The Gentiles Enjoy Hebrew Bread

Now we know that during this time all of this was under Roman rule, but there were different provinces, states if you will, that were governed, that were used to govern this area by the Romans. Verse 22 says this, And he answered and said, truth, Lord. That’s pretty good. Truth, Lord. We’ll get to that in a minute. How profound it is for this woman in response to verse 26, what Jesus said, her to respond with, truth, Lord. Yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their master’s table.

Then Jesus answered and said unto her, O woman, great is thy faith. Be it unto thee even as thou wilt. And her daughter was made whole from that very hour. Would you pray with me tonight? Lord, thank you for the record in Scripture of your life here upon earth and the record of your deeds, your words, your works, the examples. Lord, just the wonderful examples you’ve given to us.

Help us, Lord, to go away from our church service tonight with more knowledge of who you are and how you are and of your glories, of your truth. Lord, help me to say what your people need to hear tonight. Please be their strength. Be their teacher. We ask in Jesus’ name. Amen. So this woman is a woman of Canaan in verse number 22, which is, what’s interesting is even though Jesus is traveling here, this is not within the normal realm of Israel.

This would be, if you’re looking at a map, this would be northwest of Galilee toward the coast, as I said. And so he is treading outside of his normal course, his normal circuit, which was generally Judea, sometimes Samaria, and primarily Galilee. That’s north Israel. So that’s where he traveled, but for some reason he is here. So he has intentionally left his normal place of service, or normal place of ministry, and is going to a place that is really a, this is a Gentile region.

This is not an Israelite region. So it’s no surprise we see a Gentile woman approach him, and there were, of course, there were Jews that lived in this area as well, but it wasn’t considered their land. Verse 22 calls this woman a woman of Canaan. And in Mark, the Bible describes this woman as a Greek, which is another way of saying a non-Jew, a Gentile. She’s also called a Syrophoenician.

And that gives us a little hint about this woman. A Syrophoenician was a citizen or a resident of the Phoenician province, which is the province directly above Israel, the Roman province, the province of Phoenicia. And so this woman was a Gentile, no question about it. She’s not even mixed. She’s not a Samaritan. She has no claim at all to a Jewish heritage. And that is key to this whole story.

So this woman comes out of the same coast, verse 22, and cried unto him, saying, Have mercy on me, O Lord, thou son of David. how this daughter had been vexed with the devil, but we do know that whatever influence that the devil had over this daughter, it would have been very, very troubling to her mother. And I’ll just note this as we keep going, that as you see in many cases of these events where people are brought to Jesus, where people go to Jesus, almost always, well, there’s two primary reasons you see people coming to Jesus that are not His disciples already.

Number one, when it’s the scribes and Pharisees like we read this morning, it’s usually they’re coming to criticize or question Him about something. But if it’s not that, and it’s some other thing, usually it’s trouble. Is it not? It’s usually some contrary circumstance, some suffering, some temptation, some trial that has come across their life. And I’ll just note that it was true of this woman. It was trouble that drove this woman to Jesus.

And oftentimes that’s exactly what is needed to get us to seek the Lord. Is we are so stubborn and hard-hearted and hard-headed about our need for the Lord that the Lord has to put us on the stove and turn on the flame just to get us to seek Him, just to get us moving in His direction. And that’s exactly what happened here. Trouble brought this woman to Jesus.

Now, some people mock that. Some people say, you know, some people use that, atheistic types. They use that to say that, you know, we’re just kind of weak people and we can’t deal with our own problems or whatever. No, it’s not that at all. It’s our own understanding of our weaknesses. And that’s not a matter of being weak. That’s a matter of acknowledging what’s true of everyone.

Now, this woman had concern for her child, and I’m sure you can understand, and those of you that have children can empathize with the kind of very deep trouble that would come from watching your child suffer. We just listened to Brother Burgess’ message, and that’s exactly on multiple fronts that Brother Burgess is what he is experiencing with Samuel and also with Josiah. And I did not think of this until just this moment.

But man, what an illustration. Brother Burgess unknowingly serves to us a good example of these very truths we see here, which I’ll get to in a minute. But this woman comes to Jesus when her child was in peril. She comes to Jesus when her child was in peril. I read Matthew and Henry, and of course, we know if our child was sick, like we see Samuel is sick and unwell, if our child was like that, of course we’d be praying and we’d be seeking God with all of our heart, and we’d fasting and praying and spending, staying up at night and all, you know, all we got to do, right, if our child was sick.

And that’s good and that’s right. But I wonder how much of that translates to the spiritual. Which is, we would all admit, is the greater, is the greater, of greater importance than physical issues. You know, And I say that cognizant of the fact that it doesn’t always feel that way. It really doesn’t always feel that way. But it is true. I try to speak in faith here.

I trust you know what I’m saying. That we know that the spiritual perils are much worse than the physical. And I read this commentary. He said this. I thought it was just worth sharing. It is the duty of parents to pray for their children and to be in earnest prayer for them, especially for their souls. He says this as an example. I have a son, a daughter, grievously vexed with a proud will, an uncle just this, but so many ways in life are not the physical, do not the physical.

We feel the physical things far more than the spiritual. For instance, if you have a huge bill that comes in the mail or you lose your job and your source of income, that would be a very serious matter to most of us, would it not? That would be fasting and praying grounds, right? That would be a serious matter. But yet when we’re spiritually poor, it’s like we ignore it, right? But the point being made here is if this woman came to Jesus and prayed, you know, in the picture here, she prayed to Christ for her child’s physical welfare.

And I know there’s a spiritual element too. How much more should we bring our children to the Lord Jesus and pray for them in their spiritual perils? When their perils, like he mentions here, vexed with a proud will or vexed with an unrepentant heart or vexed with bitterness or anger or vexed with some vice or some sin that has caught them. That should be reason for us to bring our child to Jesus in prayer and to beg the Lord and to say, if we can’t get out any other word, but to say, Lord, help them.

Lord, help them. That’s our duty as parents. I agree with this writer here. Notice how the lady was so persistent in her request as well. She says in verse 22, Have mercy on me, O Lord, thou son of David. My daughter is grievously vexed with the devil. That’s number one. But he answered her not a word. Verse 23, So we see that not only did she go to Jesus and was ignored, but she went to the disciples when that didn’t work and was ignored.

That’s time too. Verse 25, Then came she and worshipped him, saying, Lord, help me. Number three, She sought the Lord at least three times and would not be turned away. It’s interesting, it’s three times because you also see Paul when he had that, the messenger of Satan buffeting him, right? That thorn in his flesh, he sought the Lord three times that the Lord would take it away.

And because he sought the Lord three times, we have the answer of my grace is sufficient for thee. That was the answer that God gave to Paul. And the reason that God gave him that answer is because he sought God three times. In other words, he was persistent. And so it is with this woman. You just think, if at any point this woman had been discouraged at the apparent disregard by the Lord Jesus, and she had turned away, she would not have gotten the help that she needed.

And so we see the Lord often, this just reminds us of the fact that the Lord often uses silence in our life. How many of you have ever experienced silence from the Lord in your life? I mean, I have for sure. In fact, I would say silence is probably, at least a period silence. Let me put it like that. It’s probably kind of the norm. Would everyone kind of agree with that?

The Lord, I mean, think about, just think about our nature. Remember we read about our inward part is very wickedness this morning, right? Think about knowing that. What do you think kind of effect it would have upon us if the Lord jumped at every time we asked Him something? You know what we would do? I mean, it wouldn’t take, by the third time, we would already be presuming to command God around.

Would we not? That’s exactly what we’d be doing. We’d say, Lord, I said I wanted you to do this. If we didn’t say it with our mouth, we would act like it. And so with the Lord, I think he’s just, he’s obviously, God is all wise and he says, I’m going to make him wait a while. You say, would the Lord do that? Well, he ignored this woman.

So I think he probably would. I think he probably would. So the Lord does use silence in our life, at our cries to Him, to produce in us persistence in our seeking Him. Importunity. And one of the other things the Lord produces in us by silence is He produces in us a knowledge of the reality that He is Lord and He does things on His timetable, He is not at our beckoning call.

We don’t ding, ring the Lord’s bell and He rushes in like a butler. No, He is the Lord and we are the servants. We cry to Him, but ultimately it’s up to the Lord to answer in His way and His time. Right? He has to teach us hard-headed people that fact, that reality. But we learn it over time. And at some point we get to the point where we’re like, Lord, I know you hear me.

You know the need here. And I’m going to keep asking because you told me to pray without ceasing. Lord, when you’re suited and it suits you to answer this, would you please answer this in a way that shows your power and your glory? So the Lord’s silence. Now notice verse 23, the first part of verse 23 says this, but he answered her not a word. Now we know that the Lord Jesus was a compassionate person.

In fact, the Bible describes Him as weeping when He weeps over Jerusalem. We know that He heals people based upon compassion all the time. So it’s not like this woman comes to Christ and he is unmoved or calloused about her condition. Certainly her condition caused directly by the work of Satan. If there’s anything that will move Christ, it’s the effect and influence of Satan wrecking someone’s life.

That moves Christ. And we see it over and over in Scripture. Why is it different this time? I don’t know the exact reason. I don’t know the exact reason. But I will say this. One thing you do see from verse 23 is mission, and I know that’s a trendy term, but the mission of the Lord Jesus Christ given to Him by His Father superseded and was of greater priority than His compassion.

Because the mission, He says it in verse 24, He says, I am not sent. Who is the sender in this case? It’s God the Father, the one who sent Christ. That’s all throughout the book of John. So God the Father sent the Lord Jesus Christ, but He sent the Lord Jesus Christ to the house of Israel. And that is His first concern. And though He might have compassion, it does not override the mission that His Father gave Him.

His mission and His duty was first, not his compassion. And I know that maybe that doesn’t make a lot of sense, but sometimes our compassion or some kind of emotional movement or influence in our life can kind of direct us off of the will of God. It really can. And the Lord says, we have to stay on the mission that God has given to us and not let other things encroach upon that.

And it’s not because compassion is not there. It’s that at the very top of the pyramid is the will of God and nothing else. Look at verse 22, if you would. Notice how this woman approaches Christ. And this is an interesting fact. Behold, a woman of Canaan came out of the same coast and cried unto him, saying, Have mercy on me, O Lord, thou son of David.

Now, you might not see unless we took the time to compare Mark 7 and this chapter, is there are a number of things in this passage that are different than in Mark, even though it’s the same event. The accounts are different. And the main difference, and I’ll show you, is that this account has a lot more Jewish characteristic than Mark’s account. Here’s what I mean by that.

This woman mentions, says, O Lord, thou son of David. You know what that is? Jesus is not the son of David. He’s the son of God. He has no earthly father. But if you were going to speak in human terms, you would say he’s the son of Joseph. But she doesn’t say that. She says son of David, which is a direct reference, scriptural reference, to Jesus being the rightful heir to the throne of David that God promised that his throne would endure to all generations.

That is a promise of God to the Jewish people, to David, that, and for her to say this, this is a Jewish saying, but she’s not a Jew. This is the key. She’s not a Hebrew. She’s a Gentile through and through. Why is she saying Jewish stuff? Not only that, verse 20, and that part, O Lord, thou son of David, is not in Mark 7. Verse 24, Jesus says, I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel.

The Lord clearly defines His purpose as ministering to Israel during His earthly ministry. That part is not in Mark. That part is not in Mark. So notice that there’s a Jewish character to this woman’s approach to the Lord Jesus. She doesn’t just come to him and ask him for something. She comes to Him on the terms of His place as the Jewish Messiah. Though she is not a Jew.

She came in recognition of His Jewish Messianic title and in recognition of the priority of the Jews in relationship to Christ’s mission. Look at verse 24. It’s very plain. I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel. It was not the Lord’s purpose to heal every person. It was not the Lord’s purpose to interact with the Gentiles, though He did at times.

His primary focus was on the Jews. Now notice how this goes. The Lord ignores her. He answered her not a word, verse 23. Verse 24, responding to the disciples, the Lord explains why He ignored her. Now remember, and that’s not it. You remember when He sent the disciples out two and two? To whom did He tell them to go? It actually says the same words, the lost sheep of the house of Israel.

So even the disciples’ ministry that was commissioned by Christ was to the Jewish people. It was not to the Gentiles. He specifically told them not to go there. So he answers them and said, I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel. So that’s his reason that he ignored her. In other words, he ignored her because this is not what I was sent here to do.

And then it goes on. So she persists, she comes and says, Lord help me, verse 26, and this is what the Lord’s cold, ice cold answer to this woman is. It is not meat. It is not proper to take the children’s bread and to cast it to dogs. Who are the children in this little saying? The children refer to Israel. And the bread in this case, at least in part, refers to the benefit of healing that the Lord is giving to the people of Israel.

So who are the dogs? I mean, it doesn’t say it, but it’s clearly implied that the dogs refer to the Gentiles. Now think about this with the dogs. I just did a quick search of dog in Scripture, and I have a dog, so I’m not against dogs. Don’t get mad at me if you’ve got a dog and you love your dog. I love your dog less if your dog is little.

Dogs are intended to be big and protective. But if you have a lap dog, that’s fine, I guess. I have a dog. I like my dog. But in Scripture, there is nothing very good said about dogs. Mephibosheth referred to himself as a dog when David came to him. Not only that, but David himself referred to himself as a dead dog when talking to Saul. A dead dog.

You know what that is? That is an absolutely worthless thing. You know, you can use the carcass of animals for various things, but you can’t use the carcass of a dog. It is totally useless. It is totally useless. The Bible says that the dogs licked the blood of Ahab, 1 Kings 22, 38. The dogs ate the body of Jezebel, which was, you know how wicked Jezebel was, the ultimate statement of contempt for that wicked woman.

I mean, not only did she die in just utter contempt, but then even in her death, her remains were eaten by the lowest of creatures. Which meant, which is the whole point, which has meant her body would be scattered over the fields, if you get my drift. To call one a dog was a statement of the most extreme contempt possible. Because the dog was among the most despised creatures and the proof of that is Proverbs 26, 11. You also see it in 2 Peter which is the fact that a dog is known for eating its vomit.

So even to this day Muslims refer to Christians and Jews as dogs. But I dare say we do not need to be referring to anybody in that kind of attitude. You say what Jesus did, He has a particular purpose in doing it. Not just animus and hatred. He answered and said, It is not meet to take the children’s breading to cast it to dogs. So the Lord is describing this woman as a dog.

In this parable He’s saying, I’m not going to help you because this is the children’s bread. This grace, these things that I’m doing here are for the children, the house of Israel. They’re not for people like you. They’re not for the dogs. But look at her response. Truth, Lord. Man, truth, Lord. And I thought about this. What kind of humility and meekness is required to respond, truth, Lord, to a statement like that?

Think about when a person comes to Christ. When a person comes to Christ. In order for a person to come to Christ and believe the gospel and get saved, there’s some really hard truths they have to learn, they have to hear. You know that? And we get this idea, well, you just believe. Well, you believe, but the belief is the end of a process whereby God convicts a man or a woman of their sin and brings them to the end of their self-righteousness, all these other things, right? And there’s sometimes that the message that that person has to receive is a very self-debasing message like this, like the Lord calls her dog.

And for a person to come to Christ, you know what you have to do? You have to answer in the same way as this lady answered. Yes, Lord. Truth. You’re right. The Lord says, your inward part is very wickedness. Yes, Lord. Truth. Truth. You’re on the road to hell. You’re going to be judged and cast into the lake of fire. Truth, Lord. Truth. There’s no good in you.

Your religion can’t help you or save you. Truth, Lord. Those cutting truths. But those cutting truths, if we respond in the same way, they’re true. But they’re the door. That’s kind of the door that opens up to the next thing. Right? But we have to respond with truth, Lord. Truth, Lord. Because there’s no other response to Jesus besides that. What else are you going to say? Not true?

It’s always true. Everything he says is always true of us. But that’s the way, that’s the kind of humility that this lady demonstrates that every person has to come to God. No matter what the Lord says of us, no matter how hard it is to hear, no matter how grating it is or contrary to our own opinion or whatever the case might be, we have to bow our head and we have to say, truth, Lord, true, truth. And until we do that, we can’t really move forward.

Certainly this lady couldn’t because the only way that she got access to the help of Christ is because she approached him in his Jewish character. Okay? Now follow that with me. She calls him thou son of David. So she acknowledges his place as the Messiah. And she accepts, she accepts that the children’s bread is something that belongs to the Jews. She accepts that she has no right to it being a Gentile.

Right? And so she answers the Lord and says this. Not only that, she accepts that she has no right to it, but then she also acknowledges that she is in a lower place in the economy of God. Now hear me. I mean that’s actually what the Bible teaches. In the economy of God, not in the value of the individual soul, because we know that is determined by the fact that Christ shed His blood for every person.

But in the economy of God, as it relates to His covenants and His purposes, she is definitely on a lower level than the Jewish people. And she acknowledges that. And she says in verse 27, So even though she has no claim upon the Lord Jesus Christ, and let me pause there, and this is at the end, but I’ll say it now. Every person that comes to the Lord Jesus Christ, whether we’re saved or whether we’re not yet saved, every person that comes to the Lord Jesus Christ has to come to Him understanding that we have no claim that we can demand of the Lord Jesus.

We have no right to Him. The only right we might have is what He has promised directly to us. I think there is a tendency in us, in us, you know, just humanity, to demand things from the Lord on the basis of rights. I deserve better. I deserve an easier life. I deserve an answer. I deserve this. I deserve that. Even though we might not say it, we think that God owes us something and we speak in terms that reveal that.

But this woman came not upon that basis. She came on the basis not of right, but of mercy and of Christ’s goodness. And she persisted in that. So I think it’s a good exercise to come to the God and say, God, I’m not asking you because I deserve to be helped. I’m asking you because you are good. I don’t deserve help. Now the last thing I want to show you is go back to this Jewish character.

Because I think there’s a bigger picture here. The children’s bread. Let’s look at a few verses. Probably the best way to look at this. Look at Romans chapter 9. Don’tursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh. Paul’s speaking, referring to the Jewish people. He says, services, the service of God, even Christ himself came through the Jewish people. So if this woman is going to approach Christ, she has to approach Christ understanding that this is Notice that.

the Messiah of the Jews. We think, you know, whoop-dee -doo. But think about if you’re a Muslim and you have been indoctrinated from your earliest memory that the Jews, that Zionism is evil and the Jews are evil and there are mortal enemies from birth. Imagine you’re taught that. But if you come to the Lord Jesus Christ at some point in your life, you have to come to Him saying, God chose the Jewish people through whom He would give His Savior.

And all those covenants and all the things related to that came through the Jewish people. Even if you’ve been taught to despise the Jewish people. Look at Romans 15. Verse 8. Romans 15 verse 8 says this, Now I say that Jesus Christ was a minister of the circumcision, that’s the Jews, for the truth of God to confirm the promises made unto the fathers. You see that? You can see it very clearly.

Jesus came as a minister to the circumcision in accordance with the promises, to confirm the promises made unto the fathers. Look at Ephesians chapter 2. Ephesians chapter 2. Verse 11. It, this is a description of the Gentiles. Notice, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel. You know what that is? That is an illegal alien. That is someone like we see in the news all day today or in our time.

That’s someone who has come here and has made it their residence when they have no legal right under the law to be here. I mean, the political question is, we’ll put that aside for a second. But that’s what an alien is. It’s someone who has no legal right. And that’s exactly where this woman is. And that’s exactly where all the Gentiles were because God did not make covenants with the Gentiles.

He made them with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and David and so on. He didn’t make it with us or our ancestors. What right then do we have to claim of God or of Christ anything that Christ came to offer, came to bring the Jews? Because He came in response to all of those covenants. That’s why He did it. Because He made a promise in the Old Testament and when He came, He came to do it.

That’s what we just read in Romans chapter 15. That being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. Now I’ll read verse 13 because we know it gets the promises that God made to the Jewish people. And notice, I want to say something here. Notice it says House of Israel. house of Israel. There’s a big movement today among certain political types as well as theological types that seek to define the church, rather define Israel as the church.

It’s called replacement theology. But that’s not the way they describe it. They would say, what it means is the church has replaced Israel and taken all of those promises. But what they would say, if they were saying it, they would say that the church is actually true Israel. And the church has inherited all of those promises that Israel forfeited by rejecting Christ. Okay, I don’t think that’s the case.

I don’t think that’s the case. The promises God made to Israel, it’s in this parable, you can see shadows of it in this parable. There’s the children’s bread, right? This is bread that the Lord has provided for the children. The parents have provided for the children. Now we know they’re going to reject this bread, right? Using the language of the parable. We know that they’re going to reject this bread ultimately.

Not everyone, but to a large degree they’re going to reject it. But they’re not going to reject it forever. Eventually, they’re going to eat it. When Israel, believing Israel, turns to Christ at the revelation, when Christ appears and they see Him whom they have pierced, they will believe and they will have that bread. But in the meantime, notice these little dogs that are running around the table looking for little scraps, looking for scraps from the bread because you know how it is when kids are eating.

They throw things down on the floor, they drop stuff. That’s the Gentiles. And so even when the dogs eat, what are they eating? They’re eating Jewish bread. Even when they eat, whatever they eat from the table, it’s not special bread made for them. No, it’s Jewish bread. And for those that hate the Jewish people, and there are many, even in the Christian world, the only bread there is is Jewish bread, right?

Jesus is the bread. He’s Jewish bread, right? He’s the unleavened bread. He is the Jewish bread. That’s the only way you can come to God is if you come to God and take Jewish bread. And an example of that bread is in Jeremiah 31. Look at what it says. This is the promise of the new covenant. Notice it’s future at this time in Jeremiah, but it’s the promise of a new covenant.

Now we’re familiar with the new covenant. We talked about it this morning. This is my blood of the New Testament. His blood is what confirmed and instituted the New Testament. So Jeremiah 31 is what what we were talking about this morning at the first Lord’s Supper. But notice the language. Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel The law at Mount Sinai.

Verse 1, Think of the elements of this covenant. This is that God would put His law inside of them. That every one of them to a person individually would know the Lord personally are privileges that every New Testament Christian enjoys. Right? There aren’t some Christians that have the Spirit of God and have a new heart and have the law of God written in their heart and some that don’t.

There aren’t some Christians that know God and some that don’t. No, everyone to a person that has believed on Christ has all three of those things as the privileges of a Christian. But I want you to look at verse 31 again and the following. With whom was that covenant made? It was made to Israel. Not just to Israel, it was specifically made to the house, the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah.

Now let me, for those of you that are keen on replacement theology, I want to make this point. Replacement theology seeks to see and redefine the term Israel to refer to the church. They call it spiritual Israel. So, they would say, we are real Israel. We are true Jews because we are believers. Okay, that’s the line. But that covenant doesn’t, and you know, if only the term Israel was mentioned, there might have room to kind of tweak, kind of allegorize what Israel really is.

And that’s essentially what they’re doing. They’re saying Israel is not referring to what it originally meant. It has a new definition now, referring to who believe. But the problem with that is that falls apart when you see this because it says the house of Israel and the house of Judah. Because the term house of Israel and house of Judah is a direct reference not to just the name Israel but to the physical lineage of Jacob.

Is that not what it means? The physical lineage. So this covenant is a covenant regarding the physical people of Israel through the years. Now, I can’t claim to know exactly how all this works, but I do know one thing. You and I, who are not a party to that covenant at all, can lay no claim to forgiveness of sin, or to knowing God personally, or to having God’s law written in our heart.

We can lay no claim upon God that this should happen to us whatsoever because that was a covenant that Israel was party to. But yet we have it. And I don’t know exactly how. I honestly don’t have the theology all worked out. You can reference Hebrews chapter 4-ish, I think, where this is referenced. But here’s what I do know. We’ve got it. And I know one thing.

We got it from Jesus. However it worked, we got it from the Lord Jesus Christ. You know what that reminds me of? That reminds me of that lady. She eventually got her help. She got her Jewish bread. Even though it was for the Jews, yet somehow she got it because the Lord showed compassion on her. It serves as a picture. What we enjoy in our day as New Testament Christians is actually Jewish bread.

And one day, the Jews that believe will have that bread and enjoy those benefits as well as a people, but not until they believe on the Lord Jesus Christ like we have. Does that make sense? I would say the Lord’s plan is pretty amazing. And beyond our comprehension, who hath known the mind of the Lord? Let’s pray together.