I invite your attention to the
Gospel according to John, chapter 4. The Gospel according to John,
chapter 4. Our subject is Jesus and the
Samaritan woman. And this message is the fifth
in this series. And we, God willing, will be
continuing from the middle of verse number 22. Let me read from verse number
1, John's Gospel, chapter 4. But while you're locating that
passage, let me bring something to your attention. I was a missionary in the West
Indies, 1979 to 1993, 14 years. During those 14 years, I occasionally
had a recurring back pain. Physician finally said it was
the result of a football injury from my high school and Air Force
days and I learned to live with it. In 1993, the Lord called
me to pastor a church in Louisville, Kentucky. Fred Emmons is now
pastor of that church. And my back pained me again,
worse than ever before. I went to the emergency room
at a nearby hospital and we had good hospitals in Louisville,
Kentucky and in the area around, but went to one of them and They
gave me some medicine for my back pain, told me to go home
and rest, and I did, and it got worse and worse. So I went back
to the hospital, and I said, you got to give me something
stronger. I said, this, it's worst, my back has ever pained
me, and he got suspicious and did some checking. He says, that's
not back pain. your kidney is about to burst.
And I was immediately, they took care of that and then scheduled
me for surgery. And it was very shortly after
I had relocated to Louisville. And I was so thankful that the
Lord in his sweet and abundant providence had taken me away
from a remote West Indian island and put me in a place where there
was exceptionally good medical attention. I am told it probably
saved my life. I went back to the West Indies,
ministered another 14 years until the year 2021 or 22. But after 14 years, the Lord
called me to Great Falls, Montana. It was the last place in the
world I would have thought the Lord would have called me to,
but He did. The Lord settled us in here,
and then you know the rest. Not long afterward, I'm having
three surgeries in 24 days. And the third one was for a serious
problem, and I'm so glad that it did not occur when I was on a remote island
in the West Indies. The Lord put me here in Great
Falls, five minutes away from at least two great hospitals,
and it evidently saved my life. And not only close to the hospitals,
but in the fellowship of some of the sweetest people I ever
met And I'm getting good medical attention through a member of
this church by the name of Nurse Amanda. She has been a great
blessing. But I am so delighted that God
in His abundant and sweet providence put me here. Let me also just give you an
update on Paul Mahan. His health has not been the best
for the past few months. I spoke yesterday with his wife,
Mindy. It was her birthday. So I called
her, and Paul is doing much better than he had been. So we're delighted
at that. The Lord in his providence has
let another one of his preachers live a little longer to preach
the gospel. I spoke recently with Marvin
Stallnicker. His recovery is coming along
very well. He said to express to you his
hello, and I'm delighted to do so. But I say all this just to
let you know God's dealings with us sometimes are mysterious. Why did He call me to Great Falls? And then I see that in His providence,
I'm so glad He did and put me where He did with the church
to whom I now minister and I'm so thankful to the Lord. I have
another medical procedure scheduled for Wednesday, God willing, another
procedure in my heart. They say that this procedure
should alleviate any future need for anticoagulant or blood thinner. I can live with that. So, we're
just thankful to the Lord and I'm sure that all of you can
relate much the same that the Lord in His providence has been
so good to you. So many people are blessed by
the Lord. And never think about it. Think,
luck did this, fortune did this, and we are bound to say, thank
you, Lord, your providence has been so good to us. Now to John's
Gospel, chapter 4, verse number 1. When therefore the Lord knew
how the Pharisees had heard that Jesus made and baptized more
disciples than John, though Jesus himself baptized not but his
disciples. He left Judea and departed again
into Galilee and he must needs go through Samaria. Then cometh he to a city of Samaria
which is called Sachar, near to the parcel of ground that
Jacob gave to his son Joseph. Now Jacob's well was there. Jesus,
therefore, being wearied with this journey, sat thus on the
well, and it was about the sixth hour, high noon. There cometh a woman of Samaria
to draw water. Jesus saith unto her, Give me
a drink. For his disciples were gone away
into the city to buy meat. Then saith the woman of Samaria
unto him, How is it that thou, being a Jew, askest drink of
me, which am a woman of Samaria? For the Jews have no dealings
with the Samaritans. Jesus answered and said unto
her, If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith
to thee, Give me to drink, thou wouldst have asked of him, and
he would have given thee living water. The woman saith unto him,
Sir, thou hast nothing to draw with, and the world is deep. From whence then hast thou that
living water? art thou greater than our father
Jacob, which gave us the well, and drank thereof himself, and
his children, and his cattle?' Jesus answered and said unto
her, Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again, but
whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never
thirst, but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well
of water springing up into everlasting life. The woman saith unto him,
Sir, give me this water that I thirst not, neither come hither
to draw. Jesus saith unto her, Go, call
thy husband, and come hither. The woman answered and said,
I have no husband. Jesus said unto her, Thou hast
well said, I have no husband, for thou hast had five husbands,
and he whom thou now hast is not thy husband. In that saidst
thou truly. The woman saith unto him, Sir,
I perceive that thou art a prophet. Our fathers worshiped in this
mountain, and ye say that in Jerusalem is the place where
men ought to worship. Jesus saith unto her, Woman,
believe me, the hour cometh when ye shall neither in this mountain,
nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father. Ye worship ye know
not what we know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews. Now we came to the middle of
this verse last Lord's Day. We considered Jesus speaking
unto her and telling her that ye worship ye know not what. The whole system of Samaritan
worship was based upon the counterfeit system of worship established
by King Jeroboam when the kingdom, the United Monarchy under David
and Solomon split. And Jeroboam started a false
religion, a counterfeit, built his own temple, established his
own priesthood, set up his own holy days, made altars, and this
was the system of worship that this woman in Samaria followed. Jesus says, you do not know what
you worship. It is impious, it is devilish,
it is demonic, and you do not even know it. You know not what
you worship. And then he said, we know what
we worship. I want you to see three truths
in that statement. We know what we worship. Jesus here first identified himself
as a Jew. She said, you Jews worship this
way, we Samaritans worship this way. Jesus says, you Samaritans
do not know what you worship. We Jews know what we worship. And here Jesus is identifying
himself as a Jew. One of the purposes of the gospel
according to Matthew, to show that he's the son of Abraham,
Isaac, and of Jacob, and the son of David. John shows him
as the son of God. The other gospels show him as
a son of man. Matthew shows him a son of the
Jews, of the patriarchs. of the Kings. Jesus identified
himself here as a Jew and it should not surprise us that haters
of Jews are also haters of Jesus. I'm telling you I am seeing some
things in our country today that 10 years ago I would have never
thought I would have seen with regards to people hating Jews. Just all of a sudden it came
up. But we can also know this, that if you'll find people who
hate Jews, they also are haters of Jesus. We are not to be found
among such a sort as that. We agree with Paul the Apostle
when he says, My heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel
is that they might be saved. We pray the same, do we not?
Would we not desire to see the salvation of people, even people
that are hated? And let none of us be haters. The world has more than enough
haters. Let none of them be found among
the followers of Jesus. Jesus here identified himself
as a Jew, and he said, we Jews know what we worship. Well, there's
good reason why they knew what they worshipped. They worshipped
by divine revelation. To whom did God send the prophets? Almost every one of them. was
sent to the Jews. Jonah being an exception, being
sent to a Gentile city, but they were sent to the Jews. To them,
Paul says, were given the oracles of God, the sayings of God. When God gave His law, the Ten
Commandments, to whom was it given? The Jews. the house of
Israel that he had brought out of Egyptian bondage. He says,
the Gentiles do not have the law, but I gave it to the Jews. To them were given the promises,
the prophecies. And Jesus says, we know what
we worship. We know what we worship because
God has revealed himself unto us. I want you to notice something
else. In that statement, we know what
we worship. Jesus confessed that he worshipped
God. That is an astounding statement. Jesus worshipped God. We know what we worship. Jesus
is saying, I know who I worship. This is perhaps the clearest statement of this
fact in all the Holy Scriptures. It comes from the lips of Jesus
Christ himself. We know what we worship and we
know whom we worship. And the same is true of us spiritual
Jews today. We who are the spiritual children
of Abraham, they that live by faith are children of Abraham.
We know what we worship, do we not? We have divine revelation
to the law and to the testimony. If they speak not according to
this, it is because there is no truth in them. We give a book,
chapter, and verse for everything we say. We know what we worship. We've got a divine revelation. We have a prophet from God in
the person of Jesus Christ, the last prophet God sent. We have
a high priest, the only high priest, whom God will accept,
whose intercession God will accept. We know what we worship. We are convinced of it. We may
not understand everything about God, But we know Him. Someone has said, I do not need
to understand, I only need to hold His hand. Well, hold His
hand, trust in Him, believe in Him, follow Him, and say with
Jesus, we know what we worship. Then He said, we know what we
worship, not only because of divine revelation, but because
Salvation is of the Jews. Salvation is of the Jews. It did not come from Gentiles.
It came through the Jews. It came
from the Jews. It came according to the prophecies
that were given to the Jews. Salvation is of the Jews, Jesus
says. Notice he says salvation. Our salvation is not only an
act. Our salvation is also a person. And the person of our salvation
is Jesus Christ. He not only is our salvation,
our savior, but he also is our salvation. His people waited
for this salvation from the dawn of creation. The first time God or the first
time the gospel was ever preached was in the Garden of Eden. After Adam and Eve sinned, of
course, there was no need for the gospel before they sinned.
But after they sinned, God made a sacrifice for their sins, shed
the blood of an innocent animal in their place instead and as
their substitute, clothed them with the skin of that animal
setting forth in type and picture Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God,
whose blood would be shed for others as a substitute for them,
and He would be clothed in His righteousness. And then God preached
the gospel. Is it not remarkable that the
first time the gospel was ever preached, God preached it? And He preached it in the person
of Jesus Christ. The pre-incarnate Jesus Christ
came down into the Garden of Eden and there before those two
sinners, Adam and Eve, He gave a prophecy about the seed of
the woman who would come, whose heel would be bruised by the
seed of the serpent. But the seed of the woman would
crush the serpent's head That's the gospel. That's the gospel. It was fulfilled on Calvary in
that great conflict between the seed of the serpent and the seed
of the woman. And the seed of the woman is
there on the tree, born of a virgin. Satan, when Jesus was on that
tree, bruised the heel of Jesus. bruised him in the lowest part
of his humanity. And Jesus, in his dying breath,
stomped Satan's head and killed him in fulfillment of the prophecy,
fulfilling the gospel. But that gospel was preached.
It was not clearly understood. It's kind of shadowy and mysterious,
is it not? The seed of the woman and the
seed of the serpent. Ah, but bit by bit, God began
to explain more and more progressively, revealing this gospel and this
one who would come. He let us know through Abraham
that the Savior who would come, the one who would bring salvation,
would be of the seed of Abraham. He revealed to Isaac, when Messiah
comes, he'll not only be the seed of the woman, but the seed
of Abraham, your father. And he will be the seed of Isaac,
and not of Ishmael. Isaac has 12 sons, and God lets
us know that when Messiah comes, He'll descend as a seed of Jacob
and then of Judah and bit by bit through progressive revelation
this one who would be the Savior of his people is being revealed
to God's people bit by bit, line upon line and precept upon precept. Jacob is told Messiah will come through
Abraham, Isaac, and through Jacob. The seed of the woman, Messiah. Jacob, like Abraham and Isaac,
his fathers, waited for the Savior, waited patiently for the Savior. Jacob lived to a very ripe old
age. He then realized that the day
of his departure had arrived. He gathered his sons around him. He made the prophecies regarding
them, pronounced his blessings upon his sons, and then he made
a remarkable statement. He lifts his eyes to heaven.
And he says, Lord, I have waited for thy salvation. I have waited
for thy salvation. Then he pulled his feet up into
his bed and gave up the ghost. I have waited for thy salvation. Abraham had waited for it. Isaac
had waited for it. Jacob waited for it, and the
others who followed in the steps of the patriarchs waited for
it. They waited thousands of years, not only for their Savior, but
for this One who would be their salvation. Now there is, many,
many, many years later, an old man in Jerusalem by the name
of Simeon. He's lived a long, full life. The time of his departure is
almost come. Like Jacob, he could say, I have
waited for thy salvation. And the Lord said, you're going to see it. You're going to see it. The Savior is coming. I'm going
to send him and you will not die before you see Messiah. Now Simeon knows that when Messiah
comes he will be born of the Jews. Simeon knows that when
he comes he must be presented in the temple and there's only
one and that temple is in Jerusalem and so Simeon knows that when
Messiah comes he's going to come through the door of that temple
and there is Simeon every day every day when the little infants
are being presented on the eighth day in the temple, and he's waiting. And here comes every day the
new Jewish mothers bringing their infants, and you can imagine
Simeon is saying, may I see your infant? Yes. Good-looking infant, okay. And
he does this with every infant that comes through the door of
that temple. One day a young girl comes walking into the temple.
Simeon says, may I see your infant? Yes. She lets him see her infant. Simeon says, may I hold your infant? Yes. Simeon holds that infant. in
his arms. He looks at the infant. Then
he lifts his eyes toward heaven and he says, Now you may let
me die, for my eyes have seen your salvation. My eyes have
seen your salvation. A light to lighten the Gentiles
and the glory of thy people Israel. I've seen all I need to see. You may let me die. There's nothing
else worth living for. I've seen your salvation. The mother is Mary the virgin
and the infant is Jesus of Nazareth. Jacob says, I've waited for him,
but I never saw him. Well, Jacob, as I said, pulled
his feet up into his bed, gave up the ghost, and then he saw
him. But Simeon saw him right here on earth. Now, notice he
said, My eyes have seen thy salvation. He does not say, My eyes have
seen my Savior, though that is true. No, no, no. Thy salvation. Salvation is of the Jews, and
that salvation is not only an act, it is a person. And we Spiritual Jews today,
we know what we worship. We worship that salvation. We
worship that one who is Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of God,
who is not only our Savior, but also is our salvation. Now verse
23, But the hour cometh, and now
watch this. This is an interesting phrase.
The hour cometh and now is. The hour cometh and now is. Go back to verse 21 for a moment. Jesus said unto her, Woman, believe
me, the hour cometh. when ye shall neither in this
mountain nor yet in Jerusalem worship the Father. But here
he says, the hour cometh and now is. In verse 21, he's talking
about something that is yet in the future. Here, when he says the hour cometh
and now is, he means it's here. It's here. In the former, verse
21, Jesus spoke of an appointed hour still in the future. Here
he points to an appointed hour that has now arrived. I would
have you to note that in both instances he talked about an
appointed hour. An appointed hour. Because God has a time schedule. Everything that happens, it's
on God's timetable. There is a time and a season
for everything under heaven. A time to be born and a time
to die. When was I born? When God predestined
before the foundation of the world, not a minute too soon,
not a second too late. When will I die? I do not know,
but it's on God's schedule. He knows when. Everything in
time has its predestined hour, and nothing happens until that
hour has come. I'll give you an example. Early
in the ministry of Jesus Christ, We read in John 7, verse 30,
His enemies tried to take Him. They tried repeatedly to kill
Him, but they could not because in John 7, verse 30, we read,
His hour was not yet come. Is that not a remarkable statement?
His hour had not yet come. And then, after three and a half years
of ministering on this earth, Jesus goes to pray, and he says
these words, Father, the hour has come. The hour has come. glorify your Son, that your Son
may glorify you. The hour is come. I say to you
that nothing happens to you because
of bad luck or misfortune or good luck or good fortune. It
does not. It happens in God's providence
on His schedule, in His appointed hour. There was an appointed hour for
me to relocate to Louisville, Kentucky, as I told you a little
earlier. There was an hour when I was
supposed to relocate to Great Falls, Montana, and in God's
sweet providence, I'm so glad God has an hour for
everything. I'm so glad He has an hour for
everything. Jesus says, the hour cometh and
now is. What is the hour that now is
according to what Jesus says? Look in the latter part of verse
23, when the true worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit
and in truth, for the Father seeketh such to worship Him. When true worshipers, I want
you to notice the characteristics of true worshipers. They are
genuine worshipers, faithful worshipers, and salt worshipers. Let me expand upon this. They
are true worshipers, genuine worshipers. They are distinguished
from, contrasted with, hypocritical worshippers of whom Jesus said
in Matthew 15 verses 7 through 9, ye hypocrites. Now there's an interesting word
for you. Ye hypocrites. Do you know what
a hypocrite is? According to the Greek word,
okay? When there was a play in ancient
Greece on the stage, the cast was called hypocrites
because a hypocrite is someone pretending
to be someone else. So remember that when you see,
you know, the cast of the movie. hypocrites. Every one of them
is someone pretending to be someone else and some people cannot make
that distinction. I recall back in my seminary
days, I believe it was on a Thursday
morning, I was meeting with some of my
fellow students in the student center. We're drinking our coffee And one of the students, my fellow
student, said that his church had had a prayer meeting, midweek
prayer meeting, the night before. And before the prayer meeting,
they took requests for prayer. And a certain woman requested
prayer for a certain actor in a soap
opera who was about to have surgery. Not the actor, but the person
he was pretending to be in the soap opera. Folks, you
can't make this up. What is a hypocrite? It is someone
pretending to be someone else. Ye hypocrites, Jesus said. Someone has said the world is
a stage, and Jesus says, and you're the hypocrites on it.
Ye hypocrites! What does he say? Well did Isaiah prophesy of you,
saying, This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and
on with me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. But in vain they do worship me,
teaching for doctrines the commandments of men. That's a hypocrite for
you. He gives lip service. What do you believe? We believe
the Bible and whatever our prophet says. Do you follow Jesus? Yes. On Sunday morning. Now don't
ask them where they were Saturday night. Hypocrites giving lip
service. singing, oh how I love Jesus,
when they were loving someone else the day before. Hypocrites,
Jesus knew them even in his own day. Well did Isaiah prophesy
of you, you honor me with your lips. Listen folks, let there
be no hypocrites among us. Let there be no actors among
us. people that are pretending to
be Christians, and yet are not. In vain do they worship me, teaching
for doctrines and commandments of men. True worshippers are
genuine worshippers. Second, true worshippers are
faithful worshippers, for they worship the Father in spirit
and in truth. Three points. They worship the
Father. Now the text does not, or Jesus
does not say they worship God, though they do, though they do. He says they worship the Father. When we speak of worshiping God,
we emphasize His sovereignty over us. But when we say we worship
the Father, we speak of His tender compassion toward us. As a father
pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth those who love him. We worship the Father, the one
who is full of tenderness and compassion toward us. Jesus says
we worship the Father in spirit, spiritually. We worship him from
the heart. We can do so at any time or at
any place. We need neither a physical temple,
a physical altar, a physical sacrifice, a physical ceremony,
a ritual. No, no, no. Every aspect of our
worship is spiritual from the heart. We worship the Father
in truth because we worship Him in Christ who is the truth. We make Him and His finished
work the central point of every aspect of our worship. What have
we come here to do today? We have come to praise our God. I will enter His gates with thanksgiving
in my heart. I will enter His courts with
praise. And how do we praise Him? We
praise Him through Jesus Christ. What are we singing? We're singing
about Jesus Christ. What about our prayers in the
name of Jesus Christ? What about our preaching? I hope
you can say at the end of this message, He preached Christ. He preached Christ. We worship
the Father in truth, and every aspect of our worship deals with
the truth as it is found in Jesus. We can say with Paul the Apostle,
we worship God in the Spirit and rejoice in Christ Jesus and
have no confidence in the flesh. That's our worship. That's our
worship. And then I'll close with this.
True worshipers are salt worshipers. Do you notice Jesus says, For
the Father is seeking such to worship Him. The Father is seeking such to
worship Him. There is no need to seek false
worshipers. They're all around us. They're
all around us. What was said a little earlier
about God putting a church out here in the middle of nowhere, you have to search to find it.
You have to search to find it. You have to look diligently.
The Father is seeking such to worship Him. That means evidently
that true worshippers are very rare. Very rare. I ask you, are you one? Are you a true worshipper? Do
you know what you're worshipping? We're not actors here, are we? Playing our part in the pew? We're faithful, are we not? We're
worshiping the Father as children adore their Father, in spirit,
from the depths of our heart, in truth, through Christ, making
Him central in all our worship. And when the Father seeks such
to worship Him, let Him point to this church building and say,
I found them. I found them, there they are,
in Great Falls, Montana. May he find them in other places
as well, but all when he points to this building, hope he says,
I got true worshipers in there, true worshipers. Oh God our Father, What an honor it is to have such
a loving and compassionate Father. Oh, that we might worship Him
in spirit and in truth. May we not be ignorant of what
we worship. May we not be hypocritical as
we worship, but we pray that we might be the kind of worshipper
that Jesus Christ is. To your glory, in Jesus' name
we pray. Amen.