Dear congregation, when, as a pastor, I have the privilege of having couples come to me to ask me to marry them, I often ask them the question, what kind of a marriage do you want? Do you want an excellent marriage? Do you want a mediocre marriage? on a scale of 1 to 10, what would you like? Well, they always say, of course, I want an excellent marriage. I want a 10. One young man even said to me, I want an 11. I want an excellent marriage. Of course you do. But often when people get married and they live for a while as husband and wife, they settle for a mediocre marriage. tragically. And they forget their first love. And sadly, sometimes Christians, true children of God, behave that way too. When they begin to run the Christian race, they're filled with zeal and first love for the Lord. And they say, I want to be a mature Christian. I want to grow in grace. I want to know the joy of God's salvation. That joy we've been speaking about on Friday and Saturday in adoption and assurance. They want that. They want to grow. They want an excellent relationship with God. Somehow, all kinds of things happen. Things crowding upon them. They stumble. They sin. get busy with other things, and they settle for being a mediocre Christian. It's not that they're not a believer at all. It's not that there aren't times of earnest prayer. It's not that there are no longings for God. But they settle on their lees far too easily. Now, what the church needs today more than anything else, is mature saints. Mature faith. It seems to me, friends, that as I have the privilege to travel different places, I see in many places of the world a quite encouraging number of new converts that appears to be genuine. But, I see so few fathers and mothers in Israel, mature saints who live out of assurance and out of a sense of adoption, as we've been hearing, and truly live through trials in a way that glorifies God and shows maturity. What we need today is a restoration pure saints that can minister to others. Also, women. Older women. I think back a century or two ago. Mary Winslow and Sarah Hawkes and Ruth Bryan and Anne Dutton. These were women that actually wrote books of great spiritual maturity. They were mothers in Israel. I had one too in my first congregation that was very, very special. A far-led woman in the marks and steps of grace. So Christ-centered. It was just a joy to visit with her. To sit at her feet and hear the lessons that God had taught her. Wonderful. And so, to have this joy of a great salvation, which is the theme of this conference, means that we also have need for mature faith. Seasoned faith. A quiet, deep, abiding joy in the Lord. Now, that joy is not ecstatic joy every day. It's not like an engaged couple who's all excited to get married. It's more like a couple who've been married for 25 or 30 or 40 years and have a really deep and wonderful loving relationship. Quiet waters run deep. If you ask that couple, do you love your wife, do you love your husband more now than when you first got married, they'd say, oh, so much more. So much more. It may not always show it so ecstatically as we did at the beginning, but it runs so much deeper. And we commune from heart to heart. And we treasure one another. And you see, that's what happens in mature spiritual life. We do lose some of that freshness of that first love perhaps, but there's a deeper love that takes its place. A profound love. A love of dependency and of childlike faith on the Lord. A love of simplicity. When my father came on his deathbed what we thought was his deathbed. He did revive a bit for a while before he died of a heart attack. But he said to me, in his mature age, remember, remember the simplicity of the Gospel. Maturity and simplicity. Simple, childlike faith that clings to the Lord in every situation. Friends, these things belong together. But the question then arises, how does the Lord make mature saints? And you know, of course, I trust you know at least, that every believer really is a saint in God's eyes. Hagioi is the Greek New Testament word. And it applies to every believer. Every believer is made holy in Christ. But how does God make believers to grow in that holiness, to become mature in that holiness. That's the question this morning. And you remember yesterday, when we looked at the Westminster Confession, we saw that the way to assurance, the way to adoption, is a way through conflict. God often uses trials, disappointments. But exactly how does He do that? Well, that's what we want to look at this morning. We want to look at that through a vignette, a picture, of how Jesus does that in the life of a New Testament believer. Actually, a foreigner, an outsider. The woman of Canaan. And so, if you'll turn with me, please, to the words of our text this morning. Matthew 15, 21-28. But I'm going to just read again right now The three but texts from 23, 24, and 26. But He answered in another word. But He answered and said, I'm not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel. And but He answered and said, it is not meat to take the children's bread and to cast it to dogs. So our theme then this morning with God's help is the church's greatest need or our greatest need. Mature faith. And we want to see how Jesus matures the Canaanite woman's faith in three ways. First, the first but, by his apparent silence. He answered her not a word. Second but, by his apparent rejection. I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel. And his third but, by his apparent insult. It is not neat to take the children's bread and to cast it to dogs. So, mature faith worked in the Canaanite woman by Jesus through apparent silence, apparent rejection, and apparent insult. Now, if you consider this morning, boys and girls, how this woman came to Jesus. She was very sincere. And what she came to Jesus with. My daughter is grievously vexed with the devil. And the urgency of her coming. Crying out, O Lord, O Lord. And the Greek tense of the verb here, it's repeated, it's progressive. The streets keep ringing with her noise. O Lord, Son of David, Son of David, have mercy, have mercy. You would say, wouldn't you, with me, Surely the Lord is going to answer her right away. And yet we read in the Bible these astonishing words, but He answered her not a word. Not a word. What a contrast. A crying woman and a silent Jesus. What an objection. But He of whom she had heard in her foreign country, no doubt, that He answers before we call. That He gathers lambs into His arms and holds them in His bosom. That He never turns away a sinner who comes to Him. That He heals all the sick. He answered her. Not a word. How is it possible? I wonder what you would have done if you had been that woman. Maybe you would have said, well, people told me in the foreign country that I shouldn't go to the Jewish Messiah and He wouldn't help me anyway because I'm not a Jew. And so now He doesn't answer me a word. It's very plain. He doesn't want to have anything to do with me. I might as well turn around and go back home. But you see, this woman could not go back home. She had nothing to go back to, but a daughter grievously vexed with the devil. And you see, when God begins to plant faith in someone's heart, faith cannot turn its back on Jesus. Faith cannot leave Him alone. Faith has no resources in myself to cling to. Nothing to go back to. Nothing to rely on. All inside of me is but a horrible pit of ivory clay. I need my feet. I need to be lifted up and I have my feet set upon the rock. But oh, what a burden that silent Jesus is for faith. Samuel Rutherford said, the silence of God is the bitterest ingredient that the true Christian has to drink in his cup of sorrow. The same Rutherford said elsewhere, the silence of God is hell on earth for the believer. Do you know something about that, my friend? The burden of a silent God. You see, if you're unconverted, well, as long as God gives you outward things, isn't that so? Gives you a decent job, a good spouse, fairly obedient kids, a few good friends, some clothing on your back, roof over your head, decent home. For the rest, well, God can have His distance. God can have His distance. Don't want to get too close. But if you're a believer and you love the Lord, you want closeness, don't you? You want intimacy. You want to commune with Him. You don't want silence. Silence is the greatest burden you can imagine if you're a believer. David says, Be not silent unto me, lest if thou be silent unto me, I become like them that go down into the pit. Silence can be such a burden. Even in natural life, I've had to counsel a few couples in my lifetime where one of the two partners would give each other what I call the silent treatment. A man would do something, for example, and the woman wouldn't like it. And so, she wouldn't say a word to him. She refused to speak to him for days. And once a man said to me, If she'd only speak to me, even if she would yell at me, even if she'd get angry at me, I just can't stand the silence. You can cut attention with a knife in my home because of this silence. And yet God sometimes treats us that way, doesn't He? He's silent. We must not pretend that the Christian life is one in which, like so many Christians say today, from the health and wealth gospel, where we always have what we want, and everything is well, and we never get sick, and we just call and God answers, and if we do get sick and we don't get healed, it's because we don't have enough faith, because God is always there, and He's always answering, He's always speaking, everything is well, and we can always walk around with a smile on our face. That's modern Christianity. But that's not the Christianity of the Bible. It's not the Christianity of Psalm 77 that we sang. Christianity, the Bible, sometimes we know those times of silence. Times where we cry out with a psalmist in our Psalter back in North America, with anguish as from piercing sword, reproach of bitter foes I hear, while day by day with taunting word, where is thy God? The scoffers sneer. Silence. Oh, how the silence of God can multiply the doubts and the darts within. And how Satan can come along with it, don't you think? And say, you see, your God won't have mercy on you. God won't have compassion on you. Maybe other people. But not you. Look how silent He is. You've been praying and praying and praying for a certain thing. And He doesn't answer. Why? That's the big question. Why would God be silent to a crying Canaanitish woman? And why would God be silent today to a dear, poor, needy child of God who cries to Him? Well, of course, whenever we ask any why questions about God, We immediately have to say, don't we? We don't know all the answers. God always has more reasons for doing or not doing what he does or doesn't do than we can possibly imagine. God sees, remember we saw that yesterday, God sees the whole puzzle of our lives at once, all the pieces, all the pieces. He knows what he's doing. He's got reasons above and beyond what we can imagine. But I can tell you this morning, based on the Bible, I can tell you two of the very big pieces in this puzzle. Why would God be silent? And the first you can find, if you desire to turn to that with me, you can find in John, the Gospel of John chapter 11. John chapter 11, where Jesus is told about the sickness of Lazarus. And you read a very astonishing thing here in verse 6, don't you? John 11.6. When he had heard, therefore, that Lazarus was sick, he, Jesus, abode two days still in the place where he was. Don't you find that strange? If I got a call tomorrow morning that my wife was sick unto death, I would say to you, I would say to my further appointments in Scotland, brothers, it's wonderful to get to know you and I wanted to serve you, but I'm sorry, my wife is sick to death. I'd take the next plane and I'd be gone. Because I love her. But he abode two days. Why? Why was he silent? Well, verse 4 tells us. This sickness, John 11, verse 4, this sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God might be glorified thereby. You see, God is sometimes silent to get more glory for Himself. Let me ask you this question. Does God get more glory, do you think? from raising a dead Lazarus or healing a sick Lazarus? That's a rhetorical question. Of course, you know the answer. But if you translate that into your experience today, does God get more glory from answering your prayers always right away or from sometimes waiting to answer them at times even to the point that you've abandoned asking. And then from the ashes of your forlorn hopes and cries, He suddenly and gloriously answers by doing more than you could expect or think so that you give Him the glory. That's what happens through the silence of God. We learn to give Him the glory when He comes, when He does answer in the end. Sometimes, even after we've given up hope. So God often breaks us down, you see. God often brings us into a missing condition. You know, it's only a child of God who truly knows what it means to find the Lord, and it's only a child of God who truly knows what it means to miss the Lord. but for God's glory. And you see, if it's for God's glory, it's worth any pain that we have to go through. Because what is God teaching us? God teaches us through His silence that the be-all and the end-all of His dealings with us is not me. It's not my experience. It's not my feelings. It's not my emotions. God wants me to rise higher. He wants me to have my faith matured. To see that everything revolves not around me and my little piddly life and circumstances, but it revolves around Him and the glory of God. Soli Deo Gloria. That's what we have to learn. But there's a second piece in this puzzle. Another big piece. And that is that God wants to refine and mature our faith. That's our theme this morning, too, of course. God is sometimes silent. Not because He doesn't hear us. Did you notice in verse 23 of Matthew 15, it doesn't say, but He didn't hear a word. It says He didn't answer. A word. He heard. He heard. It doesn't even say He wasn't moved by her petition. But what He wants to do, you see, is He wants to exercise her faith. He wants to refine her faith. He wants to teach her to walk more by faith and less by sight. Remember that tunnel yesterday? He wants to bring her into that dark tunnel. so that she learns to walk near to Him in darkness, learns to be closer to Him, learns to come, as Hebrews 12 has it, verse 11, into His gymnasium. Gymnasio is the Greek word. Exercise thereby. No affliction for the present seems to be joyous, says Hebrews 12, 11. Nevertheless, afterward, it yields a peaceable fruit of righteousness to them who are exercised thereby. And what the author to the Hebrews is actually referring to there is one of the Grecian sports in which the sportsman would actually train naked. Very serious sport. And his trainer would look over his body and see the different spots of flab on him. And he would pummel that part of his body to get him firm and fit. He would train him in his gymnasium. And so says the author to the Hebrews, God through trials, trials of silence too, brings us into His gymnasium and He pummels us. And it seems harsh. And it seems cruel perhaps. But it is not. It is God's gift to us to train us the way a parent trains a child. In fact, that's the whole context of Hebrews 12. That He's paternally, He's fatherly, chastening His child. The author to the Hebrews says, we discipline our children according to our pleasure as dads, as fathers. And often we're a little too strong or we're a little too weak or a little too intense. We overlook things we shouldn't. But He does this for our profit, says Hebrews 12. Every silence of God is perfectly designed Move us to greater faith, because as He pushes away, He draws. Remember that yesterday? God knows how to put everything in its right order and right amount in our lives. He knows how much silence to give us, how much space to give us. I once read in a book that a man said, He was a printer, and he said, you know, when you print a book, he said, you've got to have a certain amount of white space, white space. If the book was all print, all the way across, every line, small print, no one would read it. I also read somewhere that a famous conductor of the 19th century was asked, what makes your music so much more effective when you play Beethoven's symphony than another, than another conductor? And the man was very honest, and he said, it's the periods of silence. The pauses. Even as a preacher, what would you think of me if I just rattled on nonstop, never took a pause? You wouldn't be able to listen. You see, God gives us pauses in our lives. Silence. White space. To be drawn back to Him. To meditate. To think things through. To refine. To mature our faith. It's actually good for us. It's hard on us, but it's good for us. And as He does that, you see, He strengthens us. We strengthen the soul silently so that when we come out of that tunnel or when we come out of that period of silence, we're stronger. We're more mature. We learn deeper lessons. We learn to walk more by faith. We grow up. spiritually. Well, that's the first great way in which God matures this Canaanite woman's faith. He matures her, first of all, by His apparent silence. But secondly, He matures her faith by His apparent rejection. Look with me, if you will, at verse 23b and 24. The disciples came and besought Him, saying, Send her away, for she cries after us. But he answered and said, I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel." Well, this is a double-barrel rejection, isn't it? First the disciples reject her, and then Jesus rejects her. Now, the rejection by the disciples, well, you can understand that a little bit, can't you? Because you can say, they're sinful men. All ministers, all elders. We're all sinful men, aren't we? And we make mistakes. And we can become selfish, sadly, tragically. And our hearts don't always beat as they should for lost souls, needy souls. And these disciples, they just come with Jesus from Jerusalem, where they just as narrowly escaped arrest. And here comes this woman. Now they're in the northern boundary of Israel. Here comes this woman out of heathen territory. And the streets are ringing with her noise. We could be arrested again, they say. So they get selfish and they say, send this woman away. We don't really care about her. We care about our own safety. So they show the sin here of indifference and selfishness and pride, too, actually, because they said she cries after us and she wasn't crying after them. She was crying after Jesus. So they made all kinds of mistakes here. But what's hard to understand is why would Jesus seem to reject her? I'm not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel." Well, the only way I think that we can explain this is to say that we must make a distinction here between Christ's priestly work as promised seed and Savior in whom all nations of the earth will be blessed, and His prophetical work in His own personal ministry during His sojourn on earth. As priests, and Savior and Redeemer, you see. He's sent by the Father to make satisfaction and atonement for sins of all the elect, Jew and Gentile. In that sense, this woman would be included. But while he's in his earthly ministry, she's coming to him as Jesus of Nazareth, a prophet. And he has not yet suffered and died. And the middle wall of partition has not yet been broken down between Jew and Gentile. John Calvin says it's as if he warns her here. that she is acting out of turn by trying to raid the table in the middle of the meal before the food is going to be distributed to the Gentiles. But explanation nonetheless. You can imagine what it must have been for this woman. Here, Jesus finally speaks. And He seems to reject her. I'm only sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. There's three criteria. Lost sheep. Israel. She's not an Israelite. She's not a sheep. She's lost. She's only got one of the three. Rejection. You think she'll go home now, boys and girls? Will she go home now? Somebody rejects you? Twice? No, no, no. Faith can't go home. Faith can't turn its back on the Lord. You read here something wonderful. Look at verse 25. Then, when she's rejected, then teems she, and worshiped Him, saying, Lord, help me. Don't you just love that verse? It's so simple. It's so beautiful. Such childlike faith. Mature faith. She falls at His feet. She worships Him. The word worship is a beautiful word. It's actually two words in Greek. Pros and keneo. Pros means towards. And keneo means to kiss. So the word worship literally is to kiss towards. It means that all my mind and my emotions and my affections, everything goes out toward the object of worship. So it's as if she's a New Testament Esther. I will fall at Thy feet, Lord. And if I perish, I perish. But I cannot depart from Thee. I worship Thee. You can push me away, but I'm going to come back. And here I am, Lord. I'm laying at Thy feet. I can go nowhere else. She's this New Testament Jacob. I will not let thee go, except Thou bless me." You see, her faith is getting stronger, not weaker. It's getting more mature. It clings to Jesus. Lord, help me. Boys and girls, that's a prayer you can pray if you're three years old, can't you? Four years old. And we never get beyond it, even if we get to be 90 years old. Lord! Help me. I like to think of this prayer like a necklace. You know how one ring of a necklace goes inside another ring? A three ring necklace that goes all the way to heaven. Lord reaches up to the heavens. Me reaches down in a link to the hellishness of my own heart. And then help is that word of mediation. The top part of the link hooks up into the word Lord. The bottom part hooks down into the word me. Help stands between the two, you see. Help is mediation. And that's what Jesus is. He's both Lord and He's man. He's God-man. He has a foot in both worlds, so to speak. And He links the two together. He brings God and man together. Lord, help me. She appeals to Him as Helper. And He is Helper with a capital H, isn't He? He's Help par excellence. You know, in Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, you remember when Christian falls into the slough of despond? You remember who gets him out? A man named Help. And in my copy of Pilgrim's Progress, Bunyan has in the margin, Help is Jesus. So simple. Help is Jesus. Jesus pulls him out. And Jesus pulls us out again and again and again, doesn't He? Oh, so she appeals to Him. Now she doesn't appeal to Him with the Messiah title. Son of David. Referring to His prophetical ministry as Messiah while He walked on earth. But now she appeals to Him as Lord of heaven and earth. Lord, she says. Help me. Lord, help me. Oh, that every one of you, if you're not saved or you're lacking assurance of salvation, that this would be your cry. Lord, help me. Help me. You know, there's something so beautiful about this prayer. And there's something beautiful, I think also, about the fact that Jesus uses this woman's troubles with her daughter to refine the mother's faith. Did you ever think about that? Time and time again, when people come with their children to Jesus in the Bible, what Jesus does is He first leaves the children alone and He deals with the faith of the father or the mother. Remember in Mark 9, the father of the demoniac? Lord, if thou canst do anything. Jesus says, if thou canst believe, All things are possible to him that believeth. And the father cries out with tears. Lord, I believe. How about my unbelief? It's as if the parent comes and says, here's my child. Puts the spotlight on the child. And the Lord takes the spotlight out of the parent's hand and pushes the spotlight over to the parent. Focuses on the parent. Here too. Lord, help me. There's not a word about her daughter now. You see, Jesus is maturing her faith. Focusing her faith. upon her own need, upon her own maturity. Sometimes I say to my wife, because we have three children, of course, and you know that those of you who have children, you know how much patience you need sometimes. Isn't that true? Just like the Lord needs patience with us as His children. But sometimes I say to her, could it be that one of the major reasons the Lord blesses us with children is to show us our tremendous need of Him. Lord, help me. You know, if I were to ask you to raise your hand today, if you were a really great parent, I don't think I'd have anyone's hand raised except perhaps those who don't have children yet. You wouldn't raise your hand because you know how many thousands of times you've failed and you've been needy and poor. And the wonder isn't that your children rebel. The wonder is that they turn out as well as they do at the hand of a parent like you and me. So what does God do? Not just children, but all kinds of circumstances in our lives. He presents us with circumstances that make us so needy that we learn to cry out, Lord, help me. And through this, He matures our faith. Well, now surely the Lord is going to help her. Not quite yet. One more test. Verse 26, "...but he answered and said, It is not fitting or not meet to take the children's bread and to cast it to dogs." That is perhaps the most astonishing statement of all. Because perhaps you know that the Jews called the Gentiles dogs. I don't know what you... What a very crude or rude term would be here in Scotland, but in America, if you called someone a pig, that would be very, as rude as could be. Boys and girls, you must never call someone a name like that. Of course not. But why would Jesus do something like that? Isn't that what he's doing? He says it's not fitting to take the children's bread, that's the children of Israel, and cast it to Gentile dogs. Well, Jesus is testing her one more time. You see, this woman had no natural rights. She was a Syrophoenician. She had no religious rights. She was a Gentile. She had no citizenship rights. She was a Canaanite. She was a real outsider. But what the Lord wants to show her now in maturing her is that she is actually in herself a vile outsider. A filthy outsider. Like a dog. See, in those days, no one took big dogs into their homes. All the big dogs were wild pets, wild pets. Dogs were considered to be a dirty animal. Now today, everybody and his brother has a dog. But in New Testament times, people were just beginning, beginning to take into their homes very little dogs. And those little dogs would get the scraps of leftovers from the family table. And in the Greek language, you can have a little Prefix or suffix that indicates little. And Jesus actually uses this word in the Greek language, little dogs. It's not fitting to take the children's bread and cast it to little dogs. Now, how is this woman going to respond to this? Is she going to say, like Abner said, am I a dog's head and get angry? Or like Joseph's brothers and say, no, we are not spies, we are true men. I'm not a dog. And then go home? No, no, no. Boys and girls, faith never goes home. Faith never turns its back on the Lord. This woman says something beautiful. Martin Luther called it, and he meant it with reverence, she engaged in a master stroke that ensnared Christ in His own words. She said, Truth, Lord, I'm a dog. Yet, the dogs eat of the crumbs that fall from their master's table. Truth, Lord, yet. You see, that's the language of faith. That's the holy way to pray with Almighty God. To take His own Word, little dogs, and plead on that Word. Truth, Lord, yet. You might want to call this, and I say it with great reverence, Holy argumentation with God. Job speaks of that in Job 23. He says, oh, that I knew where I might find Him. I would order my cause before Him and fill my mouth with arguments. Not the argument of a fist, of course. That's rebellion. But the argument of an open hand saying, search me, O God. Show me wherefore Thou contendest with me. Lead me in the way everlasting. O Lord, I cannot let Thee go. I must have Thee. And if Thou wilt minister to sinners, poor sinners, even dogs, little dogs, oh, let me have a little dog's portion. That's what she's saying. She's arguing from her discouraging position before the Lord. But she's a dog. When my father was nine years old, he lived in a home with my grandparents that was very poor. It was just a little two-room house. Very, very poor. And there were train tracks behind their house and often beggars would get off the train. They would come to the front door and they'd ask for something. So one day a beggar came and my dad was nine years old, boys and girls, and he opened the door and the beggar said to him, can I have a sandwich? So my dad went to my grandma and he said, Mom, he said, there's a beggar on the door and he wants a sandwich. Oh, my grandma said, you go tell the beggar we're just as poor as he is. We have nothing to give him. So my dad went to the door and he said, we're just as poor as you are. We have nothing to give you. And my dad went to close the door. But as he went to close the door, the beggar stuck his foot in the door and my dad couldn't shut it. He didn't know what to do. And then the beggar looked down at him. And the beggar looked right in his eyes and he said, one slice of bread. So, my dad went to my grandma and he said, Mom, that beggar won't go away. He wants only one slice of bread. Oh, said my grandma, he's a real beggar. Make him a whole sandwich. He's a real beggar. And you see, our problem, dear congregation, our problem spiritually is that we're not spiritual beggars the way we should. We should keep knocking at the door of grace, you see. Like this woman. Arguing even from her discouraging position. Knocking at the door of grace. John Bunyan once made a list of his sins. And in that list, pretty high in the list, number three or number four I think, he puts down, I don't keep knocking at the throne of grace. I knock once and then I leave. Like a salesman who might come to your door. And you go to the door. And he's already at the next door. He's only knocked once. And you turn around and you say to your wife, well, he must not have wanted us very badly. I can just let him go. He only knocked once. You remember in Pilgrim's Progress how mercy knocked? When she wasn't let in, she knocked and she knocked and she knocked, said Bunyan, till she like would have fainted. And then the Lord pulled her in. Sometimes we knock once or twice and He pulls us in. That's wonderful. Sometimes we knock five, ten times and He pulls us in. That's wonderful. Sometimes we have to knock and knock and knock and knock and then He pulls us in. That's wonderful too. But we have to knock until He answers. Isn't it the old Scottish divines that used to say, some of your ancestors perhaps, we must pray until we've prayed through, until we've got the ear of the Lord of Sabaoth? Oh, dear friends, let us learn, if we're going to have mature faith, if we're going to have joy in our salvation, let us learn the art of spiritual beggary. The ark that says, truth, Lord, yet. Truth, Lord, I'm blind, but yet hast Thou not eyes set for the blind. Truth, Lord, I'm foolish, yet art Thou not wisdom itself. Truth, Lord, I'm poor, but art Thou not the one who was rich who became poor that poor sinners may be made rich in Thee? Truth, Lord, I'm poor and needy, but art Thou not the God who has a storehouse of abundance for the poor and needy? Truth, Lord, yet. That's the way to argue with God. To bring Him His own Word. To plead on His own bounty. It's as if this woman said, Lord, You are on the very border of Israel and surely, surely, if an earthly master will give the leftover crumbs to his dog, surely, To this Gentile dog, You'll let a few crumbs slip over the edge of Israel into this Gentile heart. Truth, Lord, yet the dogs receive the crumbs from the Master's table. Lord, You call me a dog. I'm happy to be Your dog. I'm happy to be Your dog. Give me a dog's portion. I don't ask to be sitting around Thy table with Thy children having a full loaf of bread. Just a crumb, Lord. If it comes from Thee, it's suffice of me. And you see, the beautiful thing about God is that when we get a crumb from God, it's like a whole loaf of bread. There's nothing small that comes from God when we know it comes from God. If you love someone dearly and they give you a very small present, what do you say? You say, well, I cherish that present because it comes from so-and-so. Actually, the fact of who it comes from means more than the present itself. And so when God comes and He gives us crumbs, it's always a feast. And in every crumb, there's nourishment, isn't there? Nourishment in abundance. Because if it comes from God in His favor through Jesus, it's anticipatory of all the fountain and blessings of salvation. Like in the Lord's Supper. One bite of bread. But in that one bite, it's symbolic, isn't it, of all the blessings of salvation. My body is broken for you. Oh, Lord, give me just a few crumbs." And what does the Lord do? Well, now this woman's faith, as you see, is so much more mature. She's learned to walk by faith. Now He pours out His blessing. It's as if He takes the keys out of his pocket. And he gives them to her and he says, you can go into my storehouse and you can take whatever you want. O woman, great is thy faith, be it unto thee even as thou wilt. In the original Greek, the word great here can also mean mature. O woman, mature is thy faith. That's how we know that our exegesis of this text is the correct one. That in all these testings, Jesus is maturing your faith because he says it himself. He gives the interpretation. Sometimes we read these stories and we can put all kinds of fanciful interpretations upon them. But usually at the end of the biblical story, we have the Word of Jesus that tells us what it's all about. This is what it's all about. O woman, mature is thy faith. So He affirms that this faith is given to her by Him. He assures her. She gets assurance here. She hears it from His own mouth. O woman, great is thy faith. This is not just miraculous faith or temporary faith. This is true saving faith. Jesus only two times said in all His ministry, great is thy faith. Once of the Roman centurion and once of this woman. Interestingly, both are foreigners. Great is thy faith. Mature is thy faith. Pronounced by Jesus Himself. What a wonderful thing. And you see, when there's mature faith, well, then Jesus trusts. He trusts His people then that they're not going to grab things for themselves selfishly. But they're going to go into that storehouse and they're going to take what might serve to His honor and to His glory. Great is Thy faith. Be it unto Thee, even as Thou wilt. And I like to think of it this way. I like to think that the woman took home two loaves of bread. One for herself. One for her daughter. Her daughter was made whole that very hour. Very hour. And the Greek word for whole here means well-rounded wholeness. She just wasn't healed physically. I believe she was healed spiritually. And I believe the first thing they talked about was this wonderful Savior with His almighty power to heal. Oh, what a sweet thing the healing power of Jesus is. Friends, this woman puts us to shame, doesn't she? She heard of Jesus in a far country. She heard a few rumors about Him. And she came and she exercised faith, even great faith. And she rejoiced in the God of her salvation. She went home enjoying a great salvation. Matured in faith. Let me close this morning answering one question that may have entered your mind as you listened to this story. This woman, after all, was a sinner, wasn't she? She was a sinner. She didn't deserve all these blessings no more than you and I did. How is it possible that the Lord gave her so much in such a short time? Well, it's because of the Lord Jesus Himself. Did you notice when I gave you The three points of this sermon at the beginning, that the points were his apparent silence, his apparent rejection, his apparent insult. I didn't say his real silence, his real insult, his real rejection. No, it was just apparent. She was enduring the shadow of these things. Because Jesus would endure the real thing for her. You see, out of His merits, He could bless this woman. Not because of anything in her, but because of everything in Him. He faced a real silence. My God! My God! Why hast Thou forsaken Me? Silence. She pushed away with one hand, drawn with the other. He pushed away with both hands. Silence. Awesome, deafening silence. only to hear the echo in that awesome darkness as he hung there in the naked flame of his father's wrath against the sins of his people. He hung in silence. Thick, dark, Egyptian-like darkness of a silence. My God. My God. And then He faced, didn't He, the real rejection. The real rejection. Rejected by the devils in hell. Rejected by the unbelieving world. Rejected by His own disciples who were coward and terrified and fled away. No eye of pity was cast upon Him on the cross saying, Jesus, we understand what Thou art going through. It was rejection. Rejection by the religious leaders of the day, the Pharisees, the scribes, the elders in their holy robes of office. Rejection on all sides. Hanging between heaven and earth. He endured the real rejection. And he faced the real insult. Spat upon, scourged, mocked with a mocked purple robe and a crown of thorns and a reed A scepter beating down on that crown. Blood dripping everywhere. Hail, King of the Jews! Oh, what an insult. He's the Lord of the universe! He could have come down from the cross and destroyed them all in a moment. He could have called for legions of angels. But He didn't. He didn't because He was meriting for the Canaanite woman and for all His Canaanite women and all His people of all ages that they would not have to be rejected. that they would not have to be insulted, that He would not have to be silent to them. You see, we follow on behind Christ and our faith grows when we follow on behind Him in the shadow. We suffer in the shadow of His sufferings, but our suffering is nothing compared to His. We have but a light affliction, says Paul, that brings us to a far more exceeding weight of glory. And so we just follow Christ. We are planted together with Him in the likeness of His suffering and death that we may be planted with Him in the likeness of His resurrection. And one day be with Him in that land of Beulah where there is no more suffering and no more silence, where the face of Jesus is always there, where He's always with an ear shot and eye shot. And we can always come to Him and always commune with Him. No more silence! No more rejection. No more insult. Now he will look on his bride and see in her everything he's always wanted to see in her. And the bride will look upon herself and see everything in herself she always wanted to be with Jesus. Made perfect. Washed. Perfectly mature. Enjoying a great salvation forever and ever. feasting at Thy right hand where there are pleasures forevermore, bathing in His glory, feasting in His love, enjoying His smile. Oh, here below, Jesus matures our faith so that we are ripened to enjoy this great salvation. And so next time you get afflicted, don't just kick against the bricks. Don't complain and whine when God brings you into His gymnasium. But ask yourself the question, how can God get glory from this? And how can my faith be refined and matured so that I, by faith, may enjoy so great a salvation? Amen. Let's pray. Almighty and sovereign and gracious God, Thou who art the breaker of Thy people, who in Jesus doth go before them in their every way and dost lead them to a city which hath foundations whose builder and maker Thou art. How great Thou art! O God, we thank Thee. We thank Thee for all the trials in our yesterdays that we have needed to mature our faith. We thank Thee for sustaining us in our trials today. We pray that we may be the more matured by them. And we pray, too, Lord, go before us in all of our tomorrows and let us believe as our faith matures that Thou art the same yesterday, today and forever. O Lord Jesus, we do love Thee. Thou art so great, so good, so precious. Thou hast never made one mistake in all Thy leadings of us. Oh, we pray, help us to love Thee more, to hate sin more, to see Thy glory more, to walk in Thy ways more. Give us deeper repentance, deeper faith, deeper love. Oh, God, help us to be more like Jesus. Conform us to His image, which is the goal of all Thy sanctification of us. Lord, increase our faith. mature our faith. We ask all these things, praying that Thou will bring us back again this evening and that Thy Word may be effectual for the forgiveness of our sins, we pray in Jesus' name, Amen.