SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 7/26/2022 8:39 AM
My Worship Time
Focus: “Rightly Directed And Reverent”
Bible Reading & Meditation
Reference: Matthew 15:22b
Message of the verse: “O Lord, Son of David; my daughter is cruelly demon-possessed.”
We can see by this section of verse 22 that this woman
knew exactly who Jesus Christ was, and it seems to me that she knew that He
indeed is Lord, and that He came from the line of David which the Old
Testaments tells us that this is where Messiah would come from.
Now remember that we are talking about faith in this
section of Matthew chapter fifteen, and the truth is that “Great faith” must,
of course, be directed at the right object, to which this woman was certainly directing
it to. MacArthur adds “Those who believe
that somehow, in some way, by some means everything will ultimately work out
for the good have faith in an illusion.
To declare ‘Somewhere there’s somebody who hears every prayer’ or ‘I
believe in the darkest night a candle glows,’ is to believe in nothing more
trustworthy than your own imagination and wishful thinking. It is unbelievably foolish to put ultimate
trust in something or someone you know nothing about. When John Greenleaf Whittier wrote, ‘The
steps of faith fall on the seeming void and find the rock beneath,’ he proved
himself a better poet than theologian.”
So what kind of faith is being discussed here by
MacArthur here? Well I believe that he
is explaining that that sort of faith is essentially faith in faith, and I
believe that this is talking about no faith at all. Here is an example of this. Now if a person jumps of an airplane with a
parachute this is an act of faith, faith that the parachute will open and that
he will land safely, so the faith is in the parachute and also the person who
packed it so that it would open up correctly.
Now on the other hand to jump without a parachute while explaining, “I
believe,” is an act of stupidity. Now to
say no more than “I believe in love,” “I believe in believing,” or “I believe
it will all work out,” is a faith that is therefore pointless and
powerless. It shows no more sense than
to go on vacation and leave your three year old son or daughter in charge of
the house after telling him or her to look after the house. “I don’t think so.”
Now to say that faith to make some kind of real sense and
to have power then it must be placed in a trustworthy object; and as the
Canaanite woman turned her back on all of the idols that she was worshiping and
then placed her faith in the Lord, the Son of David she then had her faith in
the very God of the universe. In spite
of her pagan background, she heard of the Jews’ Messiah who was coming who was
called Son of David. We see that she
reverently addressed Jesus as her sovereign and omnipotent Lord. This woman had heard of the Messiah’s great
power and she also sensed His great goodness, and she treated Him with both
dignity and expectancy. If you remember
when a leper came to Jesus after giving His Sermon on the Mount, then you will
see that this woman came to Jesus in a similar way. Now think about the fact that the Jewish
leaders had no use for lepers, women and especially foreign women, and yet when
one of these kind of people came to Jesus He had time for them. Let us look at Matthew 8:2, the story of the
leper “And a leper came to Him and bowed down before
Him, and said, "Lord, if You are willing, You can make me clean.’” Jesus was willing and He did heal this man.
Now remember where Jesus and His disciples
just came from, and that is the Jewish leaders, who had called Him a drunk, a
companion of sinners, and a man who was controlled by a demon, and so this must
have been refreshing for our Lord to get away from them and then have this woman
say great things about Him as she is the one with “Great faith.”
We can see that this woman had a
great love for her young daughter, more than he own life, and she came to the
only source of help she knew of, the Jewish Messiah. Now here faith was great because she turned
from faith in false gods, dumb idols, and pagan deities to faith in Jesus
Christ. She may have trusted in those
false gods for a while but when her daughter became possessed by a demon or
demons that all changed. Why? Well they did not word for they actually were
in bed with demons themselves. There is
a verse at the beginning of 1 Thessalonians that goes along with what this
woman experienced as Paul writes “For they themselves report about us what kind
of a reception we had with you, and how you turned to God from idols to serve a
living and true God,” Just insert the Canaanite
women in this verse where it says “they themselves.”
7/26/2022 9:14
AM
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