Mark 7:24 I. The Lord Jesus is not hid. The Old Testament contained one promise which like a thread of gold ran through the whole; a promise that was oft repeated, which was embraced by all believers, the blessings of which were grandly unfolded as time rolled on; and which, in the fulness of time... [ Continue Reading ]
Mark 7:24 The Syrophenician's Daughter. Notice: I. The Girl Herself. She was "grievously vexed with a devil." Her case was very sad and strange. All the gods, helpers and physicians, in Tyre and Sidon could not set this girl free. For anything man's skill could do she was beyond all hope and reme... [ Continue Reading ]
Mark 7:28 Lowly-minded Perseverance in Prayer. I. Consider the example of faith we have set us here. Though Apostles were rejected entreating in her behalf, yet this woman "cries unto" our Lord, because He alone could save her. And though she had heard them say He was not sent to those of her race,... [ Continue Reading ]
Mark 7:32 I. The friends brought their suffering friend to ask for him the Lord's healing hand. He did not refuse their prayer. He gave them what they asked. But He sighed as He gave it sighed, no doubt, with a sense of heaviness and pain, even while He cheered their spirits by granting the boon the... [ Continue Reading ]
Mark 7:32 The Deaf and Dumb. I. Our Lord healed the deaf and dumb man miraculously, by means at which we cannot guess, which we cannot even conceive. But the healing signified at least two things that the man could be healed, and that the man ought to be healed; that his bodily defect the retributi... [ Continue Reading ]
Mark 7:33 I. Our Lord seems to have taken this man apart. He may have intended the multitude to follow with their eyes that which He was about, that the might that there was in the action, the might that underlay the deed, should be dwelt upon, and so should sink more surely into their spirits. As w... [ Continue Reading ]
Mark 7:33 The Pattern of Service. I. We have here set forth the foundation and condition of all true work for God in our Lord's heavenward look. We are fully warranted in supposing that that wistful gaze to heaven means, and may be taken to symbolise, our Lord's conscious direction of thought and... [ Continue Reading ]
Mark 7:34 I. The general study of this story would furnish several very excellent and edifying lessons suggested by our Lord's action in working this miracle upon the shore of Decapolis. (1) We might note the wide reach of the Master's zeal. Jesus had just come from Tyre and Sidon, clear across in a... [ Continue Reading ]
Mark 7:37 Low Estimate of the Church's Work. Let us compare the danger, to which we are open, of taking a low estimate of the Church with the popular view once taken of the ministry of our Blessed Lord. I. There were few, when He was alive on earth, who came to Him in the spirit of Nicodemus, see... [ Continue Reading ]