All true saving faith is great faith. I say it's great faith because
it's not of you. It is the gift of God. By grace
are you saved through faith and that not of yourself. It is the
gift of God, not of works lest any man should boast. For we
are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good work
which God hath before ordained that we should walk in. All faith is great faith. because
it's the gift of God. And it's great faith because
it's sufficient, and it's effectual, and it never fails, and it'll
never quit. It'll never quit. We're kept
by the power of God through faith unto salvation, ready to be revealed
in the last day. And our Lord will have all men
to know the true faith, is born of God, is given of God, and
is brought to pass for his glory. Our Lord was not being cruel
to this woman, but graciously proving that her faith was true
faith. And that's what he's gonna do
in us. He's gonna prove that faith to be his gift, not of
your works. He's gonna prove it. How's he
gonna do it? Don't you know that was a fiery
trial for the Lord? He was her last hope, and here
she lay at his feet, and he's just ignoring her. But she knew who he was, and
she wasn't going nowhere. And whether he saved her daughter
or not, she still worshiped him. Now before we leave this beautiful
picture of the sinner coming to Christ, let me finish with
this. She got what faith brought her to get. She did. And any man who comes
in true faith to Christ will do the same thing. He gonna get
what he come there to get. He gonna get the salvation of
his soul. But he ain't gonna get it anywhere
else. He'll get it in Christ. All right, thank you.