The Syrophoenician Woman, Part 3

Introduction: The Syrophoenician Woman and Prevailing Intercessory Prayer

0:03 This sermon was preached on Sunday morning, December 29th, 1985, at the Trinity Baptist Church in Montville, New Jersey. Now let us turn together to the Gospel according to Mark and the 7th chapter. Mark's Gospel, the 7th chapter, and will you follow carefully as I read verses 24 through 30. Writing concerning the activity of our Lord at this period in His ministry, Mark informs us,

1:12 Now the woman was a Greek, a Syrophoenician by race, and she besought him that he would cast forth the demon out of her daughter. And he said unto her, Let the children first be filled, for it is not fitting to take the little children's bread, the children's bread, and cast it to the little dogs. But she answered and said unto him, Yes, Lord. Even the little dogs under the table eat of the children's crumbs.

1:48 And he said unto her, For this saying, Go your way, the demon is gone out of your daughter. And she went away unto her house, and found the child laid upon the bed, and the demon gone out. We have sung together that the Spirit breathes upon the Word, and brings, the truth to sight.

2:18 We have acknowledged that as the sun gives both light and heat, so we desire that the Spirit's ministry will grant to us both light, illumination, and heat, the felt impression upon our religious affections. Let us then, as we have sung and acknowledged our need of the Spirit's ministry, so acknowledge that need. We pray together.

2:50 Our Father, we thank you that the exalted Lord Jesus Christ has sent forth His own Holy Spirit. And we praise you for all of those wonderful things that He said concerning the ministry of the Spirit, as the Spirit of truth who would take the things of Himself and reveal them to men, the Spirit of illumination, and the Spirit of light and of heat. And we pray that we may be very conscious of all of those facets of the Spirit's ministry, as we now turn to the sacred page. Holy Spirit, gift of the ascended Christ, move mightily upon all of our minds and hearts, as we reverently take your own inscripturated Word, into our hands and set it before our eyes and our minds. Come, O breath of God, and breathe upon us, we pray, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. Now we come this morning to our third and final meditation

4:12 upon this captivating incident in the life and ministry of our Lord Jesus Christ. In our first meditation, I sought to open up the text and to underscore only one of its obvious lessons, namely, what it tells us concerning the properties and actings of true faith. For in the parallel passage in Matthew 15-28, the incident reaches a climax when Jesus turns to the woman and says, O woman, great is thy faith, be it unto you even as you will. And because our Lord commends what she did and said as an expression of great faith, we should expect that the passage would contain, then, some of the properties and actings of that faith which our Lord delights to honor. And then in our study last week, having said, and seen the graphic demonstration of the properties and actings of saving faith, we then had occasion to note that the passage affords a clear illustration

5:31 of one of the major purposes of God in affliction. This woman is a monument of the fact that affliction coming to us in the providence of God is often God's ugly package in which He's wrapped, some of His most precious gifts. And it was the affliction of the demon possession of this woman's daughter that became the occasion for her sensing her need and the suitability of Christ to her need and became the very open door into this tremendous experience of His grace and of His power. And so we concluded our study last week by noting in the third place that the passage does indeed contain a glorious manifestation of the power and of the grace of Jesus. Now this morning, in our final meditation, at least for this time on this passage, I would direct your attention to a fourth category of truth that is so prominent in the passage, and I'm trying to couch it in these words. This passage gives us a vivid exhibition of the principles of prevailing intercessory prayer.

Defining Prevailing Intercessory Prayer

6:59 A vivid exhibition of the principles of prevailing intercessory prayer. Now on the threshold of our study, it's important that we understand what I mean by the phrase prevailing prayer. Prevailing intercessory prayer. The word prayer is used in the Bible and in our common usage to describe any and all of the various aspects of the outpouring of the soul to God in conscious living communion with Him.

7:42 Under the umbrella word prayer, we can place the more distinct exercises of prayer, such as adoration of God, thanksgiving to God, confession of our sins to God, petition for specific mercies from God, supplication with reference to certain needs that we would see God meet, and also we place the category of intercession. Now these distinctions, are not man-made distinctions or artificial distinctions. They are recognized in many places of the word of God. For example, in 1 Timothy 2.1, Paul says, I will first of all that prayer, supplications, intercessions, giving of thanks be made for all. We have as it were a list of the various categories of prayer.

8:47 We are admonished to pray with all, and supplication, that is, with all kinds, of prayer and supplication in the spirit. Now if this is so, what is the distinguishing element of intercessory prayer? For I have asserted that the passage concerning the Syrophoenician woman and her demon-possessed daughter is a vivid exhibition of the principle, The principles of prevailing intercessory prayer. What precisely is the distinguishing element of intercessory prayer? Well, it is to be found in this. Intercessory prayer is that prayer in which petitions are made on behalf of another in order to secure some good from God for that person or persons.

9:58 Intercessory prayer has its distinguishing element. One person is praying to God that God would confer upon. Another person or persons specific mercies or blessings in imprecation. One is praying that God will bring judgment upon others.

10:25 So prayers of imprecation are distinguished from prayers of intercession. One picture is worth a thousand words. Let me give you two pictures very quickly as we try to have a clear concept of what. Intercessory prayer is in Genesis chapter 18, and you may wish to turn there with me.

10:50 We have the record of Abraham's intercessory prayer for Sodom, more particularly for any righteous people who are in Sodom. God has revealed to Abraham that he is to go down and see if indeed the wickedness of those cities are what they appear. And if so, judgment will come, and Abraham begins to plead with God. Verse 23, Abraham standing before Jehovah draws and says, Will you consume the righteous with the wicked?

11:33 And he begins to have this argument, this wrestling with the angel of the Lord with reference to the sparing of the righteous. In Sodom, Abraham takes the posture of an intercessor who is pleading with God on behalf of others, specifically that the righteous in Sodom would be spared. You have a similar example in Moses in Exodus chapter 32. God has seen the idolatry of the nation and is angry, and God intimates that his anger is such that he.

12:15 He is prepared to blot out that people, to consume them in his wrath. Exodus 32, 9, the Lord said unto Moses, I've seen this people, it is a stiff-necked people, now leave that my wrath may wax hot against them, and that I may consume them, and I will make of you a great nation. And Moses besought the Lord, and what he's doing is taking the posture of an intercessor, and pleading with God to turn away his wrath, to forgive, and to forbear with his people. And in response to his prayer, we read in verse 14, And the Lord repented of the evil which he said he would do unto his people. Now here is intercessory prayer fleshed out in living example, so that if you've been following it all, there's no excuse for you to have dim and indistinct notions about the precise nature of intercessory prayer. It is prayer offered on behalf of another that God would confer a specific blessing or mercy upon that person.

13:41 Now what do I mean by prevailing intercessory prayer? Well, the word prevail means to gain the mastery, or to be victorious. So in using the term prevailing in conjunction with intercessory prayer, I'm pointing to intercessory prayer that succeeds in obtaining its object.

14:09 It was intercessory prayer which prevails.

14:15 Deliverance of Lot and his family in the subsequent narrative is linked directly to God's faithfulness, to hear, and answer Abraham's intercessory prayer. We have seen in the incident in Exodus 32 that the Lord repented of the evil that he said he would do to his people. And the prayer of Moses is prevailing intercessory prayer. There was a mastery, there was a victories of intercession.

The Roots of Prevailing Intercessory Prayer: Accurate Assessment, Engaged Heart, Strong Conviction

14:57 Now I've taken this amount of time not for filling, but I've taken this amount of time not for filling, but I've taken this amount of time not for filling, but I've taken this amount of time not for filling, for filling. I know that as we come to Mark chapter 7, with this concern before us, what does this passage teach us concerning the principles of prevailing intercessory prayer that each of us will have a distinct concept of the thing we are concerned to examine this morning as we work our way through the passage. Now as we do, we do, we do, we do, we'll consider, first of all, what we see in the Syrophoenician woman's pleading with Jesus of the roots of prevailing intercessory prayer. Then, secondly, the substance of prevailing intercessory prayer. And, thirdly, the fruits of prevailing intercessory prayer. First of all, then, what can this woman teach us about the roots of prevailing intercessory prayer?

16:05 Well, as we examine the perspectives, the convictions, the words, and the actions of this Gentile woman, it becomes clear that her intercession on behalf of her daughter was marked by three tap roots in all. All motions and actings. I'm likening these to the roots of a tree. That without which the life of the tree cannot be sustained.

16:41 And these roots do not go out like this, but they are all intertwined. And if one of them dies, all three of them will die. There can be no real prevailing intercessory prayer without the intertwining of those three tap roots in our hearts. Tap root number one is what I'm describing as an accurate assessment of the need of another.

17:10 Would you be an intercessor for your children? Would you be an intercessor for your neighbors? Would you be an intercessor for your nation? Would you be an intercessor for your church, its leaders, and your fellow members?

17:27 Then that work of intercession will only go on.

17:34 When you attain and maintain in your heart an assessment of the needs of those for whom you are interceding. You see, this entire passage takes its starting point from the fact that the demon possession of this woman's little daughter was a reality, in fact, and in her own and in her consciousness. Though it was an ugly, humbling reality, reality, she had come to grips with the reality and possessed her daughter. The text tells us in Mark 7, 25, that a woman came whose little daughter had an unclean spirit. That was reality. The daughter had an unclean spirit. That was a fact.

18:39 Now, what was the woman's conviction concerning reality? Verse 26. Now, the woman was a Greek, a Syrophoenician, and she besought him that he would cast the demon out of her daughter. In fact, according to the parallel passage in Matthew 15, 22, she even confesses that the reality is that her daughter is not only demon-possessed in an ordinary sense, of that horrible reality, but she says, my daughter is severe head games on herself and speaking euphemisms. She doesn't come to Jesus from the scene of a severely demonized daughter and play a head game on herself and say, well, really, all she's got is a little bit of a problem in her nervous system, and then say, Lord, because my daughter has a tick in her nervous system.

19:47 Son of David, have mercy upon me. In the light of that reality. Now, I say of application that in all the instances of prevailing intercessory prayer recorded in the Scriptures, this was the starting place. There was an accurate assessment of the need of another on the part of the intercessor.

20:25 Now, granted, we cannot be omniscient nor infallible. But insofar as reality is defined by Scripture, and made known to us in our own intercessors, we must be in touch with reality. What was reality for Abraham? That God had revealed that he was going to consume Sodom and Gomorrah with judgment.

20:54 That was reality. And it was that reality gripping his heart that began the psychological and spiritual process that led him to take the posture of an intercessor. It was the reality of Israel's idolatry that provoked God to anger, that caused him to say, I'll blot out the nation. Leave me alone, Moses, so that my wrath can be venged.

21:23 God is saying, don't take the place of an intercessor. And Moses takes that place, and he takes it in the realism of an accurate assessment of the need of that nation. So with reference to us, if we would truly be in touch with God, if we would truly intercede for our children, we must take off the blind, the psychological and humanistic brainwashing about who they are,

21:58 deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked. And except one is born of the Spirit, he cannot see the kingdom of God,

22:09 privileges and opportunities, and external influences.

22:15 We see, therefore, in this woman, the first taproot of prevailing intercessory prayer, and absolutely, accurate assessment of the need of another. But then the second taproot is this, an engagement of the heart with respect to the need of another. An engagement of the heart with respect to the need of another. Now, if anything is clear in this passage, it is the fact that this woman came to Jesus with a mission that had possessed and consumed her heart, and there is no other explanation for her all-merciful heart, but that her heart was set on the deliverance of her daughter. You'll remember in our previous study, when we opened up the passage with the light of Matthew 15, the parallel passage shed upon it, there were these four cycles of exchange between the woman and the Lord Jesus. She comes in direct address and cries out, Son of David, have mercy. And it says, He answered her, not a word.

23:34 Then she cried out more, and the disciples were between her and the Lord, until they come and say, Lord, send her away. She's troubling us, crying. Then the Lord met her with that description of His present mission, which focused primarily upon the lost sheep of the house of Israel. And she's not daunted.

23:54 She continues to press her case. Why? There was an engagement of her heart with reference to the need of another. When she left that demon-possessed daughter in the home and went out to find where Jesus was seeking some seclusion with her disciples, she did not go out with the attitude, Oh, well, if I happen to come upon Him, good.

24:19 If not, you win some, you lose some. Not that woman. She went out with determination, I will not come home without a word from His lips that the demon has gone out from my daughter. And so she overcomes discouragements, and she overcomes apparent rebuffs, because her heart was engaged in a way of application.

24:55 This element is always present in the recorded prayers of prevailing intercessory prayer. You read that prayer of Abraham for Sodom. His heart was in it to the point that he dares.

25:13 Oh, God, forgive me. I know I'm but dust and ashes. Speak with you. But he doesn't.

25:18 He does speak. Why?

25:28 Sodom is possessed.

25:37 The heart has the whole man.

25:39 The whole man. I read that. Come when God says, Leave him. He doesn't leave him alone.

25:56 God says, Leave him. Moses says, No.

26:02 No. I can't leave you alone. And the good of this people over whom you've placed me. And he pleads.

26:15 And he prevails. Until the sovereign God of heaven and earth is not at all fastidious about recording in his own infallible word, Jehovah repented of the evil that he said, he would do to him. I take second place to no one in confessing belief in God's absolute sovereignty in the fixed nature of his decrees. But I'm not embarrassed that God wrote those words.

26:40 God repented of the evil that he said he would do.

26:45 Here was a man whose heart was engaged. So likewise, this woman. Now, if this is the second taproot of all prevailing intercessory prayer, the engagement of our hearts. Our hearts with the need of others.

27:00 Do you see why self-centered, self-preoccupied people never become mighty in intercessory prayer?

27:11 A heart well my full with personal desires, personal hurts, personal ambition, personal sensitivities, self-importance, will never know the selfless agony of prevailing intercessory prayer. Perhaps there is no more accurate test of the present state of our hearts at any given point in our Christian experience than the vitality, scope, and tenacity of our intercessory prayers. You can be full of self and have an apparently flourishing prayer life of petition for your own needs in which God becomes your heavenly bellboyer. Enjoy to run your errands. But when you take your posture before him, not pleading for yourself, but for others, I say it is perhaps the highest act of self-denial and the most telling test of the measure to which the power of the cross has been effective in mortifying selfishness in our hearts.

28:30 C.S. Lewis, speaking of the vulnerability of a heart, that is determined to love others, wrote these very perceptive words, To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken.

28:58 If you want to make sure of keeping your heart intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries, avoid all entanglements, lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken.

29:30 It will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The only place outside heaven, where you can be unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable, where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers of love, is hell.

29:51 The only place outside of heaven, where you are immunized against the dangers of love, is hell. It was this woman's love.

30:08 Her home, her borders, into the no-man's land, between Galilee and Phoenicia, to seek out the Savior, and to persist until she heard the words, Be it unto you. Even the demon is gone out of your daughter.

30:31 Is not this what the apostle is talking about when he speaks of his own intercessory prayer for his fellow Jews, brethren? My heart for them is that they may be saved. I have continual heaviness and sorrow of...

30:59 This is what we're talking about. The engage of the...

31:04 With the need of... And without that, there will be no intercessory prayer.

31:13 And without the power of the cross being applied by the Holy Spirit to our native self-centeredness and selfishness, we will never attain to any level of real effectiveness in intercessory prayer.

31:31 Dear people, that's why we've often said that our prayer meeting is the index, all things being equal of the health of this church, because we come together primarily not to have a give-me-your upon His people, upon His church, upon His cause around the world.

32:07 Easy chair after a busy day's work. What will drive you out of the comfort of your couch and your recliner at the end of a harrowing...

32:21 of the self-withering power of the cross in your heart to engage the needs of others? And so the great apostle is an example to us. Of intercessory prayer. But then I must hasten to focus on the third taproot.

32:44 And in this woman, it was this. A strong...

32:49 Concerning the ability of Jesus to meet the need of another. According to Mark 7.25, this woman had never seen a miracle, had never been in the immediate presence of Christ. She had simply heard of Him.

33:09 But what she heard of Him caused a conviction to be born in her heart that if she could only get her daughter's need into the orbit of the awareness,

33:25 He was well able to meet it. She had never perhaps even heard only one other, I think, recorded instance of Jesus performing a miracle at a distance.

33:38 This was expecting something for which in her understanding and experience, perhaps never had been a... Jesus is able to meet the need of my demon-possessed daughter.

33:56 And in that conviction she goes, and with that conviction she stays, as it were, clinging until He turns her away in absolute refusal or sends her away with the word of promise that the demon is gone. No indication, you see, that there was anything other, than a spirit that oozed with a conviction that Jesus can meet my daughter's need. And I say again by way of application,

34:33 we will never engage in the arduous labor of intercessory prayer unless there is sustained in our hearts by the Spirit through the Word a strong conviction of the ability of our God to lead of those for whom we are interceding. Once done, you have no more errand at the throne of grace. Did we not hear several weeks ago so clearly and to our edification that our God is the God who is able able to do what? Not only what we ask, not only exceeding abundantly above what we ask, exceeding abundantly above according to the power that works in us.

The Substance of Prevailing Intercessory Prayer: Boldness and Definiteness

35:31 These three taproos intertwined, embedded in the sub-souls, in the sub-soil of this woman's being. They constituted the root of her exercise of intercession, an accurate assessment of the need of another, the engagement of her heart with respect to that need, and a strong conviction of the ability of Jesus to meet the need. But now, in less detail and more quickly, notice the substance of prevailing intercessory prayer. As seen in the experience of this woman.

36:13 As we look at the combined account of Matthew and Mark, four things come shining through as constituting the substance of her intercession on behalf of her daughter. First of all, it was boldly direct. Mark 7.25 tells us that having heard of Him, she came, Matthew tells us, she came, cried out, Son of David, have mercy upon me.

36:50 And then when He responds with silence, she cries out further after further words from Jesus. She says, Lord,

37:01 and in the entire passage, in reading it, meditating upon it, there's a sense in which everything fades into the blurry background, like a picture in which you have a larger, you've opened up the lens on your camera to focus on a given opportunity, on an object, and everything else is blurred. Everything else is blurred, but this woman and Jesus. There is a bold engagement of Jesus with reference to her need. And isn't that what we find in those examples of intercession to which we've been alluding?

37:39 Abraham stands before Jehovah and in a bold, direct interaction argues and dickers with Jehovah about the destiny of the righteous in Sodom. Moses, when God says, and in a boldness, engages God, and he starts giving God's lessons in covenant faithfulness. Oh, what boldness. He tells God, you can't do this.

38:12 The Egyptians will hear and your name will be shamed. Lord, you can't do this because you made a promise to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And God didn't say, who are you to tell me what I can or cannot do? God loved it.

38:25 God loved it. This boldness of His servants, and the Lord Jesus obviously loved it here. He finally, and I can't imagine Him saying it without shaking His head, Oh, woman, great is your faith. What can I do?

38:43 Such holy, direct, boldness in approach to me has overcome not my reluctance in heart, an aspirant reluctance. Woman, be it unto you as you will. Boldly direct. It isn't at our invitation.

39:01 Let us come what? Boldly to the throne of grace. Boldly to the throne of grace.

39:10 His die has been buried. The revenge of the Father's wrath is in glory. Sent the Spirit.

39:23 He comes shriveling in at a distance from God.

39:29 A sense of humility with boldness. It's not humility. It's shriveling. According to good gifts to your children, how much more good gifts to those who ask Him.

40:06 And never can we be more certain that we are welcome than when we come to Him. And when we come to Him, than when we come to Him, than when we come to Him, than when we come to Him, than when we come to Him, not activated by mingled motives of pleading for personal needs, but coming with those distressed by the devil, as this woman did, pleading not for herself, but pleading for her daughter. Boldly direct. That's the first element in the substance of prevailing intercessory prayer.

40:36 But then secondly, it was undeniably definite. There's no mistaking what she wanted from God. She wanted from Christ for her daughter. Mark 7.26 She besought He would cast forth the demon out of her daughter. There was no question. Once she opened her mouth, there was no question what she wanted. If you were standing there listening, you wouldn't have to nudge your friend and say, hey, what in the world does this mad woman want?

41:05 She's all in a... You knew exactly what she wanted.

41:08 Her petition was undeniably definite. You find that in the parallel passage in Matthew. Matthew 15.28 that Jesus says, O woman, great is your faith, be it unto you even as you will.

41:24 How could He give her a blank check? He says, you can have what you are willing. She wouldn't abuse it.

41:47 She was so identified with the need of her daughter that it had become hers. Saying, have mercy upon me. Help me. It was clear what she wanted.

41:57 Cast the demon out of my daughter. There was unmistakable definiteness in her prayers. You read through all the examples of prevailing intercessory prayer in the Bible and you find that same element. Unmistakable definiteness.

42:16 How definite was Abraham? He got right down to numbers. Started with 50. And pardon me.

42:24 How definite was Moses? He said, you're pretty definite.

42:32 I remember one time being in a context where there was a new convert and in the freshness of his newfound faith he didn't have a Christian background. His Bible was a new book to him not only spiritually but just its concepts. And as he read his Bible and saw how free and abundant were the promises of God to answer the prayers of his people and as he began to get a feel for the definiteness of biblical prayers it disturbed him when he went to prayer meetings that people prayed all around the mulberry bush and never asked for anything. And then I heard the man say this.

43:10 If you want fish he had read that passage in Luke 11. What son of what father is you if a son asked him for fish will he give him a scorpion or words similar to that. And he had gripped it. If you want fish ask the Lord for fish.

The Substance of Prevailing Intercessory Prayer: Persistence and Submissiveness

43:30 Don't say oh the creature out in the sea that has scales in the tail the Lord got to feed the children first. She said yes Lord but children eat the little crumbs just little crumbs will give me what I want. I'm here on an errand I will not be turned aside. There was a definiteness in her prayers and so there is in the prayer that prevails with God on behalf of others and then thirdly it was persistent.

44:16 It was persistent. Remember those four cycles of verbal interchange between the woman and our Lord. The direct plea is met with silence. The indirect plea is met with a statement about his mission to the Jews.

44:29 Another direct plea is met with an illustration about the little dogs and the children. And then when she responds with her wise observation the Lord gives her her desire. There was a persistence in her prayer. Now why?

44:47 We know from the general teaching of scripture that this is the element of prayer that Jesus underscores more than any other. Men ought always to pray and not to faint. And he gives the parable or the story of the woman and the unjust judge. In Luke 11 he gives the story of the friend who goes to his friend at midnight begging for bread and how he didn't open the door at first but he kept on asking and asking and asking oh why?

45:17 God is large and if the coffers of heaven are full why must we be persistent? One of the most perceptive answers to that question is embodied in the insights of William Taylor who commenting on this very incident writes the Lord's treatment of their prayer his delay and their request are drops of acid which prove whether or not their prayers are of genuine gold. Someone has a lump of metal looks like pure gold put a drop of acid on it. If there's any alloy in there the acid will consume it only the gold will remain.

46:01 He says God's delays are like drops of acid on our prayers to see if they are the pure gold of focus earnest biblically based desire or whether they are mingled with half-heartedness and selfishness. He says spirit that wonders at such delays or complains about them is not yet ready to receive the blessings which it has asked for true faith holds on through the delay and sin it is an extension of the principle that underlies these remarks to say that our Lord wished a strength which he saw that this woman already had. It was much that Gentile as she was she came to him as the son of David and now that she had come he would lead her up to something higher therefore he began by treating her with apparent indifference. Do you marvel? Is it not always the case that resistance is necessary for the development of strength? This is true physically as every athlete knows but it is equally true spiritually.

47:12 Difficulty in every brave heart only is resolution and grace is the soul for greater effort and where true faith is within certain limits indeed but yet it is really strengthened by trial. How many there are among us who have to confess that it's been good for us that the Lord caused us to wait for the blessing which we asked long ago because in the interval he gave us through the discipline of delay that without which the blessing might have proven to be a curse and our hearts say amen and that's the element of her intercessory prayer that is so evident it's persistence and then finally the fourth quality in the Bible in the substance of her prayer it was submissive it was submissive although the initial impression seems to be tinged with a carnal pushiness and brashness the key to understanding her true attitude is when Jesus speaks illustration of the little children and the little dog this point in time his primary mission is to the children at the table the Jewish nation the lost sheep of the tribe of the Lord of Israel and that all others

48:40 who come even near him in his ministry are but little puppy dogs under the table he says that's the divine arrangement and she has no argument but notice her response in verse 28 of Mark 7 she answered and said unto him yes Lord even the dogs under the feet of the children's crumbs you see amidst all her daughter back in the house she said that she was a beautiful and bold and persistent was a beautiful submissiveness to God's dispensations and ways she did not say oh this nation is sat at the table for centuries Gentiles have been in darkness it is not right she had no argument she says whatever a sovereign God dispensations of his own grace and mercy to men is right and good and I'm content to take what he gives in the posture in which he has placed me and you see what on the surface appears as arrogance and carnal brashness is indeed

50:09 it's hard utter submissiveness and that's the great paradox of those who've been most bold with God in intercessory prayer have been those who have been most broken and submissive before God in the light of his word you see it was that very submissiveness that became a lever in Moses hands when he prayed turn back to Exodus 32 this is a vital principle we see it in that woman and lest you think that I'm reading something in that shouldn't be there that's why I continually have alluded to these two great specimen passages on intercessory prayer to demonstrate that the principles are indeed present when Moses disobeys God if I may put that in inverted commas God says verse 11 Moses sought the Lord his God he didn't leave him alone and he said Lord why does your wrath wax hot against your people that you've brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand God wasn't going to argue with that fact that was a fact wherefore Egyptians speak saying for evil did he bring them forth to slay them in the mountains consume them from the face of the earth burn from your

51:38 fierce wrath and repent of this evil God calls upon men to repent here a man calls upon God to repent it's not the same repentance of course ours is a calling to forsake our sin with grief and hatred of our sin and return and embrace God and his government over us I'm fully aware upon God oppression of his will to his people leave me alone I'll consume he says oh God which you've said you will do for your name before the Egyptians is at stake but then his prayer prevails when he says this verse 13 remember remember he's asking God to remember something remember Abraham Isaac Israel your servants to whom you swore by you I'll multiply your seed as the stars of heaven and all this land that I've spoken of I will give to your seed and they shall inherit it forever he said Lord this is your word it's inviolable it cannot be broken heaven and earth will pass away but Lord you've spoken it you've sworn with an oath that the seed of Abraham Isaac and Jacob will inherit the land and God I'm so utterly bound to your word I dare to bring that word before you and call you to remember it you cannot block them out

53:07 and be true to your word and your oath and just like Jesus said oh woman great is thy faith you can have what you want look at the next verse and the Lord repented of the evil he said he would do to his people dear friends I didn't write the Bible I'm called upon to preach it and if anything is clear in this passage it is clear that this element of submissiveness instead of being a discouragement to prevailing prayer becomes the very base and to coerce him to act contrary to his revealed will and his ways plead that word before him and hold God to accomplish what he has promised God never once rebuked anyone who came with that kind of boldness and tenacity well these things I say form the substance of the intercessory prayer of that woman directness definiteness persistence and submissiveness now very briefly note the fruit of prevailing intercessory prayer what was the fruit of it well the immediate fruits according to Matthew were the commendation

The Fruits of Prevailing Intercessory Prayer

54:35 of the Lord the assurance that she could have what she desired promise of the Lord that the demon has gone out from her daughter notice the language of Mark 7 29 he said unto her for this saying go you to your daughter and she went away to her house and found it upon the bed and the demon gone out and when she looked upon that child she was right in having two things register on her mind that child's present condition was a living monument and manifestation of the grace and the power of Jesus there in the one for whom she interceded but she saw something else she also the fruit and result of her prevailing intercession and from henceforth every time she looked upon her daughter in a state of normalcy she had every right to think two things blessed a little dog he had mercy upon my daughter

56:02 and then to say blessed be God for the privilege of intercessory prayer my daughter is the fruit of my intercession and those two things are not contradictory both were true she had every reason to look upon both as the fruit of her intercession as surely as Moses when he saw God from the threatened wrath oh God this people still a nation still moving toward inheritance promised every right also to say and they are the fruit of my intercession on their behalf there is no contradiction and if you have a God and a religion that sees any fundamental contradiction between God working to manifest his grace and power sovereignly and efficaciously and the prayers of his people prevailing and being woven into the very fabric of his eternal counsels and purposes you have a God and a religion contrary to the Bible

57:28 and my dear people isn't this what we long by God's grace to have in our own experience a constant of our intercession tumbling in upon us in our individual and corporate life as the people of God to see more people for whom there's no action but that the grace and the power is truly transforming as we face this coming year above all else isn't that the passion of your heart we must long for it in the way of God that those manifestations of his grace and power and efficacious working will come in the way of answers to the prevailing prayers now in my final application I want to say

Application: Prevailing Parental Intercessory Prayer

58:53 one closing word I would be remiss if I did not underscore that above all else whatever this passage teaches us of the general principles of prevailing intercessory prayer it has a unique lesson concerning prevailing parental intercessory prayer do you see that it was a mother up with all of the natural affection for a daughter who is interceding with the Lord Jesus on behalf of her daughter now follow me closely as God begun I believe to deposit in our midst as a congregation a renewed intensified burden for the conversion of the upcoming generation I want to state very clearly that the word of God teaches that if our children are to be converted we have no aspersion unless they are surrounded constantly with these four realities number one the consistent example of godliness in their parents number two the consistent application of correction and discipline by their parents number three

60:21 the consistent pressure of the word of God upon their minds and consciences and number four they must be the consistent subject of prevailing prevailing intercessory prayer now according to the scriptures those are the things that God uses for the conversion of children now I'm not saying if all four are present every child will of necessity and inevitably be converted I did not say that but what I'm saying is we have no ground for conversion if all good example but unless there is consistency and discipline and correction the scripture says folly is bound apart of the child but the rod of correction drives it far from him thou shalt apply and deliver his soul from hell

61:43 this is with God because you will not conquer the will of your children and teach them right and wrong by the consistent loving faithful application of the rod of correction bring them on their way to hell but then they must feel the consistent pressure of the word of God upon mind and conscience and that's your job as parents our job as Sunday school teachers our job as preachers and teachers of the word that they may think thoughts of God themselves and of the world judgment and hell and forgiveness and that's why we are committed men are begotten again unto a living hope it is by that word that they are begotten by God's sovereign will but oh dear people there can be consistent example of godliness in the home consistent application of correction and discipline consistent pressure of the word but if there is not prevailing

63:12 prayer we have no reason to expect that God will make the best of means effectual but thank God with all of our imperfections and when we've done all we have to ask the Lord to wash it in his blood and confess at best we're unprofitable servants the fact of the matter is in scripture and where those four things are present most often saves those who are under the consistent pressure of those four commodities oh dear mother maybe you ought to be a little less concerned about this that and the other and cry to God to make you a holy wrestler with Jesus as this woman was maybe your house wasn't the most tidy the day she left maybe there were other ways she could have spent the time that would have not been sin in themselves but with a demon possessed daughter and the son of David in the vicinity once with the need of my daughter dear moms and dads as I enter this new year I confess that one of my most

64:40 earnest prayers with God in my knees with my son in law yesterday I pleaded with God for this again Lord in this coming year take me deeper into the school of prevailing prayer Lord do what must be done to give my heart that engagement with the needs of others that will become a kind of obsession Paul described it this way with the Galatians my little children of whom I travel till Christ be formed in you I tell you when a woman's birth pains come on her only one thing matters getting in the labor room and pushing she's got to have that and Paul something has happened to me spiritually akin to a woman who's come to the time of birth I'm in travel of my soul continue to experience them until Christ is formed in you and you Galatians repudiate all of your legalism and all of your trappings of ceremonies and circumcision and Christ alone is the object of your trust and the focus of your hopes you call that fanaticism alright my friend call it that but as soon as Zion prevailed she brought forth children people used to come to

66:10 my dear mother who bore eleven children ten of us lived to adulthood and are all living and when they would see her concern for her children and her travail they'd say but Mrs. Martin just commit them to the Lord she said commit them to the Lord he's committed them to my care and there wasn't a one of them that I didn't bring forth with labor and travail into this world do I think they'll be brought forth into that eternal world with something less and she dared to take their cheap religion and hand it back to them and she wasn't content when we made decisions and made professions and just lived respectable lives until she saw the positive fruits of a supernatural work of God in our hearts she kept praying for us as though we were as lost as the devil she was in touch with reality and I signed up speaking if all I was concerned about that I'd be a polite nice little boy and make a decision I don't care how many decisions I made she didn't see the positive biblical fruits of regeneration she went on praying for me as though I was as lost as the devil which I was so I were and I was and then she dropped out little hints she didn't preach at me every day she'd say son when you get converted and say uh oh fool everyone else haven't fooled mom

67:40 when the Lord gets hold of you and then she'd say such and such and then the arrow would go home and then I saw the example and I knew if I ever got right with mom's God my lifestyle would have to be something like hers can your children say that can they if they can't God have mercy on your children and God have mercy on you prevailing intercessory prayer costly unpopular churches that have prayer meetings the vast majority of them they're nothing but a less formal Sunday service with a little shorter message in ten minutes of prayer nine of which focus on physical needs and that's not a caricature that's not a caricature churches that give themselves to hours of prayer is it no wonder that shallowness and froth abound and the salt has lost so much of its saltness dear people of God I do not scold you I call upon you to pray that God will

69:03 to make you like this woman who's prepared to have the top roots of prevailing prayer forever embedded in your heart and nourished at the springs of God's truth and by his spirit facing having a heart under the polish withering influence of the cross can be free then an unswerving conviction of the mighty power of God to meet those needs and then in the substance of our prayers directness definiteness persistence and submissiveness and then bless God we shall not be mocked we shall see the fruit of our prayers the power of God manifested to his glory and then the joy of saying there goes the fruit of the intercession which God by the spirit enabled me to offer on their behalf you think that ministers to pride there are few things more humbling than answers to the prayer that God would hear the stammerings of poor creatures like us and hear and answer from heaven what does this woman teach us

Conclusion and Call to Prayer

70:32 she teaches us many valuable lessons about the actings and properties of faith yes she teaches us many lessons about one of God's major purposes in affliction yes she teaches us many lessons about the grace and power of Jesus yes but she also teaches us vital lessons about the principles of prevailing prayer may God grant that we shall learn them well and if you're here as one who's a stranger to any kind of prayer because you're a stranger to God and to his grace may I say it reverently and yet pointedly my friend for you to be concerned about yourself is right forget others until you know that you are right with God and that is through the way of the cross the way of repentance and faith the way of humbling yourself as a sinner and casting yourself upon the free grace and mercy of God extended to sinners as sinners in the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ let us pray oh our father how we thank you for the richness of your word we thank you that you have given us many pictures of what

72:01 it is to pray we thank you that you have not tortured our minds with high flown philosophical and intricate theological statements of prayer but you show us an Abraham prevailing for the wicked city and for the righteous in it you show us a Moses standing before you to turn away your wrath on behalf of the nation of Israel and of you show us this Gentile woman boldly coming to your beloved son and refusing to let him go until she had the desire of her heart oh Lord we feel like we've never prayed in the face of these examples teach us to pray and oh God is a congregation whatever you have in store for us in this coming year we would plead with you that many of us individually and all of us corporately would be taken into new dimensions of defectiveness in intercessory prayer mortify in us everything that would militate against such growth in this holy privilege of laying hold of you for the needs of others hear then our prayer seal your word to our hearts and be with us as we seek

73:30 this day to glorify you and to derive the benefits of a lord's day holy sanctified unto the purposes for which you have instituted it hear us and dismiss us with your blessing through Jesus Christ our lord amen