Alright, you realize that we're
breaking in on the account of our Lord as He must need to go
through Samaria. He comes up to the well. He is
weary and thirsty. The disciples have gone into
the city that they might buy food. And a woman of Samaria,
a carnal woman, comes to draw water. And the Lord strikes up
a conversation with her and finally piques her interest. She is saying
to him now in verse 19, The woman saith unto him, Sir, I perceive
that thou art a prophet. You remember first she had called
him a Jew, then in verse 11, Sir, and now she comes to think
she has encountered a prophet. And she says, Our fathers worshipped
in this mountain, And ye say, that is, you Jews say, that in
Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship. Jesus said
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. But the hour cometh, and now
is, when the true worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit
and in truth, for the Father seeks such to worship Him. God is a spirit, or God a spirit,
and they that worship Him must worship in spirit and in truth. The woman saith unto Him, I know
that Messiah cometh, which is called Christ. When He has come,
He will tell us all things. Jesus said unto her, I that speak
unto thee am. Now look at His statements unto
her. The hour is coming when you shall
neither in this mountain nor yonder at Jerusalem worship the
Father. A new order of worship was to
be established and the old order of worship was to be passed away. First of all, we look kind of
chronologically at the chapter that we have taken. It is a part,
as I've already explained, of a meeting of the Lord and the
Samaritan woman It occurred at Jacob's well, when the disciples
had gone away, that they might buy bread for them and for their
master." Now in verse 16 through verse 18, the Lord chose Himself
to be more than a Jew, as she had perceived Him to be back
in verse 9. And more than the sir that she
had reverently given Him back in verse 11. And the Lord revealed
to this woman her sordid past. This is one way that he got her
attention, and one way that he quickened her thought that this
was more than a mere Jew, or a mere man, or a mere sir. He proved to her that he indeed
was one more than that. Someone has called this woman
a Samaritan Magdalene. For this was a woman who had
spent her life in deep sin. And the Lord revealed that sin
unto her. He reminded her of her poor,
poor record in matrimony. Five husbands you have had, He
said, and the one that you're with now is not your husband. And this quickened the woman's
attention And it reminded her that this man here knew things
about her that no one else could know. For in verse 29, he told
her all things that ever she did. She went into the town and
said, Come see a man. He told me all that ever I have
done. Is not this man the Christ? And then when the Lord revealed
her sin to her, she says this to him, Sir, I perceive that
thou art a prophet." And again, Robertson, in his word studies
in the New Testament, says that the tense is like this, I am
beginning to perceive that you are a prophet. I'm starting to
think that you are a prophet of God, because He had revealed
some things unto her, having recognized Him as a Jew, then
addressing Him with the courtesy of her sir, but now her opinion
is elevated because the Lord has a knowledge of her past and
the things that she had been engaged in." Now, you will know
that she doesn't say, you've been talking to one of my sorry,
lying ex-husbands, haven't you? No, she didn't say that unto
him. She asked of him a drink, he
did, and she was taught about living water. Now, the words,
the action, the discernments of the Lord often produce this
view in others. That is, that the Lord is a prophet
of God. At first, just a Jew, just a
teacher. Then our Lord would do something,
or say something, or confound someone by the use of the Scripture. And men would elevate their opinions
and say, this must be a prophet. For example, in Luke chapter
7, when the Lord raised the dead son of a widow down from death,
they who saw it said in verse 16, a great prophet is risen
among us and God has visited His people. Again in Luke 24
and 19, remember the two on Emmaus Road? all down in their mouth
because their leaders had crucified the ones they hoped would deliver
them. And then they referred to Jesus
of Nazareth, which was a prophet mighty in word and in deed. Our leaders have killed one of
that nature. John 6 and 14, when they saw
the miracles of the loaf, and the fishes and the feeding of
the multitude by that scant little boy's lunch. They said, this
is of a truth, that prophet, that should come into the world. You see that again in John 7
and verse 40. So it is natural at this stage
that she sees her instructor as more than a Jew, more than
a common Jew, but as a prophet. soon to finish off her confession
by saying that he is Christ much, much more. Now after confessing
him as a prophet, notice that the woman breaches the subject
of the proper manner and place of worship. And the reason she
did this was because she was a Samaritan woman, and the Samaritans
worshipped separately and apart from the Jews who had the temple
in Jerusalem. Now, there are two views of her
shifting the subject to the place of worship. There are two views
of it, something that she desired to shift the emphasis away from
her own sin and immorality and get on to another subject, being
very uncomfortable that this man had revealed her sin unto
her so clearly. There are others that feel that
considering she reckoned this one at Jacob's well to be a prophet
of God and also a Jew, then she puts the matter of the proper
place of worship before the Lord Jesus Christ, giving Him an opening
to not only discuss the matter with her, but also to instruct
her further on the matter of this worship. I agree with Gil,
John Gil that is, And beginning with verse 19, the woman changes
her attitude toward the Lord. Greatly is her attitude changed
with what Gil called, and I'm quoting, another countenance,
a different air and gesture, another accent and tone of speaking,
dropping her scoffs and jeers, unquote. The Lord's answer seems
to favor this view also, that she has had her view of the Lord
elevated on this occasion. She lays out the great controversy
there was between the Samaritans and the Jews. And it was a great
controversy. And the controversy principally
was over the way and the place of worship. Do you know anything
that has divided people more than that of religion? Do you
know anything that will more quickly put people at odds than
a discussion of religion? And in verse 20, she says to
him, our fathers, that is, our forefathers, our ancient ones,
They worshiped in this mountain. And you say, that is, you and
the Jews say, that Jerusalem is the place where men ought
to worship. That is, it is the place where
men are bound or where it behooves men to worship. We know that
was true with the Jews, for they came often to the feast days
and the celebrations and worshiped there in Jerusalem. Now, this
of necessity, they ought or they're bound to worship in Jerusalem
and the temple there. She knew enough about the Jewish
religion to give a correct summation of it. And by this mountain she
means Mount Gerizim where the Samaritans were worshipping.
This was a feud of long time and long standing between the
Jews and those that were called the Samaritan. And to get a handle
on the matter, I think we need to go back into the Old Testament
just a bit and for a moment, as well as in history, that we
might learn a little about the Samaritan order of worship. First of all, we need to consider
the time prior to the confinement of worship to any particular
place, whether it be Jerusalem, or Bethel, or Gerizim, or wherever
it might be. For the earliest patriarchs,
and we're talking about Noah, and Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob,
and such like, erected altars here, there, and yonder. In many
different places they erected an altar, and they worshiped
their God. offering sacrifices there, calling
upon the name of God. When some great event had occurred,
they marked it with an altar. Some great blessing of God, something
to be remembered, then it was marked with an altar, and there
they worshiped God. So, example, Genesis 13 and 18. Abraham built an altar in Hebron,
an altar unto the Lord. And again, In Genesis 22 and
verse 9, Jacob built an altar in Bethel, Bethel meaning the
house of God, for God had appeared unto him there. In Exodus 17
and 15, Moses built an altar at Rephidim in the wilderness. Joshua 8 and 30, Joshua did the
same at Mount Ebal as they went in. Judges 6 and 24, Gideon repeated
the same act and erected an altar unto the Lord. But then, after
the calling and the centralizing of his worship more in the nation
of Israel, God then appointed a set place of worship. A tabernacle
in the wilderness was built. then a permanent temple in Jerusalem
constructed upon Mount Zion there, and with a high priest that went
in to offer gifts and sacrifices and make an atonement and such
like. First of all, there was the tabernacle
as the central place of worship. You have that in Deuteronomy
12, 5 through 11, a good account of it there. Then the permanent
temple built by Solomon in Jerusalem, 1 Kings chapter 8 and verse 29. In 2 Chronicles chapter 6 and
verse 6, I have chosen Jerusalem that my name might be there. And there came the people at
set times and at set sacrifices. and celebration. And they came
and they worshiped in this particular place, calling upon the name
of the Lord. Now, as for the worship of the
Samaritan, for the Scripture traces out the worship of the
Jews in Jerusalem and the high priests and such like. But for
the worship of the Samaritan and the region of Samaria, the
region known as Samaria even in the time of our Lord upon
the earth, was territory that had been originally given unto
the son Ephraim. And the half-tribe of Manasseh,
Joshua 16 and 17, will tell you that. When the tribes of Israel
had split and the temple was being built, you can see that
in Ezra, you can see it in Nehemiah, The Jews refused to allow the
Samaritan to partake with them or to help them build up the
temple, whereby Sanballat became the opposer of the temple and
a tormentor of them. And when Manasseh, the high priest,
married the daughter of Sanballat, then the Jews insisted that he
either renounce his wife and put her away or relinquish the
office of priesthood as to their religion. Upon which he, I'm
speaking of Manasseh, fled and constructed another temple, going
rogue, we might say of him, on Mount Gerizim with the aid and
support of old evil Sanballat. Now, as John Brown wrote, they
built a temple to Jehovah there, in which Manasseh and his paternity
officiated as high priests in rivalry to the divinely established
ritual at Jerusalem, for that's where God had put his name. And
there came a bitter rivalry between these two and their places of
worship and their manner of worship. And this lasted even until the
time of our Lord upon the earth." When you think about the Samaritans,
you go back, I believe it's 1 Kings that gives us the record, we
find that they were half-breeds, we might call them today, or
they have been called. Maybe political correctness would
not let us call them that today, but they had caused the Jews
to put them upon the level with a pagan Gentile. Because of the
mixture of them with others, the Jews had looked upon them
as if they were full-blooded pagans. They denied them to be
blood relatives. They regarded their worship as
illegitimate and illegal. Their religion, mongrel, is how
they looked upon the worship of the Samaritans. Now, the Samaritans
accepted only a portion of the Old Testament Scripture. I think
the five books of Moses are one. And they worship in a temple
that they had erected in Gerizim. Now, what will this prophet say? This woman has met our Lord and
says to Him, with all of this that we know as a background,
You say, Jerusalem, our fathers worshiped here. And what is it,
she said, that is the proper place of worship? Now, what side
will the Lord take? Which side will the Lord fall
out upon? Will He favor the Samaritans
in His answer? Will He favor the Jew in His
answer? Where to worship? Jerusalem or
Gerizim? Which is the correct one? Now,
the Lord sides with the Jew here. First, in this long-standing
feud, verse 22, you know not what you worship. We know what
we worship, for salvation is of the Jew. Yes, God made a covenant
with the Jews. The Savior came out of them and
came to them, came to Jerusalem temple, not Gerizim. He came
to the temple in Jerusalem. He lived as a Jew, not as a Samaritan. He accepted all of the old canon
of the Scripture and such like, and in this and thus far, the
Lord falls out upon the side of the Jew. Calvin expressed
it this way, quote, He condemns the form of worshipping God which
the Samaritans use as superstitious and false, and declared that
the acceptable and lawful form with which the Jews worshipped
was right." But the Lord quickly adds something else and that
we want to note it. The place of worship and the
soon to be a moot point. The place of worship was soon
not to be important anymore. The place of worship would become
obsolete in a short time and cease to be of interest. So the important question will
cease to be, where is the proper place of worship? And become,
how is the proper manner that God is to be worshipped? So let's
turn our thoughts upon verse 21 here in this text, and then
upon verse 23. And with that, I'd like to read
them again. Look at verse 21. Woman, believe
me, the hour comes when you shall neither in this mountain nor
yet at Jerusalem worship the Father." Then look at verse 23,
"...the hour coming, and now is, when the true worshippers
shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth, for the Father
seeketh such to worship Him." Now, the essence of these verses
is this, worship at both Gerizim and Jerusalem will not make one
a true or a false worshipper. Rather, the one who worships
in spirit and in truth is the one who worships God aright. Notwithstanding the place where
they worship, a temple, a house, a riverside, a tree shade, Such
is a genuine worshiper of God who worships Him in spirit and
in truth. See the dogmatic words that our
Lord poured forth for the woman. Woman, believe me, the Lord says
with emphasis, whom you call a prophet, whom you have met. There is coming an hour when
neither here nor there when neither in this mountain nor in that
city in Jerusalem will men worship the Father. Believe me, he says
unto her, is what A.T. Robertson in his word pictures
in the New Testament called present active imperious as to the tense
of the Greek. A careful observation of the
gospel record of Christ and we will recall that his usual formula
to emphasize something goes like this. Verily, verily, I say unto
you. So this may be the only place
where that formula is used by the Lord. Believe me. Woman, believe me. For the two
things that are here actually mark the ministry of a prophet. Number one, a prophet speaks
the truth from God. He speaks in the name of God
and the authority of God. And number two, he foretells
future events that are certain to come to pass. Now this might
seem to be an incredible and a hard-to-believe prophecy, that
two forms of worship that have existed century after century
are both on the brink of extinction, that they're going to cease to
be, that neither the temple nor Mount Gerizim, that neither place
will be suitable, a place of worship unto the Lord God. A
particular place of worship they will be no more. Note the time
of this great change. Soon, the hour is coming, an
hour. And Calvin said, the Lord uses
here the present tense. An hour is coming, fast approaching
and drawing near. When the Son of God died, when
the Lord died on the cross at Calvary and gave up His Spirit
and gave up the ghost, Judaism died that day, that time, that
hour with Him. The ceremonial law, as we said
the other day, was nailed to the cross, Colossians 1, 14-17. And the middle wall of partition
between Jew and Gentile was broken down according to Ephesians 2,
14-15. The temple or house of the Jew
was left desolate, Matthew 23, 38. And when the Son of God died There, His death upon the cross,
the veil in the temple, as we said, was rent entwined from
the top down to the bottom. Matthew chapter 27 and verse
51. This has significance according
to Hebrews 10 and verse 20, signifying that the temporary mosaic economy
had been abrogated. A new and a better way had been
brought in. Such things, such former things
as incense and sacred vessels and priestly vessels, daily sacrifices
were now worthless. They are now worthless because
they were only intended, number one, to be a shadow of things
that were to come. And number two, they were intended
to be an end when Christ appeared and gave the great sacrifice
at the cross. In other words, with the coming
of Christ, the whole order of things has been changed about. Listen to what Calvin wrote on
this subject. What was then, under the old
economy, a sacred observing of the worship of God, would now
be a wicked sacrilege. Ah, they're done away with. No
building contains God. He is too huge and too magnificent. for cathedrals and stained glass
windows, million dollar organs and robe choirs to do service
unto Him. Acts 17, 24 and 25, God dwells
not in temples made with hands, neither is worship with men's
hands. No need to go to Jerusalem. No
need to go to Gerizim. No need to go to Mecca and there
bow down. No need to go to a certain place
and everyone stick their dear ear up in the air. No need to
be worshipped in this place or that. No statue, no pictures,
no candles are needed in this simple worship of the gospel
through our Lord Jesus Christ. One thing that will open up a
great truth for the people of God is to understand what I have
heard called the transition period. We looked at it here a while
back. I won't say much about it, But for some 30 or 40 years,
there was an overlapping of the two systems, Judaism and Christianity. They continued in an overlap
until the great catastrophe of 70 A.D. brought to an end that
thing called Judaism. In this period, there were those
who worshipped both ways and same ways and together. But looking
again at John 4, 21 and verse 23. Verse 21 again, the hour
comes, is coming an hour, or you might say time. In verse
23, but the hour comes and now is. It is ever so close. It stands at the door. In verse
21, the hour comes when you shall neither in this mountain nor
yonder in Jerusalem, Worship the Father, verse 23. The hour
comes and now is. It has arrived. It is present. It is upon us. It is coming and
even now is it present. When worship will be strictly
spiritual in its nature and manner, embodied in His sacrificial death,
we shall worship in spirit and in truth. Now how can they say,
or how could He say, The hour is present when he had not yet
died, been buried, and rose from the grave. The answer is in verse
26. He is the Christ. He would soon
die to effect the change and bring about the great transition.
So as worship would be performed in all places, it would consist
in spirit and truth without the typical observances of the Old
Testament system. None did truly and spiritually
worship God, you ask, under the old system of worship. No, we're
not saying that. This is only the manner of true
worship that will be changed. Not the substance, but the form
is altered in the worship of God. All three periods, God's
people have worshipped. They've worshipped God. They've
worshipped Him spiritually from the heart, out of the heart,
given unto them to know Him. Christ emphasizes here true worshipers. If you look at that verse, we
ask, as opposed to what? False worshipers? Or opposed
to what? Or to formal worshipers? Or to
law worshipers? Is that what our Lord means to
contract? Or does He mean those spatial
worshipers who worship in temples and cathedrals and such like? Gil defines true worshipers as
those who worship the true God in a right manner. Yes, there
is no true worship apart from these two things. Thus Christ's
worshippers shall worship Him in spirit and in truth because
the Father seeks such to worship Him. He desires to be and is
pleased to accept such worship as is in spirit and in truth. And why not? Why would God not
delight in this manner of worship? He is spirit and He loves us
to worship in spirit and in truth. His nature, His mode of existence
is as an eternal, pure, uncreated, eternal spirit. That's God's
mode of existence. He is not corporal, that is,
He does not have hands and feet, but spirit. And those who would
worship Him, verse 24, must worship Him in spirit and in truth, for
the worship must correspond to His nature. Thus they are wrong
who encumber worship with all manner of carnal and fleshly
trifles, not being pleased with the plain and the simple spiritual
worship of God and of our Christ, not content with gospel ordinances
but dragging in all manner, Christ brought fresh revelation and
a new way of worship. And let me say it like this in
closing. He removed the scaffolding of the law, the ceremonies, reducing
worship again to its purest form in spirit and in truth, doing
away with worldly aids, yet not making worship tribal or presumptuous. That's how the Lord has worked.
How pure and how free is the worship in the gospel. The worship
of God by and through His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. The Father seeks such to worship
Him in spirit and in truth. All right, let's bow together
for a word of prayer.