Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 715
Delivered on Sunday Morning, October 14, 1866, by C. H. Spurgeon, at the Free Tabernacle, Notting Hill
Matthew 15:27.
IN this narrative we have the portrait of a soul for which a sure blessing is reserved. If the story closed without its final verse, one might be quite sure as to what the result of the woman’s pleading would be. Christ must change His Nature if a person coming as she is said to have come, could be sent away empty! I shall with a few touches sketch the woman’s picture, and shall beg you to see if you are like she, for if so it will be evidence to you that the time to favor you, yes, the set time, has come.
This woman had a great and pressing need. Her daughter was vexed with a devil, and she could not endure to see the misery which that evil spirit caused her child. The pain and anguish, the delirium and horror into which the child was thrown were too much for her to bear. Her need was conscious, troublesome, burdensome. She had grown desperate under it—she must be rid of it. Is it so with you, dear Hearer? Does your sin plague you? Does your transgression come up before you like a continual offense? Does it vex you both day and night till it has come to this—that you cannot live without pardon—that you must be forgiven or driven into madness?
Do you feel that things are at such a point with you that you cannot live any longer under the sentence of Divine wrath? This is a very blessed and hopeful sign. If there are many such here, there is music in store for angels. When her case was come to such a point, she heard of the Lord Jesus—and what she heard she acted upon. They told her that He was a great healer of the sick and able to cast out devils. She was not content with that information—she set to work at once to try its value. She went to Jesus with all speed and found that it was a convenient season, for He was near to her land, and she hastened to cry unto Him.
Ah, dear Hearer, you, too, have heard of Jesus! I shall not ask you whether you know the doctrine of His Godhead and of His Manhood and of His Atonement for sin—you know it well—but have you put it to the trial? You understand that He saves souls—have you taken your own soul to Him to be saved? You know that He can forgive sin, are you looking to Him, now, to forgive your sin? If it is so, though as yet you sit in the shadow of death, your hour of deliverance hastens on apace! For a soul under a sense of need that honestly seeks the Savior’s face is not far from the kingdom of Heaven!
This woman was most desperately resolved. She had made up her mind, I believe, that she would never go back to the place from where she came till she had received the blessing. She would dog the Savior’s footsteps. She would waylay Him. If the disciples pushed her back she would wait another opportunity. If not then successful, she would try the next occasion, and if that would not suffice, she would venture yet again. She was sorely tried by the Savior, for He sometimes tests those whom He knows to be strong enough to bear the trial. And when she obtained no answer from Him, but rather met with a rebuff, she was not daunted but pressed her suit, for she had drunk deep into the spirit of the hymn—
“Resolved, for that’s my last defense, IfI must perish there to die.”
If there is a soul here who has come to this—that he will never give up praying until he receives a comfortable answer, that he will never cease to weep for sin until the blood has washed it out—rejoice, you heavens, and be glad, O earth, for there are souls here who have come to the birth, and they shall be brought forth this day! There are souls here who are now upon the edge of liberty, upon the verge of peace—they shall even this day obtain a complete liberation from all their bondage! I said at the commencement that this woman was a correct portrait of the most hopeful case in the world. Can you spy your own face in her story, even as men see their countenances in a glass? Then am I happy, for your position is full of hopefulness.
I may not leave this picture, however, without observing that this woman triumphantly endured a trial very common among seeking souls. Brethren, those evangelists who are not pastors will perhaps differ from me in what I am about to say, but if they knew more about souls they would not. It is customary in the pulpit to exhort people to believe in Jesus Christ. It is not only customary but it is most proper and right, and the more of it the better! But there are some who are content with giving the exhortation generally, and do not with affectionate discrimination deal with the separate cases of men.
There are cases in which the bare exhortation to believe is not enough. I wonder what mere exhorters would do with certain peculiar instances which I have now under my own hand. I have explained the Gospel to them to the best of my ability many times, and have prayed with them and for them. I have given them books which God has blessed in other cases. I have directed them to passages of Scripture which have been the means of giving light to thousands. Yet these persons, month after month, remain in as much doubt and distress of mind as at first. No, they are even worse.