When the Heaven is Silent
Mat 15:21-28
Have you ever felt like the Lord wasn’t listening? I know I have. I’ve had times when it felt like my prayer just bounced off the ceiling and came down upon my head again. I think it’s one of those things that everyone experiences from time to time. You’ve prayed faithfully and in faith, but you don’t hear anything. You cry out to God for help, but you’ve got nothin’. Your problem is still a problem. Your illness has still got its stranglehold on you. The need you’ve been seeking for Him to fulfill is still unresolved, and you continue to have that same need.
Some people might push it back onto you, saying that you just don’t have enough faith. But you know, that’s a lie from the pit of hell, designed by the devil and used by Christian’s to sow discord, doubt, and despair among the brethren. Now, the person saying this might think they’re encouraging someone into greater faith, but the fact is that response isn’t encouraging at all, it’s just the opposite. The lie is that you have little faith, when the truth is that little faith can move mountains! Mat 17:20 …if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it will move; and nothing will be impossible to you.
You know, it’s not uncommon at all for God to appear to be silent. Do you remember the story of when Daniel prayed and prayed and received no answer from the Lord? Well for 3 weeks, he heard nothing, and then one day an angel appeared to him and said, Dan 10:12-13 …"Do not be afraid, Daniel, for from the first day that you set your heart on understanding this and on humbling yourself before your God, your words were heard, and I have come in response to your words. (13) "But the prince of the kingdom of Persia was withstanding me for twenty-one days; then behold, Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me, for I had been left there with the kings of Persia.
Daniel’s prayer was hindered through no fault of his own. God had answered his prayer immediately, but the response didn’t reach him immediately. He had to wait. And also think about the apostle Paul. He had a persistent problem that had plagued him for a long time. He said 2Co 12:7 …there was given me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me—to keep me from exalting myself! Well, he prayed three times, and asked the Lord to remove this thorn, but do you know what the Lord told him? He said, 2Co 12:9 …"My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness." In other words, the Lord said, “Nope! Not gonna to fix it. You will just have to continue relying upon Me. You have my unmerited favor, and that’s enough.”
Abraham was 75 years old when he received the promise of land and a nation, but the promise of a heritage took 25 years to come about when Isaac was born, and the promise of land didn’t happen for over 400 years! David was anointed by Samuel to be the next king of Israel while he was till just a teenage boy. He didn’t actually become the king until he was 30, and it took another 7-1/2 years after that before he gained the whole kingdom that was promised to him.
Friends, the Bible is full of examples of apparent silence from heaven. Do you remember that Jesus arrived at Jarius’ house seemingly to late to heal his daughter. She had died before He got there, but we find out that Jesus knew exactly what He was doing, and you know, the same thing occurred in the case of Lazarus. The Lord intentionally waited an extra 2 days before going to Bethany to heal him, and by the time He arrived, Lazarus had been dead and buried for 3 days. But that didn’t phase the Lord at all. It was all part of His plan because He knew He was going to snatch His friend out of the jaws of death.
Beloved, God doesn’t always answer us in our timeframe, or with the answer we want, but you can still rest assured that He loves you no matter how long it takes to receive the answer. He still cares for you. You are still on His mind. He’s a big God, and even with the millions upon millions of people calling out to Him everyday, there is still plenty of room for you in His mind and in His heart. Though heaven may seem silent, He has heard, and will respond in His time, not ours, and there’s a lady in our story today that discovered this very thing.
Mat 15:21-28 Jesus went away from there, and withdrew into the district of Tyre and Sidon. (22) And a Canaanite woman from that region came out and began to cry out, saying, "Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is cruelly demon-possessed." (23) But He did not answer her a word. And His disciples came and implored Him, saying, "Send her away, because she keeps shouting at us." (24) But He answered and said, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." (25) But she came and began to bow down before Him, saying, "Lord, help me!" (26) And He answered and said, "It is not good to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs." (27) But she said, "Yes, Lord; but even the dogs feed on the crumbs which fall from their masters' table." (28) Then Jesus said to her, "O woman, your faith is great; it shall be done for you as you wish." And her daughter was healed at once.
Jesus and His disciples had just finished a pretty hectic ministry in the area of Capernaum when the Lord withdrew into the district of Tyre and Sidon. Now this area of Tyre and Sidon was predominately Gentile. As a matter of fact, it’s the area where the Canaanites and Phoenicians lived in the OT times. Both of these cities were part of the promised land that was given to the Tribe of Asher, but Asher never conquered them, and so they remained in the area as a thorn in the flesh to Israelites.
During the time of the kings of Israel, king Hiram of Tyre assisted Solomon in the building of his homes and the temple by providing some labor and cedar wood from Lebanon. And then, do you remember Ahab’s wife, Jezebel? Well she was a Sidonian princess, the daughter of Ithobaal I, king of the Sidonians.
So, this area of Tyre and Sidon has a long history with Israel. The people in that area were pagan and idol worshippers, most often of the false god, Baal. In the days of Jesus, it was still occupied by Gentiles, but their religious beliefs left Baal behind in favor of the Greek and Roman pantheon of gods. Many have wondered why Jesus would leave Galilee to go to Tyre and Sidon, and some have said that He was wanting to find some peace and quiet from the mass of followers, but I tend to think that just as He had an appointment to keep with a woman at a well in Samaria, He also had an appointment, a divine appointment with a Canaanite woman in the area of Tyre.
You see, I don’t believe anything happened to Jesus that would ever catch Him off guard, or surprise Him in any way. Whatever He saw His Father doing, He went and did it with Him. He said Joh 5:19 …the Son can do nothing of Himself, unless it is something He sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, these things the Son also does in like manner.
Now I would never want to read more into the Scriptures than is there, but I don’t think it’s too unlikely to say that I believe Jesus saw His Father working in the heart of a Canaanite woman, and so He left Galilee to go find her. If I’m right in this, then it’s also easy to see that everything the Lord does in this story is done intentionally and with purpose. Everything is carefully orchestrated, beginning with…
His Silence
Mat 15:22-23 And a Canaanite woman from that region came out and began to cry out, saying, "Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is cruelly demon-possessed." (23) But He did not answer her a word.
As I said earlier, there are times when the Lord seems to be silent. How many times do we read in the Psalms, for example, when the psalmist asks God “How long?” or “When will You turn to me again?” or even something along the lines of “Will You remain silent forever?”
Psa 13:1 How long, O LORD? Will You forget me forever? How long will You hide Your face from me?
Psa 10:1 Why do You stand afar off, O LORD? Why do You hide Yourself in times of trouble?
It’s obvious that we aren’t the only ones who have felt the heavy weight of the Lord’s silence. The psalmists wrote songs about the loneliness of heart they felt when God seemed to be so distant. If you have felt this way before, if you can identify with the writers of the psalms I just quoted, then you can also begin to identify with this Syrophoenician woman. Her child, a beloved daughter, was possessed by a demon and was apparently experiencing a lot of pain and torment because of it.
Now, who among us wouldn’t be tormented by our kid’s illness, disease, of demon possession? I believe all of us would do just about anything we could do to help our kids find the healing they need. And we would also be tormented by the fact that we are actually helpless to help them. But she had heard of Jesus. His fame had travelled all over the region. Even in Gentile lands they had heard of this man who healed the sick, cast out demons, raised the dead, healed the lepers, and made the blind to see. News like that doesn’t stay in one location for very long. It travels and grows, and even more so when the object of the stories, Jesus himself, traveled all over the region doing these things. This isn’t the first time He had ministered in a Gentile region, and it wouldn’t be His last.
So, when she heard that Jesus was in the area, she sought Him out, and once she found Him, her desperation took over and she began to cry out, Mat 15:22 …"Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is cruelly demon-possessed." Now, I don’t know if she knew exactly what she was saying when she called him ‘Son of David’, but I suspect she did, because why else would she even say it? Son of David was a messianic reference, so calling Jesus by this title was the same thing as acknowledging that He was the Messiah. The one who had been promised to come.
You know, I find it interesting that the very first person to hear Jesus make His messianic claim was a Samaritan woman. Hated and despised by the Jews, she was the first to hear Him say, Joh 4:26 …"I who speak to you am He." And now, a little later in His ministry, a Syrophoenician woman, a Gentile, seems to acknowledge His messiahship as well.
So, she continued to cry out to Him for help, but all she got was crickets. Nothing. Silence. Now, many rabbis back then, wouldn’t even acknowledge a woman in public, and if they spoke to the rabbi, they might not get an answer. But we know that Jesus wasn’t and isn’t that way. He has spoken to women throughout His ministry. So, many wonder why He didn’t speak this time? Some say it was because she was a Gentile, but He spoke to the woman in Samaria, and He spoke to and even would have entered the Centurion’s home. My thoughts are that His silence was His method of getting her to dig down deep, to see where her faith may lie.
Being a Gentile and possibly an idol worshipper, or maybe a former idol worshipper, was she able to understand that faith must have an object? Was she placing her faith in the correct object? Jesus? You see, faith without an object is faith in faith, which is nothing. Faith in Faith, like Norman Vincent Peale’s, Power of Positive Thinking, is merely wishful thinking. It’s trusting in one’s own imagination. It’s idolatry and making yourself into a god.
So, she continued to cry out to Jesus, so much so, that the disciples Mat 15:23 …came and implored Him, saying, "Send her away, because she keeps shouting at us." The original language here implies that they weren’t simply asking Him to send her away, but they were asking Him to give her what she wanted and send her on her way, which would mean that her crying out had affected them in such a way that they sympathized with her.
But Jesus, looking at His disciples, but talking to her, said Mat 15:24 …"I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." Oh, man! The silence was bad enough but now He threw up a roadblock! A stop sign, or no trespassing sign. This was the same thing He had told to His disciples when He sent them out. He told them, Mat 10:5-6 …"Do not go in the way of the Gentiles, and do not enter any city of the Samaritans; (6) but rather go to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.
There are probably several reasons why He responded like this, and I think the first one is that He was bringing out a central truth that salvation was to the Jew first. To the Samaritan woman He said, Joh 4:22 You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. And then Paul reiterated this very point when writing to the Romans, he said, Rom 1:16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.
God’s plan was for His salvation to go to the world through the nation of Israel because the Gentiles at this point, still had not been grafted into the vine yet. But now the second reason for Jesus’ response, I believe is like I mentioned earlier, He was drawing her out, into a deeper understanding and a deeper faith. Which, is what happened because she started to bow down before Him in…
Her Persistence
Mat 15:25 But she came and began to bow down before Him, saying, "Lord, help me!"
Verse 22 says that she “began to cry out…” The implication is that she didn’t stop. Just like her other cry kept going and going so long that the disciples, though maybe a little sympathetic, were also annoyed. “Lord! Give her what she wants so she’ll stop all of this crying, weeping, and wailing.” The Lord kept silent, but she kept on.
Then He threw up what could be seen as a definite roadblock, so she redoubled her effort and began bowing, over and over again, while crying out “Lord, help me!” And even though the disciples were becoming bothered by all of her efforts to get the Lord’s attention, she was only doing what He had told all of us what we are to do. We are to persevere in prayer and petition, even when I seems like the Lord is distant, or not paying attention—we are to keep asking.
She knew that Jesus could help her, so she determined to keep asking until her petition was granted, exactly like the Lord demonstrated in His parables of the Unjust Judge and the Inopportune Friend. In Luke 18:1-8, a widow went to a judge to ask for protection from her opponent. She was poor and needy, but the judge ignored her, so she kept pestering him for protection to the point that he finally gave in saying, Luk 18:5 …because this widow bothers me, I will give her legal protection, otherwise by continually coming she will wear me out.
And then there was the parable of the friend who started knocking on his friend’s door late at night, asking to borrow some bread because an unexpected friend had arrived, and he had nothing to put before him. Well, the guy he was asking for bread had already locked up the house and everyone was in bed, so he wasn’t inclined to get up to help this guy out. But because he persevered in making his request, the Lord said, Luk 11:8 I tell you, even though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend, yet because of his persistence he will get up and give him as much as he needs.
But that’s not all, the Lord continued His instruction on perseverance in prayer by saying Luk 11:9-10 So I say to you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. (10) For everyone who asks, receives; and he who seeks, finds; and to him who knocks, it will be opened. Now, I don’t know if you’ve heard this before or not, but this verse is actually saying that we should ask and keep on asking, seek and keep on seeking, knock and keep on knocking—the language used here strongly implies that these are continuous actions, don’t give up.
Now, I’m not saying that the Lord is like the unjust judge or the friend who didn’t want to get out of bed. Not at all. These are only parables to illustrate the Lord’s teaching that we Luk 18:1 …at all times…ought to pray and not to lose heart, and this is exactly what the Syrophoenician woman had done, she asked, and kept on asking, and because of her persistence, her dogged refusal to give up, the Lord gave her…
His Redemption
Mat 15:28 Then Jesus said to her, "O woman, your faith is great; it shall be done for you as you wish." And her daughter was healed at once.
She had a great need and great faith that she would be heard. She knew she didn’t deserve God’s grace, no one does. Grace that is deserved isn’t grace at all, it’s a debt to be paid. Grace is unmerited. It is unearned and freely given. She wasn’t Jewish. She didn’t even live in Galilee or Judah, but she knew that the Lord’s power was so great that even the crumbs of grace and mercy that fell to the floor from the table were more than enough to set her daughter free from her spiritual bondage.
You know, my dog, Napoleon, whenever we eat at the table, he knows the best place to lie down and wait. He knows which one of us is going to share some food with him, and this woman knew that the best place for her was at the feet of Jesus. Nowhere else. Only He had the power and authority to set her child free because Joh 8:36 …if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.
And friend, are you free today? Do you need Jesus to come into your life and make some changes? If you do, then turn to Him today and ask Him to free you from your bondage to sin.
If you are bound by addiction—He can break those chains.
If you are in need of healing—He can not only heal your illnesses, but He can give you the ultimate healing by saving your soul and cleansing you from all unrighteousness.
If you are hurting from abuse—He can give you a whole new life!
If your temper is out of control—He can calm your heart and soul.
Friend, there is nothing that is outside the reach and power of our Lord, Jesus Christ, and He wants you to come to Him today!
