Mark 7:24-30; Matthew 15:21-28; Mark 7:31-37; Matthew 15:29-31; Mark 8:1-10; Matthew 15:32-16:4; Mark 8:11-21; Matthew 16:5-12 or simply Mark 7:24-8:10, Matthew 15:21-16:12
The passage that jumped out at me was the one about the Greek woman whose daughter Jesus eventually healed by casting out the demon that possessed her.
The reason this passage jumped out at me was because it seems so contradictory to what we know of Jesus. Not that He granted healing to her daughter, but His seeming reluctance to help her.
This woman was a Greek, she was a woman, and she had a demon possessed daughter. She was not in a good position. She was in need. And that is an understatement. But she had heard about Jesus, so she went to Him to petition Him to heal her daughter.
At first He ignored her. But she didn't give up.
Then He refused her. But she still didn't give up.
And then He refused her again. But He said something that gave her a grain of hope, and she latched onto it and implored Him again.
And then He finally healed her daughter.
Why did He ignore her? Why did He refuse her? Why the delay? Why did He seem uncaring and unwilling to help her?
In his sermon, A Harsh Lesson In Grace, David Legge explains.....
you've heard the expression 'Playing the devil's advocate', haven't you? You know what it means: it means to pretend against an idea, to take on a role that you don't really believe in, but to make a point. You understand what it means? Well, here the Lord Jesus is playing the law's advocate, that's what He's doing. He's playing the law's advocate, He's standing in the place of what these religious, self-righteous Pharisees would say, and how they would behave. He wants to show the exclusiveness of the law in order to display the wonderful glory of His grace, as a contrast to it - that He was going to do something new. Ironically, through what seemed to be initially great harshness, the Lord Jesus is inviting this ostracized woman through the open door of His grace....
That's the main point of this story: God's grace has been made free! The Lord had to behave in this seemingly harsh way to illustrate it in a shocking manner, that all men everywhere, if they repent and believe, will be saved. Now: what made her hold on in spite of the apparent unwillingness of Christ? This is very important - I wouldn't have held on, I'll be honest with you, I would have given up. I'm sure many of you, if not all of you, would have been the same. Well, here, I believe, is the answer to this question: the secret of her holding on was that she had got a glimpse of Christ's heart. You remember that she had heard about Him before, and she had understood the heart of this Man who received sinful men and women, and the outcasts all over Palestine. So she was interpreting His words, even His harsh words, in the light of what she already knew about Him. In other words, she had seen His grace displayed and heard about it before, and so she knew that no matter how harsh these words sounded, there had to be a gracious loophole in them somewhere. There had to be! ....
the Lord still does this. He let us first of all see our impossibility from our side, and then He shows us the possibility from His side. It's not that He's reluctant, He wants us to get to that place where our self-sufficiency is gone, so that we are completely dependent upon Him. As Philip Brooks, the Puritan, said: 'Prayer is not overcoming God's reluctance, but laying hold of His willingness'... God's delays are not His denials. Do you know what they are? God's delays are His encouragements to increase our faith - that's why God is delaying in answering your prayers. He wants to increase your faith. We see that in Matthew 15, in his record of this story: Then Jesus answered, "Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted. And her daughter was healed from that very hour. (emphasis mine)
He denies, or delays to increase our faith. And to train us to persevere in prayer!
For many of our needs, only persevering faith expressed in prayer will avail and bring us the answer - that's why we don't often see as many answers to prayer as we would like, because we're not prepared to importunately persist, and prevail, and persevere in faith. You see, generally speaking, we are a generation of quitters today - there is a generational aspect to that. Things were harder years ago in an everyday sense, people had to strive for their bread, and work with the sweat of their brow for everything they had. Things come a lot easier today, and so this has really become part of our makeup. That striving spirit that was even a human thing years ago isn't the same, and it is identical in the spiritual realm: there are very few people who strive in prayer. Do you know something? Satan trembles when he sees a striving saint upon their knees. I think he has a way of resisting our ordinary prayers at times, we see that in the book of Daniel. He can resist our prayers, but Daniel's victory came because he persevered, and he prevailed! Satan seems to lose his power, like he lost his power in this wee girl in this story, when we hold onto God and won't let go until He blesses.
George Mueller knew all about that. There are many instances in his life we could recite. At one point he said: 'The great point in prayer is never to give up until the answer comes'. He gives an anecdote from his own experience. He says: 'I've been praying 63 years and 8 months for one man's conversion' - 63 years, this is George Mueller, a great man of faith, 63 years and 8 months - 'He is not saved yet, but he will be. How can it be otherwise? I am praying!'. The day came when Mueller's friend did receive the Lord Jesus, but it didn't come until Mueller's coffin was being lowered into the ground - yet it came. Beside that open grave that man, prayed for 63 years and 8 months, trusted Christ at the grave of the man who was praying for him all those years. Persevering prayer won the battle. Mueller's prayer saw success just for four simple words: he did not quit.
What is the Lord teaching? He's teaching the willingness to give His grace. What is He teaching? He's teaching the need for us to desire enough to surrender ourselves before God in importunate, persevering, prevailing prayer - to realize that any delays to answer our prayers, and seeming refusals, are often tests of our faith for us to grow stronger, and pray harder, and see greater wonders done for Almighty God's glory. (emphasis mine)
Tomorrow's passage: Mark 8:22-9:13, Matthew 16:13-17:13, Luke 9:18-36
2 comments:
I like his take on that story, which is definitely kind of a hard one to understand. My Life Application Bible also points out that in the original manuscripts, it's notable Jesus didn't use the word "dog" with the meaning of scavenger, which is the word the Jews used to describe Gentiles and Samaritans. He used the word "dog," meaning household pet. Recognizing this slight difference is possibly the shred of hope the woman clung to in order to keep pressing Him for help.
I love that look at "unanswered" prayer and the encouragement to never give up. It's so easy to quit praying for something or someone when we don't see immediate results, but I'm so thankful there are people whose stories we can read ~ and maybe some whom we even know or who have touched our lives in some way ~ who are excellent examples of praying unceasingly, despite an apparent lack of result.
Henry Blackaby said he never once considered that God wasn't ALREADY in the process of answering his prayers, even before he'd started to pray; he just knew that God wouldn't necessarily let him in on the process.
Exactly - just like the story of Daniel. He couldn't see the fight going on in the angelic realm, he just did what he could do, which was pray.
It's hard being left out of the loop - and yet, what audacity really that we think we should be included.
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