And if you would, turn to John's
Gospel, chapter number 4. John chapter 4. Now on Wednesday night, we covered
a good portion of chapter 3 and a goodly portion of chapter 4. I know you think that's impossible
to be done in just one Wednesday night meeting, but This morning I want to take a
different approach, except for the reading part. It's still
the same, but I want us to look at verse 11 primarily. The Lord spoke to her in verse
10 about Him giving her living water, everlasting, eternal water
for the soul. And so she said to him, in verse
11, Sir, you have nothing to draw with,
and the well is deep. From whence? That word has a
few different definitions in the dictionary, but it means
from. So if we read it that way, it
would say, from where then? Do you have that living water? And that's gonna be our subject.
How can it be said of our Lord Jesus Christ that he has living
water? Water that springs up in the
soul to everlasting life. All right, before reading, may
we pray. Lord, we bow before you this
morning, yet our hearts still reek with
pride. We would love to claim humility,
but if we possess it, you must give it. And if we possess it,
we don't talk about it in ourselves. We beg this morning that you
would allow us poor sinners to come to this holy book and read that which you do in
the saving of poor lost sinners, such as this Samaritan woman
in our text this morning. Lord, we're all in her shoes. Salvation is not something that
we do for ourselves. It is entirely the work of God
the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. And if we are to be blessed with
the saving knowledge of who you are, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,
you alone can give us this through our blessed Savior, and your
only begotten son, the water of life, the Lord Jesus Christ. Lord, we are not many. We are
just few. But if it could please you, we
pray that you would come down and make yourself known in our
midst. We don't ask necessarily for
tears. We do not ask for feelings or
emotions. but the genuine holy presence
of the God of the Bible. We pray the same for our brothers
and sisters the world over. Help us. Lord, help us. We pray in our Savior's name.
Amen. Now some of the verses I'll not
dwell on, but I'm going to begin at verse 1 Try to get to verse
39 if I could. When therefore the Lord knew
how the Pharisees had heard that Jesus made and baptized more
disciples than John the Baptist, though Jesus himself baptized
not but his disciples, our Lord and his disciples left Judea
and departed again into Galilee. and he must needs go through
Samaria." Now to Samaria was the shortest route from Judah
or Judea to Galilee, but most of the Jews who had any pride
about themselves, they would go well out of their way and
go around this whole country in order to get to Galilee. But our Lord does not do so.
But he also does not do so for a specific reason. He has an
appointment at Jacob's well to meet a poor lost sinner and give
her everlasting life, the water of life. And before he's finished
in that town in Samaria called Sychar, the Lord Jesus confers
upon many more, using the testimony of that woman in part, but his
ability to convert and save the souls of men is the real secret
to it all. He must needs go through Samaria."
Now that means if he doesn't or someone in his stead doesn't,
take the message of God's grace in Christ to them, they cannot
and they will not be saved. Therefore, it behooves us to
make it our purpose as a congregation to insist on the preaching of
the gospel of God's free grace in Christ Jesus, and it also
behooves us and you are to be commended for what you do on
a monthly basis to support missionaries who preach this same gospel.
We must. We have to. It's a needs be. It's a needs be. The Lord doesn't
save people by hearing a bird sing or looking at a beautiful
scene in the mountains or on the beach. That's just pure hogwash. Not one ounce of truth in it
anywhere. The only God you know is your
Maker and Creator. You don't know Him. God can only
be known in His Son and in the precious gospel of His Son. He
must needs go through Samaria. Then comes He to a 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. Now, that teaches us, I have
to say this, that the humanity of Christ was no put-on. He was
a real man, and at the same time, a real God, the God-man. And it was about the sixth hour,
which would have been the hottest time of the day, of which we
ought to know at least a little something here in the South after
what we've seen. Verse seven, there comes a woman
of Samaria to draw water. Now, do you know that this appointment
has been set up from everlasting? There ain't no accidents with
God. This divinely purpose mission
is beginning right now. There comes a woman of Samaria
to draw water. And our Lord said to her, give
me to drink. And this woman was so wonderful
and kind and moral and religious and nice, the mayor of that whole
city. No, I'm sorry, she isn't. She's
the outcast of that city. She only comes to Jacob's well
when there's no other women going to be there in the heat of the
day. Verse 8 is a wonderful thing. The disciples were gone into
town to buy bread, not to beg it, mind you, to buy it. That
is to obtain it and pay for it, not get somebody else to pay
for it. but it's a good thing they were
gone into town it would have been well with god there's nothing
impossible but for us it would have been impossible to have
communicated the same words that he made to this woman if there
were a bunch of other people present i mean it would have
been utter chaos the disciples first of all wouldn't want our
lord even speak to a samaritan woman because they were just
as prejudiced as the rest of those folks So they're missing
for now, and they only come in at the very end, returning from
town. All right, we've got to pick
up some speed. Verse 9, Then said the woman of Samaria unto
the Lord Jesus, How is it that you, being a Jew, ask drink of
me, which am a woman of Samaria? For the Jews have no dealings
with the Samaritans, and vice versa. Jesus answered and said
unto her, you knew the gift, and this ain't the gift of speaking
in tongues, the gift of God, none other than Christ Jesus
and Him crucified. If you knew the gift of God and
who it is that speaks to you, you would have asked of Him and
he would have given you living water, everlasting water, the
water of life. The woman said unto him, Sir,
you have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep. From where
then do you have this living water? How did you come by it? How did you obtain it? Verse 12, Are you greater than
our father Jacob? Is your God greater than Jacob?
I sure hope so. Are you greater than our father
Jacob which gave us the well and drank thereof himself and
his children and his cattle? Our Lord said unto her, whosoever
drinks of this water shall thirst again. But whoso drinks of the
water that I shall give him Listen carefully. "...shall never thirst
and yet always remain thirsty." Never thirst because he has Christ,
but always thirsting because he has Him. but the water that I shall give
you shall be in you a well of water springing up into everlasting
life." Now watch this statement. This lets you know where this
comes from. It is purely self and nothing more, this statement.
Sir, give me this water that I thirst not, neither come here
to draw. just make life more comfortable
for me. I won't have to come to this
well every day." Our Lord is particularly beginning
at verse 16. He's already introduced His main
theme, Christ is the water of life. And now He begins the process
of opening this woman's heart He said to her in verse 16, go
and call your husband and come here. Go and come. The woman said in verse 17, I
have no husband. The Lord Jesus said to her, you
have well said I have no husband for you've had five and the one
you now have is not your husband. In that said you truly. Now you tell me the Lord Jesus
can't read our thoughts and our intents. I'm talking about every
son and daughter of Adam. Every generation. He knows all
things. I told you the little story about
one of my cousins was telling me that his preacher said there
were some things Jesus didn't know and he wanted to know what
I thought about it. I thought for a second and I said, well
Frank, Is he God? Is he really God? Well, he said,
I think so, yes. I said, there's the answer, buddy.
You're preaching on what he's talking about. He knows everything there is
to know about everything. Go call your husband. Verse 19, he's touched a sensitive
spot now and so let's see what happens in this encounter between
our Lord and this woman. She says, Sir, I perceive you
are a prophet She believes in prophets, at
least some of them. The Samaritans didn't believe
in all of them. They did believe in the first five books of Moses
and some of the prophets. She said, I perceive that you're
a prophet. Therefore, I want your thought
on particular things. And here's the subject that she
brings up. Our fathers worship in this mountain. And you say that in Jerusalem
is the place where men ought to worship. Where is the place
of worship of God Almighty? Where is a place on this earth
that may be said to be holy, consecrated to God? There ain't no such place. There is no such place. Christ
alone is where we meet God. in him. This building has no
holiness about it. You can dedicate it a hundred
times and it's going to still be the same. It doesn't change.
And when we come in this building we're the same we were outside
this building. That does not take away from the fact that
it may be God's perfect will for us to meet here this morning.
I hope it is. But if he doesn't meet with us,
we haven't met with him. And we're the same when we leave,
if not worse than when we came. Here's our Lord's answer in verse
21. He said, Woman, believe me, the
hour comes when you shall neither in this mountain nor yet at Jerusalem
worship the Father. You worship you know not what.
We know what we worship for salvation is of the Jews. That is, God's
salvation is indeed a Jew. Jesus Christ is a Jew. But the
hour comes, and now is, he said, 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. And they that
worship him must worship him in little s, spirit, and little
t, truth. And the woman said, this is the
next subject she brings up, I know that Messiah comes. I know there's
a Messiah and I know he's coming, which is called Christ. She ain't
recognized him yet, you understand, but she knows this. She believes
it. Somebody's taught it to her. When he has come, he'll tell
us all things. Well, he's already done that
when he told her how many husbands she had and all that stuff. That ain't plain enough, folks. We don't do good when it comes
to making deductions and arrive at who God is. It has to be more
blunt than that. Our Savior said, I that speak unto you am he. Now that's about as plain as
you can say it. Mr. Pink says that this am should
be in a different spot in the original. Since I know nothing
about the Greek language I have to depend on people like him.
And he would have it read like this. I that speak am he. I that speak am. I am. What a statement. I am God. We're going to have
to stop there. Back to verse 11. She said from
whence, from where then have you that living water." Now wonder what caused her to
raise that question. Virtually all the other statements
down to verse number 26, she's trying to get around what
our Lord is saying and not Not even comment on it necessarily,
but just trying to dodge the bullets, you know, because she
doesn't want to be conquered by this Jewish man that she does
not know. So what caused her to raise this
question? Well, I think it's of divine
origin myself. I think the Lord must have put
these words in her mouth and in her heart. for that matter. Up until the time that he reveals
himself to her as the Messiah, the Christ of God, the Savior
of sinners, she was altogether concerned with outward religious
things. She says, where's the right place
to worship? Is it Jerusalem? Or is it in
Samaria? And when you bring up the subject
of living water, I know you, if you were as old as me, you'd
be shocked to see people going into a convenience store, a grocery
store, the gas station, and buying a bottle of water. I didn't think
I'd ever see that day. I'm still having trouble with
it. But this is living water. You don't sell this in a bottle. You don't dispense it in a plan. This is not how God does business. Living water compared to regular
water, and I know some of the kinds you buy makes an awful
big boast about how good it is and how pure it is, Most of that's
just false and you know it. But you drink it all you want
to, I don't care. But when you say living water, we've left
the realm of the natural and now we're in the realm of the
spiritual. See what I'm saying? And all of us come into this
world dead spiritually. When God told Adam in the garden,
when the day that you eat of that tree, you shall surely die. He did not die physically, but
he died spiritually. And since he's our federal head,
every one of us that are born in this world, no matter where,
when, or how, we're all born just like him. dead in trespasses
and in sins. The Lord Jesus Christ has all
grace in himself. In himself. He himself is the
water of life. He himself is everlasting life. Plenty of places that we had
time to prove that. John 11, 25, and a half a dozen
other places real easily. And this grace that Christ has
in Himself, it's not because He needs it. My soul, before
He took on human flesh, He was God. Now He's God in human flesh. So it's not that He needed it.
It becomes His by virtue of His life, His death, His blood, His
righteousness to obtain this grace for His bride, His church,
His people, His elect. He has grace to give to poor,
lost, helpless, dead sinners. John 17 3 goes something like
this this is life eternal these are the words of the Lord Jesus
himself and he's speaking in that high priestly prayer to
his father this is life eternal that they might know you the
only true God and the one who's praying Jesus Christ whom you
have sent God cannot be known except he's known in Christ and
him crucified But if you'd follow the text
just briefly with your eyes glancing at it, when you leave verse 11,
he's told her of this living water. And though she reluctantly in
verse 15, Sir, give me this water that I draw not, neither come
here to drink. That is a bogus request. She says it on purely selfish
grounds. She doesn't know what she's asking
for and she doesn't know who that water is. But she's about
to learn, but she ain't there yet. So as long as we're in that
state that she's in, in verse 11 and 12, then we too have not come to truly ask for
salvation at the hands of our Lord Jesus Christ and for that
precious living water. Now the Bible plainly tells us
that if you'll turn, I may have to get you to turn twice, but
the first one is to Matthew chapter 7 Y'all took so long in the reading
that I'm not going to be able to go to as many places as I'd
like. Matthew 7 verses 7 and 8. You've heard this dozens of times,
I know. Matthew 7 verse 7. Ready? Ask and it shall be given you. Seek and you shall find, knock,
and it shall be opened unto you. For everyone that ask receives,
he that seeks finds, and to him that knocks it shall be opened."
Well, preacher, what's the problem? She wouldn't ask, she wouldn't
seek, and she would not knock. The Lord must virtually give
her everything she has to give back to him. And that's how it
is with us. This Bible talks about Christ saving people who
would not seek Him. So what's the solution? He seeks
us first. Who came to whom in John chapter
4? She came to the well. She had
no thought of coming to the Savior. But He had thoughts of coming
to her. And that is how it works every single time. We don't get
ahead of God. He gives us the desire to ask
and to seek and to find. And Christ is what we ask for
and what we seek and what we find. That's just how it are. Okay, second question, biggest
question, most important question. Where does our Lord Jesus get
this living water, this life for dead sinners? How does he
come to possess it? All right, let's try to answer
that. Oh, goodness, I gotta, can I get two more scriptures
out of you before we're finished? Isaiah 63. Oh, I'm glad this ain't Obadiah,
Curtis. Isaiah 63 verse 1 the Lord Jesus possesses and
is this water of life now listen carefully here's the most important
reason this book will give us because He is God Almighty. And if my Jesus is not God Almighty,
I've got a false Christ. Let me read it to you straight
out of the book. Who is this that comes from Edom? Who is
this that comes from Calvary, with dyed garments from Basra,
with blood-stained clothes, who is this that is glorious
in his apparel, traveling in the greatness of his strength,
the strength of God. And the answer, the Lord himself,
the Lord Jesus, answers this question. The last statement
in verse 6, Isaiah 631, I that speak in righteousness, mighty,
almighty, to save. That's where he gets it from.
He's God. God is life. He's the giver of
life. There's no life any place else
except in His Son, the Lord Jesus. Not only is He God Almighty,
But this water of life, this living water is His because of
God's eternal purpose. Christ is the Messiah. This woman
knew the doctrine but she didn't know the person. And that's the
boat we're all in. He must be revealed. All this talk about let people
see Jesus in you, we couldn't see Jesus in Jesus and neither
could she. The word Christ means the anointed
one, the Christ of God. Thirdly, our Lord has this living
water because He has the perfect and full anointing of the Holy
Spirit. One more scripture, Luke chapter... I'm liable to get over five here
if I keep going, aren't I? So let's see, Luke chapter four, the Lord Jesus this is the first
time now since he began his public life and ministry that the Lord
Jesus returns to the village of Nazareth and he comes to be
there on a Sabbath day on Saturday and he goes to the Jewish synagogue
now do you realize he did this for almost thirty years before
he left to begin his public life and ministry and now he's coming
back I don't have time to cover it
this morning, but if you'd read verse 16, well, start at 14 and
read through verse 30, you might be in for a surprise. These are
his hometown folks. Some of them are his kin. All right, verses I've got to
find my verse. 18 and 19. The Lord is given the privilege
that morning of reading from the prophets, which they did
every Sabbath day. And so they bring in the scroll
of the prophet Isaiah. And unlike some modern geniuses,
he didn't just let it fall open to wherever it would. He found
the place where these words were written. He knew what was in
this scroll. He knew what Isaiah said about
him. Here's what he said. The Spirit of the Lord is upon
me because he has anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor,
spiritually poor sinners. You may not have a dime in your
pocket, but that doesn't make you poor in spirit. He sent me
to heal the broken-hearted, broken-hearted over sin, to preach deliverance
to the captives, not the people in Lillington in jail this morning,
ladies and gentlemen, the people who are captives of sin. The recovering of sight to the
blind, the spiritually blind, and to set at liberty them that
are bruised to preach the acceptable year of the Lord. He closed up
the scroll, turned it in, and sat down. And he began to say a few words
about himself and about the grace of God. He talked about a fellow
in the Old Testament during the time of Elijah by the name of
Naaman the Syrian. And he talked of this widow woman
in the time of Elisha the prophet, whose son Elisha raised from
the dead. He did this for Gentiles and
he didn't do it for Jews. In blind rage they carried him
out of that place dragged him to the edge of the cliff on which
that village was built and would have thrown him down headlong. That's what we think of God's
Christ. That's what we think. Here are some other reasons why
the Lord Jesus possesses this living water. because his redeeming
work is finished. Well, you say it wasn't finished
when he talked to this woman. No, but his promise in the covenant
of grace from all eternity that he was going to come and go to
that cross and die that death was as good as done. Throughout
the whole of the Old Testament, God took people to glory based
on his promise. The promise of the Lord Jesus
to satisfy divine justice bring in a perfect righteousness and
shed his precious blood. Isaiah 53 11 tells us that this
living water is his as the reward of his mediatorial work. Where he's talked about there,
he shall see his seed and be satisfied. My righteous servant
shall justify many. Almost every verse in Isaiah
53 is to that end. and not only that but because
this morning and we just on the middle song you would have had
this note in it page a hundred thirty nine spit speaks of the
ascension of our lord jesus christ god's right what is he doing
he is praying for his children and if he doesn't pray for us
our prayers aren't worth two cents. But if one drop of his
blood touches the worst prayer ever uttered, the Father grants
it. Well, I've got enough time to
do the conclusion. Here's two concluding thoughts
I want you to think about. Since the Lord Jesus has this
thing called living water, it means He is able and willing
to bless the sons of men with this same blessing that He gave
to this poor Samaritan woman. You remember the stanzas out
of the old song? I don't remember if this was in last Sunday's
bulletin or not. It might have been one of those. I think it
was, but I'm not sure. I think it was. Let not conscience
make you linger, nor of fitness fondly dream. Now listen. All the fitness he requires is
for us to feel our need of him. And that's the end of the song
in most modern hymn books, but that ain't the end. The writer
goes on to say, this, that is, to feel our need of him, this
he gives you, this he gives you, tis the Spirit's rising beam. The first evidence that the grace
of God is at work in the soul. I wonder why it ain't in the
modern hymn books. Because modern religion called
Christianity is false. It is nothing but false religion. I'll guarantee you one thing.
Before they bled it out of the songbook, they bled it out of
the pulpit first. If you think this country's got
problems, you can trace it to the pulpits of this land. We
preach to God who's not God. you can put it on the side all
you want to that america is god's nation that is a lot america's
god is false you can say the pledge of allegiance that don't
make it so one nation under god indivisible with liberty and
justice for all yeah for all that's crooked enough
to get it for themselves or to get somebody else to give it
to I better get off that. That's
not where I wanted to go. What I'm trying to say is that
the Lord Jesus still has grace for sinners. It ain't diminished
one iota. All the sinners who've been saved
in all the years this world has been standing, there's just as
much grace now as there ever was. But I want you to see this in
closing. the Lord Jesus when it comes
to saving my soul and when it comes to saving your soul. Now
listen, He does not need anything from us. If He did need something for
us, what would you bring Him? We sinners insist on helping
Christ save us. Some say you must do this, some
say you must do that, but it's all not true. We must be willing,
now listen, I know what I just said, we must be willing to be
nothing and for Christ to be everything, and you can't do
that, but God does it in you by His grace. There are some characters in
our Bibles that well... I'm turning to Revelation chapter
3, if you want to join me and I'll be finished. There are some
characters in our Bibles that well represent the subject that
is before us in John chapter 4. One of them is that fellow that
our Lord mentioned in the synagogue in Nazareth, Naaman the Syrian.
Now this man had leprosy and his little servant girl that
he had abducted when they won some battle in Israel had been
taken to his house and was his wife's servant girl. And she
told him, now can you believe this, a Jewish girl living in
captivity as a slave? and she has no animosity toward
her masters and tells his wife knowing he has leprosy she says
there's a prophet of God in Israel and he can cure leprosy so Naaman
got his highfalutin entourage together and you know a couple
of limos in the back full of clothes and gifts you know for
the prophet and all this stuff and away he goes And he finds
out the prophet won't even come out to talk to him, just send
him a message. Go wash in the Jordan seven times and you'll
come clean of leprosy. That's us. That's us. The other picture that is an
apt illustration of this is the encounter between Christ in Luke
chapter 18. It's in Matthew as well as Mark,
I think, but in Luke 18, the encounter between Christ and
the rich young ruler who came running up to the Lord Jesus
and fell on his knees. Lord, what must I do to inherit
eternal life? The Lord begins to point him
to the commandments. Oh, he said, I've kept all these
from my youth up. So the Lord just took one of
those commandments. this man was very rich our lord
said go give away everything you have come be my disciple
and follow me and you'll have you'll have riches in heaven
the man went away very sorrowful very sorrowful did you find revelation
three verses seventeen and eighteen Now you've probably heard, and
maybe you believe, I don't know if you do or not, that the seven
churches in the second and third chapter of Revelation are supposed
to represent certain periods of time in the history
of the church. And the longer time stands, the
more they have to adjust this stuff. There may be something
to that, but I don't know that there is. I don't subscribe to
it anyway. But here are seven congregations
of professing believers toward the end of the first century. And already, in that short amount
of time, some of these churches couldn't even be called a church.
And here's the worst one of the lot, the church at Laodicea. Look at what our Lord says to
this congregation in verses 17 and 18 of Revelation chapter
3. Because you say... Now, where
is this church? It's in Asia Minor. It's on this
globe. Where is the Lord Jesus? He's
in glory. But He's also down here. He's
everywhere present. Because you say... How did He
know they said it? He heard it. I am rich and increased
with goods. and have need of nothing I'm
set for life I just won the lottery and know not that you're wretched
and miserable and poor and blind and naked that is toward God here's his advice I counsel you
to buy of me gold tried in the fire that you may be rich true
riches, eternal riches, the water of life, no less. And white raiment,
that you may be clothed, clothed in the perfect righteousness
of the Lord Jesus. And that you may be clothed,
and that the shame of your nakedness do not appear, and anoint your
eyes with eye salve, that you may see. Why can't they see? Because all they have is natural
eyes, they don't have spiritual sight. You and I can't understand
this book until God gives us sight. Announce your eyes with thyself
that you may see.