Word of Salvation – Vol. 14 No.30 – July 1968

 

Victorious Faith

 

Sermon by Rev. H. DeWaard, Th. Grad. on Matthew 15:21-28

SCRIPTURE READING: Matt. 8:5-17

PSALTER HYMNAL:  315:1,2,7,8; 61:1,2,4 (After Law);
                                    467 (After Creed); 21:1,2,3; 398:1,2,5;
                                    391:5 (Doxology.)

 

Beloved brothers and sisters, young people, girls and boys,

The woman of our text is not well-known.  Maybe you have not heard about her before.  She does not stand in the spotlight of the New Testament.  She is not one whom we see with Jesus all the time.  All of a sudden we notice her, and just as quickly she is gone again too.  She knows very little about Jesus.  She probably has no idea about His coming suffering and death of the cross.  Nor has she any idea that Jesus Christ will rule heaven and earth.  She is a heathen from beyond the borders of Israel.  An unknown stranger, and most likely poor.

Yet, in the glimpse we catch of this lonely woman, we see a lot.  In the few moments which the Bible spends on her, we can learn a great deal.  For on this woman there falls the light of Jesus’ approving eyes: “Great is your faith!”  Amazing!  Jesus never said that to His disciples.  To them He had to say time and time again: “O, you men of little faith”.  He paid this compliment once more – to another heathen.

You will say: “Well, this woman must have done something really outstanding to deserve such a compliment.  Why should Jesus praise her faith as He did?”.  Actually, she has not done anything.  She simply came, we read, and she cried for mercy.  That’s all!  Let us then listen to this amazing story, which is one of the deepest of the New Testament.  We see here what faith is like.  Faith is seen here as a struggling with God.  Faith lays a need before Him.  There is a cry.  There is silence.  There seems to be misunderstanding.  Until we notice the victory when Jesus says: “Great is your faith”!

On the basis of our text, we consider:

            “VICTORIOUS FAITH”

            1.  the testing of faith.

            2.  the struggling of faith.

            3.    the victory of faith.

1.  The testing of faith.

We are told here in verse 22: “Behold a Canaanite woman from that region came out…!”.  ‘Sounds very clear and simple.  But who knows all the struggle that lies behind these words?  Undoubtedly this must have been a big step for this woman.  It takes quite a bit to overcome all the prejudices against Jesus of Nazareth.  And on top of that He was a Jew, while she was a heathen.  Would He even listen to her, let alone help her?  And what would her own people think?  Maybe they would take it ill of her that she should bypass all the Canaanite doctors and go to this Jewish miracle-worker.  But she is willing to take the risks involved.  For here was her girl lying under the power of the Evil One.  No doctor has been able to help her.  Friends and neighbours probably argued that this was the will of God.  But to this woman it seemed like the work of the devil.  She refuses to accept this and gives herself no rest until she has brought the help of Jesus to her home and heart.

That is how she came.  That is how she cried.  And Jesus of course jumps up to help this poor lonely woman!  No; He does nothing like that: “But He did not answer her a word”.  Jesus is silent in the face of her crying.  He answered her not a word.  Can you understand that?  Can you understand how Jesus, who was always moved with compassion when He saw the needs of the people, is now silent?  He seems totally unconcerned and indifferent to her needs.  He throws up difficulty after difficulty.  Jesus here seems to be wearing a mask.  He appears to be different from what he normally is.  Why?

By His silence, Jesus was testing the faith of this woman.  And by His silence God may be testing our faith too.  I think we all experience this to a certain extent.  Does it not annoy us that God is so silent about all the happenings in Saigon?  Does it not make us sick to read about all the violence in American cities?  Aren’t we stunned every time some leading statesman is murdered in cold blood?  We ask why God can allow these things.  Why is God so strangely silent about it all?  Why must we hear the roar of artillery and the cry of the wounded rather, than the voice of God?  Where is God in all this?

No voice.

No answer.

That is a real test of our faith.

These things make many people wonder whether God is really such a Father as we always thought He was.  These things shook the faith even of a man like John the Baptist.  When he was locked up in prison, John was tortured by some awkward questions.  “I can’t understand,” John would say, “how Jesus of Nazareth can move around with His disciples, while He just doesn’t seem to care about me.  Why is He so silent?  Am I not His servant after all?  I wonder if He is really the Christ?  Should I look for another perhaps?  Oh, why doesn’t Jesus make things more plain?”

It all seems so cruel.  We men would not keep quiet if we knew that people were suffering because of our silence.  In the face of the suffering in the world, men seem much more concerned.  They cannot stand all the bloodshed and violence.  They arrange conferences and committees to put a stop to it.  Church leaders speak out on all these issues.  No, men do not keep quiet.  Nor do the disciples.  They speak up.  They want Jesus to do something.  Either heal her daughter or send this woman away, But DO something, Jesus!

Were these disciples so merciful?  No, they were embarrassed.  They got sick of this woman trailing them all the time.  They seemed more concerned, but they were not.  And the woman knows it.  She continues to plead with Jesus.  She tries to find out what is behind this silence.  She does not take Christ at face-value.  Faith never takes God at face-value.  For God is different from what He appears to be at times.  This woman believed the word which she had undoubtedly heard in one way or another: “Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest”.  She took Jesus’ silence as a challenge to pray even more.

Sometimes God appears to treat us as He treated this woman.  We become plagued and troubled by His silence in answer to our prayers.  There are times when neither Bible-reading, church-going, prayer or effort means anything to us.  God does not seem concerned.  He seems so far off.  Despair not!  We must believe – not in appearance – but in the Word of God.  The Word of God shows us what God is really like.  The Word tells us that God is a FATHER.  When He seems far off, we must take it as an encouragement to even more prayer.

Someone has said: “Behind God’s silence are His higher thoughts”.  This is true.  Think of the Cross.  Was that not God’s greatest silence?  There the powers of darkness were let loose in all their devilishness.  The Devil was given free play.  But God had nothing to say.

The Son of God cried out, asking why the Father had forsaken Him.  But the Father had nothing to say.  Even when the world of nature spoke by means of an earthquake and thick darkness, the Father had nothing to say.  God was so very quiet.  Does that mean He is unconcerned?  Doesn’t He care?  Of course, He does!  In Christ His Son, God was suffering with us.  Through His Son, He was doing His greatest work of love.  Except for this cruel cross so mysteriously surrounded by silence, there would be no salvation for any of us.  God sent His Son into the depths, in order to lift us up.

The faith that lays hold of this Gospel can endure long periods of silence; it can persist in the face of rebukes, because such a faith does not rest on changing moods and feelings, but on the Word of God which abides for ever.

2.  The struggling of faith.

When the silence of Jesus is finally broken, we hear some things that are hard to understand.  Jesus says: “I am sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”  He says this to His disciples who are urging Him to do something.  When the woman begins to cry even more urgently, Jesus says to her: “It is not fair to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.”

It all sounds rather harsh and unkind.  For what is Jesus really saying to her?  This: That it is God’s purpose for the Gospel to be preached to His own people Israel in the first place.  Only when the Gospel is preached first to the Jews will the work be extended also to the Gentiles.  Not until the day of Pentecost will the Gospel be preached to all the nations under heaven.  But for now the Jews are Jesus’ concern.  The turn of the Gentiles has not yet come.  This woman is really outside of Jesus’ help.  The woman had to struggle with these things.  Jesus seems to slam the door shut in her face.  It seems that she had better pack up and go.  Yes, she was allowed to know that Jesus was the Saviour but He could not be HER Saviour.  There is a special people of God, but she could never belong to them.

You and I would have given up long ago.  All these obstacles seem too great.  Nothing is to be expected from this Jesus.  Yet she does not give up.

Somehow she must have felt that Jesus was not entirely unwilling to help her.  For did not Jesus say that blessed are those who hunger and thirst for Christ?  Does not God favour those who expect nothing from themselves but everything from God?  She keeps on struggling.

If Jesus does not appear to hear us; if our prayers seem to bounce back as against a thick wall, let us recall the example of this heathen woman to give us courage and perseverance.  How could we doubt God’s willingness to help us, when the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ is lifted up in this world of ours?  Christ died for us while we were enemies; would He then forsake us when we have become children and heirs?  Even if God rebukes, we must realize that He nevertheless loves.  “For the Lord disciplines him whom He loves.”

We must listen to what He is saying.  We must remember that in His rebukes He is speaking to us and dealing with us, When God is silent, when He rebukes, we ought to continue to struggle and pray as Jacob did a long time ago: “I will not let you go, unless you bless me.”  Only in that way did Jacob become a prince of God.

How will the woman react to Jesus’ words?  After all, she and her people had been compared to dogs.  We would not have been surprised if the woman had rebelled and said some nasty things about the Jews.  But no!  Something quite different happens.  She says: “Yes, Lord!”  Or better: “Truth, Lord!”  This means: Yes Lord, you are right in ignoring me; after all I am only an out- sider.  You really don’t have to help me or even to listen to me, because I am not one of the chosen people.

She agrees that really she has no claim on Jesus Christ at all.  And, brothers and sisters, what an important teaching we find here.  The principle of SOVEREIGN GRACE is demonstrated here.  All of us belong to the group of “heathens and outsiders”, who are called into the Light by the mercy of God.  Our acceptance with God is something which cannot be taken for granted.  We cannot simply assume that Jesus Christ died for OUR sins.  We cannot expect that the grace of God should be thrown at US.  No one of us has a claim on the Kingdom of God.  By nature we are all strangers and enemies of God.  The fact that Christ died for the ungodly is a matter of God’s love to an undeserving generation.  All of us whoever we are we need grace!  Orthodox or not-so-orthodox, we need grace!  Young and old, Reformed or otherwise, we need the mercy of God.  Yes, indeed.  Truth, Lord…!

Calvia

This is what we see in the woman’s reply.  But she is not fatalistic about it.  She does not say: Oh well, if God will be merciful, all right; if not, bad luck!  No!  She continues.  She takes hold of Jesus’ words and takes hold of all the hope and encouragement found in them.  She gives a most beautiful reply.  A clever reply.  Luther says of this answer: “This woman takes Jesus in His own words.”

Well, what does she say?  “Yes, Lord, for even the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from the master’s table”.  She does not say: Yes, Lord….. BUT….!  She agrees with what Jesus says.  It would not be the right thing to take the bread that belongs to the children and throw it to the dogs.  We would not do that either.  But this is not necessary, according to the woman, for the dogs have their own share.  They have the crumbs and the leftovers.  She asks for that.  She regards the power of Jesus to be so great and His grace so rich, that a few crumbs would satisfy her needs.  She would already be happy with the dog’s share.

Yes, an amazing answer, testifying to the great faith of this woman.  She has renounced everything.  She does not appeal to her great efforts or to her great faith; nor even to her great need.  She appeals to the mercy of the Lord Jesus Christ, and trusts in that alone.  She stands on the Word of Jesus, who had said that He loves the spiritually hungry and thirsty, and that He will not despise a broken and a contrite heart.  She stands on that promise.  On the one hand, Jesus has every right to pass her by; on the other hand, He cannot ignore her.  She has caught the Saviour in His own Words.

Do we stand on the Word of God like that?  Is such a faith found even in the church, among those who have listened to the preaching for years and years?  We can never hope to grow in faith until we begin to take God at His Word.  We can never hope to obtain the blessings of the Lord, until we begin to plead with Him on the basis of His own Word.  Let the woman of Canaan be an example and encouragement to all of us!  Only then can there be the victory of faith.

3.  The victory of faith.

It is not so much that the great faith of this woman has gained the victory.  She has gained the victory simply because she has “risked” taking the Word of Jesus to be true and well-meant.  In doing that, she broke the silence that was between Jesus and herself.

Jesus gives way and yields to her request and to her clever wrestling.  We should apply this story to our own heart and life, so that the Lord may be able to say of us: “O man, woman, great is your faith!”  When God seems silent, when there are puzzling matters in our life, we should wrestle as the woman of Canaan did.  When God chastens us, or when His hand is heavy upon us, we should not let Him go until He blesses us.  It is only when we are ready to stop trusting in our own cunning and to confess that we falsest and foulest of all men, that we receive the crown of righteousness in Christ.  The highest we can rise in this life is to bend down in humble confession to God.  We can only maintain ourselves by losing the crown.  We can gain the crown only by losing ourselves.  God will yield not to the proud, self-seeking spirit, but to the will that is inspired by His own love.

The blessing to be obtained is far greater than just physical healing.  That is what the woman was after in the first place.  The blessing given through the prayer of faith concerns body and soul for eternity.

Can our faith really be victorious?

Yes, when we set our whole sinful life in the light of God’s countenance.  That’s the price that must be paid in order to become a prince with God.

            Let us pray then for deliverance from Satan’ s power.

            Let us pray for the forgiveness of our sins.

            Let us pray for the gift of eternal life.

            If we cling to the Lord like that,
                        He is near and we shall hear the heavenly whisper:
                          Man, woman, great is your faith!
                          Be it done for you as you desire!

This forgiveness and salvation is God’s great work.  It is so great that we need God’s assurance that it is really ours.  Our text assures us that those who persevere shall be heard and helped.  For He gives His children bread and not stones.  He showed grace to a poor woman of Canaan.  He showed mercy to someone who had nothing whatever to do with the church.  Should He then deny His grace to you who cry continually: Lord, have mercy!

If Christ died for us while we yet enemies, should He then fail us when we have become children?

He is near to those who will repeat it now in their heart: Lord, have mercy!

Do we now feel, brothers and sisters, young people, do we now feel how much more we ought to pray: “Lord, increase our faith”?

Amen.