ONE night after a gospel preaching at R―, as Mr. H― stood at the door to have a word with the people as they left the room, he asked a female who then passed him, “Well, Mrs.―, have you learned tonight that you are a “dog?”
“No, sir, but I have learned that I am a CUR!” The cause of question and answer was just this: ― the subject taken by the speaker was that touching one recorded in the 15th chapter of St. Matthew’s Gospel where the poor woman of the district of Tyre and Sidon accosted the Lord Jesus, relative to her daughter, who was grievously vexed with a demon. It had been sought to be shown from the Scripture above alluded to―that not only is it true that there is One ready to help―that loving Saviour―but the thing on man’s, needy man’s side, is, has he got low enough—has he reached that point where the blessing meets him?
And most important is this, beloved reader for it appears to me that with so much of a full and free Gospel preached as it is now, thank God, what often is needed to be put before and pressed upon souls is, where does this gospel, this “good news” of God’s love TOWARDS him, and Christ’s work FOR him, and the Holy Spirit’s IN him, reach the sinner?
Not when he is trying to be, to do, or to feel, something, anything; not when he begins to turn over a new leaf, as it is called, to improve, become religious, join a church and so on; but when he just gives all up, and takes his true place before God, as utterly lost and undone, without claim, no plea, just as the 12Th verse of the 2nd of Ephesians sets forth his fivefold desperate condition as a “sinner of the Gentiles.”
1. “Without Christ.”
2. “Aliens from the commonwealth of Israel.”
3. “Strangers from the covenant of promise.”
4. “Having no hope.”
5. “Without God in the world.”
Did you ever notice these five points, my reader? What a position for a sinner to be in! What can HE say? What can HE plead?
Nothing―surely nothing―but honestly own it all true, and true concerning HIMSELF, then learn what is meant by, “But God, who is rich in mercy!” Ah! that’s it― “rich in mercy”―and sing,
Nothing but mercy’ll do for me,
Nothing but mercy full and free.
Now the teaching in Eph. 2 is blessedly illustrated in that portion of Matt. 15. Here was a poor soul, she had a need, a desperate need. Havn’t you a need too, my reader? Oh! yes, if you havn’t seen your need of a Saviour, may God in His mercy show it to you now. There is the One, the only One, who CAN and WILL meet it.
His love is as great as His power,
And knows neither measure nor end.
But she had to learn where this “love” and this “power” can meet her case. Let us see where and when it can. She belongs to a cursed race―Gen. 9:25―an inhabitant of a notoriously wretched locality. “By NATURE and by practice vile” yet she attempts to get what she needs by approaching the Lord. Jesus as if she was one of the earthly, favored, covenanted people―the Jew―as if she were one of “the children.” Read the 22nd verse. Are you not sometimes surprised at the way the Lord receives her cry? I was once. “He answered her snot a word!”
Does not this seem unlike Jesus, the tender, pitying Jesus? The same cry from the two blind men at the end of 20th chapter, brings Him to a stand at once.
Why is this? THEY were “the children.” They had covenant and promise; but she had none. No more have you, unless you be one of Abraham’s descendants. “But He answers her not a word.” The disciples now chime in, “Send her away, for she crieth after us.”
Little sympathy for her need, it seems in this speech, only a want to be rid of a clamorous beggar!
But He answered and said, “I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”
Bitter words for her to hear who knew she could not claim descent from Abraham to whom promises had been given, but from him who was cursed, as Gen. 9. shows.
Poor thing! don’t you pity her? But read YOUR history in hers; it is your NEED, your great want and how it is to be met, that I wish by God’s help to get at; and may His blessed Spirit apply it.
But she sticks to her point, though she gives up using Israel’s language. “Then came she and worshipped Him, saying, Lord, help me.”
Surely now He’ll meet her need. No, not yet, not low enough yet. What does He say? “It is not meet to take the children’s bread and cast it to the dogs.”
Does this seem harder still? Has He nothing but rebuffs, as they seem, for this poor needy soul? Oh, yes! But when? And so He has for you, dear, anxious one. Only perhaps you have been on the same line, the same “tack” as the sailors say, as this woman: trying to be something you are not, or seeking to make out a claim when you have none, or be a bit religious. No wonder “He answered you not a word.”
But what more does He want of me? “I’ve tried this, and I have tried that, and yet my need does not seem met. I have no peace, no joy. I’ll give up my trying’s, chucking it all up as a bad job.” Just do that, dear friend, pitch it all overboard.
“Oh, no! after all I don’t think I can quite do that: my reformation, Tay good works, my prayers; no, no, I’ll just stick to them.”
All right, my friend; but don’t forget, even when this Canaanitish woman cried to Him, “He answered her never a word.” And when she did homage and begged for help, Jesus just reminded her SHE had no RIGHT to children’s bread.
Will He not meet her need at all then? Can He send the hungry empty away?
Stop a moment.
His word we just quoted was, “It is not meet to take the children’s bread and cast it to the dogs.”
What is her reply now?
Ah! she now learns the lesson, the “WHERE,” the “WHEN,” this mercy can reach a poor Gentile needy one; and it is now no longer a semblance of religion, no attempt to take one of favored Israel’s place, but “Truth, Lord! yet the dogs eat the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table.” She took her true place as a “DOG,” and what is the word of Jesus to her longing soul now? “Oh, woman! great is thy faith: be it unto thee EVEN AS THOU WILT.” He is, so to speak, at her command now. “And her daughter was made whole THAT VERY hour.”
“Great is thy faith.” How was this evidenced? By her giving up all through which she sought to get the blessing, and simply owning herself a “DOG,” an outsider, one of those like you and myself, portrayed in that 12Th verse of Eph. 2, that fivefold picture of Gentile distance. But what does the next verse say, the 13th?
“But NOW ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ.”
HOW blessed, “THE BLOOD OF CHRIST,” “the precious blood,” that blood which cleanses from all sin. Now do YOU see you can afford, nay, must pitch overboard those things, which though right in themselves in the right place, have proved hindrances to your getting peace and joy in BELIEVING?
What led to the exclamation at the head of this paper was just this. The word “dogs” in vs. 26 and 27 of our chapter will bear a more contemptuous word to correctly translate it—that word which is so expressive in English for what is mean, useless, the butt of every one― “CUR.” And this was pressed the night I speak of to show where mercy really reaches such as you and I, my reader. Not when one has turned over a new leaf and tried to be good, but when one is right down in the gutter of conscience, or the “dunghill” of 1 Sam. 2, then it is the scoop of mercy, “God rich in mercy” comes along and picks one up, as set forth in Eph. 2:4. “But God who is rich in mercy for His great love wherewith He loved us, EVEN WHEN WE WERE DEAD IN SINS, hath quickened us together with Christ (by grace ye are saved), and hath raised us up together, and made us to sit together in heavenly places in (not WITH, as is so often misquoted, IN now, by-and-by WITH) Christ, and we far off ones are “made nigh by the blood of Christ.”
Dear reader, have you learned and owned that you are a “dog,” a “cur,” as that dear woman did? For that is your side of the picture, your end of the rope; for, if so, you have learned and owned that you are the very one, on the very spot, where this uncovenanted mercy meets a poor Gentile sinner and never lets him go till he is landed in glory.
Do own you are a “cur,” and then
Mercy full, and mercy free,
Hath picked up such as thee.
S. V. H.