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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadR.A. Torrey Collection: Torrey, R A - Keep Praying Until God Answers: 02 - The Syrophenician Woman
TOPIC: Torrey, R A - Keep Praying Until God Answers (Other Topics in this Collection)
SUBJECT: 02 - The Syrophenician Woman
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Our Heavenly Father delights in the holy boldness that will not take no for an answer. The reason why He delights in it is that it is an expression of great faith, and nothing pleases God more than faith.
We have an illustration of this holy boldness in the woman of Syrophenicia in Mat_15:21-28 . She came to Jesus Christ for the healing of her daughter. She cried, "Have mercy on me, O Lord, thou son of David; my daughter is grievously vexed with a devil."
But our Lord seemed to pay no attention to her: "He answered her not a word." His disciples besought Him, saying, "Send her away; for she crieth after us."
In spite of His apparent deafness to her appeal, she kept on crying. Then He turned to her with an apparently more positive rebuff: "I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel," and she was not of the house of Israel.
Then she worshipped Him and kept on calling to Him, saying, "Lord, help me."
Then came what almost appears to be a cruel rebuff: "It is not meet to take the children’s bread, and cast it to dogs."
(The word He used for dogs was a peculiar word that meant a little pet dog, and was not at all as harsh as it seems, although it was an apparent refusal to hear her prayer. But, as we shall see, our Lord was simply putting her faith to the test that she might get an even larger blessing.)
Then she said, "Truth, Lord: yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table." She would not take no for an answer.
And then came one of the most wonderful words of commendation that ever fell from the lips of our Lord:
"Then Jesus answered and said unto her, O woman, great is thy faith: be it unto thee even as thou wilt. And her daughter was made whole from that very hour."
That sort of thing pleases God. He would have us have that faith in His lovingkindness and in Himself that, even when He seems not to hear, will trust Him still to hear.
God does not always give you the things you ask the first time you ask, but don’t give up; keep on praying until you do get them.
We should not only pray, but we should PRAY THROUGH.
It is deeply significant that this parable to persist in prayer comes almost immediately after the request on the part of the disciples of our Lord: "Lord, teach us to pray." Then follows Luke’s version of the so-called "Lord’s Prayer," actually the disciples’ prayer.