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the name of Christian will have any diffi culty in deciding between the authority of Christ and the authority of the critics. Christ has infinitely more authority for the Christian than the “latest scholarship” (falsely so called). When one really be lieves in Jesus Christ, if all the scholars on earth should say one thing and Jesus Christ should say another, he would accept the word of Christ against all the scholars in the world, and anyone who accepts the au thority of any man, any philosopher, any theologian, any critic or any school of criticism as against the authority of Jesus Christ does not believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. He may say he does, but he does not. Our Lord went on to say that God demanded heart service and not mere lip service. The worship of those who teach for their doctrines the precepts of man is vain (v. 9). The principle which Jesus in culcates in verse 11, that not what goes into the mouth but what comes out of the heart defiles the man is a great and funda mental one and has many applications. Men are constantly rising up with their legalism and Pharisaism and saying, “Thou shalt not eat this and thou shalt not eat that,” until life becomes a wearisome bur den. Our Lord tells us that this is not true religion. Let the heart be kept pure by the cleansing of the Word and of the Spirit or God and then live out naturally with the joyous freedom of a child of God what God has wrought in your heart. Not those who have a long list of “thou shalts” and “thou shalt nots” are the sons of God, but “as many as are led by the Spirit of God these are sons of God” (Rom. 8:14). This Syrophenician woman is an exceed ingly interesting and instructive person. Her position was very discouraging. She was outside the covenant promise and blessings; she was in. sore distress; her daughter had fallen under the control of unseen but real and awful powers of,dark Wednesday, March 3. Matt. 15:21-28.
ness; the disciples were unsympathetic and even the Saviour Himself seemed Unheed ing; apparently there was no helper. Even her own mode of approach to the Saviour was mistaken; she approached His us the “Son of David,” as if she a Canaanite out cast had a part in the promises of Israel. In spite of all this, the woman got the blessing she sought. Why? Her faith conquered and made her a true child of Abraham and heir of the promises (cf. Gal. 3:26, 14; Luke 19:9; 13:16). The girl’s case was a sad one; she was in Satan’s power and like so many of his victims, grievously tormented. But she had a pray ing, believing mother and so got full deliv erance. Her mother’s prayer was a model: it was earnest, direct, brief, definite, per sonal, humble, believing, persistent, pre vailing. The heart of it was, “Have mercy on me.” That was a cry Jesus often heard and never passed unheeded. He is just the same today. Thursday, March 4. Matt. 15:29-39. Whenever Jesus saw a crowd of men He was moved with compassion. His com passion on the multitude is mentioned not only here but five different times in the Gospel record. A crowd of men is indeed a pitiful sight; it represents so much sor row, so much of pain, so much of folly, so much of sin, so much of spiritual blindness, so much of hopeless ruin. What is your feeling when you look out upon a crowd? What if Jesus were in London today, or in New York, or in Chicago, or any other great city, how would He feel? Just as He felt in Galilee, He would be moved with compassion. But how do you feel when you look out on the multitude? The great mul titudes move some of us when they gather to us to self-admiration .and self-gratula- tion. “Ah,” we say, “I have got a crowd at last.” But not so our Lord, He was moved with compassion and ministered to their need. Oh, that we were more like Him.
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