The Syrophoenician Woman, Part 2

Driving home: This passage sets before us a clear illustration of one of the major purposes of God in affliction here in the passage open before us we see how an intense and an apparently. Cruel affliction to be the very package in wh…

Martin uses the analogy of an 'ugly package' (affliction) containing a 'marvelous blessing' (spiritual good) to explain God's purpose in suffering, contrasting it with the saying 'good things come in small packages'.

Well this morning time permitting I want us to look at two other lines of application of this passage and then God willing next week the third and final this passage not only sets before us. In Jesus. Some very helpful teaching on the properties and actings of real faith but in it we have a clear illustration of one of the major purposes of God in affliction this passage sets before us a clear illustration of one of the major purposes of God in affliction here in the passage open before us we see how an intense and an apparently. Cruel affliction to be the very package in which God had wrapped...

10:12 - 11:36 Read in full sermon

Driving home: This passage sets before us a clear illustration of one of the major purposes of God in affliction here in the passage open before us we see how an intense and an apparently. Cruel affliction to be the very package in wh…

Martin imagines the Syrophoenician woman (named Mary for the story) hanging clothes and a neighbor telling her reports of Jesus's miracles, illustrating how these reports awakened her desperate hope.

That when the reports of the mighty works and the compound of Jesus of Nazareth Nazareth reached her ears when those reports began to have a common denominator that this Jesus who down in Galilee performs mighty works by the word of a grand shoe she was not indifferent to those reports in my preparation I imagined her out in the backyard. One day hanging up her clothes.

12:47 - 13:20 Read in full sermon

Driving home: This passage sets before us a clear illustration of one of the major purposes of God in affliction here in the passage open before us we see how an intense and an apparently. Cruel affliction to be the very package in wh…

He uses the metaphor of her ears stretching 'two or three inches until she looked like a little Dumbo' to vividly portray her intense eagerness to hear reports of Jesus.

Her ears probably stretched two or three inches until she looked like a little Dumbo as she listened to the report of one who was able to do the very thing she so desperately needed to have done in the life of her own child and we do not know how many such reports she heard but there are some indications that those reports awakened in her a spirit of inquiry and she began to ask. Questions until she came to at least this much knowledge according to Matthew 15 that this mighty worker who was casting out demons healing the sick and cleansing lepers was none other than the promised Messiah of Isr...

14:21 - 15:21 Read in full sermon

Driving home: This passage sets before us a clear illustration of one of the major purposes of God in affliction here in the passage open before us we see how an intense and an apparently. Cruel affliction to be the very package in wh…

Martin imagines the woman dropping a 'half cooked steak' or 'basket full of clothes' upon hearing Jesus was in her borderlands, emphasizing her immediate, desperate pursuit of Him.

As one after another in her neighborhood brings a report maybe one on a Monday one on a Thursday until there begins to be born in her a kind of obsession all that he would come to our borders all that he would really and come into this area one can imagine what happened one day when one of her friends came and said Mary I have amazing news report has reached us that in one of our borders. In that area between us and Galilee Jesus of Nazareth has come with his followers his band of 12 and he's somewhere in a house in such and such a town I'm convinced whatever she was doing she dropped it if it...

15:21 - 16:24 Read in full sermon

Driving home: Anything anything is better than living in carelessness and dying in sin better affected like the Canaanite ish mother and like her flee to Christ than to live at ease like the rich fool and die at last without Christ an…

He contrasts the woman's desperation with how she might have reacted to reports of Jesus if her daughter had been healthy, illustrating how affliction prepared her heart to respond.

She's not laying at the bottom of all well you see it was this dark affliction it was this of this hot on her dog in which the package of the revelation of the power and the grace of Jesus came to her I to imagine what it would have been like had her daughter been a healthy normal little girl the first day she's out in the backyard hanging up her clothes in one of her friends comes and says oh Mary have you heard the reports what reports. About the man down in Galilee who cast out the dead she'd have gone right on hanging up her clothes saying oh very interesting that's lovely but what's that ...

17:27 - 18:39 Read in full sermon

Driving home: Anything anything is better than living in carelessness and dying in sin better affected like the Canaanite ish mother and like her flee to Christ than to live at ease like the rich fool and die at last without Christ an…

The demon possession is described as a 'chain around her neck' that she 'ate with it she slept with it she woke up with it,' emphasizing its constant, oppressive presence and how it focused her need.

That prepared responded to the reports about Jesus for the writer tells us in verse twenty five of mark seven the only contact she had heard had had with Jesus she had heard of him but you see she did not hear of him in a vacuum of self-sufficiency she didn't hear of you was like a chain around her neck.

18:41 - 19:32 Read in full sermon

Driving home: Anything anything is better than living in carelessness and dying in sin better affected like the Canaanite ish mother and like her flee to Christ than to live at ease like the rich fool and die at last without Christ an…

Martin quotes Bishop J.C. Ryle's 'Expository Thoughts on the Gospels' to underscore that affliction, though painful, often serves to bring people to Christ and is ultimately for their good.

That thing was. Wait upon her soul she ate with it she slept with it she woke up with it she went through the day with it so when she heard of one who could meet that need everything in her mind her natural affection the awakened spiritual desires all of them came like the rays of the sun to a magnifying glass to one burning my daughter's. Need and at that point life became a very. Concentrated focused myopic existence one which alone my daughter's name and you see the great purpose of God infliction was precisely this to prepare see the very blessing that Christ conferred the good old Bishop ...

19:32 - 21:02 Read in full sermon

The point: Ask God to show you the precious gift wrapped up in an ugly package of affliction, believing that clouds of dread are 'big with mercy and shall break in blessing'.

He quotes William Cowper's hymn 'Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take' to encourage those in affliction to see God's mercy hidden within their trials.

My friend, may I urge you to ask God to show you the precious gift wrapped up in that ugly package, and you go to the Lord Jesus believing the truth we have often sung in that wonderful hymn of William Cowper's, Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take the clouds ye so much dread are big with mercy and shall break in blessing on your head. Blind unbelief is sure to earth and scan his work in vain. God is a interpreter and He will make it plain. The day before that woman heard the news that Jesus has come to one of our border towns, it may have been hard food and wise gracious in all when she live...

29:08 - 30:10 Read in full sermon

The point: Realize that God never made you to make it on your own; His afflictions are calling you to go to the One who meets the needs of the afflicted.

God 'ruffling the sheets' and 'shaking the bed' is a metaphor for God using affliction to disturb complacency and get the attention of those resting in 'fatal ease'.

Now He's taken several away and you're ready to curse Him? Oh, my friend, no. God's goodness was smoothing your bed on which you are resting and upon which you were sliding. God's ruffled the sheets and God is shaking the bed and He's put a few full of mercy and compassion. His goodness was not getting your attention. He's bringing strokes of fiction that you might realize. Listen, listen.

33:00 - 33:58 Read in full sermon

The point: Realize that God never made you to make it on your own; His afflictions are calling you to go to the One who meets the needs of the afflicted.

Martin vividly imagines the woman running 'up and down the street pounding on the door' asking 'Is Jesus here?' to illustrate the fervent, desperate seeking required to find Christ.

You'll have to seek Him out. And I love to think of that woman if they didn't tell her the exact house. That's when my imagination goes crazy. I love to watch her.

34:24 - 34:32 Read in full sermon

The point: Do not be upset when preached about hell, judgment, or the necessity of being born again, repenting, and fleeing to Christ, as it is out of love to save you from 'fatal ease'.

He quotes a phrase from Francis Scott Key's hymn, 'Praise whose threats from thy faithfulness and thy fatal ease,' to highlight the danger of spiritual complacency.

We have often sung together that wonderful hymn of Francis Scott Key, author of our national anthem. But we love to sing that song, Praise my, not praise my soul, the King of Heaven, but praise the grace, etc. And there's a phrase in there, Praise whose threats from thy faithfulness and thy fatal ease. See, he caught that.

35:37 - 36:06 Read in full sermon