THE GENTILE WORLD
[p. 205] THE GENTILE WORLD
(Summary of Reading)
We see here that the Gentile world has become the field whence material for the assembly was to be drawn. This is the Gentile field; and the woman here qualifies as the right sort of material. The Lord places Himself within her reach; it was not what He was producing but what He finds. The woman qualifies in the way she answers to the light; she says, “Truth Lord”. Matthew 15:27. She answers to the truth, and the test is that He answers her not a word, when she says, “Have pity on me, Lord, Son of David”. Matthew 15:22. His disciples came and said, “Send her away; for she crieth after us”, and He answers, “I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel”. Matthew 15: 23,24. The Lord was bringing out her position; she had no claim on Him as Son of David; the assembly is not formed of persons calling Him Son of David. There was a good deal of trimming and dressing necessary. Silence is a very searching thing. If you ask a question and a person does not answer, you wonder why; here it is solemn, but very wholesome. We sometimes ask things of the Lord that He does not answer at once. The disciples break in on the divine silence; it is an unhappy thing to interfere with the work of God. They say, “She cries after us” Matthew 15:23 — they were selfish — she was crying after the Lord. It was a question between her soul and the Lord. It is well for us to take notice of His silence and not to interfere with Him. It is a great thing to learn from Christ in divine things, to give the Lord a free hand. The Lord would bring her down for her good — she had a confused thought; she was not an Israelitish woman, but talked as if she were. She had to learn to be quiet and get the mind of God; hence the silence. She [p. 206] got down to the bottom when she reached the point of His dealings with her.
His service is not for nothing, it is for our blessing. He had His own joy in His service. He said, “O woman, great is thy faith” Matthew 15:28; there is feeling in that — we do not want to deny the Lord His own pleasure in the service.
The Lord does not deal in superficialities, He digs deep and goes to the bottom. What comes out is that faith is found. However humiliating the disclosure, faith owns it. How quickly one who is exercised responds to the light! He says, “O woman, great is thy faith”. Matthew 15:28. She ministered pleasure to the Lord, she would never forget that word. The Lord bears long with us, but it is when the full effect of the light is reached that He has joy.
Israel’s territory is not sufficient for the work of God. He was certainly the children’s bread, but the children did not appreciate the bread. What a wonderful meeting between Christ and this Gentile woman! She was one of those under the curse, but she had light in her soul as to her condition. She says, “Truth, Lord: yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their master’s table”. Matthew 15:27. She had no thought of being a dog before, she responds to the light. Her faith was great. In Matthew the Lord invariably slights Jerusalem. In Luke He makes much of it. In Luke the preaching begins at Jerusalem, but in Matthew He slights it; so instead of any material for Christ coming from Jerusalem we have the opposite. What comes out here is that faith is found in a Gentile woman. She was one of the babes of Matthew 11. Faith, the acceptance of the light, was there.
In the next chapter He speaks of Himself as the Builder; here He is in the territory of rough material, and His presence — the shining of the light — reveals it. We have to recognise that the flesh profits nothing.
[p. 207] As long as we retain any thought of being something after the flesh it precludes the thought of our being suitable to the assembly. If she had retained the thought of being a Canaanitish woman she would have been prohibited from suitability. All natural thoughts, family pretensions and all that flesh lays claim to, interfere with our qualification for the assembly.
Then we see she is a mother, she has a daughter. A mother’s exercised heart feels in regard of her daughter, and she gets the blessing for her daughter too. Many daughters are not affected by the exercises of their mothers, for they do not feel their own condition. The constitution of the assembly greatly depends on mothers. Spiritual mothers know how to teach young women to love their husbands and children. Maternal feeling is of God; a mother who exercises her legitimate feeling will shine in the assembly.
This woman is a subject of mercy, and, to use a figure, entitled to belong to the timber of the house of God; she would not have recognised the Lord at all had she not been a subject of mercy. It is not His work that is in view here, but He placed Himself within her reach. He did not go there by accident, but going forth He went away into the parts of Tyre and Sidon. There were other women there who did not come to Him; she must have had some previous light.
I was thinking this morning — the Lord did not work for nothing, He had His joy. He says about the Samaritan woman, “I have meat to eat that ye know not of”. John 4:32. While His disciples were in the town He was eating: “My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work”. John 4:34. As life takes full effect in a soul God gets His portion. The Lord would have us know that we belong to the highest family, but before that we have to accept the lowest position — the humiliating place of dogs.
[p. 208] All this time the daughter is not with her mother, but the mother is with the Lord about her. Discipline comes in in our families and it is intended to fit us for the house of God. Very often difficulties come in in our houses to teach us to be pillars in the house of God.
If we turn to 1 Kings 5 we shall see how the timber was brought down to the house of God. Timber refers to the dignity of saints, stone is more firmness and solidity. The woman began to qualify when she went to the bottom. It is dignity that enables us to go down. The natural man seeks to go up; flesh always exalts itself. True greatness enables the believer to go down. The timber came down in a raft; there is no architecture in a raft. It was just trees kept together and dragged through the water to the place Solomon appointed. These rafts were ungainly things, but they came under the influence of the water, and that is death.
At the end of Matthew 15 we have the feeding of the four thousand. It teaches us the presence of the Spirit, we get the number seven instead of twelve. The woman would appreciate this; “great” faith brings in the power of the Spirit. The Lord does not look up to heaven here, He is administering, having the presence of the Spirit in view. It is not apostolic days, but sufficiency in the Spirit; every sufficiency is in the Spirit. It is not here the administration of the twelve — the vessels, that is, the baskets are larger here, it shows abundance. In being emptied we appreciate the fulness — the Spirit’s power is unlimited.
The Lord takes account of those who continued with Him in spite of deprivation and inconvenience. If we are together and seem to be getting nothing, yet those who continue get the blessing.