John chapter 4. Now our Lord here has been speaking
to this woman at the well about the living water. Speaking of
being born of the Spirit of Christ and having life in that living
water. And I want to see what happened
once she went to the city and began to preach. Now let's start
at verse 25. It says, The woman said to him,
that Messiah cometh, which is called the Christ. And when He
is come, He will tell us all things. And Jesus said to her,
I that speak unto thee am. I am. And upon this came His
disciples, and they marveled that He talked with a woman.
Yet no man said, What seekest thou, or why talkest thou with
her? The woman then left her water pot and went her way into
the city and said to the men. Now here was her testimony. It's what she said to these men. She said in verse 29, come see
a man. Come see a man. Come see a man. Which told me all things. He
told me all things that ever I did. Is not this the Christ? Drop down to verse 39. And many
of the Samaritans of that city believed on Him. For the saying
of the woman which testified, He told me all that ever I did. And so when the Samaritans were
come unto Him, they besought Him. that he would tarry with
them, and he abode there two days. And many more believed
because of his own word, and said unto the woman, Now we believe,
not because of thy saying, for we've heard him ourselves, and
know that this is indeed the Christ, the Savior of the world. Now here we have a known sinner. Everybody knew she was a sinner.
Everybody in town knew this. And she speaks a very simple
message. She just gives her testimony
of who, of this one who came to her and what he did for her.
And she just, that was a simple message that she spoke. And the
result was that, is that here's a group of sinful idolatrous
Samaritans. And they believed on her. I believed
on him. believed her and believed on
Him. What can we glean from this? I've heard messages, read messages
on how to be a soul winner and how to be a good witness. And
you can glean some things from that here and what she did. But
there's something here that's even more important than that.
And because the Lord's talking about this living water, He's
talking about this power. We see here a demonstration of
an absolute necessity. An absolute necessity. Only the
gospel going forth by the Holy Spirit. The gospel must be preached. It's got to be spoken. And only
the gospel going forth in the power of God in the Holy Spirit
can regenerate a sinner, quicken a sinner, And even after we believe,
it can still quicken us in our heart, takes the Spirit of God,
and bring us to see our sin and what we are, and believe on the
Lord Jesus. It takes the power of God and
the Holy Spirit to do this. And it's not of us. Now, that's
what we see here. Right now, we see a woman, she
goes there, and it's not the outward appearance of the vessel
that's used. powers of God. It's not the excellency
of speech or the wisdom of the words. That's not it. It's not in those who hear it. The power is of God. Now, I pray
that the Spirit of God would really and truly come in power and really speak
into our hearts and make us hear this gospel. make us see Christ,
make us see ourselves, make us know all things that ever we
did, that we might trust Christ and believe on Him. Now the power
here is not of the outward appearance of the vessel. It's not in the
outward appearance of the vessel. The Lord had just spoken into
this woman's heart, made this word effectual, and as soon as
she believed on Him, she saw Him, she believed on Him, and
just right that quick, she turned and takes off to the city. and
goes and preaches, goes and testifies, speaks of what he had done for
her, of him. That was her message, was him.
But she talked about what he had done. She hadn't had any
time to do anything outwardly to make up for her past. She
hadn't. I mean, right then, he used her.
Right then. She didn't have any time to make
herself appear changed outwardly. She had no time to make herself
appear outwardly religious to anybody. This woman was a sinner and everybody
knew she was a sinner. She was an adulteress. But there
was nothing outwardly about her to make anybody think this woman's
a credible witness. She's probably the last person
anybody in that town would have ever thought would have come
speaking that she had been called by the Lord Jesus Christ. People
would not have thought she'd be the one speaking. And yet
when she testified at Christ, they believed. They believed. They believed on Christ. Consider
the Master Himself. Now He is the power of God. He
is the power of God who is God. But the Scripture says of Him,
He grew up a tender plant, a root out of a dry ground. He had no
form, no comeliness, and when we shall see Him, there is no
beauty outwardly that will make us desire Him. Multitudes saw
Him, and they didn't believe on Him. Multitudes saw Him and
didn't believe on Him. They spoke evil of Him. They
spoke evil of Him. We know that Joseph and Mary,
they were so poor, their child had to be born in a cow stable. We know this man, he grew up
right over here at Nazareth. You know there's nothing good
come out of Nazareth. Outwardly, He appeared to these
Samaritans, to this woman and to those other Samaritans. Outwardly,
He appeared to be just another Jew, just a man. The Samaritans
hated the Jews, the Jews hated the Samaritans, and that's how
He appeared to them outwardly. What a better way, what better
way for our Lord to manifest by the way He came and the way
He used this woman immediately. What better way to manifest that
the power is not of us. powers of Him, powers of God. Without a doubt now, when the
Spirit of God sanctifies a child of God and gives you a new heart
for Christ, when He makes a new man inwardly, there will be an
outward change. There's going to be some outward change in a person. There's no
doubt about that. You have a heart that's constrained
by Christ's love for you. You behold one who came and humbled
himself and went to the cross and suffered so greatly in your
room instead and redeemed all his people from the curse of
the law. And behold in him, you want to honor him. You don't
want to do, you want to adorn the doctrine of Christ in all
things. And you don't want to do anything
to bring reproach on the gospel. He'll bridle your tongue so you
don't bring reproach on the gospel. He'll bridle your heart so you
don't bring reproach on the gospel. And by the same token, you don't
want to do anything outwardly to make yourself the attraction
that would make people want to follow Christ. You don't want
to do that. You just don't want to do that. And if you do either
of those, That breaks your heart. It breaks
your heart because of the love you have for Christ and the love
you have for your brethren. There's no greater burden. But here's the good news we see
in this Samaritan woman to strengthen our weak hands and our feeble
knees. It's not the outward appearance
of the vessel that's going to help or hinder the gospel because
of the powers of God and not of us. This woman went out of
that city a known adulteress and she returned to that city
a known adulteress. The difference was the difference
God made. That was the difference. That
was the difference. She went out carrying an empty
earthen vessel to draw physical water but by the power of God
she returned herself being an earthen vessel filled with living
water. She went out of there with an
empty vessel. She came back being a vessel
filled with the treasure. And the difference was the difference
God made. The outward appearance of the
Redeemer and her outward appearance wasn't what made the difference
at all. Neither one. Neither one. Our
Lord could have come and made himself appear like he did on
the Mount of Transfiguration. And you saw the result of that.
Peter wanted to build a monument to him and Moses and Elijah. And something like that's what
would have happened if he saved you and made you appear like
Moses and Elijah right off the bat. We'd be wanting to build
altars to you. But he didn't. What's He teaching
us, brethren? The powers of Him. The powers
of the Spirit of God. The power is not of us. It's
of Him. Now, secondly here, I want you
to see that the power is not in the excellency of speech.
Now, this woman hadn't been to a seminary to learn how to win
souls. She didn't know anything about
anything like that. Thankfully, she didn't. His outward
appearance of religious garments and learning just how to speak
just right, that's not what's going to cause somebody to hear
the gospel. She wasn't eloquent. She didn't
speak any deep doctrine for anybody to hear and know. She simply
plainly testified of what Christ had done for her. She said, come
see a man. That was her message. She didn't
come there speaking of particular doctrines. She said, come see
this man. He told me all things that ever
I did. Is this not the Christ? Is this
not the Christ? Many use a passage like this
as an excuse to take the offense out of the gospel. That's not
what I'm saying at all. We're not excusing outward sin,
and we're not saying we should take the offense out of the gospel.
That's not what we're talking about. You've heard it before. You're preaching, you're telling
them the truth of the gospel, and they'll say, well, the woman
at the well didn't. The Lord didn't say that doctrine to her.
He didn't teach her about election, in particular redemption. The
thief on the cross, he didn't hear about irresistible grace. Brethren, Christ is the truth. He is the truth. The truth came
to her. The gospel came to her. He is
the gospel. And he revealed himself in her
heart. He's the truth of every doctrine
that's preached in truth. He's the light from which all
doctrine gets its light. He himself is the gospel. He is redemption. He is. It's him. The woman said, I know
that when the Messiah comes, He'll tell us all things. And
Jesus said to her, He that speaks to you, I am. I am. And that came forth in power
in verse 29. She came and this is what she
said, Come see a man that told me all things that ever I did. She said, I know when He comes,
He's going to tell us all things. And the Lord said, I am. And
she went and said, ìCome see a man that told me all things
that ever I did.î Is this not the Christ? You remember, look
at John 14. This is what the Lord said in
John 14 verse 26. He said, well in verse 25 He
says, ìNow these things Iíve spoken to you being present with
He's the power of God, and when He speaks, we see He makes this
word effectual. But now when He departed, does
that mean the power departed? No. Watch. The comforter, which
is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in My name, He shall
teach you all things. See, He said, this man taught
me all things ever I did. And He said, when the Spirit
comes, He will teach you all things. and to bring all things
to your remembrance whatsoever I have said unto you. Look at
chapter 16 and look at verse 14. He shall glorify me, the Spirit
said. He'll glorify me. You know what
that word glorify means? You know, glow, glow, the light. God has shined in our heart. to give us the light of the glory
of the God in the face of Christ Jesus. He is going to glorify
me. He is going to make us see Him
glorified in our heart. And look what He says here in
verse 14. And He will receive of mine and
shall show it to you. Show it to you. Now look at 1
Corinthians 14. Now my point here is, it is not
the wisdom of words, it is not the way men preach and you know,
I was talking to Brother Rupert one time and telling him I was
working on a message. I said, I've gone back to this
two or three times and I keep changing my notes. He said, well, if you get it
too organized, you'll mess it up. And that's right. It's not
the well-organized, best way of saying things and having all
your words just right. That's not it. That won't make
it. I want to be clear. I want to be plain. I want people
to understand. But that's not what the power
is. And so much of preaching is designed to impress the hearer. It's designed to make the hearer
to be persuaded by the words being spoken. But now watch,
that's what was going on at Corinth. When you hear about them, Paul
talked to them about speaking in tongues. They had languages.
They could all speak in different languages. But what they were
doing was they were trying to use this gift to impress people
by how well they had these gifts and they could all speak in different
languages. They were trying to get people to follow Christ using
that gift not because of what they were preaching but because
of the fact they could speak in different languages. And that's
no different than today when people are trying to impress
people by the excellency of speech and the wisdom of words and what
have you. Look what Paul said here. First
Corinthians 14.24, he said now if you If you stop trying to
impress people with this gift of speaking, he said, instead
of that, you simply preach the gospel of Christ. He says there,
he's not talking about all of them getting up and preaching.
He's saying that when it comes each of your turn who's scheduled
to preach, and you get up and you preach, if you just preach
Christ, preach Christ. He said, watch this. He said,
and there come in one that believes not and are one unlearned. He's
convinced of all and he's judged of all. Of all that speak. He hears it in every message.
He's going to hear the same glorious good news of Christ. And he's
convinced of all and judged of all. The Spirit of God does this. He convinces us of sin. because
we don't believe on Christ. And he doesn't do that just the
first time. He keeps doing that to us. When we hear the gospel,
that's what he's convinced of. You've not been looking to me
and believing on me. You've been trying to work out
your righteousness. I'm your righteousness. You're
worried about judgment and bondage and being brought back into the
fear of bondage. Judgment settled. I've given
you the spirit of adoption, not the spirit of bondage. The serpent's
head's bruised. And He convinces us of these
things. How does He do that? He makes us see Him. He makes
us behold Him. Everything's in the light of
Him. Remember He said, you believe on Me, you'll understand the
doctrine. It's in the light of Him. And look, He said, and so
He convinces you of all things. And by all of you speaking, this
man's convinced that you're all preaching the same word. Look,
and thus, The Spirit goes forth and thus are the secrets of His
heart made manifest. This Word comes into the heart
and it comes with power and it manifests to us what's really
in our heart. It manifests to the sinner what's
really in his heart. And He doesn't just tug at you
when He does it. He comes in like dynamite. He
comes in like a two-edged sword cutting to the thoughts and intents
of the heart and makes you know what you are. He makes you know
all things that ever you did is nothing but sin. That's what He makes you know.
We're not going to look to Christ for all things till we see that
all things we ever did was sin. It was much more than just the
Lord telling her, I know that you're an adulteress. If somebody came to you and told
you some things about your life, you know what we think? They've
been sneaking around, checking up on me and they know something,
you know, they found out things about me or whatever. But when
the Spirit speaks in your heart, He makes you know it's the Lord
speaking. He makes you know. You know, you've heard, you've
sat there and heard a message and thought, were you listening
to me last night at home? Did you hear what we were talking
about? No, but God did. And when He comes, He makes you
know it's Him speaking. And He makes you see Him and
makes you know all things ever you did was sin. He's your only
righteousness. That's how He makes you know
everything you ever did was sin, by making you see Him in His
glory as the righteousness of God. God's not pleased with us. He's not pleased with anything
we do. He's not going to be pleased with works of our flesh and our
good high opinions of ourselves or our low opinions of ourselves.
He's not concerned with anything about us. It's His Son. He's going to have His Son glorified.
He's going to have His Son magnified. And He's going to have His Son
magnified in the hearts of His people in truth. And this is
what the Spirit convinces us of. Look, watch this. Thus are
the secrets of his heart made manifest. What's the result?
So falling down on his face. Broken and contrite in his heart. In his heart he falls down. He
falls down like that publican and smote upon his breast and
said, Lord have mercy on me the sinner. And he says, and he'll
worship God and then he'll report. You go bearing witness. God is
in you of a truth. He's in you of a truth. That's
why she went reporting. She went straight to those people
and she said, is this not Christ? I know this is Him. I've heard
other false Christ speak. I've heard and it didn't do this.
He spoke and He told me all I ever did was sin and I know it. I
know it. I know He's my righteousness.
He spoke in power. That's why I showed you last
time. Remember when Isaiah saw the glory of the Lord, saw Him
high and lifted up. He said, woe is me. I'm undone. I'm a man of unclean lips. I
am. And everybody around me is. How did He know that? He said,
for my eyes have seen the King. I've seen Him in His glory. That's
how I know I'm undone. Same thing with Job. I've heard
about you with the hearing of the ear. I sat and heard the
general call many times. That doesn't mean he wasn't a
believer. But this is how he does this every time when he
comes to you in power. He makes you feel like, I only
heard him with the hearing of the ear before. Today, I see
him. And what happens? I repent and
sackcloth and ash. I abhor myself. You hate yourself. Oh, you can't tell people that
today. Love yourself. He's going to make us know there's
nothing in us to love. He's the one worthy of love. She had the unction from the
Holy One and she knew all things. And the sure effect is the same.
She had a broken and a contrite heart. She fell down and worshipped
Christ. And so did those that heard by the same power. Here's
the point, brethren. Christ must be preached in truth.
There's no doubt about that. We don't take the offense out
of the gospel. That's not what's being taught
in our passage. We have to preach the gospel. But the faith doesn't
stand in the excellency of our speech or the wisdom of our words.
It doesn't even stand if a man hears you preach tulip. as clear
and straight as it can be preached. Man can no tulip be straight
as a gun barrel and twice as empty. It does not, it's not
that. We're going to preach the truth.
We're going to preach Christ. We're going to preach the total
ruin of all men and how that God unconditionally chose a people
by His grace, not based on anything else. We're going to preach those
are the ones Christ died for and redeemed them all by His
blood. We're going to preach this necessity of the power of
the Spirit coming in. We're going to preach that perseverance
of faith is not just the believer having this strong faith so that
everybody can go around and look at how strong he is. It's God
preserving him. But here's the thing, it's going
to take the Spirit of God to make a sinner know that by beholding
Christ and His righteousness. When we say Christ is all, that's
not just a slogan. That's not just a creed. It's
so. Now, the power of the last thing, and I'll be brief here
because we've seen this pretty well, but the power is not of
those who hear it proclaimed. The power is not in the... Now
you get this, she didn't make herself here. She didn't. Her friends didn't make themselves
here. And here's another thing to pay attention to here. Those
the Lord had already called, those disciples He had already
called, at that time, they're standing there, they didn't make
themselves here either. They stood there as the Lord's
apostles, those He had already quickened and given faith to
hear. They stood there and they heard Him speak the same word
that she heard. They did take off running to
go tell those people. What did they do? They stood
there marveling that he was talking to this woman, a Samaritan, who
was a sinner, and a woman. That was scandalous. And he received her to talk to
him and ask him questions and talk to him. They marveled at
that. And you know that the Spirit of God wasn't what made them
sit there and marvel, that was their flesh. Because the Spirit
of God would make you say, if he received me and he spoke to
me, I can't marvel that he ever speaks to another sinner. So why didn't they hear? Because
at that time he was speaking into her heart. The general call
goes forth. We know that doctrine. The general
call goes forth. Everybody hears the same word.
But what makes you hear it and breaks your heart and brings
you to the feet of Christ? The Spirit of God's got to speak
in your heart. It didn't mean the word wasn't
going forth in power just because they didn't hear it. It was going
forth in power to the one the Lord was speaking to. We have
to remember that, brethren. If I don't hear, That doesn't mean the Word's
not going forth. It just means I'm not hearing. What do I need
to do? I don't know, but the Spirit
of God will teach you, but maybe there's something that I can't
hear. But it doesn't mean the Word's not going forth in power. But those brethren she preached
to, you know, some of them heard, some of them didn't hear. They
all heard the same word preached. Some heard with spiritual ears,
some didn't hear at all. What was the difference? The
difference is the power of God. The power of God. I want to just
turn over now to 1 Corinthians 1. I just want to read this and
try not to comment much. You know how I am when I try
to do that. 1 Corinthians 1.5. This is what Paul is talking
about. We are going to take out some of the stuff in between
and just read what applies here to this message and this is exactly
what Paul is saying. Look here at 1 Corinthians 1.5.
In everything you are enriched in all utterance and in all knowledge. How did she preach what she preached?
How does she utter what she spoke to those people? The power of
the Spirit of God. That's the only thing that can
make you stand up and tell the truth. What does the Lord say? A man cannot call him Lord but
by the Spirit of God. I mean, anybody can call him
Lord, but in the heart. And some folks can't call him
Lord with the mouth. They just can't speak of him.
But when the Spirit of God comes, you can. And you don't care who
hears you. You're willing to be rejected.
You're going to tell folks the truth. And so in all of that,
in all knowledge, look at verse 6, even as the testimony of Christ
was confirmed in you. That's what she was given, her
testimony. The gospel was confirmed in her. It's all of Him, by Him. Look at verse 17. He says, He sent me not to baptize. I'm
not just looking for numbers. That's the cause of why people
are turning this thing, taking the offense out, trying to impress
people and get people in. They're trying to get numbers.
That's what he's talking about. He didn't send me to just try to
make converts. As Bertrand used to say, there's
been a lot of converts that are mine, but there's been some that
are the Lord's. And he's saying, the Lord sent
me to preach Christ. Watch. He said, He sent me not
to baptize, but to preach the gospel, not with wisdom of words,
lest the cross of Christ should be made of none effect. For the
preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness."
That's all of us by nature. But unto us which are saved,
it is the power of God. And we're seeing why it's the
power of God, because the Spirit comes forth in power. Look, for
it's written, Here's why it's this way. It's why God does it
the way he does it through preaching. I will, God said, destroy the
wisdom of the wise. Doesn't he do that in us, brother?
Doesn't he destroy our wisdom? Look, I'll bring to nothing the
understanding of the prudent. He will turn our playground upside
down. make us understand why all we
were doing was leaning to our own understanding. Where's the
wise? Where's the scribe? Where's the
disputer of this world? Has God, not God, made foolish
the wisdom of the world? You're not going to find that
attitude and spirit in his church. Not in those he's talking, speaking
in. But look, for after that, in
the wisdom of God, the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased
God by this thing they call foolishness, the foolishness of preaching
to save them that believe. For the Jews require a sign.
They want to see something outward. The Greeks seek after wisdom.
They want something to tickle the ears. He says, but we preach
Christ crucified unto the Jews a stumbling block, and unto the
Greeks foolishness, but unto them which are called. Not to
everybody, to them the Lord sends it to. Both Jews and Greeks. Christ, the power of God and
the wisdom of God. And it's not our outward appearance
either. Look at verse 26. You see you calling brethren?
There's not many wise men after the flesh. There's not many mighty,
there's not many noble that he calls. God's chosen the foolish
things of the world to confound the wise. He's talking about
us right here particularly. you that he's called, foolish
thing. He says, he's chosen weak things of the world to confound
the things which are mighty. Weak thing. Base things of the
world, things which are despised, known adulterous. They ain't a church I know of
in the South that would have sent that woman to preach, to
speak the truth to anybody. Ain't no one of them that would
have done it. Most religions would have not, you got to hold
up for a little while, let us see that something's been happening
to you, whatever. The Lord sent her right then.
Why? He's showing us, this power's not of us. It's not of us. Watch this. And he says there, he's chosen
these things which are not, they're nothing to bring to nothing things
that are. What better way to make us come
to nothing than him to use a despised sinner that we wouldn't have
anything to do. You take somebody that you just,
you just think their lifestyle's horrible, you don't agree with
them, you wouldn't have anything to do with them, and you just
imagine that person coming to you and testifying of Christ
and the Lord speaking into your heart so powerfully that it broke
it. Wouldn't that let you know this
wasn't of that person? This is of God. Wouldn't it? Look here. Why does He do it
that way? That no flesh, verse 29, should
glory in His presence. But of Him are you in Christ
Jesus, who of God is made unto His wisdom and righteousness
and sanctification and redemption, that according as it is written,
He that glories, let Him glory in the Lord. Look at chapter
2, verse 1. I, brethren, when I came to you, I didn't come
with excellency of speech or of wisdom declaring to you the
testimony of God. I determined not to know anything
among you save Jesus Christ and Him crucified." He said, I didn't
want to know. All these things that he was
having to write to them right here in Corinth now, because
it had come to such a head, he had to deal with. He said, I
didn't want to even know those things. I just want to preach
Christ to you, because He's the one that's going to work it in
your heart. The only reason he had to deal with those things
is to stop that so he could preach Christ and they'd start focusing
on Christ again. But listen, he says, I just want
to preach Christ crucified. I was with you. Here's how I
appeared, in weakness, in fear, in much trembling. My speech
and my preaching was not with enticing words of man's wisdom,
but it was in demonstration of the Spirit and of power. That
wasn't of Him. Why? That your faith should not
stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. That's what
we're talking about. All right, brethren. Father,
we thank You for this Word. Lord, we do ask You that You'd
bless it, that You would make it speak into our hearts with
Your power and Your Make Christ to be the wisdom in our understanding. Give us the mind of Christ. Make
us behold Him in righteousness so that we can see, Lord, that
we don't have any. Make us see Him wholly separate
from us so we can see that in our flesh dwells nothing good.
Make us see, Lord, how freely and fully and completely He's
redeemed us from this sinful flesh and from this curse of
the law and from death. And make us see, Lord, that truly
He is our liberty. He alone could free us. He alone
continues to free us. And He alone can one day finally
free us from even the presence of sin. Lord, make us glory in
you alone. Don't let us glory in our flesh. Make our faith stand in the power
of God. Lord, do that for your earthen
vessel preaching. Do it for your earthen vessels
who are hearing that you're filling with His treasure. Make us to
behold the excellency of the power by beholding Christ. Thank you, Lord, that you've
done this for us and continue to do it for us. Lord, we ask
you, we need you every hour. Forgive us our sins. In Christ's
name we pray, amen.