Latest / Sacred Texts Archive / 43 - The Desire of Ages - Ellen Gould

Transcript

43 - The Desire of Ages - Ellen Gould · Sacred Texts Archive

• 0:00
  Barriers broken down. After the encounter with the Pharisees, Jesus withdrew from Capernaum,
• 0:06
  and crossing Galilei, repaired to the hill country on the borders of Phoenicia.
• 0:11
  Looking westward, he could see spread out upon the plain below the ancient
• 0:15
  cities of Tire and side On, with their heathen temples, their magnificent palaces
• 0:20
  and marts of trade, and the harbors filled with shipping. Beyond was the
• 0:24
  blue expanse of the Mediterranean, over which the messengers of the Gospel were to
• 0:29
  bear its glad tidings to the centers of the world's great empire. But the
• 0:33
  time was not yet. The work before him now was to prepare his disciples
• 0:37
  for their mission. In coming to this region, he helped to find the
• 0:40
  retirement he had failed to secure Bethseda. Yet this was not his only purpose
• 0:45
  in taking this journey. Behold, a Canaanitish woman came out from those borders
• 0:51
  and cried, saying, have mercy on me, o, Lord, thou
• 0:54
  son of David, My daughter is grievously vexed with a devil. Matthew fifteen
• 0:59
  twenty two. Are the people of this district were of the old Canaanite race.
• 1:03
  They were idolaters and were despised and hated by the Jews. To this
• 1:07
  class belonged the woman who now came to Jesus. She was a heathen and
• 1:11
  was therefore excluded from the advantages which the Jews daily enjoyed. There were many
• 1:17
  Jews living among the Phoenicians, and the tidings of Christ's work had penetrated to
• 1:22
  this region. Some of the people had listened to his words and had witnessed
• 1:26
  his wonderful works. This woman had heard of the prophet, who, it
• 1:30
  was reported, healed all manner of diseases. As she heard of his power,
• 1:34
  hope sprang up at her heart. Inspired by a mother's love, she
• 1:40
  determined to present her daughter's case to him. It was her resolute purpose to
• 1:44
  bring her affliction to Jesus. He must heal her child. She had sought
• 1:49
  help from the heathen gods, but had obtained no relief, and at times
• 1:53
  she was tempted to think, what can this Jewish teacher do for me?
• 1:57
  But the word had come he heels all manner of diseases, Whether those who
• 2:01
  come to him for help are rich or poor. She determined not to lose
• 2:06
  her only hope. Christ knew this woman's situation. He knew that she was
• 2:10
  longing to see him, and he placed himself in her path. By ministering
• 2:15
  to her sorrow, he could give a living representation of the lesson he designed
• 2:19
  to teach. For this, he had brought his disciples into this region.
• 2:23
  He desired them to see the ignorance existing in cities and villages close to the
• 2:28
  land of Israel. The people, who had been given every opportunity to understand
• 2:31
  the truth were without a knowledge of the needs of those around them. No
• 2:36
  effort was made to help souls in darkness. The partition wall which Jewish pride
• 2:40
  had erected shut even the disciples from sympathy with the heathen world. But these
• 2:46
  barriers were to be broken down. Christ did not immediately reply to the woman's
• 2:51
  request. He received this representative of a despised race as the Jews would have
• 2:54
  done. In this he designed that his disciples should be impressed with the cold
• 3:00
  and heartless manner in which the Jews would treat such a case, as evinced
• 3:04
  by his reception of the woman, and the compassionate manner in which he would
• 3:07
  have them deal with such distress as manifested by his subsequent granting of her petition.
• 3:14
  But although Jesus did not reply, the woman did not lose faith.
• 3:17
  As he passed on as if not hearing her, she followed him, continuing
• 3:23
  her supplications. Annoyed by our importunities, the disciples asked Jesus to send her
• 3:28
  away. They saw that their master treated her with indifference, and they therefore
• 3:32
  supposed that the prejudice of the Jews against the Canaanites was pleasing to him.
• 3:37
  But it was a pitying Savior to whom the woman made her plea, And
• 3:40
  in answer to the request of the disciples, Jesus said, I am not
• 3:45
  sent but unto the lost sheep of the House of Israel. Although this answer
• 3:49
  appeared to be in accordance with the prejudice of the Jews, it was an
• 3:52
  implied rebuke to the disciples, which they afterwards understood as reminding them of what
• 3:57
  he had often told them, that he came to the world to save all
• 4:00
  who would accept him. The woman urged her case with increased earnestness, bowing
• 4:05
  at Christ's feet and crying, Lord help me. Jesus, still apparently rejecting
• 4:11
  her entreaties, according to the unfeeling prejudice of the Jews, answered, it
• 4:15
  is not meet to take the children's bread and cast it to dogs. This
• 4:19
  was virtually asserting that it was not just to lavish the blessings brought to the
• 4:24
  favored people of God upon strangers and aliens from Israel. This answer would have
• 4:29
  utterly discouraged a less earnest seek her. But the woman saw that her opportunity
• 4:33
  had come beneath the apparent refusal of Jesus. She saw compassion that he could
• 4:39
  not hide. Truth. Lord, She answered, Yet the dogs eat of
• 4:44
  the crumbs which fall from their master's table, while the children of the household
• 4:47
  eat at the father's table. Even the dogs are not left unfed. They
• 4:51
  have a right to the crumbs that fall from the table abundantly supplied. So
• 4:57
  while there were many blessings given to Israel, was there not all also a
• 5:00
  blessing for her? She was looked upon as a dog, and had she
• 5:03
  not been a dog's claim to a crumb from his bounty. Jesus had just
• 5:08
  departed from his field of labor because the scribes and Pharisees were seeking to take
• 5:12
  his life. They murmured and complained they manifested unbelief and bitterness, and refused
• 5:17
  the salvation so freely offered them. Here Christ meets one of an unfortunate and
• 5:23
  despised race that has not been favored with the light of God's word. Yet
• 5:28
  she yields at once to the divine influence of Christ and has implicit faith in
• 5:32
  his ability to grant the favor she asks. She begs for the crumbs that
• 5:36
  fall from the Master's table if she may have the privilege of a dog.
• 5:42
  She is willing to be regarded as a dog. She has no national or
• 5:46
  religious prejudice or pride to influence her course, and she immediately acknowledges Jesus as
• 5:50
  the redeemer and is being able to do all that she asks of him.
• 5:55
  The Savior is satisfied he has tested her faith in him By his deally with
• 6:00
  her. He has shown that she, who has been regarded as an outcast
• 6:03
  from Israel, is no longer an alien, but a child in God's household.
• 6:09
  As a child, it is her privilege to share in the Father's gifts.
• 6:12
  Christ now grants her request and finishes the lesson to the disciples, turning
• 6:16
  to her with a look of pity. And love. He says, O,
• 6:19
  woman, great is thy faith, be it unto thee even as thou
• 6:24
  wilt. From that hour her daughter became whole. The demon troubled her no
• 6:29
  more. The woman departed, acknowledging her savior and happy in the granting of
• 6:33
  her prayer. This was the only miracle that Jesus wrought while on this journey.
• 6:39
  It was for the performance of this act that he went to the borders
• 6:42
  of tire and side on. He wished to relieve the afflicted woman, and
• 6:46
  at the same time to leave an example in his work of mercy towards one
• 6:49
  of a despised people for the benefit of his disciples. When he should no
• 6:54
  longer be with them. He wished to lead them from their Jewish exclusiveness to
• 6:59
  be interested in working for others besides their own people. Jesus longed to unfold
• 7:03
  the deep mysteries of the truth which had been hid for ages, that the
• 7:08
  Gentiles should be fellow heirs with the Jews and partakers of his promise in Christ
• 7:13
  by the Gospel Ephesians three six. This truth the disciples were slow to learn,
• 7:18
  and the Divine Teacher gave them lesson upon lesson in rewarding the faith of
• 7:23
  the Centurion at Capernaum and preaching the Gospel to the inhabitants of Psychar. He
• 7:28
  had already given evidence that he did not share the intolerance of the Jews.
• 7:32
  But the Samaritans had some knowledge of God, and the Centurion had shown kindness
• 7:36
  to Israel. Now Jesus brought the disciples in contact with a heathen whom they
• 7:42
  regarded as having no reason above any of her people to expect favor from him.
• 7:47
  He would give an example of how such a one should be treated.
• 7:50
  The disciples had thought that he dispensed too freely the gifts of his grace.
• 7:55
  He would show that his love was not to be circumscribed to race or nation.
• 8:00
  When he said, I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of
• 8:03
  the House of Israel, he stated the truth. And in his work for
• 8:07
  the Canaanite woman, he was fulfilling his commission. This woman was one of
• 8:11
  the lost sheep that Israel should have rescued. It was their pointed work,
• 8:16
  the work which they had neglected that Christ was doing. This act opened the
• 8:20
  minds of the disciples more fully to the labor that lay before them. Among
• 8:24
  the gentiles, they saw a wide field of usefulness outside of Judea. They
• 8:28
  saw souls bearing sorrows unknown to those more highly favored. Among those whom they
• 8:33
  had been taught to despise, were souls longing for help from the mighty healer,
• 8:39
  hungering for the light of truth, which had been so abundantly given to
• 8:41
  the Jews. Afterward, when the Jews turned still more persistently from the disciples
• 8:48
  because they declared Jesus to be the savior of the world, and when the
• 8:52
  partition wall between Jew and Gentile was broken down by the death of Christ,
• 8:56
  this lesson and similar ones which pointed to the gos for work unrestricted by customer
• 9:01
  nationality, had a powerful influence upon the representaties of Christ in directing their labors.
• 9:07
  The Saviour's visit to Phoenicia and the miracle there performed, had a yet
• 9:13
  wider purpose. Not alone for the afflicted woman, nor even for his disciples
• 9:18
  and those who received their labors. Was the work accomplished, but also that
• 9:22
  ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and
• 9:26
  that, believing ye might have life through his name John twenty thirty one.
• 9:31
  The same agencies that barred men away from Christ eighteen hundred years ago are at
• 9:35
  work to day. The spirit which built up the partition wall between jew and
• 9:39
  Gentile is still active. Pride and prejudice have built strong walls of separation between
• 9:46
  different classes of men. Christ and his mission have been misrepresented, and multitudes
• 9:50
  feel that they are virtually shut away from the ministry of the Gospel. But
• 9:54
  let them not feel that they are shut away from Christ. There are no
• 9:58
  barriers which man or Satan can erect, but that faith can penetrate. In
• 10:03
  faith, the Woman of Phoenicia flung herself against the barriers that had been piled
• 10:07
  up between jew and gentile, against discouragement. Regardless of appearances that might have
• 10:13
  led her to doubt, she trusted the Saviour's love. It is thus that
• 10:18
  Christ desires us to trust in him. The blessings of salvation are for every
• 10:22
  soul. Nothing but his own choice can prevent any man from becoming a partaker
• 10:26
  of the promise in Christ. By the Gospel, Caste is hateful to God.
• 10:31
  He ignores everything of this character. In his sight, the souls of
• 10:35
  all men are of equal value. He hath made of one blood all nations
• 10:41
  of men. For to dwell on all the face of the earth, And
• 10:43
  hath determined the times before appointed and the bounds of their habitation, that they
• 10:48
  should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him and find him.
• 10:54
  Though he be not far from every one of us. Without distinction of
• 10:58
  age, or rank, or nationality or religious privilege, all are invited to
• 11:03
  come unto Him and live. Whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed,
• 11:07
  For there is no difference. There is neither jew nor Greek. There is
• 11:11
  neither bond nor free. The rich and poor meet together. The Lord is
• 11:16
  the maker of them all. The same Lord over all is rich unto all
• 11:20
  that call upon him. For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord
• 11:24
  shall be saved. Acts seventeen, twenty six, twenty seven, Galatians three,
• 11:28
  twenty eight, Proverbs twenty two two, Romans ten eleven thirteen, end
• 11:33
  of Chapter forty three