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[0:00] Thank you, Gary, and while we are nearby, would you turn over, please, to Matthew's Gospel, chapter 15. We are going to be dealing with this issue of the Syrophoenician woman, the Canaanite woman, and her demon-possessed daughter.

[0:19] And this is one of several occasions wherein our Lord Jesus Christ makes some statements that are very difficult for us to process, at least on the surface.

[0:33] They appear to be completely out of character for what you would expect to come from the lips of the Lord Jesus. And in Matthew's account, it renders it just a little different from what was read earlier.

[0:47] And I would like to turn to that, if we would, please, in 15 and beginning with verse 21. And we'll just read a few verses, and you can note the slight variation that exists from what Gary read earlier.

[1:06] Jesus went away from there and withdrew into the district of Tyre and Sidon. And behold, a Canaanite woman came out from that region and began to cry out, saying, Have mercy on me, O Lord, son of David.

[1:23] My daughter is cruelly demon-possessed. But he did not answer her a word. Now, here we could almost say that we are somewhat puzzled, not by what Jesus said, but by what he didn't say.

[1:40] He ignored the poor woman, didn't even bother to answer her. And she is frantic, as only a mother can be, when the health and welfare of her child is at stake.

[1:53] This woman, obviously, is very upset. And our Lord just ignores her. Why would he do that? What's going on here?

[2:03] Is there any way that we can possibly charge Jesus with being discourteous or unkind? Not at all.

[2:17] Oh, he had it in him to render some scathing rebuke to those whom he knew to be hypocrites, particularly among the scribes and Pharisees. And he read them out.

[2:29] No question about it. But even so, he did so with complete honesty and truthfulness. And here, it just seems that he is being rude to this woman.

[2:42] He did not answer her a word. And his disciples came to him and kept asking him, saying, Send her away, for she is shouting out after us.

[2:53] This woman is embarrassing. And she is creating a scene. And it is not a pleasant scene. Would you please tell her to go away? Tell her to leave us alone.

[3:03] Get lost. But he answered and said, I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.

[3:15] But she came and began to bow down before him, saying, Lord, help me. As I've said, this is a desperate woman.

[3:27] And I don't think there is anything that raises the level of desperation like that of a mother who is contending for the welfare of her child.

[3:40] Apparently, she sees Jesus as her only hope. Lord, help me. And he answered and said, It is not good to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs.

[3:57] But she said, Yes, Lord. But even the dogs feed on the crumbs which fall from their master's table. Then Jesus answered and said to her, O woman, your faith is great.

[4:14] Be it done for you as you wish. And her daughter was healed at once. It was the persistence of this woman that actually then led Jesus to say, You've got a point.

[4:30] Even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from the table. Touche. All right. I will give you that. And he responded. What was he doing here in the first place?

[4:45] He'd already made it clear that he was not sent except to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. But what is this? Tyre and Sidon?

[4:56] They're not even part of Israel. Do you know where these are? These are coastal villages in Lebanon. They aren't even in Israel. One would think that Jesus isn't actually practicing what he preaches when he says, Go not to the Gentiles, neither to the Samaritans.

[5:15] Confine your ministry to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. And then he goes off to Lebanon. And this Syrophoenician woman, who is referred to as a Canaanite, is certainly not a Jewish.

[5:29] So, in fact, Jesus has nothing to say to her. And he is appropriately ignoring her. Now, there are some dynamics going on here that I'm satisfied we do not fully grasp.

[5:43] But I want to give you a little background and perhaps some light will come to this. Possible explanations that are often given regarding the difficult sayings of Christ was that, and there are some who hold this position, of course.

[6:00] They are primarily of an atheistic or agnostic bent. And they said, well, Jesus is not the wonderful, kind person that you Christians would like to make him out to be.

[6:13] He could be very rude and very inconsiderate. And that's what he was to this poor woman. She was simply seeking help. A desperate mother wanting aid for her child.

[6:25] And your superhero Jesus just brushes her off and calls her a dog. And he has no time for her and her needs. That's the true picture of your Jesus.

[6:40] And that's the kind of rhetoric that flows from the lips of the atheists and the agnostics. Then the second possible view is, we are okay with what Jesus said because he said it.

[6:55] And simply because he said it, we have to accept it as being appropriate. Yet, it is very perplexing and even embarrassing to try to explain it.

[7:07] So, I don't know what the answer is. And I just have to leave it there. Then, there is a third possibility. And that is that this kind of rhetoric and this kind of disregard for those who are not Jews clashes clearly with what the Apostle Paul wrote in his epistles.

[7:29] Because we see a real variation here. And we saw that in the information that he gave to the rich young ruler. When he asked, what must he do to inherit eternal life?

[7:42] Jesus said, sell everything you have. Give the proceeds to the poor. And come and follow me. And we find that in conflict with what Paul said in the epistles too. Because he makes it very clear.

[7:54] Salvation is by grace through faith. And it is not achieved on the basis of liquidating all of your assets and giving the money to the poor. And that is clearly what Jesus said.

[8:07] So, the solution that some say is, well, whatever Jesus said, you can take it to the bank. But what the Apostle Paul said is just his opinion.

[8:19] You can take it or leave it. And it doesn't matter that much. After all, Jesus is the only real authority. And Paul isn't. And that perhaps is one of the saddest positions of all.

[8:32] Because it is embraced even by many who call themselves Christians. And we pointed out to you in our last session that the real root problem is a failure to understand what the inspiration of the scripture is all about.

[8:45] Because all scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable. Paul wrote to Timothy. The word of God is plenarily inspired.

[8:58] That means it is inspired in its totality. For those who say things like, a fellow that I worked with years ago, back in Olympia in the state of Washington, we were discussing this.

[9:11] This is just a couple of months after I became a believer. We were discussing the Bible. And he said, Do you believe that? I was reading it on my lunch hour. And I was a new Christian. I was just reading and underlining feverishly.

[9:24] And he said, Do you believe all that stuff? And I said, Well, yes. Yes, I believe it. Don't you? Oh, I believe parts of it.

[9:40] And I said, Parts? Which parts? What parts? The parts that I can agree with. Which, of course, effectively makes man the judge of scripture, rather than scripture, the judge of man.

[9:56] If the Bible, as some would say, merely contains the word of God, but is not the word of God, who in the world among us is competent to determine what is and what isn't?

[10:16] How can we skip through the pages of scripture and say, Well, God inspired this, but this he didn't. This is out of the question. It's nonsense. All scripture is given by inspiration of God.

[10:30] And it does not conflict. When we say that the Bible is inspired of God, we mean no part of it is more or less the word of God than any other part of it.

[10:45] It all comes with equal authority. And while there are portions of scripture that are clearly more inspiring and uplifting to read and more of what we would call a blessing that does not mean wow, this is really God's word.

[11:05] This over here, well, you can take that or leave it. No, you can't take it or leave it. It is all on the same footing. If it is inspired, it is inspired.

[11:17] It comes from God himself. So there is no conflict with the epistles. And besides, Paul said, let it be known that the things that I write unto you are the very words of God.

[11:31] So we have a continued and ongoing revelation of what Christ came to reveal in the gospels, continued in the book of Acts, and continued in the epistles.

[11:44] There is one author of scripture. That's the Holy Spirit. There are many writers, many human penmen, and that is an entirely different issue.

[12:00] So, our position is number four out of those that we pointed out to you, and that is scripture must interpret scripture. And in your bulletin, there is, on the back page, a copy of Miles Coverdale's rules that he gave in 1535 for the interpretation of scripture.

[12:24] And I cannot tell you how strongly I endorse this. I am of the opinion, just a wise man opinion, take it or leave it, I am of the opinion that apart from the Bible itself, this is the most important thing I have ever read in my entire life.

[12:42] It shall greatly help you to understand scripture if thou mark not only what is spoken or written, but of whom and to whom with what words at what time, where, to what intent, with what circumstances, considering what goeth before and what followeth after.

[13:00] Rules given in 1535 that I do not think have ever been improved upon. And if you want to study the Bible seriously and gain the greatest advantage from it, make sure you apply these simple rules.

[13:14] It will lead you into a greater appreciation of scripture than anything else that I can think of. So the principle is, scripture must interpret scripture.

[13:27] We all know there are Presbyterian interpretations of scripture, certain passages. There are Baptist interpretations of scripture. Certain passages they lean upon. Pentecostals take Acts chapter 2 and make that their watchword.

[13:41] That's their favorite passage. And it goes on and on. Same thing with Roman Catholic and with Lutheran and so on. And they all have their own peculiarities that distinguish them from the other groups.

[13:56] The only adequate interpreter of the scriptures is the scriptures. Don't ever forget that. It's not the grace interpretation.

[14:08] It's not a Methodist interpretation. It's God's interpretation. And you've heard it said, I'm sure you've heard it said. Well, you can make the Bible say anything you want.

[14:20] It's all in how you interpret it. And that's true. And if you interpret it or I interpret it, we can make it say about anything we want.

[14:32] But if you let the scriptures interpret itself, that's a whole different thing. How do you do that? You do that by comparing scripture with scripture.

[14:45] It may lead you, if dealing with the passage in the book of the Revelation, the last book in the Bible, it may lead you all the way back to Genesis for an understanding of that passage or vice versa or someplace in between.

[15:01] And this is why it's very helpful to have some good help like a good exhaustive concordance that lists every word of scripture and every place it's found. And you can do that.

[15:12] You can engage in that wonderful, wonderful activity of allowing the Bible to interpret itself. And I'll give you a couple of examples of that and what we're dealing with right now.

[15:25] Christ said what he did because of the very purpose for which he came. And I realize that we covered this in our earlier sessions of providing background material for this.

[15:39] And I'm not going to belabor the point except to remind you that he said what he did because the very purpose for which he came was all about establishing the kingdom of heaven on earth.

[15:53] That was the message. Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. It is near. It's very close. And John the Baptist preached that message and then Christ came on the scene took up the message upon the execution of John and continued on with it throughout his earthly ministry.

[16:16] However, something began to happen perhaps about halfway through. and what it was that began to happen was the nation of Israel in its leadership role particularly for those who comprise the leadership element it became more and more apparent that they were in a mode of rejection of the Messiah.

[16:50] And I suggest that there is a real break that takes place between what we are reading here in Matthew 15 and if you will come back to Matthew chapter 13 I want you to notice that something has taken place here and it helps to explain why he is saying what he is saying and it helps to explain I think also why he is making some movement in the direction of Gentiles.

[17:21] Now that's really significant because remember at the beginning just as soon as he chose the twelve this is right at the very beginning of his public ministry in Matthew 10 when he chose the twelve he said don't go to the Gentiles that means stay away from anybody that is not a Jew confine your ministry to the Jew only that's really significant and you know what we would call that today we would say Jesus was discriminating well he was do you know there is nothing wrong at all with discriminating you can't function if you don't discriminate all discrimination means is you're making choices you're exercising options when you discriminate what makes discrimination wrong is what your basis for discrimination is we say we ought not to discriminate on the basis of race ethnic origin color of skin etc and certainly that's true but in every other area of life you live a life of perpetual discrimination you're always discriminating when you go to the grocery store and you buy one kind of canned goods instead of another you've just discriminated you've just made a choice you've just eliminated this one and said

[18:59] I won't consider this one because I either don't like the brand or it costs too much or whatever you're discriminating and there's nothing wrong with that in fact you need to learn to discriminate to judge to evaluate in a consistent methodical and a well based way it all depends on what the basis for discrimination is so and by the way when we look at the Sermon on the Mount and we'll see the phrase that Jesus uses one of the most one of the most frequently quoted and frequently misunderstood verses in all scripture can't wait to get to it judge not lest you be judged what does that mean it's loaded also as to what it does not mean that's loaded also so we are discriminating and Jesus is here discriminating by saying don't go to the

[20:01] Gentiles confine yourself strictly to the Jew but the very reason that he had for saying that was because that was the operational plan that God the Father had set out for the redemption of the whole human race he is going to use the Jew the Jewish nation the chosen people as the vehicle the vanguard for eventually reaching all of the Gentiles it isn't that he doesn't care for the Gentiles that he's only concerned about the Jew it's that he has a special purpose for the Jewish people and he is going to use them in a very strategic way but and this is a really important point he is not going to use them against their will and when they rise up and say no we will not have this man to reign over us that's their answer to

[21:17] Pontius Pilate when he said what shall I do then with he who is called the king of the Jews we don't want him and he was not forced upon the people and God the father did not override their volition and their will and say you will take him as your Messiah I sent him for you and I'm going to remove your will from this matter and force him upon you and you have no choice no no no no no no God respects us too much to override or withdraw the volition that he has volition that provides the basis for our accountability we do have a will that means we are responsible for how we exercise it we are free moral agents and we will give an account for the decisions and the choices that we make so in addition to

[22:21] Jesus dying for the sins of the world providing the first basis for the establishment of the kingdom of heaven come to earth and secondly the cooperation of Israel providing the second basis for the coming of the kingdom of heaven to earth the second has never happened because Israel has never responded only negatively but the time is coming when they with their volition as a nation they are going to do what Peter told them to do in Acts 2 repent change your mind next time around the Jewish nation is going to be confronted with Yeshua Hamashiach and this time they'll say yes we want this one to reign over us even so come Lord Jesus this all started back in Genesis 3 in verse 15 with the seed of the woman would crush the head of the serpent and it continued then with the destruction of the whole human race save Noah and his family and God is right on track perpetuating the line because Noah is going to have three sons and the son

[23:39] Shem Shem will be the Shemitic or the Shemitic father of the Jew Abraham Isaac and Jacob will come from the son Shem who came from Noah and the line goes on and you go a couple of thousand years and you arrive at Yeshua Hamashiach Jesus the son of David or David the king thousand years later and everybody is familiar with David the king that slew Goliath and then a thousand years after that in that same blood line perpetuated generation after generation uninterrupted he comes right down and centers on and ends with Jesus the Messiah the son of David that's what this is all about why he came was to fix the earth and he began by addressing the moral issue of human sin he paid the penalty for human sin and because

[24:55] Jesus Christ died for the sins of mankind we have a gospel to preach that tells people Christ died for your sin the way of access for you and everybody else is open to him and if you want to personalize what Jesus did for the whole human race you exercise that volition of yours that will and you commit yourself to Jesus Christ for who he is and what he did and why he did it time is coming when this is going to be put to the whole planet and it will be in the midst of a conflagration the scriptures referred to as the great tribulation period this continues even now in a way that is difficult to understand if you do not take into consideration all the scripture like

[25:56] Miles Coverdale said because now it's a very legitimate question well if Jesus came to establish this wonderful kingdom and fix everything we've got a world that's still pretty well broken up doesn't look to me like he fixed anything people are still murdering we've we've aborted how many millions of human beings right here in this nation since 1962 murders continue apace we've got a mess in Afghanistan and Iraqi there are people over there who want us dead who are trying to kill our soldiers and why are soldiers over there and what's this twin tower thing all about what's what's wrong with the world anyway well hasn't been fixed has it still broken so if what

[26:58] Jesus is all about is this wonderful kingdom of heaven come to earth so that God's will will be done on earth as it is in heaven where is it what happened it is postponed it's held in abeyance because I've given you two reasons required for the establishment of the kingdom of heaven and earth and that is Christ must die and provide the legal judicial right for God reversing the curse he did that the other is Israel must be on board they're not they never have been their rejection was in crucifying the Messiah that rejection continued even after his resurrection when they were preaching that Jesus was raised from the dead and if you as a nation will embrace Jesus as your Messiah even though he's only been gone in the ascension Acts chapter one even though he's only been gone a short time

[27:59] God will send him back again and Israel's response was they laid hands on them they arrested them put them in jail they beat them they threatened them and that persecution intensified until Stephen first martyr of the Christian church was stoned to death and those who stoned him those who physically hurled the stones was the leadership establishment of Israel the Sanhedrin and God is saying to Israel is that your final answer and Israel was saying yes that's our final answer so this whole concept of the kingdom of heaven come to earth is in abeyance and will remain in abeyance until

[29:06] Israel comes in line this is why Christ focused upon Israel you've got to win Israel before you can win the world but Israel right now is not winnable and they don't want to be won that's where we are that's why the world is the way it is now even though Jesus came to fix it and that's why it's not yet fixed once again what comes into play human volition God has given humanity this priceless gift called volition the power to choose choose well you will be accountable for the choices that you make so now we read in Matthew chapter 15 I'm sorry I took you back to chapter 13 and I wanted to show you something here and it's very very significant in chapter 13 we read that

[30:10] Jesus went out of the house was sitting by the seaside great multitudes gathered to him he got in a boat sat down the whole multitude was standing on the beach and he spoke many things to them in parables saying and then he gives a whole series of parables now a parable contains truth but it is couched in a certain amount of mystery it is truth that is not always obvious you have to search the context to understand what this parable is all about now he begins giving a whole series of parables and 13 is just loaded with them and when he finishes his disciples come up to him and they ask a very interesting question and they approach Jesus and they said why why are you talking to them in parables what's with this parable thing anyway and

[31:12] Jesus said because for you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven but for them it is not given well what in the world does he mean by that just this and the whole context will bear this out I have time to go into it but you can explore it for yourself in chapter 13 and it's just this Jesus is saying I am speaking in parables now with the truth couched in the parable because those who want the truth will get it those who don't want the truth it will be kept from them they won't be able to pick up on it this ties in with the phrase that he uses in another place when he says don't cast your pearls before swine what does that mean it means don't try to communicate priceless spiritual truth to those who are not open to it and don't want it you're wasting your breath you're casting pearls beautiful costly ornaments you are casting pearls before swine have you seen swine out in an old hog pen rooting and grunting around take a handful of costly pearls and throw them in front of them they'll eat them just like they eat everything else they are non discriminating that's exactly what our lord is saying and for you who are open to the truth you will get the truth for those who are close to it it'll be water off a duck's back and that's the whole purpose for his speaking to them in parables and he says that near the end of the chapter so he is discriminating there in what he is teaching and another reason that this is very important

[33:36] I really want you to pick up on this this seems to be the earliest turning point where it became very apparent that Israel was locking itself in to the rejection mode and that's a principal reason why Christ changed his teaching methodology into parables now you read the sermon on the mount and it's not parabolic there are no enigmas there it's very straightforward language and to the point but that all changes with the introduction of the parables and what I am saying is this as Israel's rejection mode becomes more and more set our Lord seems to open himself more to

[34:37] Gentile involvement and I suspect that that's why he is even where he is we know that he's going to break rank with that when he talks to the Samaritan woman at the well in John 4 he already told them earlier don't go to the Samaritan well here he is in Samaria Jacob's well talking to a Samaritan woman what's that all about and he told them not to go to Gentiles but here he's going to Tyre and Sidon that's outside of Israel that's in a foreign land that's Lebanon and this woman if we may turn back to that again in chapter 15 this Canaanite woman in verse 22 came out from that region and began to cry out saying have mercy on me O Lord son of David do you see what is implied here this is not a

[35:39] Jewish woman but what is she calling Jesus son of David she is acknowledging that Jesus is the Messiah but what's the Messiah to her Messiah doesn't mean anything except to the Jews but this obviously was a woman who was clued in and she knew what the Jews believed about a coming Messiah and she believed that Jesus was that one and she acknowledged that he was a son of David and he is a direct descendant of David the king a thousand years removed the genealogy is in Matthew and it's in Luke so this woman even though she was not Jewish she certainly had some Jewish understanding comprehension that caused her to recognize him my daughter is cruelly demon possessed now

[36:40] I don't want to spend a lot of time on this because in the first place I don't understand a lot about it except I do want to debunk the idea that this was not a simple case of epilepsy I am personally very familiar with epilepsy and it is not demon possession and I do not buy the idea that these people simply didn't understand epilepsy so when someone had a seizure or what people might call a fit and their eyes roll back and their extremities legs and arms flail about and they completely lose control of themselves and of consciousness and they go into this convulsion called grand mall seizures

[37:40] I can understand how somebody might look at that and think something like demon possession only because they don't understand but I can promise you this when the scriptures say that someone was demon possessed they were demon possessed and when Jesus communicated with demons that indwelt people and they answered with an angostromuthos demon utilizing the vocal cords and the language of that person it was very real and Jesus was not duped by it thinking that it was demon possession when really it was a simple case of epilepsy Barbara and I lived with grand mall seizures and epileptic daughter for 30 years until she was quite suddenly taken home when we were out of town attending a

[38:40] Bible conference in Pennsylvania and she was staying in a respite care and simply passed away and it was our huggy bear she was the bright spot and you who were here back in the 70s and 80s and 90s you probably remember dawn having seizures right here in the congregation and Barbara would simply lay her on the floor turn her on her side keep her from swallowing her tongue and in a few minutes it would be all over when she comes out of it she would just be completely exhausted just just absolutely wiped out and in about a half an hour 45 minutes she would be her old self again there was scarcely a week that went by that she didn't have those sometimes 15 a day we are told that 10% of epileptics cannot be controlled with any medication dawn was one of those 10% 90% of the people who have epilepsy have it controlled provided they take their medication and dawn was on every kind of medication known to medical science and was treated by specialists from

[40:18] New York to Indiana to Kentucky to Ohio State everywhere and many times she would have her seizures 2 or 3 o'clock in the morning and Barbara would hear her and she would get up and go in and frequently to add to the difficulty she would relieve herself in the middle of a seizure because when the neurological system goes haywire you lose control of your facilities and she would invariably just urinate couldn't help it she was unconscious when she did it and Barbara would get up 2 3 4 o'clock in the morning go in take care of her sometimes I did but usually she did because she insisted on doing it and very often there would be a load of laundry in at 3 o'clock in the morning where she would be doing dawny sheets and get her settled down get her back to bed again and you know she did that for 30 years and never one single time did I ever hear her complain what a woman incredible woman sometimes would go in a restaurant and you never know when these were coming on and just like that she'd be down her face would go right down the plate of food with force

[41:47] I mean just bang like that and the seizure would start and of course everybody around is terrified and people don't know what's going on but you get used to it even things like that but that's not what this little girl had this little girl was demon possessed I do not know that I have ever seen an actual case of demon possession don't believe I have I'm sure that it exists especially in certain dark areas of our world where truth has made very little inroads and where there is a great deal of superstition there is demonic activity that takes place and there are numerous missionaries that come home from the field that can tell you hair raising stories about things they cannot deny that were clear cut cases of demon possession and it seems to have been really intensified during the earthly ministry of Christ during that three year period when he was here ministering on earth he dealt with this about every time he turned around there was somebody demon possessed we don't understand exactly how this works we don't know what it is that makes someone subject to that and no I do not believe it's possible for Christians to be demon possessed

[43:10] I do believe it's possible for Christians to be influenced by satanic sources and somehow these demons that are spirit beings desire to inhabit a body and when Jesus cast them out of the demoniac the gadarene demoniac they asked permission to go in and into the herd of swine and they did and of course they destroyed themselves and ran over the cliff because that too is in keeping with the plan and program of the adversary of Satan he is the destroyer his game plan is deceive and destroy deceive and destroy and you'll note it is the exact opposite of the truth and to create deceive destroy the truth create complete counterpart to what God is all about my daughter is cruelly demon possessed he did not answer her a word his disciples came to her and said get rid of her get rid of her send her packing she's shouting at after creating a big scene it's embarrassing

[44:31] Jesus said I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel and that seems very insensitive doesn't it but she came and began to bow down before him begging this is a desperate woman Lord help me it is not good to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs who are the children the Jew what's the bread truth who are the dogs Gentiles well now it's not nice to call Gentiles dogs well if you lived back in this day and age you would fully understand it was part of the cultural setting a Jew would pray every morning upon arising God I thank thee that thou hast not made me a woman a slave or a

[45:36] Gentile now how's that for how's that for what shall we say well call it whatever you want not very nice is it that was a typical Jewish prayer I thank you that you have not made me a woman a slave or a Gentile that's real that's real bigotry but that was a common attitude of the Jew and do you know it got them of course into a lot of trouble because the Jewish people are resented by a lot of people throughout the world not just Arabs there is a certain chutzpah that the Jewish community seems to thrive on and they even pride themselves on it and even they even give an example of the greatest example of Jewish brass Jewish chutzpah nerve if you will is the man who murders his parents and then throws himself on the mercy of the court on the grounds that he is an orphan that's the ultimate

[46:45] Jewish chutzpah so they are resented by a lot of people and she said yes Lord but even the dogs feed on the crumbs which fall from the master's table I cannot help but believe that a smile came to the face of our Lord when she said that I can just see him saying to himself she's got a point touche I admire this woman's persistence and in light of the fact that she openly acknowledged and confessed him as Lord as Messiah as Son of David well he's going to make a similar kind of response to others when he will say something like this says Jesus was amazed and he said I have not found such great faith no not in

[47:50] Israel and he's going to say that more than once he's going to say this is amazing this person believes in me has faith in me that I can do this I haven't found that kind of faith in the place where you would most expect to find it here in Israel these people are not even Jews this woman is not even a Jew and yet she has confidence in me that many of my own countrymen don't have I cannot help but believe he really appreciated that and admired this woman's faith and he clearly made an exception and he healed this daughter demon possessed remarkable wonderful passage and my time is gone but

[48:53]  I don't want to go another week without giving you at least a couple of minutes for Q&A if you got something burning that you want to ask feel free to do so and we'll just extend this five minutes at the most and I'll let you go anybody have a comment or question Mike's got the Mike's got the mic anyone you're thinking lunch I know you okay no questions let's stand yes up here Mary we can do that elders did you get that word we need a short meeting in my office how that be in my office right after we dismiss quickie for the elders we'll just huddle in there would you stand please father we are so grateful for this magnificent savior that is displayed throughout scripture thank you that there certainly is none other like him nor even close every way and everything about him that is so utterly unique we bless you and we give you thanks for him and we pray that if there is anyone here today searching and seeking and looking for answers they may find no rest and no peace until they focus their heart and mind upon this very one who came to be the way the truth and the life we bless you for him and for all that you're pleased to reveal about him in his wonderful name amen