Worship: For Heaven’s Sake It seems Jesus ignored the Syrophoenician woman, but still she worshipped. Why?
Wellness: For Health’s Sake To the million-plus persons who marched through the wilderness, God promised health for obedience. He then gave them a special diet.
For Heaven’s Sake…
Matthew recounts the story of the Syrophoenician woman who cried aloud to Jesus to have mercy on her and heal her daughter, who was possessed of the devil. (Read Matthew 15:22-28.)
But Jesus said nothing.
The woman was a Canaanite, a heathen race of people despised and hated by the Jews. Canaanites were excluded from the advantages normally enjoyed by the Jews. But the woman had heard about the miracles of healing Jesus had performed. She decided He was her only hope. She refused to lose faith.
She remained close and continued to beg for His help. Still Jesus said nothing. Disturbed and annoyed and seeing how Jesus treated her, the disciples begged Jesus to send her away.
Instead, Jesus spoke to them as would any Jew of the day. And she heard Him. What He said seemed to confirm that people like her had no place in the blessings of His ministry: “I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”
Strangely, instead of leaving and giving up, she came closer and worshipped Him, “saying, Lord, help me.”
She knew what Jesus had done for others. She was close enough to smell the blood, so to speak. She knew enough to search for the saving blood of Jesus. She pressed Him with her need.
Apparently rejecting her appeals, according to the normal prejudice of the Jews, Jesus said, “It is not meet to take the children’s bread, and to cast it to dogs.” Dogs? Did Jesus just call her a dog?! Who would blame her for turning away from such a statement. But she didn’t. Jesus said it.
Instead, she seized her opportunity. She knew she had His attention. She agreed.
“Truth, Lord: yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table.”
Somehow she understood that even “if we could just get crumbs from Christ, crumbs from Infinity, crumbs from All Power,” said Pastor Flemons, “it’s all that we would ever need for this whole life.” This was simple faith. And Jesus acknowledged her faith as great and granted her request that same hour.
He was just testing her, as He does us. And He was teaching a lesson to the disciples or anyone willing to prejudicially divert heavenly blessings from others. Had she turned away, she would have lost faith.
Her story, showing such great faith, is one of only two stories, says Pastor Flemons, where Jesus called faith great. In both instances, this great faith was demonstrated by those culturally shunned from the advantages of the chosen race. They were heathen.
Then Pastor Flemons presented a text showing the biblical symbolism of this as it relates to dogs. Luke 16:21 tells of one “desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man’s table: moreover the dogs came and licked his sores.” In other words, the dogs licked the blood oozing from the sores of the rich man. Although the story is not a literal story, it does illustrate a point.
The crumbs had fallen from the table, but the dogs did not eat the crumbs. Rather they licked the blood. Dogs lick blood. Dogs search for blood. Far from calling her a dog, Jesus was merely showing that this woman, who was not even of the chosen race of Jews, was searching for the saving blood of Jesus.
Many are searching for Jesus in this way, searching for His righteousness, searching for His covering. And they don’t even know Jesus like many of us do, said Pastor Flemons.
We must not hinder them.
There is a science to faith. Mark 11:24, says, “Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them.”
The Desire of Ages, authored by Ellen G. White, explains the science of faith this way:
“Not because we see or feel that God hears us are we to believe. We are to trust in His promises. When we come to Him in faith, every petition enters the heart of God. When we have asked for His blessing, we should believe that we receive it, and thank Him that we have received it. Then we are to go about our duties, assured that the blessing will be realized when we need it most.” (p. 200)
Matthew 23:23 reads, “Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisee, hypocrites! for ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone.”
Faith is the weightier matter.
Closing with a poignant story that teaches this lesson, Pastor Flemons told how a jar was filled with big rocks first, then sand, then water. They all fit perfectly. But trying to fill the jar with the exact size of every object by only switching the order of entry made a huge difference. They would not all fit. Putting in the big weighty rocks first made all the difference.
Again, faith is the weightier matter.
For Health’s Sake…
Exodus 15:26 reads, “If thou wilt diligently hearken to the voice of the LORD thy God, and wilt do that which is right in his sight, and wilt give ear to his commandments, and keep all his statutes, I will put none of these diseases upon thee, which I have brought upon the Egyptians: for I am the LORD that healeth thee.”
The diseases of Egypt, mentioned in Exodus 15:26, according to modern paleopathologists are the same diseases we have today: cancer, arthritis, diabetes, heart disease, stroke, and ulcers.
The promise was kept. According to King David (Psalm 105:37), “He brought them forth also with silver and gold: and there was not one feeble person among their tribes.”
Today God wants us to follow a healthy diet that we all may be well.
Holes in His Bones…
An aged man, given up to die, attended the 17-day retreat at Times of Refreshing. After only one week there, subsisting on the juice feast alone, his posture improved dramatically. And he walked more than he had in the previous two years.
Why this matters so much?
All of his bones, doctors told him, have holes in them. They knew of nothing more they could do to save him. He turned to Times of Refreshing to “do or die.”
Why should this matter to you? It is personal. To you, it is personal. To me, it is personal.
Times of Refreshing frequently turns away people who have very little time left to live. The man just mentioned likely could not have lived until the next retreat. This could be you or someone you personally care about.
Because of the 1-to-1 ratio of medical missionary to retreat guest and extremely limited space, Times of Refreshing must expand to meet the demanding need. By June 15, $250,000 is needed to secure on contract a piece of land being preserved, we believe, for TOR expansion.
Please help. Visit the Campus Expansion Plan page under the Giving tab on this site, and please pray for GOD’s direction in your giving. Thank you.