If you have your Bible to John,
just leave it there. That's where we're going to be
at. John 4. Now there's a lot of lessons in these
42 verses. We're just going to go up to
verse 42. We're going to look a little
here and a little there. And obviously in these things
we're gonna, in this passage, we'll behold the glory of God,
His saving grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. And then I wanna
end up in verse 42 and stay there just somewhat a little bit more
than the other passages or the other verses. But let's just
kind of walk through this passage. When you get home, if you want
to, look at John chapter 3 in contrast to John chapter 4. In
John chapter 3, you've got this one who's somebody. His name
is Nicodemus. He's a ruler of the Jews. He's somebody. He's seeking religion,
and he comes to Christ. And then in this passage here,
you've got this adulterous woman, this sinner, this person like
you and I, who was not seeking Christ, but he was seeking her. And just at your own convenience,
look at the difference in the things. Christ never told her
that she must be born again. He did tell her, she said, come
see a man that told me everything I ever did. Well, we assume that
he spoke more to her than what's written, but that doesn't really
concern us, because what is written is enough. And we know that,
you know, he didn't tell her everything from her birth to
the time he met her, everything, but he told her enough. He told
her enough. And we'll look at a few of those
things. But before we do that, look at verse four. Look at how this is worded. In
Christ, in verse three, he left Judea and departed again at the
Galilee. So he's traveling, he's walking, however he's traveling,
probably most likely walking, He's at one part, he's at one
place in Judea, and he's going to Galilee. And if you look on
your Bible in the back sometime, the way that he took, he could've
went a different way. Probably the most direct route
from there to where he was going, from Judea to Galilee, was to
go through Samaria, but as we know, the Jews despise the Jews. the Jews disdain, the Jews think
of as unclean, unholy, unworthy Samaritans. They're like Gentile
dogs to them. Salvation's not for them, et
cetera, et cetera. But he, look at how it's worded,
Christ must, needs go through Samaria. He could have walked
a different route to get to Galilee, but he chose to pass through
a place and a countryside that most Jews avoided. Why? Well, simply put, there
was one of his elect there. There was one of the lost sheep
there that he is going to collect. And then there's other sheep
of that fold who have no fold because many believed on his
word that we saw in the last several verses of this section.
He must call these sinners out and they must be blessed and
quickened to newness of life. He must go through Samaria. His own sovereign purpose, his
own purpose constrains him to do that which first of all glorifies
and honors him the most and secondly that he can gather his lambs,
gather his sheep. So he says it must be and that's
exactly right, it must be. Well, he was constrained or he
can do anything and this and that. Well, he's constrained,
he was about to do, he's doing his father's will. He was always
about his father's will. His father's will was that he
would call and redeem and quicken his people. There's a sheep,
there's a lamb, there's an elect sinner that's in Samaria. And so he's gotta go through
there. One old writer said, the blessed predestination of God
starts there. Christ knew this woman, and certain
of the town folk were the sheep without a fold, and he would
rescue them as he did that one sheep, that parable, when he
went out to go seek that one sheep. Well, you got 99 here,
what do you, because it's a sheep. That's how precious his people
are to him. He must go, I gotta go through
Jackson. I gotta go out to Patton. Well,
there's nothing in Jackson and we know there's nothing out in
Patton. Oh, but there is. Oh, but there is. There is. And she makes this comment in
verse 29 that I've always found interesting. She said, come see
a man which told me all things that ever I did. Is not this
the Christ? Something happened. Her heart
was open. Her mind was illuminated. Her
eyes were blind, but now they see. What did Christ really tell
her? Was it all things? Maybe yes,
maybe no. But what He did tell her was
enough, enough to reveal to her His complete and total supremacy,
His majesty, His glory and divinity, his lordship, and his sovereignty. He revealed to her her sin, her
corruption, her unworthiness, her vile transgression. If you
would want a short outline for these sections and their conversation,
a very short outline would be, he showed her himself, woman
if you knew who's talking to you, he showed her her condition,
you've rightly answered, you're with a man and you're not married, And lastly, again, he shows himself
that he's the remedy for all her sinfulness. And you know
how I am, I got a slow mind, a simple mind, and I like to
just outline these things just simply. But specifically, he
tells her five things. And let's look at those briefly.
Verse 10, we're just gonna look at the conversation that she
had with him. He says, come see a man that told me everything
that ever I did. Well, let's just see what he
told her in brief, five points in this particular outline. He
tells her five things. Verse 10, Jesus answered and
said to her, it's the first part of the conversation. If you knew
the gift of God and who it is that said to you, give me to
drink, you would have asked of him and he would have given you
living waters. That's our problem. We don't
know who we're hearing. We don't know who's written the
book by nature. When we're born, we're born in
sin. We're not born with faith, and then, okay, then I'm gonna
read it, and it's gonna, my dormant faith is gonna become active
faith. And, oh, I understand. No, this book is a closed book
to those who have not been, I mean, there's good, and that's why
people will take this book and make it a legal document. Well,
this book says you can't do this, and you can't do that. No, and
they fail to see the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
That's why it's memorialists. The moralist, you're here this
morning, and I hope so, and I hope that I'm here to speak of Christ
and to glorify Him and to tell of this one that this woman met. But now, if we had different
people in here of different backgrounds and whatnot, the fundamentalist,
while I'm preaching, he's counting the people. How many showed up
today? The moralist, when you talk to
him, He's smelling your breath, see if you got a little liquor
on you. The legalist, when you come through
that door, he's measuring the length of your skirt. Right? And if you're Pentecostal, they're
more concerned about how many hymns you're gonna sing. And
then we could go on. And this woman, and you get interested
in it, when Scott was reading this, you see how the woman's
kinda trying to evade some of the things? She's, oh yeah, but
we know this and we know that, and Christ just keeps bringing
her back. to the most important thing, which every Sunday and
Wednesday we gather together, Christ. It's Christ in Crucified. Because she made a comment, is
not this the Christ? And that's the conclusion that
I'm going to ask you to, you know, yourself and ask myself
when it's all said and done. Come see a man that told me everything
that I did. Well, first of all, he tells
her, if you knew, and that's our problem, we don't. People
go to church all over the country, all over town, they're going,
well, they're just going to go do this and leave feeling good because
they went and for some reason they feel better because they
were in a building, or they took communion and they think that
washes away their sins, or all these different things. No, he
says, he talks to her about the gift of God, the grace of God
standing right in front of her. So that's the first thing he
tells her. If you knew the one standing right here. Second thing is found in verses,
I think it starts in verse 13. Yeah, she makes a comment, and
then Jesus answered and said unto her again, whosoever drinks
of this water shall thirst again, but whosoever drinks of the water
that I shall give that person shall never thirst, but the waters
that I shall give unto him shall be in him a well, a water springing
up unto everlasting life. What he's saying is, True thirst
for righteousness, a true thirst, a true need is for, a true spiritual
thirst is something that I provide. If you drink this regular water,
you're gonna be thirsty again. But if I provide you that water,
me, you'll never thirst again. That's how you're not gonna struggle,
and you're not gonna have hard times. and you're not gonna be
upset about some things, that things are not gonna always go
our way. But He'll give you the thirst for Him and His righteousness. The third thing, the third conversation
is He shows her herself, verses 16 through 18. And Jesus said
to her, go call your husband and come back. And the woman
answered and said, I've got no husband. And He said, you've
answered well. You've had five. And the one that you're with
now is not your husband. You've answered correctly. He
showed the third thing that he tells her. If she says, he told
me all things needful, her own problems, her own sin, her own
shame. And we were talking about this
this morning in Bible class. That's what's gonna happen. The
Holy Spirit's gonna get ahold of us and he's gonna shake all
this religious tomfoolery that we have or we've had or whatever
and shake us away from ourselves and get us confronted face to
face with that person in the mirror and say, I'm the man.
David oh, I would kill that you know what he killed it. I would
I would take that guy's head off I would kill him in a Nathan
says you're the man and The blessed thing about when the Holy Spirit
gets a hold of a person They can't run away and then they
finally admit Yeah You're right, I'm the man I'm the man so he
confronts her with their sins Again, she's trying to skirt
the issue. She says, verse 19, I perceive you're a prophet.
Let's see, you know how when people, when people are serious,
and I've done this, and I know you do this, when people, when
they get right down with a brass, you know, where rubber meets
the road, and they start confronting you, you know, you either try
to joke about something, or you compliment them, or you do, you
know, you're something else. And that, but Christ, He's not
gonna be sidetracked. He knows who He is. But He confronts
her with her sin. her shame, and that's what's
going to happen. And there's too much preaching
today that just builds people up, makes them feel good about
themselves. That needs to be tore down. We don't need to be
rude about it. We don't need to be mean about
it. And I'm not trying to be, but I'm going to stand up here
and tell you that everything is well with your soul, like
we saw again in Bible class this morning. Prophets that said they
were speaking from God, and they weren't. And that's not going
to be blessed at all. at all. Now the fourth thing
he said, which this is a whole message in itself. The first,
the fourth thing he says is found in verse 23. She says, oh, we
know when he, Messiah comes, we're going to worship in this
and that. We worship in, you say worship in Jerusalem, in
a place, and they still say that. Mecca or whatever it might be,
that's a place. Or the, you know, in Rome. No. The hour comes and now is when
true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth,
for the Father seeks such to worship Him. It's not where,
it's who you worship. And boy, if I could get this
through anybody's head, not necessarily here, because we talk about this
frequently, but neighbors and friends and coworkers, they put
the emphasis on where and things. True worship is heart worship. Now, yes, it's going to show
itself forth in certain things, but nothing that goes on today,
not the contemporary worship. So we're going to have contemporary,
we're going to do this, we're going to have bands, it's things. I got a phone, I got home from
Friday night. from work, and I had something
on my answering machine, and I just hit it, and then I walk
over doing some stuff, and I can hear the answering machine. Some
guy, some preacher from Tennessee is coming through the area, and
wonder if he could come here and do his thing. Well, his thing
is he shares the gospel through comedy. It's just, you know, you're gonna
talk about the man of sorrows in a comic way. That's, see it's things, it's
not who you worship. It's how many people you can
get in, how many services, how many meals, how many bake sales,
how many all these different things to raise money. No, true
worshipers and true religion is spiritual, not ceremonial. And not how the flesh profits
nothing. That's what he told her. And
in verse 26, after he's got her attention, and he's got her,
And she knows who she is, and she's starting to see who He
is. Verse 26, what else did He tell her? Jesus said unto her,
I that speak unto you, am He. I am. You mean you're the same
one that Moses talked about? I am that I am? You mean you're
God? You're the Christ? I that speak
unto you, am He. I am He. This settles it all
and settles everything. Christ. Well, as I told you,
we're going to kind of work our way through. We get to verse
42. And actually, I was just going
to preach on verse 42, but as I started reading this, I thought,
well, there's just way too much in here. But this is what I want
to ask you and I want to ask myself this morning. And this
is a concern for all believers. We examine ourselves to see if
we'd be in the faith. Look at verse 42. Now she did,
the Lord doesn't bypass his means. They believed, some of them believed
because of her testimony. And it's just like what's going
on now. When you tell somebody at work or you tell your neighbor,
the Lord is using you as a testimony or to witness or to share the
gospel. And people believe because of
that. Then they come and they hear of Christ. So yeah, I believe
what you say and then they never come and they go, well I'm gonna
go meet the Lord on the fish bank. No, you haven't heard.
Because the Lord's people, they want to gather together where
the Gospels preach. So He doesn't bypass His means
because He says in verse 39, and many of the Samaritans of
that city believed on Him for the saying of the woman. He uses
the Word. You tell somebody. You pray for
somebody, and you don't even have to say it. You come to church,
tell them to come hear the Gospel. Or if you know the Gospel, I
believe what my preacher believes. Well, that's not going to do
you any good in the final day, and that's my point. Is your
faith, and I'll word it the best way I can, is your faith your
faith? Or is it daddy's faith? Or is
it mommy's faith? Or is your faith your faith,
or is it faith because that's the way grandma and grandpa believed?
Or John Calvin wrote that, so I believe what John Calvin believes.
Look at verse 42, very quick, very specifically. These and
many more believe on his own word and said unto the woman.
Now they're telling the woman and they're not rebuking her
and they're not making fun of her like you don't make fun of
me or you know, you pray for me and you ask the Lord to give
me grace and give you a message. And I appreciate those prayers
and I covet those prayers. But they told the woman, we now,
we now we believe, not because of your saying, not because you
believe, because we've got to believe ourselves. You see what
I'm saying? That's what they're just saying. For we have heard
Him ourselves and know that this is indeed the Christ. the savior
of the world, and I won't get into the word world, but again,
the Jews thought it was just for them. He's redeeming a bunch
of Samaritans here, and as far as they were concerned, that's
other, anybody other than the Jews, often that's how the word
world is used, not everybody, because he didn't come to save
everybody. But my point is this. We must, by ourselves, see, believe,
and trust Christ. No one can do that for us. That's
what he's saying. And this calls, I got to looking
at myself. Wait a minute, I'll backtrack
that because when you do that, then you're in trouble. But I
got to asking myself, do I believe what's written in this Word because it's been revealed to
me? Or am I just listening to some CD and then regurgitating
what sounds good? Don't, well I didn't think you
struggled with whether you, well yeah I do, just like you do.
I sin every day and I struggle with things just like everybody
else does. But it hit me, and I don't want you, and nor me,
to rest in somebody else's faith or somebody else's belief. You
must buy yourself. They told a woman, Now we believe,
not because of your saying, for we have heard him ourselves and
know that this indeed is the Christ. Now I'm not saying you're
going to hear an honorable voice of Christ. You will hear him through
the preaching of the gospel, and you see him and hear him
through his word and through the testimony of others. But
I guess my thought is that there's a lot of people, and I'll be
real careful with this, and I'm thankful I don't have a big experience
that I can go back and remember because a lot of times experiences
are very deceptive. I know what I'm talking about
here because I had an experience but it wasn't when I heard, I
didn't hear the gospel so I just had experience and I hung on
to that thing for a long time. Oh but I remember this happened
or that happened, be careful. Or then I started reading a bunch
of books, started reading Whitefield and Spurgeon and Calvin and Zwingli,
started reading all these guys and then they would give, there's
one book that's written by Whitefield, Strange and Unusual Conversions.
I started reading that and I'm thinking, well yeah, my experience
was kind of like that. Be careful. What they're saying is that,
not because of your sayings, for we have heard Him ourselves. refer to ourselves. And if you've
had experience, I'm not doubting your experience, I'm not even,
I'm not even going there, I'm just saying, I know as a young
believer, when I would talk to older believers, and they said,
well, this happened, and that happened, and I was all wounded,
and all, you know, and then next thing you know, you're thinking,
well, was my conviction experience, I was upset with my sins, but
I didn't seem like I beat myself up that bad. Be careful! Have you looked to Christ? and
lived is not what you've done. It's not so much your faith,
it's the object of your faith. Another's faith will do you no
good. Do you trust Christ by yourself
alone for all your soul's hope? Paul's faith or believing Christ,
and we know he did, would not help Peter. Peter, you gotta believe. You
can't rest on Paul's and Jane's or John's. He says, they said,
we have heard him ourselves. And you say, well, if I was back
then, no. The scripture says we have a more sure word. I should have found it. A more
sure word of prophecy. We have the book, which is completed
now. It wasn't completed back in their
day. So you don't have to see literally. You don't have to
go to the Wailing Wall. You don't have to go to Jerusalem. This is far more
reliable. I remember, and I think I've
told this years ago, but when I was a freshman at SIU, we had
to write about some experience that we had went through, some
life-changing experience. Well, I didn't know it, but there
was a Hebrew, a Jew, in our class. But we all got to writing some
experience about something, and he wrote about his experience
at the Wailing Wall. And this kid was, how old were
you when you were a freshman, 18, 19 years old? This guy, it
was like he was a 40 year old man writing this thing. It was
so compelling. I'll never forget it. This kid
poured his soul out into this experience. I remember him saying,
he said, I've tried for years, we never could get there, we
finally was able to get there. And he just explained step by
step, and he finally got to touch the Wailiwan experience. And
I mean, it was real to him. I wasn't laughing because I was
just, I was like, wow, I've never had anything like that. But now
I look at that, and I'm fearful for that man. Because that's
his salvation experience. Had nothing to do with the gospel.
A relic. Isn't that what they did with
the brazen serpent? The Lord used that brazen serpent and
then they put it away for a couple hundred years and then all of a sudden
they said, get that thing, it's got powers on it. And then Hezekiah,
he said, break it up, it's just a piece of brass. Neshtar, whatever
you call it. Just break it up, it's a piece
of brass. Oh, you can't do that. Those pictures of Jesus, that's
got some power. Be careful. It's a picture. We believe, not because of your
sayings, but because we've seen them ourselves. Mom's religion, Dad's religion,
or even God-given faith by grace will not do you any good in this
matter of eternal salvation. Do you believe Christ? Not what our forefathers believed,
but do we agree with this book about God and Christ and salvation,
election and redemption and grace? This Christ, not another. Not
little baby Jesus who's trying, but about this Christ, not another. Because we know from the scriptures
there's no other name given among men under heaven whereby we must
be saved. And there's no other name worthy of our trust, our
hope, our peace, and our comfort. Now, have you trusted Him, the Christ? If you have, I've got some even
better news for you. Turn to Deuteronomy 33. I told Melinda I was going to
work this in the message somewhere. Deuteronomy 33, I've never, I've
seen this, I think there's even a hymn about it, but I've never
seen it like this. If you have believed on him,
look at this for your encouragement and your help. Because I know
we're gonna all go through some times of struggles and trials
and tribulations just as being believers. The world, we're not
of the world, so the world doesn't care about us. The bosses don't
often care about you. They don't. But look at here
in Deuteronomy 33 and verse 27. The eternal God is your refuge. And underneath are the everlasting
arms. I think there's a hint, I can't
remember, but the everlasting arms. Underneath. Underneath. What does that mean? It means
below, right? Well, I don't know about you,
but I'm up and down. Emotionally, sometimes. Physically,
spiritually, I'm up and down. Sometimes you get pretty bummed
out, you get pretty low. Well, even lower than that, Underneath
that are His arms. I've fallen about as far as I
can fall. Well, Christ went further because He's underneath you.
I've never seen it that way. How low? Job lost everything. But did he lose his salvation?
Was God unconcerned? Why? Because underneath all that
were those sovereign, majestic, keeping arms. I can't get any lower, preacher.
Christ has gone lower yet. And He's going to protect you.
Underneath. Underneath. As low as we can
go, He's still lower, and with His arms, He's taking care of
you. Underneath. are the everlasting
arms. Not just today and then gone
tomorrow. I went through a bunch of trials
and I, you know, sometimes you find out who your friends really
are. Sometimes they'll leave you or forsake you. But not his
everlasting arms. They're underneath. Almost like a safety net. If
I can use that term. You're not gonna get away and
he's not gonna lose you. Come see a man The man that's
told us enough who he is, what we are, and that he is the remedy. I that speak to you am he, and
I'll never leave you, and I'll never forsake you. Because I
walked all the way through Samaria to find you. Now, just a little
thing, it was the sixth hour, that's to 12 noon. You know how
hot it is over there? Why would you be getting water
at 12 noon? Because she's a Samaritan, because
she's an adulteress, and she's ashamed. Nicodemus, I'm a ruler
of the synagogue. He calls out His people. You
can't be too sinful to not be in the reach of an almighty,
ever-gracious, sovereign Redeemer. And that is comforting indeed. Ron, would you close this for
me?