That was a good lesson this morning,
Dale. You got my mind cranking. I was sitting there listening
to the message, and I thought, there are seven billion people
in this world, approximately. How many species of animals,
birds, are there? And you want me to believe all
that came on that ark? That's the way the world feels
about the Lord Jesus Christ. When those Jews saw him, you
want us to believe on you? You're a carpenter, son. Has
any good thing come out of Nazareth? They looked at him and they thought,
there's no way. If you looked at that ark and you thought just
the size of it and what we have now, this way we stand in glory and
we see what we have in Christ and what all came through him.
That's going to be amazing. That'll be amazing. Now I thought
of those animals. Not an empty nest on that ark
at all. But you think all those animals lived beside that ark?
They got on the ark. I bet there was some years, some
of those animals came from across the earth, the other side of
this earth. And they walked for years, not knowing where this
going. And when they got to the ark, it was time. God put them
in. And they walked for years to
come around and get to that ark. Well, you had my mind just I
hope I don't mess that up. It's all going to be about water. I titled this message, Looking
for Love in All the Wrong Places. Now you country music buffs,
you have to recognize that. Looking for love in all the wrong
places. Looking for love in all, in too
many faces. Doesn't that? And boy, when I
heard that at work, we've got three radios playing all the
time. And I heard this song two months ago. And immediately,
I thought of this woman. I said, that's it. That's her.
That's her problem. All these relationships have
failed. This woman is looking for love. This is God's child.
She doesn't know it at that time. This is God's child. She's looking
for love, but she's looking for it in all the wrong places. I want us to look at this this
way. Relationships, and I've thought about this for two months. Relationships can be difficult
in this life. Before Adam fell, he communed
with God. Even after the fall, We read
in Genesis of the voice of God walking in the garden in the
coolness of the day. Doesn't that sound so peaceful?
That sounds so peaceful to me, walking in the garden. So gentle,
the gentleness of that. The way our Lord gently handled
this woman. Walking in the garden in the
cool of the day. That just sounds so peaceful,
so gentle. But Adam broke that relationship. He broke it. He broke it by sin. Sin entered
through Adam. The most important relationship was destroyed. It was destroyed. And all that we see now, all
the battles and all the broken relationships and all the mess
that goes on in this life, stems from that one. That one. See? Adam turned on his wife. The woman you gave me. It's her fault. And God, it's
your fault. It's her fault and your fault.
It's not my fault. I thought that was such a good article
on the blame game. This morning in the bulletin. The woman you
get, it's her fault. It's your fault. It's not my
fault. Not my fault. I told someone not too long ago,
and I'll show you this here as we go along. You cannot, you
cannot be forgiven of what you will not confess. You won't confess it, God don't
forgive it. We'll see this here in a little while. What has sin done to us? Look at us. Sick, aging. What has sin done to us? Why
are we commanded? Why am I commanded to love you? Why are we commanded to love
one another? That should be a given. It should be a given. We shouldn't
have to be commanded to love one another. But because of sin,
He said, at this commandment I leave you, that you love one
another. What was the sin of Ephesus? He left your first love, your
first love. Sin has made us selfish. Our nephew has a daughter. He has a daughter and a son,
a four-year-old and a six-year-old, and they were playing with their
toys. And so she reaches over to get his toys and he moved
them away from her. Four-year-old now. She said,
just because I'm selfish doesn't mean you have to be selfish.
That came out of a four-year-old now. Her grandpa was telling me about
it. Just because I'm selfish doesn't mean you have to be selfish. Came out of a four-year-old. That's what sin has done to us.
It makes us selfish, egotistical, Easily offended. Easily offended. We stand up here and talk about
what a wretch we are and how bad we are, but when we get out
of the pulpit and somebody says it, we're like, you crazy? You
make me mad. I can say it standing here, but
you don't have to say it standing out there. We wouldn't be so
easily offended if we actually believed that. We wouldn't be. Cliquish. You know, you get in
school and you all get in your cliques. You think that stops
after school? It doesn't. It doesn't. We're cliquish. I can go on with
this list. This is a long list. It's a long
list. We all want to be somebody, but
we don't want anyone else to be somebody. Did you buy a lottery
ticket? Who'd you want to win? Guy in
Tennessee? California? Florida? Is that
who you wanted to win it? Absolutely not. It was you. It was you. The most godly wife
still finds it difficult to submit at times. Really. Still finds
it difficult at times to submit. The most loving husband is not
always the most loving. Because of sin. Because sin mars
every relationship we have. It mars it. I mean, in a believer's
life, sin still mars us. Our thoughts, our minds. You
know, what mind? I tell you, nothing fascinates
me like the mind, the brain. I mean, any show comes on about
the brain, I have to watch it. Because I'm just fascinated with
it. I don't think we've ever touched what God has created here. Sin has marred it so much, so
much. We can't use the full capacity
of what God's given us because of sin. Can't do it. And this woman is a prime example
of failed relationships. She is a disaster. Now let's
look at this. It says Christ must needs go
through Samaria. Now from where he was in Judea,
going to Galilee, he had to go through Samaria. That's the way
you go. That's the way you go. That's
the normal route. So why does it say must? It's
like you must be born again. And this is one of those musts.
He must need to go through Samaria to get to Galilee, but that's
not the reason he must go. No, he's on a mission. He's on a mission. He's on a
saving mission. He's on a gathering mission.
He's on a mission with a purpose now. Our Lord never took a step. I
believe this. I believe He never even moved
in a direction that wasn't purposed of God. A word never came out
of His mouth that wasn't purposed of God. Here is the embodiment
of wisdom. He is the wisdom of God. I speak
a lot of times when I shut up and I say things I shouldn't
say. I say a lot of just blabber. A word never come out of the
Lord's mouth that wasn't ordained and full of wisdom and purpose.
Not a word. That's amazing. Think of that. Now it says in verse six, he's
weary and sits on Jacob's well. And it's not just any well, it's
Jacob's well. Here comes a woman. One of the
most notorious women in town. She comes to draw water. That's
why she's coming. Water. I can't live without water. I have water. But she's coming
at noon, at the heat of the day, because nobody else is there.
She's coming when everybody else is gone. What we have coming here is a
disaster. She is a disaster in relationships.
I told Vicki this morning, she's the Susan Lucci of her day. She is. If she lived in this
day, She would have her own reality TV program, and it would be a
popular one. She would. Five failed marriages. The Lord said, you have five
husbands. He said, go call your husband. She said, I don't have
one. He said, I know you don't. You have five. Now, I don't believe
at all that each one died because The Lord wouldn't have brought
that up. When the husband dies, the wife
is loose from the law of her husband. I think what happened
is she married. She was happy. I mean, it's just
like, it's like they all start out. It's just, this is it. And then he divorced
her one day. He divorced her. for whatever
reason. Back then you didn't even have
to really, I mean, the man could just say she burned the biscuits
and that could be enough. But, and I'm sure that devastated
her. That devastated her. You know,
years ago I started a business with Al Meek in his garage behind
his house and I would go up there every day and One morning I was
driving up there and I noticed the neighbor, his neighbor, she
was out in the yard and she was bone thin. I mean bone thin. And I asked Al, I said, does
she have cancer? He said, no, her husband left
her. And that's the first time I ever realized how devastating
relationships can be. And I thought about this woman,
devastated, especially in that especially that devastated. Well,
she picks herself up out of the dust, shakes it off, and she
finds another one. Number two comes along, and they're happy for a little
while, and something happens again. And he leaves her. Well, that was tough. That was
tough, but she'd been through it. She'd been through it. Then
number three comes along. Number three comes along. She
got this one, should have this one down by now. And then he leaves. And then number four comes along.
And I have no doubt. I have no doubt that each successive
time, her confidence was going down and her standards went down
to the very point where at the end of it, she just shacked up
with a guy. That's why I marry you. After number three, number
four, then number five left, and then number six, I'm not
even going to tie that knot. I'm not even going to tie that
knot. She, by this time, I think, was
just a disaster. Her self-esteem, gone, but you
know all along God's hand is in this. She's got a child way before
she ever did. She was God's child before he
created the heavens and the earth. And he let her go through this.
It's amazing what God lets his children go through. The painful
experiences at times he lets us go through. We wouldn't let
our children go through what he lets his children go through.
Of course, we can't control anything or make any good come out of
it. He does. He controls. Job said, he knows the way I
take when he's tried me. I can discipline my boys when
they were younger. Who knows what that's going to
happen? I don't know what's going to
happen, but God knows exactly what's going to happen. He knows
exactly. This woman, I believe, was one
of the loneliest women in town. All the polite women didn't have
anything to do with her. Nothing to do with her at all. They wouldn't associate with
her. They wouldn't talk to her. That's why she came at noon.
She was too embarrassed to be around them. Too embarrassed. Be around all
those polite people. Put men into the conference.
Think about that leper. Do you know what it would be
like to never, ever, ever touch another human being? To never
be able to hug another human being? To never hug your wife
or your mother? No one's allowed to touch you?
Can you imagine going through this life like that? And that leper, was his, and
God let him experience that. Do you know what loneliness is?
Don't raise your hand, but do you know what it is to really,
really be lonely? I don't know what it is to really
be lonely, but I've looked into the face of it. I've looked into
the face of it. It's a sad darkness. You can be in a crowd. A person
could be in a crowd and be the loneliest person on earth. And
she was. She was. She just wants somebody to love
her. Is that asking too much? Is it asking too much just to
love someone and someone love you? I don't think there's anything
any better than to actually have someone that literally literally
loves you. She couldn't find it. She couldn't
find it. Now she sure wasn't going to
find it where she was looking. Don't care how many bars you
change, they're all the same. They're all the same. Flash is flash, isn't it? Flash
doesn't change. It is what it is. Our Lord said, or it was said
written back in Genesis, it's not good for man to be alone. So he made him a woman. He didn't
make another man, he made a woman with what he made. Great leading. So there she comes, all by herself at noon. of her
own kind, don't have anything to do with her. She's a woman
of reputation. She's the stuff gossip is made
of. She's tabloid material, and nobody wants anything to do with
her. Don't ask me to explain all this,
but some years, some time ago, don't ask me that. Vicki and
I took a prostitute out to eat. We took her out to lunch later.
And Vicki talked to her like she was one of you. I was
so uneasy, I couldn't stand it. I was so nervous. I just felt
so uneasy. When I got home, I thought, You
hypocrite. You're the biggest hypocrite
that's ever walked on this earth. We say, we get up in this pulpit
and we say, I'm just a, I'm so sinful. But when I get, when
we get out there and I found this out, oh, we don't think
we're as sinful as others. Where are the real destitute? And down and out, where are they
at? I don't see them sitting here. You know why? They don't feel comfortable with
us and we don't feel comfortable with them. That's exactly why. But our Lord sat and he ate with
publicans and sinners. People that were just rotten
to the core. Reputation, people of reputation. And the Lord asked her. He asked
her for a drink. He asked her for a drink. Now
I ask you this. I want to ask you this. Whose thirst is He really addressing
here? His or hers? Whose thirst is
really being addressed here? His thirst or her thirst? It's hers. This is the issue
she's going to deal with. Of all the times I've heard this,
all the times I've preached from it, I never really realized when
he asked her that question, that's her problem. She's trying to
satisfy a thirst that cannot be quenched. All these different
men, all these different relationships, this thirst cannot be satisfied. She has a thirst that can't be
satisfied, but he's going to do it. Oh, I tell you, she is
about to get her thirst satisfied. The Lord is going to address
her thirst and how it can be quenched, how it can be satisfied. Now we see why he sat thus on
the well. This issue is a matter of thirst
and drink and water. He's it. I'm it. I'm it. You know, God meets us. I've
heard this and you've heard this. God meets us at our point of
rebellion. But God also meets us at our
point of need. He meets, he's going to take
care of her. He's going to meet her at her point of need. He's going
to take care of it. Now keep in mind this is his child. He's not just trying to soul
win here. He's not just trying to get her to accept him. This
is his child. And he's going to take her home. He's going to have her. She's
mine. It's like that one in Ezekiel
he spoke of this morning. I said live. But you know what
she turned into after that? It says this time was a time
of love, and that means she had matured to the point of being
married, that they could now marry. And you know what she
did at that point? She turned into a prostitute. Read the rest. If you really want to see the
diamond of God's grace, read the rest of that chapter. I always
get the first part of it, but man, the second part of it, that's
where you see the diamond of God's grace when it's laid up
against the black background of her nature. She turns into
a whore. And she's a strange kind of whore.
She actually pays them. That's what he says. That's what
the Lord says in that chapter. You're a different kind of harlot.
You're a different kind. You pay your lovers. You pay them. Little did this woman know that
sitting on that well was God Almighty sitting on that
wheel, her Savior, her sacrifice, her prophet, her priest, her
king, her atonement, her wisdom, her righteousness, her sanctification,
her redemption, her brother, her friend, her real husband.
She's going to meet the last number seven. Number seven. And that's the one that's the
number of perfection. That's the one. That's the one. Or all in all, what more could
she want? What more can we want in Christ?
In him, we are complete. In him, we have everything. All
things are yours in Christ. He's a no. I said this to Vicki some time
ago. I said, always think of Christ as your husband first,
then think of me. All will be well. All will be
well. If you'll think of Him first.
And the same applies to me. If I think of Him first, if I
love Him, if I really love Him, I love her. The way I ought to. The way I ought to. Look at this conversation, I'll
wind this down. The Jews, she said in verse 9,
she said the Jews are, what are you asking me for water for?
The Jews don't, you don't like us Samaritans. Prejudice is an
old sin, isn't it? Old sin. That would be like a white southerner
back in the 1800s asking a black man for a drink of water. What
are you doing asking me for water? That don't happen. You ask her for something to
drink, she says, you don't have anything to draw with, the well is deep. It's a lot deeper than she thinks
it is. Our Lord says, oh, if you knew. If you knew the gifts of God,
What's the gift of God? Jesus Christ. If you knew the
gift of God, the gift of God is standing right in front of
you. The gift of God has been preached to you this morning.
You're looking at it in His Word. The gift of God is the Lord Jesus
Christ. He is eternal life. If you knew
Him, you would ask Him this morning. He said to her, you'd be asking
Him for a drink of water. And the water He would give you
doesn't come out of this well. It's living water. It's living
water. It's water that gives life. The
water I drink doesn't give me life, it helps sustain it. This
fleshly life is what it helps to sustain. It doesn't give me
life. He said, I'm the water, I'm the
life-giving water. If you drink, now, I've been
drinking this this morning, it goes in me. When you drink something,
you take it in you. Christ in you, the hope of glory. Christ in you, and you in Christ.
You can stand around the outside of that ark all day, you're gonna
die. I don't care if you believed
everything Noah said. It wouldn't matter. If they believed everything
Noah said, and stayed right on the outside
of that ark, they all died. I could ask everyone in this
room, I mean from the children on down, and all of you are Calvinists,
all of you are Calvinists, all of you believe the doctrines
of grace. I mean, you could ask these children, they'll all tell
you the doctrines of grace. Do you think where the Lord says,
depart from me, I never knew you, that every one of them are
Armenians? You think none of them are Calvinist? You can believe the doctrines
as strongly as anybody and never know Jesus Christ. Never have
drank of him. Never. Never. We teach these young children
in the Bible classes the gospel, and that's good. We teach them.
We instruct them. Timothy was instructed. But if Christ is never in you,
if you never drink of Him, you'll never be with Him. It's not possible. I tell you, as I get older, one
of my prayers is, Lord, don't let my faith be false. I do it to this day. I pray this
day, Lord, don't let my faith. I want genuine faith. I want
genuine faith. I want to believe you, follow
you, live on you. I mess up every day. I feel like I'm just banging
my head against the walls. Like I'm the Billy Gideon. But I can tell you, I want to
believe God. Drink of Him. This is going to leave us thirsty.
You go out here and go buy you some new clothes, go buy you
a new car, go buy you a new house, go do those things. It'll leave
you thirsty. I know a man right now, I'm watching,
God has turned him loose on himself. He is running a little bit of
money, and I'm telling you the truth, he just can't buy enough
toys. He can't get enough toys at all.
And they're expensive toys too. You know what it is? He's trying
to satisfy a thirst that he can't quench. That's like trying to put out
fire with gas. You ever tried to do that? Now, ain't nobody
here that stupid. But we do it out there, don't
we? People do it out there all day.
Trying to put out a fire of gas. Trying to buy this, buy that,
get this, get that. Can't be content with anything. Contentment
only comes, really, genuinely, it only comes when you're content
with Jesus Christ. When you really have that contentment
in you, everything else can go on by. Everything is. This water is going to leave
you thirsty. He said, because I'm thirsty, I can take another
drink of this. Doing this will make you thirsty. But he said, those who drink
of me will not be thirsty. She says to him in verse 15,
she shows her ignorance. And that's what the Lord, you
know, one thing the Lord has to do is remove our ignorance. He
has to remove our ignorance. She said, give me this water
that I thirst not, neither come hither to draw. She didn't want
to, that's why most people see heaven as a vacation. They don't
have to work. An eternal retirement plan. That's
the way they see it. The biggest part of the world,
that's the way they see heaven. They see it like an explosion
of Florida or something. She says, give it. And the woman
said to him, sir, give me this water. She's showing her ignorance
here. She still don't know what he's
talking about. But she will. She will. And he says here in verse 16,
and I wrote out by this verse, no forgiveness without confession.
And he said to her, go call your husband or your husband. Go call
him and come back. There is no forgiveness without
confession, you see. And the woman answered and said,
I have no husband. Jesus said to her, thou hast
well said, I have no husband. You're right, you have no husband.
You've had five husbands. And the one you have now is not
your husband. She said, I perceive you're a
prophet. Since you don't have Google,
you have to be a prophet. Couldn't Google. What we do nowadays,
you Google somebody, you find everything out about them. She said, I perceive you're a
prophet. You're from God. There's something
different about you. And the first thing she wants
to do is jump into this matter of where we worship at. You all
say that, you know, our father worshiped in the mountains, but
you Jews say that it's that Jerusalem is supposed to do this. Worship
never happens in a place. It happens in the heart. God
is spirit. Those who worship Him must worship
Him in spirit and in truth. They must do it. Jesus said to
her, Woman, believe me, the hour cometh when you shall neither
in this mountain nor yet at Jerusalem worship the Father. You worship
you don't know not what. You don't know what you're doing.
Oh, God save us from that. You don't know what you're doing.
You don't know what you're doing. He said salvation is of the Jews.
In other words, it came through the Jews. It was promised to
Abraham and the Messiah was going to come through the Jewish line.
But the hour cometh, and that hour is now, that the true worshipers
shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth. God's not worshipped
with our hands. He's worshipped with the heart.
And the Father seeks such to worship Him. God is spirit. And that which is born of the
Spirit is spirit. They that worship God, worship
Him in spirit and in truth. The woman said, when the Messiah
comes, He'll tell us all things. He'll tell us all things. And
here it comes. Here it comes. You've sat here. We've sat here
this morning. We've read this. You've listened to this. And the Lord said, here comes
the revelation. He removed her ignorance. He's handled her so
gently. You want to talk about how to
witness? Study Christ. Study him on how
he deals with sinners. How he talked to her. It's not
the Roman's road. Not that. Study him if you want
to really know how to witness to sinners. Jesus said to her,
I that speak unto thee, unto thee am he. I'm the Messiah.
And when he said that, she got it. She got it. You could sit
where you are for years and years. And you can listen, you can listen,
you can listen, and one day you get it. I see. I see. I understand. God's given me an understanding.
I understand who God is according to the scriptures. I understand
who Jesus Christ is. I understand who and what I am
in my need of Him. I understand. I see. Boy, did
she just take a big drink of water right there. I am he. You know what she did? She went
back into town. I would have loved, I would have
loved to have heard her. Ladies, don't think you got,
don't be, you're not silent. This is a woman going back into
town and she got that whole town to come out there. her witness,
and they noticed, there's no doubt about it, here's a woman
that was withdrawn from society, here's a woman that had been
a disaster, and now here's a woman going down the street. Here's
a woman going house to house, here's a woman going to different
people and saying, you've got to come and listen to a man that
told me everything I ever did. Is this not the Christ? And they're probably thinking,
wow, don't you Everything you did. And they all come out. And you
know what? The Lord stayed there for two more days. And it's written
here that they said, now we believe not because of your word only.
See, this is what you want to happen. As a preacher, as a pastor,
this is what you want to happen. Now I believe. Not because of
your word, not because of what you said, but because of what
God said. I've heard Him. It goes from
hearing me to hearing Him. Now we believe. Not because of
your words only, but because we've heard Him. Now that's when
salvation happens, when you hear Him. The Scripture says in Psalm 34,
Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good. It tells over in Revelation 21,
60, anywhere thirsty, come and drink of the water of life. Scott
Richardson said this, I've quoted this here. Oh sinner, why will you die when
the water is so close by? Anything short of Christ will
not satisfy, will not quench your thirst. But He can. He can.