WHO LET THE DOGS IN?
Matthew 15:21 – 28
In the text before us we find a woman who has a problem.
The Bible tells us that her daughter was vexed by a devil.
Now it does not tell us why it happened. It does not say whose fault it was, whether the mother had done something wrong or whether the little girl had dabbled in something herself. All we do know is that the daughter was now demon-possessed. And I want to suggest to you today, that it’s not really important whose fault it was. We really don’t need to know who the guilty party was.
You see when you are in trouble, it does not matter whose fault it really was.
If you find yourself broke, busted and disgusted, you don’t need an investigator to find out why.
If you’re beaten, bruised and abused, you don’t want to see a commission of inquiry to find out the cause.
If you’re depressed, dejected and rejected, it’s not important to you to probe the reasons behind it. All you really want is some help.
You see church, dying people, broken people, hurt people, used and abused people don’t need to find out why, they need some help.
Now picture this woman’s situation with me this afternoon.
Imagine that you’ve carried this child in your womb for nine months.
Went through the excruciating pain of childbirth.
Nursed her, fed her, changed her.
Watched her grow, take that first step, say her first word, maybe even played peek-a-bo with her.
She’s your little girl. You can still remember her first day of school. How pretty she looked in that dress. You remember how you had to help her with her homework and how she was getting smarter every day.
I can well imagine that they had gone down to JC Penney’s and Sears and done the hobby that most women love, shopping together. (Girl you think this matches my outfit. Does this go well with these shoes? How about this hat, is it me?)
This was her little girl.
Maybe she had been sick before. A cold here. A headache there, maybe even the flu from time to time. But nothing ever like this before.
In the daytime she screams and hollers constantly.
You can’t put new clothes on her because she’ll tear them off.
No longer is her hair in those nice corn-rows and poney-tails that you put them but they are almost all pulled out at the root and the remaining ones are left sticking up. Strange voices come out of her mouth. She can’t eat, she can’t sleep, she can’t play. She is grievously vexed with a devil.
But one thing is constant, those eyes. There’s a strange look in her eyes. Eyes that tell you that this is no ordinary sickness, no ordinary problem, no ordinary trouble.
Can you imagine the helpless feeling of this mother? I’m losing my little girl. I’m losing my little girl. I know that someone in here knows what I’m talking about. Someone knows how it feels like when you are losing your little girl. Losing your little boy. Losing that husband. Losing that wife. Losing that brother or sister. It’s a helpless feeling.
But you know how a mother’s love is. It will go miles in search of help for her child. It will travel late at night, on foot, in the cold and the rain in search of baby food.
I’m sure she had been to the doctors and the psychologists and even with all of their technology they couldn’t help her.
She must have gone to the priest and even though he had sprinkled the holy water over the girl, even after applying two spots of trouble oil on her, he couldn’t help her.
She had been to the witch doctor and even though he took a new leaf from a tall tree in a big forest. Even though he mixed it with a new donkey’s eye with 2 pinches of salt and 4 cloves of garlic, he couldn’t help her.
So finally out of money and options, she is about to give up hope.
Maybe this would be her daughter’s lot in life. Maybe it was true what the neighbors said. She was just crazy and needed to be in an asylum.
Then one day, the news travels into the village that a man was coming to town. He was not just any man. He was no ordinary man.
Oh yeah, she had heard about this man.
Jesus was His name and delivering hopeless people was His claim to fame.
It was this same Jesus who had met a man whose body was withering with leprosy and he touched him and made him whole.
It was this Jesus who had met a paralytic man. A man who had not moved his arms nor his legs for a long time. But Jesus told him to arise, take up your bed and walk and he did.
It was this Jesus who had met a woman who had an issue of blood for twelve long years. She just simply touched the hem of His garment and was made whole.
This Jesus was coming by her way.
Verse 22 tells us that she was so consumed with excitement that she ran out to meet Him.
You see church if you’re sick, you may want to find yourself a doctor.
If you have a legal problem, you need to find a lawyer.
If you’re having family problems, you may need to go to a counselor.
If you’re having trouble in school young people you may need to find a tutor.
If you’re having problems with your pipes you need a plumber.
But if your problem today is demon-possession,
If the devil is riding your back,
If you want your little girl or boy back,
You need to find an emancipator, a liberator, a demon chaser, yoke breaker, problem solver, mind fixer, hell raiser, you need to find Jesus.
The Bible tells us that she came and found Him and began crying out after Him. “Have mercy on me, O Lord, thou Son of David.” Now in the original language the word used here for cried suggests that she cried out and kept on crying out. She just didn’t do it once. She needed to get His attention.
There was no other hope for her helpless, demon possessed little girl.
And so she presses her case to Jesus, “Have mercy on me, O Lord, thou Son of David.”
But in verse 23, we find Jesus doing exactly the opposite to what we think He should. He does not rush to her aid. He does not agree to follow Her home. He does not soothe her heart with words of encouragement. No, it says he remained silent. “He answered her not a word.”
Now I must let you know that most Bible commentators suggest that Christ was role-playing for His disciples. He was showing them exactly how unfeeling, heartless and downright insensitive way the Jews treated the Gentiles. And this may be true.
But today, I want to also suggest to you that even though, Jesus was trying to teach His disciples a lesson, His main concern, his primary focus, the object of his supreme regard was this woman.
She had heard that this man Jesus could do anything. Now when she came to him for help he was silent.
It’s a hard thing church to deal with God’s silence. I know, I know. You wish that you could go through life with God thundering to you day after day. Letting you know this is the way walk ye in it. You wish that all your prayers could be answered right away. You wish that everything you ask for God gave it to you on the spot. Oh how we wish that when we pray that God never says wait to us.
But the truth today is, that sometimes God says yes, sometimes God says no and sometimes he says wait. But how do you know the difference between a no and a wait. When God is silent do you give up on that prayer? Do you give up on asking God’s direction? Do you give up on that lost person you’ve been praying for? Do you give up and walk away and think that you wasted your time anyway? How do you deal with the silence of God?
Ask Job about his silent treatment. Everything is gone, all your wealth, your houses, your land but most of all your children. And then you cry out to God for deliverance. And somehow heaven is silent.
Oh this is a tough sermon today. Sometimes you are going to be crying out in the midnight hour and the morning will come but it’s not going to bring any joy.
Sometimes you’ll be fasting over something for a long time, showing up for prayer meeting, getting to church early and meeting with the prayer warriors. Sometimes you’re going to wake up and call that prayer partner before the crack of dawn but still God is silent.
All the things that they told you would work, don’t work. Do you stop praying then? Is that the point when you say, it’s not worth it. I can’t see any results from this prayer thing. I might as well go it on my own. Is that when you begin to figure things out yourself?
Verse 23 tells us this Canaanite woman, kept on crying out. She was persistent. She knew that if He didn’t answer, there would be no answer.
She knew that Jesus, Jesus He’s the man, if He can’t do it, nobody can.
She kept on, keeping on. You and I need to learn this lesson here of persistent praying.
Praying that says, Lord I know that only you can help me. Only you can heal me. Only you can lift me up out of this miry clay. Persistent praying. You see some of us have the idea that I’ll pray for a while and then I’ll try something else. I’ll give God a chance to work on this problem and then its my turn. I’ll call on God now and if it doesn’t work, I’ll call my cousin. I’ll try God before or after I try my other solutions.
Somehow God is trying to let us know that He isn’t another solution.
He isn’t another helper.
He isn’t another problem solver.
He is the only solution.
He is the only help.
He is the only problem solver.
We need to stay right there and pray on until there is an answer from heaven. God may not always change the situation but He’ll make us able to bear it.
God is looking for some saints who will say like Jacob, I won’t let you go until you bless me. God is looking for some saints who will stand still and see the salvation of the Lord. God is looking for that man or woman who will pray on and hold on and press on. Persistence. Persistence.
What we need to do is learn that only persistence in prayer can gain the victory. You see the truth is if God can’t do it, it cannot be done. We need to learn to close the blinds, shut the door, turn off the phone, stop calling Mummy and Daddy and Auntie and Uncle and just cry out to the Lord. James 5:16 says “The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.” Don’t stop praying, pray on!
Now verse 23 also lets us know that when she kept on crying on, that there were some voices that joined in.
Now notice I said that she was crying to the Lord, Son of David. She put an address on her prayer. But here comes the disciples.. “Send her away, for she crieth after us.” Follow me now, if they are asking Jesus to send her away with such urgency, it would seem to me that they had tried themselves to get her to leave. They tried all different ways to persuade her to go.
But she wouldn’t. Notice she paid them no mind. She just kept on crying out. In your walk with God, there are going to be those discouraging voices, I call them background noise, that ever so often from time to time will urge you to give up.
Give up, you do the same sin anyway.
Give up, you might as well look for another career other than this one.
Give up, you’ll never make it in college. Look at your GPA.
Give up, this church will never get right.
Give up, that child will never come back to the Lord.
Give up, look how long you’ve been asking the Lord for that baby.
Just give up.
As we look at the story there is another “but” in there.
In verse 24 Jesus breaks His silence and says to her “I am not sent but to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”
First he ignores her. Then she has to endure the ridicule of the disciples and finally when this Jesus opens His mouth, here He is with words of discouragement. I haven’t been sent here for your kind of folks. I have more important people to deal with.
How she must have felt that day, that God had rejected her. Oh it is hard when you feel like God has rejected you. You can’t find a job. Your kids won’t act right. There is no peace in your home. Your bills can’t get paid on time. Your credit is shot. Your car keeps breaking down all over the place. Has God rejected you?
I have news for you today. Sometimes while I’m watching television, a strange sound will come across my tv. My screen will go black. The program that I was enjoying will be gone. But then a message will come up to let me know that everything is going to be alright. Nothing is wrong with my unit. I don’t have to adjust my set. Because it’s only a test.
I want to suggest to you, those times when you feel rejected by God. When all is going wrong with your life. When there are strange sounds in your home and on your job, and in your church. When things get black and dim. Don’t adjust your set. Don’t try to fix it yourself. Don’t give up on God, it’s only a test.
Now it gets sweet here. Verse 25. “Then came she and worshipped Him saying, Lord, help me.” As the old folks would say, Lord see about me. My baby girl is sick, Lord see about me.
Despite the apparent apathy and rejection, it says she worshipped Him. She could have gone a long time ago but she worshipped Him. She threw herself down before Him and with long soulful sobs that only a mother can do, she worshipped Him. Can you worship when all seems down? Go into your closet, lift up your voice, bow down and worship. I mean come to church, lift up holy hands, and worship when all is going down.
Jesus answers in verse 26 with those famous words “It is not good to take the children’s bread and to cast it to dogs.” Before I deal with what the Greek means here I want you to think with me.
Was Jesus calling this woman a dog? A sister came for a little help and He calls her a dog. Her daughter is demon-possessed and he labels her a dog.
Now today we say that a dog is a man’s best friend but back in Jesus’ day, the dog was the most miserable creature on the face of the earth. For the most part they were not domesticated and could be seen roaming the streets barking at passers-by. They were annoying, barking and howling late at night. They would lie lazily around in the daytime.
But the most striking and disgusting thing was that they would eat almost anything. They would eat from garbage heaps and dumps. They would tear into the strewn, rotting carcasses of dead and decomposing animals.
They were downright nasty scavengers. And the worst part is they sometimes went back to eat their own vomit.
Now I’m gonna fix it in a minute but for now, if Jesus was calling her this kind of dog, is there a problem? If he calls us this kind of dog, do we have a problem with that? I want to suggest to you that if He did, He had all right to call us dogs. You see if you look back on your own life, some of us may have to go way back; some like me just have to go back to yesterday we too have acted like dogs.
Sin will make us act like dogs. We will feed our minds and sometimes our bodies almost anything. We have looked at all sorts of detestable things on television and video. We have listened to all the suggestive music telling us who is going to do who before who does who. We have looked on the Internet at all sorts of pornography and vulgarity.
Some have even paid money to watch sin glorified on the big screen.
But worse than that, even when God delivers us from sin, we sometimes go crawling back like dogs to our own vomit. God delivers us from gossiping but we go back to it. He gives us power over lying but we crawl back into it. So I have no problem today if Jesus calls me a stray dog.
I’m not going to call you that. It may damage someone’s self esteem.
However the original language of the Bible here let’s us know that Jesus doesn’t call her a stray dog. He uses a different word that suggests a little dog, a pet, a housedog. In our King James we look at it as rejection but to her she sees a glimmer of hope in Jesus’ words.
She replies, in verse 27, “Truth Lord but the dogs eat from the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.” Don’t miss this, don’t miss this!
You see the Jews had called the Gentiles dogs all the time but never this kind of dog. They were always stray dogs but never housedogs. How did the dogs get into the house? Who let the dogs in? I said, Who let the dogs in?
She in essence says, you call me a pet dog and I’m fine with that.
I’ve got no problems with that. But if I am, then I’ve got a master.
You see those stray dogs are left on their own to fend for themselves.
They must go digging here and there to find a bone. They don’t know where to find their next meal. But not a housedog. A housedog has a master.
You see before I was searching to find happiness in people and things.
I thought I had to do it on my own but then I found out that I have a master.
We thought we had to scratch people’s back to get jobs on our own.
But then we found out that we have a master.
Young women, you thought that you needed to go out there and throw yourself for any guy that told you that you were pretty.
Young men, you thought that you needed to go with any girl that said that you had it going on.
We were looking for love in all the wrong places. But then we found out we have a master.
We thought that we needed others to tell us nice things to feel good about ourselves but now we know we have a master.
I don’t have to go to parties to get high, I have a master.
I don’t have to need to keep up with the Jones’ to be liked, I have a master.
I don’t have to be popular and famous, I have a master.
If you call me a housedog, I’m alright with that. I have no problems with that. But if I am a housedog then I have a Master and you, Jesus, are my Master.
You and I need to realize we are worth something not because of who we know on this earth but because of who we know in heaven.
Now watch this quickly. Verse 27, she says “the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their Master’s table.”
Crumbs, the remnants of the meal. Crumbs, what no one wants anymore. Crumbs, the fragments of a satisfying diner. Crumbs what you wipe off your mouth and the plate. That’s all I need Jesus, the crumbs.
You see she was recognizing that this was no ordinary man, no ordinary prophet, no ordinary healer. He could do what ever He wanted to whenever He wanted to.
He didn’t just have some power. He had all power.
If you don’t about His power ask Moses how God could take a Red Sea and
divide it and make water stand at attention.
If you don’t know ask Joshua how he made the earth stand still.
If you don’t know ask the three Hebrew boys how he cooled down the fiery furnace.
If you don’t know ask Daniel how he shut the lions mouth.
You see He has all power.
His crumbs are better than everyone else’s dinner.
And so she says, Lord, just your crumbs alone will satisfy me.
Just a little morsel from your hand will give me more than I ever needed.
Just a little touch from you O, Lord will make me whole.
Just a little word from you will soothe my aching soul.
Just a little move of your Spirit can change my life.
Just your crumbs, O Lord will satisfy me.
And praise God today that Jesus answered this woman’s prayer. Can you imagine the scene back at her home when this mother got her daughter back. I thank God today that He is still in the business of putting families back together.
But the good news is that one day, Jesus came down from glory and kicked the door of salvation open on its hinges of grace and mercy and let dogs like you and me in. And now He does not call us stray dogs nor house dogs but sons and daughters of God. Joint heirs with Jesus.
I’m glad today that Jesus let the dogs in.
