In John chapter 4, it's amazing
how much of the truth of all of Scripture is contained in
this one chapter, in this one encounter of the Lord Jesus Christ. And such a tender encounter it
is. So thankful for God's Word. Remember,
and can it be, and in tenderness he sought me. And can it be,
that's the question of this hymn, that's the question of this chapter.
Here's a woman of Samaria and we're gonna see here this question
arises in the heart of everyone led by the Spirit of God to see
their great need of salvation that is in Christ. And can it
be that God My God would die for me. The immortal dies. Who
can explore his strange design? And then, of course, in the next
one, in tenderness, he sought me. Oh, the love that sought
me. Oh, the blood that bought me.
Oh, the grace that brought me to the fold. So these things
are seen in this chapter, aren't they? But let's begin in verse
one. I wanna go through this with
you. And like I said, I'd like to go through the entire chapter,
at least the first few verses that we read, but we will limit
ourselves to probably the first eight or nine verses. In verse
one it says, 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. Now if you look at a map, Judea
is in the south. and then there is the place called
Samaria, and then there is to the north, Galilee. And Galilee
is often called Galilee of the Gentiles. So the Lord is going
to leave Judea and go to Galilee, but it says in verse four, and
he must, needs, go through Samaria. Well, on the map, Samaria is
between those two points. And so really you wouldn't have
to say that he has to go through Samaria to get to Galilee because
everyone knew that just looking at the map. But it's spoken of
here in this way so that we would understand that there was a greater
purpose for him to come through Samaria than simply to go to
Galilee. And then it says in verse five,
then cometh he to a city of Samaria, which is called Sychar, near
to the parcel of ground that Jacob gave to his son, Joseph. So clearly in this chapter, God
is setting the context. And the context has a deep history
behind it. And to those who were familiar
with Israel's history, that would have been the backdrop for all
that is said here. In fact, not just the backdrop,
but actually the fulfillment of those things is seen in these
verses. But before I want to get into
that, I want to give you just a little bit of a background
from the scriptures of what happened here that this place called Samaria
was populated with these people who lived there called the Samaritans.
They weren't called Jews by the Jews. They were called Samaritans. Now, originally, in the times
of David, there were 12 tribes of Israel. one for each of the
sons of Jacob. And during David's reign, King
David's reign, all 12 tribes were under one king. But then
his son Solomon, who was very wise, the wisest of all men,
apart from Christ, of course, and very rich because David had
so prepared for the temple that was to be built by Solomon, that
Solomon was at peace and his kingdom prospered and he was
very, very wealthy. Everyone was wealthy at his time.
But after his reign, after Solomon came Solomon's son Rehoboam and
Rehoboam was arrogant and listened to the young men and he wanted
to afflict the people of those 12 tribes, the tribes of Israel. And so he promised them that
he would be heavy handed towards them. He gives a comparison,
my little finger will be thicker than my father's thigh. It conjures
up this picture of heavy weight and burden that he would lay
on them. And so 10 of those tribes, not the tribe of Judah, not the
tribe of Benjamin, but the other 10, hired to themselves a king called
Jeroboam who then with those ten tribes went to rule over
those ten tribes in this place called Samaria. But Jeroboam
deliberately taught the people idol worship because he knew
that the people would eventually be turned back to worship God
in Jerusalem. They would go back to Jerusalem,
they would see the true worship of God, and they might be turned
from Him and their loyalty. So to avoid that, Jeroboam taught
the people to worship idols. He set up priests who were no
priests at all, but they were the lowest of the people, and
he taught them to worship idols, and he set up altars to the false
gods, the idols. And after Jeroboam, God took
those 10 tribes captive by the enemies of Israel called the
Assyrians. And the king of Assyria, having
taken those 10 tribes of all the nation, all those people
out of Israel into captivity, he repopulated the capital city
called Samaria with people who were not Jews. They were people
who didn't know God. And so those people lived in
this place called Samaria. And what happened is that God
sent lions in and many of the people that the king of Assyria
had put in this city called Samaria were killed by the lions. And
so the king of Assyria asked advice and decided to send back
a priest that he had taken captive to teach those foreigners, those
strangers, those outcasts who were brought in by him to Samaria,
to teach them the ways of the true God, the God of Israel.
And he did. And so they were saved from being
destroyed by the lions, but the same people who were not Jews,
because of their birth to Abraham, they also served idols, they
worshiped idols. So Samaria then was occupied
by people who were strangers to the Jews, aliens to the nation
of Israel, outcasts, if you will, and hated by the Jews. The Jews
meaning those who were left over, the true Jews of Jerusalem and
Judea. So when the Lord Jesus Christ
goes through Samaria, he's going through a place the Jews tried
to avoid, but he must needs go through there. And that's the
setting here, the historical setting. Now, I want you to,
in thinking about this, think about the context of the book
of John. In the book of John, at the end,
in chapter 20 and verse 31, the apostle John tells us that the
reason he wrote these things to us was that so we might believe
that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing
we might have life through his name. Now in chapter 3 we saw
Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews, a master of Israel, someone who
was highly respected by the most strict sect of the Jews' religion
called the Pharisees, and he had what you would call all of
the credentials that the very best of Jews could have had.
And here, in complete contrast, we have a woman, not a man, a
woman who is considered lower in the esteem of the Jews, and
also not just any old woman but a woman of Samaria, a place of
strangers and outcasts, non-Jews, but even worse, She was a woman
of ill repute even among the Samaritans because she came to
the well at noonday trying to avoid the shame of coming to
the well when there would be other people from Samaria there
getting their water in the morning instead of the heat of the day
or in the evening, the cool of the day. She came in the middle
of the day, the time of heat, because she knew no one would
be there. She was the lowest of the people of Samaria already
a city of people who were lowly esteemed by the Jews, considered
heathens, idolaters, non-worshippers, ignorant people. And Jesus himself
says in chapter four in verse 20, he says, 22, you worship
you know not what. So it's pretty clear the Samaritans
were ignorant of the true God. So contrast these two things
now. Nicodemus on the one hand, with all the credentials of someone
who could be accepted by God on the merits of his own education,
his status, his acceptance by the people, his respect among
the people, his observance to the letter of traditions and
even laws externally of the book of Moses. He honored Moses, he
taught about Moses. You would think that anyone who
would have an advantage here, it would be Nicodemus. But I ask this question, what
was the difference between these two that would have given one
an advantage over the other in terms of God's saving grace towards
them? Did Nicodemus have an advantage
over this woman? in terms of being more savable. And if you think about it, you
see here the reason that John, the apostle John, was led by
the Spirit of God to include these people in his gospel that
has the purpose of bringing us to believe on the Lord Jesus
as the Christ of God. which this woman was clearly
told by Jesus himself, I am he, I am that Christ. And she believed
that he was, is not this the Christ? And so we see that there was
no advantage of Nicodemus over the woman because Nicodemus actually
had to be brought down and made to take his place among the sinners. who had to look up in order to
be saved by God from the death that was brought on them because
of their despising God and despising Moses and considering the bread
that God gave from heaven, which represented Christ, to be light
bread, and they didn't even consider it to be bread. And here's a
woman, completely ignorant, not only ignorant but sinful, the
lowest of the Samaritans in her Gender and in her lifestyle,
she was a mess. She had had five husbands. Think
of a woman who had five husbands. What was wrong with her? Five? Couldn't you keep one or two?
And then the man she was living with was clearly not her husband.
Go forward into John in chapter eight and you find a woman, the
Pharisees, caught in the very act of adultery, and they brought
her into the midst of Christ. But here in John four is a woman
who is living in adultery, living in fornication. Can you see the
difference between Nicodemus and her? Now, take the song,
and can it be? Apply these words, this revelation
God has given here, how the Lord Jesus Christ must, there was
a needs be for him to come to Samaria because of this woman
and these others who were there. What was the reason? Why must
he come? Think about it. Why must the
Lord Jesus come here? Well, look at John chapter 10.
The words are used again, this must. John chapter 10, verse
16, Jesus said, to those who were opposed to
him as the as the savior and and master of his people. He
says in verse 16, and other sheep I have, which are not of this
fold, not of these twelve disciples, them also I must bring and they
shall hear my voice and there shall be one fold and one shepherd.
This was a must that was laid upon the Lord Jesus Christ by
God, the Father. Think about that. God the Father
had a will that the Lord Jesus Christ was inclined with a necessity
to do. In chapter four, where we are
here in verse 34, look at this. In verse 34, Jesus said to them,
my meat is to do the will of him that sent me and to finish
his work. And he said that in this engagement
with this woman to bring her to know himself as the Christ
of God, that was his father's work. And he must do it. He must finish his work. So the
work here that God gave him to do was because the father had
a will to save this woman. What could be higher as a purpose,
as a must, as a needs be, than the will of God the Father? His
will is always done. What compelled the sovereign
God of all things, who is uninfluenced by all that is outside of Himself,
and gives to all life and breath and all things, and doesn't need
men's hands to worship Him, but He gives to all life and breath?
What compelled him to be pleased to save this woman and to send
his son? As he says in chapter three,
verse 16, God so loved the world. That's this world here, this
woman. This woman was this one in this
world God loved, he sent his son to save. This world of sinners. the lowest of people. In the estimation of the Jews
and in the estimation of her own peers in her own city, she
was the worst. Amazing grace. Because God is
taking this gospel to us today and he's giving us the greatest
warrant to come to the Lord Jesus Christ as he first told Nicodemus
and now this woman. He says to her in verse 10, if
you knew the gift of God and who it is that speaks to you,
who it is that asks you to give a drink, you would have asked
him, he would have given you living water. You sinner, thinking
on these things, thinking of how you have so sinned against
God, that you're ashamed even to crawl under the covers at
night and consider these things. Oh God, be merciful to me. Is there reason for hope for
me as a sinner? Yes. You see how God has done
this? He has so crafted his word as
to set a sinner in all the nakedness of his need alongside the Savior
in all the plentitude of his grace. And the two are brought
into direct embrace here in this chapter. Amazing grace. That's all we can say. Amazing
love. How can it be that thou, my God,
should die for me? amazing grace that God the Father
would send his son and it would so please him that he would be
made the captain of our salvation through suffering. He would be
made perfect as the captain of our salvation through suffering.
It seemed good to him. for whom are all things and by
whom are all things in bringing many sons to glory to make the
captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings. Hebrews 2
verse 10 and all that follows. So in this chapter, I find the
sweetest comfort and wooing of God's love in Christ to a sinner
like me, that here God takes someone, and He does this throughout
the book of John, He sets us right in the presence of the
Lord Jesus Christ who comes to sinners because it was His Father's
will. That's love, that's grace, that's
sovereign power to save. That's a God who will meet all
of the requirements that God himself requires in order to
set forth His glory in the brightest display in the salvation of a
sinner by the Lord Jesus Christ, by the offering of His Son. Amazing
grace, isn't it? That's the gospel. Now, he says
here, amen, he says here that Jesus didn't baptize, his disciples
baptized. He left Judea, he departed again
into Galilee. Now, if you look on the map,
and I tried to use my measurement, my ruler to look at this, it
looks like, from my estimation, that there is about 75 miles
between the center of Judea and Galilee. which if you also look
on the map, there's about a midway point called Samaria. And hence
for the Lord Jesus to go from Judea to Samaria, it would have
been about a 35 mile walk. That's a long way. And evidently
he arrived there in the heat of the day. So it says here in
verse six, now Jacob's well was there and Jesus therefore being
wearied, with his journey, sat thus on the well. It was about
the sixth hour. They counted from 6 AM, so 6
would have been 12 noon. The Lord Jesus, weary with his
journey. And there's a couple of things
we want to understand from that. This is the Lord of glory. This
is God the Son. But he's in our nature, and in
our nature, He's weary from the work God gave him to do. He's
not weary of the work. Nothing compelled him more than
the joy set before him. To do the work God gave him to
do was his delight. It was, he says in verse 34,
his meat and drink. So he wasn't weary of the work,
like we get tired of doing things, because we're tired of doing
the same thing. We're tired of doing this painstaking
work. We're tired of it. That's not
the Lord here. The work of saving sinners never
tired Him in the sense it made Him tired of saving, but it made
Him weary in the work. That was a labor for Him, so
much so that He was weary. The Lord of glory had so taken
our nature to Himself that he was at this time had humbled
himself and he was in the humiliation of our nature, tired. And his
disciples had gone on before to the town. Evidently the Lord
was more tired from the trip than they were. Probably because
before he left and most of the time he spent the night praying.
And who knows what else he was doing, maybe fasting and such.
But he was wore out. He was physically tired. He expended
energy. And now we can see that when
we grow tired, whatever we get tired of, and we do get tired,
don't we? Sickness makes us weary. Things make us tired. We see that the Lord Jesus Christ
knew weariness. He knew what it meant to weep,
to be sorrowful. He was a man of sorrows. He knew
what it was to feel the heaviness of the guilt and shame of sin
because he took our infirmities. And though he was never sick,
he gave his life. He gave himself to bear our sins
and so he gave up his life and death. But here we see the Lord
Jesus Christ weary. Now here's a principle that you
will see in scripture, and I actually have to give credit to Gabe Stoniker,
who got the idea from Arthur Pink, so that you don't attribute
anything to me. I want you to understand that
in scripture, before the Lord Jesus Christ makes known his
glory, it's always out of the context of his humility. He always shows first his humiliation,
and then out of that, he shows his great glory. You remember
in the book of Exodus, how God appeared, and it was the Lord
Jesus actually, who appeared to Moses out of the burning bush.
A bush, not a tree, a bush was burning and he spoke out of the
bush. And it was right after that that he delivered Israel
from Egypt by his great power. So his power was manifested at
the immediate following of his humiliation. And this is throughout
the New Testament. You see Christ in a state of
weakness, it seems like, and then you see his great power.
Think of the thief on the cross. There's hardly a greater example
than that one. Here the Lord appeared bloodied.
the crown of thorns and his face was pummeled and his back was
laid open and his side, I mean, his hands were pierced and his
feet were pierced. He was a complete picture of
being bloodied by all of the, not only that, but he had been
humiliated in the accusations. all that they falsely brought
against him. Then in that humiliation, the thief said, Lord, Lord, remember
me when you come into your kingdom, you see. The two are side by
side, the one in contrast to the other. And in John chapter
12, if you want to look there, you see this also very plainly. In John 12 in verse 23, After Andrew and Philip told
Jesus that the Gentiles, the Greeks, wanted to see Him, in
verse 23, Jesus answered them saying, The hour has come that
the Son of Man should be glorified. And look at that principle. This
is what we're trying to highlight. In verse 24, verily, verily,
I say to you, except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and
die, it abides alone, but if it die, it brings forth much
fruit. You see the contrast? Christ
is brought into the dust of death in order that he might bring
forth much fruit, just like a seed is planted in the ground in order
to produce life and fruit from it. And he goes on in verse 27. Now is my soul troubled, and
what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour? But for this cause came I unto
this hour. Father, glorify thy name. Then came there a voice from
heaven, saying, I have both glorified it, and I shall glorify it again. People therefore that stood by
heard it, said that it thundered. Others said an angel spoke to
him. Jesus said, this voice came not because of me, but for your
sakes. Now is the judgment of this world.
Now shall the prince of this world be cast out. And I, if
I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all unto me. I left out the word men because
it's italicized. And this, he said, signifying
what death he should die. You see, so the Lord Jesus Christ,
before he makes known his glory, he makes known the glory of his
glory in his humiliation. He just says in Hebrews 1, 3,
when he had by himself purged our sins, then he sat down on
the right hand of the majesty on high. So in John chapter 4,
what we're seeing here is Jesus is wearied with his journey and
the work God gave him to do, and out of this is going to come
the brightest display of his glory in the salvation of a sinner. You see? Christ in his humiliation
is the context in which he makes known his glory in the salvation
of his people. What a display, too. Now it says
here that he came to this well, the city of Samaria, which is
called Sychar, near to the parcel of ground that Jacob gave to
his son Joseph. Now Jacob's well was there. Jesus,
therefore being wearied with his journey, sat thus on the
well, and it was about the sixth hour. The six in scripture, remember
the Lord created all things in six days and then he rested on
the seventh because six is that number that reminds us of the
work, six and work. So the Lord here again is emphasizing
even in the hour that this is the hour of his final work. He's going to fulfill his father's
will and finish his works. And what we see here is the reference
back to the well that Jacob, the well of Jacob, which he dug,
he and his people with him, and a parcel of ground that he bought.
Now, in verse seven, it says, there cometh a woman of Samaria
to draw water, and Jesus asked her, or said to her, he didn't
ask her, he said to her, give me to drink. And then in verse
10, notice, and she responded, why did you ask me? You're a
Jew, I'm a Samaritan, you're a man, I'm a woman, why are you
talking to me? You don't have any dealings with the Samaritans.
Jesus answered and said, if you knew the gift of God and who
it is that said to thee, give me to drink, you would have asked
him, he would have given you living water. So you can see
that in the display of God's glory by the Lord Jesus Christ
saving this woman, he's referring in many ways to a well and to
water and drinking. And that's not by accident. The
Old Testament that he refers to here teaches us this emphasis
on the well. And this is necessary for us
to look at in order for us to see the meaning of what Christ
says here about the water. It brings to us the depth of
God's Scripture that not only did this happen here in history
in the New Testament, but it was predestinated and foretold
in prophecy even through the history of Jacob and these other
places in the Old Testament where the well is mentioned. And I'm
not going to look at all the places in Scripture where the
well is mentioned, but I do want to look at two. Two places. One of them is this place where
Jacob bought a parcel of ground. And the other one is in Genesis
16. So let's look at Genesis 16 first
because this one directly overlays on the woman of Samaria and her
condition. This strikes me as being very
similar in many ways. Genesis 16. Now the setting in
Genesis 16 is that God had promised Abraham and Sarah that they would
have, or had promised Abraham that his seed, his direct descendant,
not his servant's son, but his own son, God would bless him
and all the nations of the earth would be blessed through his
son. Abraham's own offspring. And so, since Abraham didn't
have any children, and he and his wife, at the beginning of
chapter 16, says, Sarai, Abram's wife, bear him no children. And
she had a handmaid, an Egyptian, whose name was Hagar. And Sarai
said to Abram, behold, now the Lord hath restrained me from
bearing. I pray thee, go in unto my maid. It may be that I may
obtain children by her. And Abraham hearkened to Sarai. So the setting here is that they
had no children. It seemed like they weren't gonna
have any, even though God had promised. So Sarah and Abraham
resorted to doing things themselves to fulfill God's promise. And
in the New Testament, God says, this is precisely the way it
works when we try to come to God by our own works. This is what you call works-based
religion. They were doing what in the law
it says to do. You obey and God will give you
life. If you disobey, then you're under
the curse of God's law. That's what Galatians is teaching
from this text of scripture. But notice in chapter 16 in verse
7. So after Abram went into Hagar,
the servant to Sarah, the handmaid servant to Sarah, Hagar was with
child and it says that she despised, this says in verse five, when
Abram, he went into Hagar and she, Hagar, conceived, When she
saw that she had conceived, her mistress, Sarai, was despised
in her eyes. And Sarai was indignant. She
told Abram, My wrong be upon thee. I gave my maid to you. And when she saw that she had
conceived, I was despised in her eyes, the Lord judged between
you and me. And so Abram said, Do whatever you want. And Sarai
dealt hardly with her. And in verse 7, Verse 6, Hagar
flees from Saria, but look at verse 7. And when the angel of
the Lord found her, Hagar, Hagar is running away from Saria. The
angel of the Lord found her by a fountain of water. Did you
catch that? A fountain of water. That's going to tie it back to
John 4. In the wilderness, notice that the wilderness is a desolate
place. By the fountain in the way to
shore, he said, Hagar, Sariai's handmaid, whence camest thou? And whither wilt thou go? And she said, I flee from the
face of my mistress, Sariai. And the angel of the Lord said
to her, Return unto thy mistress, and submit thyself under her
hands. And the angel of the Lord said
to her, I will multiply thy seed exceedingly, that it shall not
be numbered for multitude. And the angel of the Lord said
to her, Behold, thou art with child, and shalt bear a son,
and shalt call his name Ishmael, because the Lord has heard thy
affliction. He will be a wild man. His hand
will be against every man, and every man's hand against him.
He shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren. And here,
listen to verse 13. And she called the name of the
Lord that spake unto her, thou God seest me. For she said, have
I also here looked after him that seeth me? Wherefore the
well was called Birlehairoi, Beer, meaning well, and Lehiroi,
the face or the living one who sees me. Behold, it is between
Kadesh and Bered. Now, I read this because this
woman, Hagar, was cast out by Sariai. This woman of Samaria
was clearly an outcast, wasn't she? a stranger alienated from
all the promises of God that were given to Abraham. And the
Jews looked upon her as worthy of all that came upon her. Look
at her, look at her lifestyle. She's an immoral woman living
in sin. But the Lord must save her. And so in Hagar, what we see
is that the angel of the Lord found her, And when he found
her, excuse me, it says, she was by a fountain of water in
the wilderness. And then later it says that she
called the name of the Lord that spoke to her, thou God seest
me, because have I also looked after him that seeth me. And
the well, the well, which was the fountain of water, was called
the well of the living one who sees me, or Beerlehairoi. the
well of the living one who sees me. God saw Hagar by the well. Hagar looked after the God who
saw her by the well, and the one who saw her was the God,
the living one who saw her. Now, doesn't that sound a whole
lot like this woman in Samaria? This first mention of a well
in scripture, is about this woman who was an outcast. God looked
to her, saw her by the well, and she looked to the living
one who saw her there at the well. And so she called it the
well of the living one who sees me. And she looked to him. Here, this woman of Samaria who
is an outcast and clearly a sinner, even known to the people of Samaria,
Christ comes to her at the well, the well that was in the ground
that Jacob bought and gave to his son Joseph. And this well
pictures the well of water that Christ would use to give her
living water, the everlasting living water. the well of him
who is the living one who sees her. And as a result of that,
in verse 29, what we saw is that she said to her, the people of
the city of Samaria, she said, is not this the Christ? The living
one, in other words, who sees me. And so she looked after Christ
who saw her God saw her in Christ, in the well, the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, I know that sounds flamboyant,
but look at Isaiah chapter 12. I gotta ground you in what the
Lord has said here about the well and the fountain. Isaiah
chapter 12, let's see, in the wrong book. Isaiah 12, he says in verse one,
This is God prophesying. This is what all of the Lord's
people will say when the Lord saves them. It says, In that
day thou shalt say, O Lord, I will praise thee. Though thou wast
angry with me, thine anger is turned away, and thou comfortest
me. God, who I sinned against, who
was angry with me because of my sin, has turned away his anger. And now instead of anger, comfort. Behold, this is what God's people
say. Behold, God is my salvation. I will trust and not be afraid
for the Lord Jehovah. is my strength and my song and
also, he also is become my salvation. Do you see this? And can it be? Then verse three, therefore with
joy shall you draw water out of the wells of salvation. What
was the Lord telling this woman? If you knew the gift of God and
who it is that asked you, give me to drink, you would have asked
him and he would have given you living water. The wells of salvation,
God's wrath turned from us, comfort given to us, salvation and life. Now look at the book of the Song
of Solomon. which comes just before Isaiah
and chapter four, Song of Solomon, chapter four. If you know that
the Song of Solomon is a song that is about the love of the
Lord Jesus Christ as the husband, or soon to be husband, of the
bride, and the bride is the church, then you'll understand these
words. In Song of Solomon, chapter 4, verse 12, it says, verse 12,
chapter 4, a garden enclosed is my sister. So clearly this
is the husband speaking to his wife, my sister. A garden enclosed
is my sister, my spouse. A spring shut up, a fountain
sealed. Thy plants are an orchard of
pomegranates with pleasant fruits, camphor and spikenard, spikenard
and saffron, calamus and cinnamon, with all trees of frankincense,
myrrh and aloes, with all the chief spices." So you can see
this is a garden enclosed, a fountain sealed, and the fragrances of
all these fine herbs are the most pleasant experience of the
husband as he considers his wife, his sister, his wife. She's wonderful, wonderful. And then in verse 16, I'm sorry,
verse 15, a response is given here. And it's not clear, but
it's a response from the bride to the husband. A fountain of
gardens, a well of living waters, and streams from Lebanon. Now
this is the response of the bride to the husband because he is
the fountain of the gardens. When he says, my spouse, my sister,
is a garden enclosed? Then she responds, ah, yes. But it's because all of this
came from the fountain of gardens, the well of living waters, and
these streams from Lebanon. You see, the church is responding
to the commendation Christ gives when he observes her in the light
of his own choice and love and work of her, for her, and his
gift of grace to her, and she responds, you are the fountain. You are the fountain of gardens.
Now look at Jeremiah chapter 2. Jeremiah chapter 2 and verse
13. He says in Jeremiah 2.13, for
my people have committed two evils. They have forsaken me,
the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns,
broken cisterns that can hold no water. So clearly, looking
at that verse in Jeremiah 2.13, the Lord is the fountain of living
waters. And that corresponds to what
the bride just spoke in Song of Solomon 4 verse 15 when she
addresses her husband as the fountain of gardens, the fountain
of living waters, the streams of Lebanon. And you can read
the same thing in Jeremiah 17 verse 13. Same thing is said,
he is the fountain of living waters. And remember Zechariah
13 one, it says, in that day there shall be a fountain open
for what? For sin and uncleanness. Now, all these things put together
in John chapter four teaches us that just as Hagar was seen
by God at this well. And she looked after the Lord
who saw her there and spoke of him as the living one who sees
me, and she looked after him. So the Samaritan woman, as every
believer, looks to Christ who sees them. Remember what the
woman of Samaria said? He has told me all things that
ever I did. Is this not the Christ? He told
me everything. He sees me. He sees me in myself,
in my sin, but he sees me in himself and in his righteousness. He sees me in himself as the
garden enclosed, as this fragrant garden of perfumes because he
has put upon me all that he is. God has given me all that Christ
is. We are made the righteousness
of God in him. And then also we see that this
commendation or this reply of the bride to the husband in Song
of Solomon and that he's identified as the fountain of living waters
in Jeremiah 2.13 and 17.13. The fountain open for sin and
uncleanness. These things all teach us that
the well of salvation from Isaiah 12 and those things all are pointing
us back to the Lord Jesus Christ. He was open. His body was, he
bore our sins in his own body on the tree. And therefore we
died to sins. And therefore we live by him. And so we see this in Jacob's
well. I'm not going to take the time to do it right now. But
if you look back at this, Jacob in Genesis 33, 18 and 19, Jacob
bought a piece of ground from the people of Shechem. And later,
he gives it to Joseph. And it was in that plot of ground
where this well was dug. Jacob's well. And so we see that
this area, which is called Sychar, this corresponds to that very
place that Jacob purchased from the sons of Shechem in order
to then give to his son Joseph. And in that purchase, there was
a well. So Sychar is the place where
Jacob purchased land and gave to Joseph as an inheritance where
the well Jacob dug was located. The very well Jesus sat down
on and spoke to this woman. So again, the well is featured. The purchase refers to the purchase
of a price. And what we see in all of this
is that God By his will needed, he must, he was pleased to save
this woman of Samaria, a sinner. And he had to purchase her at
the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. All that he required, he met
and fulfilled in that purchase price. And because he purchased
his people and inheritance in Christ by his blood, he gives
them the well of salvation and they drink of him. They take
of him the living water. And like Hagar, they say, he
looked to me and I looked to him, the living one. And so it's
amazing thing, isn't it? And this was the work of the
Lord Jesus Christ. He was wearied with his journey
and he labored this way. There wasn't one shred of merit
found in this woman, was there? There was every reason why Jesus
should not talk to her. And yet God found reason in himself
to be gracious, so much reason that he himself paid the price
that his own Godhead required. It pleased the Father to make
him perfect through sufferings, the captain of our salvation.
What grace this is, isn't it? And next week, I want to get
into the verses that follow here, the interchange between the Lord
Jesus in verse seven and following. But I want to close now with
a word of prayer, and then we're going to have the Lord's Supper.
Let's pray. Father, Thank you so much that
you were so gracious, found a way to exalt yourself and your son. by his own humility and humiliation
to make known your glory and all of your perfections, that
you would be so wise and gracious and almighty to save sinners
like ourselves, we find such comfort in your own words here,
giving us these examples in the Gospel of John and directing
us to the Lamb of God that we might trust and believe on the
Lord Jesus Christ and so live by him. Every reason for us to
stay away is knocked down because Christ gave himself and nothing
more is needed. No merit was found in her or
Nicodemus or any other. And so we are given warrant and
comforted and encouraged to come, as it says in Isaiah 12, the
Lord Jehovah is become my salvation. Help us, Lord, give us this grace,
this water, this living water to come to Christ. In his name
we pray, amen.