Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 2446
“Then Jesus answered and said unto her, O woman, great is your faith: be it unto you even as you will.” Matthew 15:28.
I mean to dwell Especially upon those words at the end of the verse, “Be it unto you even as you will,” but before we consider them, I should like to remind you again, as I did in the reading, that our Lord admired this woman’s faith. He said unto her, “O woman, great is your faith.” She was humble, she was patient, she was persevering, she was affectionate towards her child, but our Savior did not mention any of these things, for He was most of all struck by her faith. What other good things she had sprang out of her faith, so the Lord Jesus went at once to the root of the matter and, as it were, held up His hands in astonishment and exclaimed, “O woman, great is your faith.” Her faith really was great, extremely great, when you consider that she was a Gentile and one of a race that had, ages before, been doomed. The Canaanite race was one in whose nature idolatry seemed to be ingrained, yet this woman showed that she had greater faith than many a Jew!
There are two cases of extraordinary faith recorded in the early part of Matthew’s Gospel—and in both of these instances where our Savior expressed His astonishment at the greatness of the faith, the believers were Gentiles. Of the centurion at Capernaum He said, “Verily I say unto you, I have not found so great a faith, no, not in Israel.” It is a wonderful thing when persons who have lived in ignorance and vice exhibit great faith. We are glad when those who have been brought up religiously and morally are led to believe in Christ, but we are often more astonished when the immoral— those who have previously known nothing of true godliness—are enabled by Divine Grace to exercise great faith in Christ. “O woman, great is your faith,” said our Lord, for it was great even apart from her being a Gentile, for it had been sorely tried. Trials of faith from disciples are often very severe, but the disciples had put her aside and even besought their Lord to, “Send her away.”
But trials of faith from the Master, Himself, are still more severe. To have Christ’s deaf ear and dumb lips—this was a trial, indeed, and worse than that, to have rough words from such a loving and tender Teacher as He was, and even to be called a dog by the great Shepherd of Israel and to be told that it was not right to give her the children’s bread—these were heavy tests of her confidence! But she had such faith that she bore up under all and still pressed her suit with the Son of David, the Lord of Mercy! We cannot but feel that Christ did her justice when He said, “O woman, great is your faith.”
Our Savior seems to have been especially struck with the ingenuity of her faith. Little faith always lacks ingenuity— it must have everything very plain or else it cannot move at all. But great faith makes crooked things straight, sees light in the midst of darkness and gathers comfort out of discouragement! For this woman to turn Christ’s word inside out, as it were, and when He said, “It is not meet to take the children’s bread, and to cast it to dogs,” for her to say, in effect, “I do not ask to have it cast to me—only let me have the crumbs which fall by accident from the children, themselves, when they have brought the dogs under the table”—this was, indeed, extraordinary faith and wonderful pleading. “If You will heal my daughter, there will be none the less of Your marvelous power for the children of Israel, for You can heal them, too. If You grant me this that I ask—great as it is to me, it is only like a crumb to You—Your table is so lavishly provided for by Your Grace. Even this great favor that I ask of You will be nothing more to You than a chance crumb that falls from the children’s table.” This was splendid pleading and the Savior saw the force of it at once. He loves ingenuity on the part of those who come to Him. He is so ingenious, Himself, in devising means of bringing back His banished ones, that He is glad to see ingenuity in the banished ones, themselves, when they desire to come back to Him. He therefore cries in holy astonishment, “O woman, great is your faith!”
Taking the case of the woman as a whole, I think that it must have been her pertinacity, her firmness, that surprised the Lord. Others are easily put off, but she would not be put off. Others need encouragement, but she encouraged herself. When the door is shut in her face, she only knocks at it—and when Christ calls her, “Dog,” she only picks up what Christ has said, as a good dog will pick up his master’s stick, and brings it right to His feet! There was no baffling her. If all the devils in Hell had been about the business, not merely that terrible one that possessed her daughter, she would have beaten them all, for she had such faith—shall I not say—such dogged faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, that she could even get comfort out of being called a dog! She had such resolute faith that she must have what she sought and she would not go away without it. If she does not succeed at first, she will battle on until she does win the victory! She will continue pleading till she carries her suit.