I had all the wires. John chapter
4. Just hold your hands open there,
or your Bibles open there for a few minutes. We're going to
look at some other scripture on the way to John 4. My subject
is Christ, the well of salvation. Our Lord Jesus is set before
us by so many pictures in the scripture. He is set before us
as water. He is the water flowing from
the fountain or from the throne of God that is a river. He is described as a fountain.
A fountain opened by God the Holy Spirit specifically to chosen
sinners in the day that they are called by God's grace. Opened to you for cleansing. A fountain God the Spirit opens
before you and opens to you and graciously cleanses you with
as he causes you to plunge into the fountain drawn from Emmanuel's
veins. Oh may God do that for you who
are yet polluted and defiled in your conscience by your sin. Our Lord Jesus is set before
us as a well of water. Well of water and that's we're
gonna look at this evening. Our text is John chapter 4 and
verse 6 But I want you to turn with me if you will to Luke's
gospel And I want to lay a foundation for what I'm about to preach
to you And I'm not saying anything new
God has given you to be your pastor Such a faithful faithful
gifted man, and I have no question. You've heard him say what I'm
about to tell you is many times but it needs to be stated stated
clearly and stated often because few people really believe what
I'm about to show you from the scriptures everything written
in the book of God everything written in this book is designed
to teach us something about the person and work of our Lord Jesus
Christ There is nothing written in this book merely designed
to teach you how to live in this world as a good man. There's
nothing written in this book designed of God, really, designed
of God to teach Bible history. There's nothing written in this
book designed of God to teach what we call church dogma, church
order, those things. I know religious denominations
are raised up, men fuss and fight and form new groups over these
issues. But this book is not written to teach those things.
If church order were to be looked upon with such dogmatism in scripture
as men and women look upon it in their religious organizations,
it wouldn't be so hard to find something about church discipline.
How to go about calling a pastor and how to ordain one and how
many y'all to have? If you put me there hard find
those things the book is not written for that purpose. This
book is not written Merely to be a book of religious morality.
It is written to show sinners the Savior Jesus Christ the Lord
That's the purpose of the book and to use it for some other
purpose to misuse it Christ himself is the message of this blessed
book. The law, all of it. All the law
given to Israel. Every aspect of worship in the
ceremonial law. All the prophecies of the Old
Testament. All the events of Bible history. All the events recorded in this
inspired volume and all the laws and ceremonies and ordinances
in this volume by the design of infallible inspiration point
centers to the Savior. Now having said that, it is of
immense importance that we never read the scriptures casually,
merely for entertainment. or merely to fill up our religious
duty for the day. We dare not neglect duty, Brother
Tom. We dare not, but we dare not
do anything because of duty. We dare not neglect duty. I'm
not making light of that. We dare not do anything because
of duty. It's my duty to love my wife.
But if she thinks I love her because that's my duty, my eggs
will be cold in the morning. Duty service is no service. Duty worship is no worship. We should always seek the spiritual
message of every passage we read. I don't mean, and this is very,
very important, I don't mean that we are to invent a spiritual
message and read it into the text. That's horribly abuses
of scripture. Don't ever, well, this is what
this means to me. It doesn't matter a flip what
it means to you. And it doesn't matter what it
means to me. What does it mean is the only thing that matters.
So we dare not read into the scriptures what we want the scriptures
to say. But rather comparing Scripture
with Scripture, find out what the Scriptures say and what the
Scriptures teach. Now let me show you this, Luke
24. Everything in the book is about
Christ. Have you got that locked in your
noggin? Everything in the book is about
Christ. All the religious organizations
in the world, they build million-dollar empires focusing on the family.
with somebody, focus on God, don't you? Focus on prophecy,
focus on redemption instead. This book is about our Redeemer.
Luke 24, our Lord is walking along with these disciples on
the road to Emmaus after his resurrection. And in verse 27,
beginning at Moses, and all the prophets. I wonder what he's
talking about. Well Moses, who can tell me the
first book Moses wrote? Genesis Which is the last of
the prophets anybody know Malachi You mean brother Don that he
began with Genesis 1 1 and ended in Malachi chapter 4 verse 2
on this little walk and he Expanded to them everything in all those
passages of Scripture. He sure did He sure did not that
he turned to each passage of Verbally expounded it, but he
said this is the message of the whole book This is the message
of the whole book He expounded unto them in all the scriptures
the things concerning himself verse 44 and He said unto them
These are the words which I spake unto you while I was yet with
you that all things must be fulfilled which are written in the law
of Moses and in the prophets and in the Psalms concerning
me." All the Psalms, all the hymn book of the church are about
hymn. Yes, and they ought to still
be those hymns we sing today. One of my Projects I hope God
will allow me to see to completion before I die is a good hymn book. There ain't one in existence
Not a good one. We we just have to make do the
every every hymn book we've got somebody has messed with the
hymns in them and even the ones that were written by men of old
and written well somebody else came alone and Perverted them
adding something to them or taking something from or changing something
in them. We desperately need a good hymn book Well, the hymn
book of the Old Testament was the book of Psalms. And he says
it's all about him. Folks say, well, this is a messianic
psalm. Let me tell you how many messianic psalms there are. There
are 150 of them. They're all about him. That's
what it says at the beginning of Moses and in the prophets
and in the Psalms concerning me. Then opened he their understanding
that they might understand the scriptures. Said unto them thus
it is written and thus it behooved Christ to suffer and rise again
the third day and that repentance and remission of sins Should
be preached in his name among all nations beginning at Jerusalem
to him give all the prophets witness if the whole volume of
inspiration is written to reveal the person and work of our Redeemer
and As it is clearly set forth in this book as we just read
it. That certainly means this. There is a profound significance
to everything in this book. Even the seemingly unimportant
details. There is a profound significance
to everything recorded in this book even the seemingly unimportant
details. Some years ago, it's been over,
I can't remember when I was there, it was in Australia, 88, 89,
somewhere along there, preaching, and I had just preached along
this line of Christ being the message of the book, and there
was a smart aleck preacher who was in the car with me going
to the next place, and I guess he thought he had really stuck
me with a profound question. When men are stumped by facts
they can't refute, they generally ask something dumb. They just
happen to ask something dumb. Nicodemus, you'll remember, he
responded to the Lord saying, you must be born again. Now this
is a well-educated Jewish religious leader. He said, well, you reckon
I'm going to have to crawl back up my mama's belly and crawl
out again? Do you suppose he really thought the Lord meant
that? No, he was just stumped, that's
all. And he responded like men do when they're stumped. Just
got to say something and acted dumb. This fellow said to me,
he said, what do you suppose the tent pegs were for connected
with the tabernacle? And I said, you know what? I
don't really know what the significance is, but I know they held up a
tabernacle that all spoke of him. They all spoke of him. Somehow, everything in this book
speaks of our Redeemer. Now with those things in mind,
I love to take things that men look at as being insignificant
and show their significance. I love simple stuff. I want us
to look at some things in scripture that are plainly set before us.
Places. If we would understand the significance
of what happens in a place, we must understand the significance
of the place. Let me give you some examples.
where the Lord sent Israel for 400 years, where he came to deliver
Israel by blood and by power according to a covenant promise
made before ever they went into Egypt. Egypt symbolizes the world
of darkness and bondage we were in by nature. the bondage and
darkness we were in under the tyranny of Satan and the terror
of the law when God came to us and saved us by his grace. John
the Baptist came preaching the gospel in the wilderness of Judea,
and the wilderness aptly portrays the emptiness, barrenness, and
desolation of religion without Christ, which is what Judaism
had come to. The Jews kept their Passover
and it was that which was formerly called the Lord's Passover was
referred to by inspiration by John the Apostle as the Jews
Passover because that's all it was. It was an empty, desolate,
meaningless religious custom that they kept and John came
preaching the gospel in that wilderness just as we do today.
When our Savior began his public ministry he began by going up
into the mountain, a place of elevation. Even folks who don't
want to live in the mountains love to visit the mountains because
we like high places. We just like high places. Our
Lord Jesus began his ministry from a place of elevation as
if to say, all my doctrine comes down from heaven to the earth. My rule is a rule on a high and
lofty throne, and I have all things in subjection beneath
my feet." When he gave his parables of his kingdom, he went down
to the seaside. Why go down to the seaside? Every
parable that he gives of the kingdom has to do with the salvation
of God's elect among the Gentiles as well as the Jews. And the
sea throughout scripture represents the Gentile nations from which
our God will gather together all his people until all Israel,
that is the true Israel of God, is saved. In the parable of the
Good Samaritan, our Lord portrays those men and women whom he came
to save by a certain man who went down from Jerusalem, the
place of blessed peace. the city of God, to Jericho,
the place of cursedness, and that's a picture of man's horrible
fall. He taught us the same thing in
the parable of the prodigal son. The prodigal son left his father's
house. He ran away into a far country,
brought himself into abject poverty and utter ruin, and then At God's
appointed time, he came to himself. When he was utterly stripped
and dirty and empty, he came to himself. What a fool I've
been. How many hired servants are there in my father's house
where there's bread enough and to spare? And here I am perishing
with hunger. I'll go to my father and tell him I'm not worthy to
be called his son. Make me as one of your hired
servants. Arose and went to his father and his father saw him
While he was yet a great way off He saw who he was He saw
everything he had done He saw everything he had made of himself
all the filth all the degradation all the emptiness all the vileness
and He saw him in himself the object of his love and his
grace as his son one with his son that's what we are if we
is and the scripture tells us something seems strange to me the only time in this book God
Almighty is ever represented as getting in a hurry. You remember what he said? He
arose, and he ran, and he fell on his neck, and he kissed him,
and he kissed him, and he kissed him, and he kissed him. In fact,
the word kissed speaks of continually unceasing kissing. He just fell
on his neck and kissed him and kissed him and kissed him. That's
how God Almighty delights in mercy. The reason he does everything
he does, he declares is this, for I am gracious. Oh, God, arise by your spirit
in your free grace. and run to meet sinners this
night for Christ's sake I could give a good many more
examples but these will suffice to demonstrate the need for observing
and understanding the meaning of places where things happen
in scriptures everything written in the book is written by divine
purpose to teach us the gospel And the Lord Jesus came here
to Jacob's well in John chapter 4, choosing that spot to be the
place where he would make himself known to this adulterous Samaritan
woman. Why that spot? Now many reasons
could be given, but here's one I believe that you will see to
be clear in just a minute. He came to meet this Samaritan
woman And to bestow His grace upon this Samaritan woman, the
object of His love, whom He had chosen from eternity, this woman
the Father had trusted to His hands from eternity. He came
to this well to do so because this well represents Him as the
well of salvation. In Isaiah chapter 12, you don't
need to turn there, you can look at it later, the prophet describes
the day when the Lord visits His people. And he says, in that
day, when he comes and makes himself known, with joy shall
you draw water out of the wells of salvation. Now, I've looked
at that for years, and I've been stumped. Why does he use the
word wells of salvation when there ain't but one? Well, it
was well in the original Hebrew. No, it was wells there too. Why
does he use the plural? Because in Him who is the well
of salvation, there are many wells of salvation from which
we draw. We draw our salvation from the
well of His divinity. Were He not God, He would be
no Savior. We draw our salvation from the
well of His humanity you just read about. It behooved Him to
be made like unto His brethren. Were He not one of us, He could
not be our Redeemer. Our Savior is God and man in
one person. Fully God and fully man. We like
to say, because we want to be perceived as theologically correct,
He took into union with Himself our humanity. That's not what
this book teaches. The book says the word was made
flesh and dwelt among us. He became everything we are that
he might save us. And we draw salvation from the
well of his humanity. We draw salvation from the well
of his righteous obedience. Were there no obedience to God's
law, no obedience to God by a man in perfect righteousness, there
would be no righteousness to impute to a man. And Jesus Christ
brought in everlasting righteousness by his obedience to God as our
representative. We draw water from the well of
our Lord's blood atonement. Sin must be punished. Justice
must be satisfied. Without that, there is no salvation.
God Almighty will deal with you only in justice. He won't deal
with you any other way. Well, I believe in salvation
by grace. Grace only comes through justice. It can't come otherwise. God cannot deny himself. He will
not deny himself. God cannot lie. And he has declared
the soul that sinneth, it shall die. Not only is that the teaching
of scripture, Every human being in his conscience knows that
it's so. Every human being. I spent my
days, once I began to have some awareness of my guilt before
God, trying my best to find some way to make a bargain with God,
some way to silence my guilty, screaming conscience. And I'd
make promises and I'd make resolutions and I'd change the way I did
things. I quit cussing and I quit doing this, quit doing that,
and every time I'd go to bed at night and had the prospect
of eternity. Not enough! Never enough. Never enough. I couldn't do enough. I couldn't sacrifice enough.
I couldn't be enough to soothe my conscience, let alone satisfy
God's holy law. Until one day, God revealed His
Son in me. And I saw Christ crucified. And
you know what I heard God say, Chris? In my conscience, God
said, enough. That's enough. That's enough. And to this day, my conscience
declares in agreement with God, that's enough. God Almighty himself
can require no more. The Old Testament scriptures
point us to many wells. Around those whales many of the
most important events in scripture took place. I want to call your
attention to seven of them Seven whales that stand out as highly
significant places these physical historic whales as meaningful
as they are historically are utterly insignificant and meaningless
to us Until we see how they represent the Son of God Now don't miss
what I just said. They're meaningful. Historically,
they're meaningful. Everything that went on around
them went on around those whales. That makes them significant and
meaningful historically. But they're meaningless to us in
this day. Insignificant to us in this day
until we see how they speak of our Savior. Our Lord Jesus is
the whale Which we must draw the waters of salvation and eternal
life Turn back to Genesis 16 Here's the first mention of a
whale Genesis 16 Verse 6 Abram said Sarah behold
thy maid is in thy hand do with her as it pleases thee and Sarah
dealt hardly with Hagar and she fled from her face verse 7 The
angel of the Lord found her that's our Redeemer the Lord Jesus the
angel of the covenant He found her by a fountain of water in
the wilderness By the fountain in the way to sure verse 13 She
called the name of the Lord that spake unto her thou God seest
me for she said I have I also looked after him that seeth me
wherefore the well was called Berlacheroi behold it is between
Kadesh and Berea or Kadesh and Bered Berlacheroi means the well
of him that seeth me this is the first time we see
this word well mentioned and that's significant The poor outcast
woman was found at the well. And God saw her, he met her,
and supplied all her need at the well. That's because the
only place where God and sinners can ever meet is Jesus Christ
the Lord. The only place at which God can
or will look upon sinners in favor is in Christ. The only
source from which all the needs of our souls can be met. and
supplied is Christ the Redeemer. In Numbers 21, the children of
Israel named that place where the Lord spoke to Moses and promised
to give them water, beer. The word is well, our well of
life. When they were discouraged because
of the way in Numbers 21.4, they returned to the well and they
did a strange, strange thing. They didn't sing of the well,
they sang to it. Look at it. Numbers 21 verse
14. Wherefore it is said in the book
of the wars of the Lord, what he did in the Red Sea and in
the brooks of Arnon, and at the stream of the brooks that goeth
down to the dwelling of Ar, and lieth upon the border of Moab.
And from thence they went to Beer, to the well, That is, to
the well whereof the Lord spake unto Moses, Gather the people
together, and I will give them water. Now watch this. Then Israel
sang this song, Spring up, O well. They didn't sing about it. They
sang to it. Spring up, O well. Is it possible
that they were taught by Moses to understand that the well represents
him who is the well of the water of life, Jesus Christ our Lord? Is it possible Moses taught them
that this water, like the water flowing from the rock, is Christ
Jesus the Lord? I think so. They sang to it and
this is what they said. Sing ye unto the well. The princes
dig the well. The nobles of the people digged
it. Now watch this. by the direction of the lawgiver
with their staves. The fact that they sang to this
well certainly implies to me that they were taught to look
upon the wells God gave them as representing Christ and the
life that's in him by the Spirit so that when our Lord Jesus stood
up on the last day, the great day of the feast, when men were
coming back from the feast at Jerusalem and they were just
as empty and just as desolate as when they went up
to the feast. And he stood and cried with a
loud voice as the multitudes passed by, if any man thirst,
let him come unto me and drink. Is this man daring to say he's
the well? Is he daring to say he's the
one of whom all the well spoke from which our fathers drew water
and lived? Alright, look at Genesis 21.
Here's another well. A well of revelation. God meets
sinners at the well and God reveals himself to sinners at the well
of Christ Jesus. Here again we see Hagar. This
time she's been expelled from the patriarch's home with her
son Ishmael, verse 14. And Abram rose up early in the
morning and took bread and a bottle of water and gave it to Hagar,
putting it on her shoulder and the child and sent her away. And she departed and wandered
in the wilderness of Beersheba. Abraham does this because God
commanded him. He said, Sarah is right. The bondwoman can't be heir with
the free woman's child. The water was spent verse 15
The water was spent in the bottle and she cast the child under
one of the shrubs and she went and sat down Over against him
a good way off as it were a bow shot For she said let me not
see the death of the child And she sat over against him and
lift up her voice and wept she wept and God heard the voice
of the lad She wept. God heard the voice
of the lad. You weep for your sons and daughters.
Pray God will have mercy on them. Maybe God will hear the voice
of the lad. And the angel of the Lord, the angel of God, called
to Hagar out of heaven and said unto her, What aileth thee, Hagar?
Fear not, for God hath heard the voice of the lad where he
is. Arise lift up the lad and hold
him in thine hand for I will make him a great nation and God
opened her eyes and she saw a well of water and She went and filled
the bottle with water and gave the lad drink Now there's more
than I can say about all these things But this well is a place
of revelation to Hagar Here's a poor outcast sinner Perishing
in a desolate, empty wilderness. She's helplessly weeping before
the Lord and not really praying, just weeping. Broken-hearted,
desperate, helpless. She's waiting to die. Watching
her only son, whom she dearly loves, die. Helpless. Helpless. I think maybe that's when we
pray best. When we can't pray. When we can't
form words because our hearts are so heavy with the burden
God's put on them, because we are so desperately needy, then
the Spirit takes those groans, makes intercession for the saints
according to the will of God. He who knows the mind of the
Lord makes intercession for us. And God intervenes. He opened her eyes, and she saw
a well of water. What will it take for you to believe on the Son
of God? We preach to you, mom and dad,
brother and sister, husband and wife, son and daughter, try their
best to reason with you, and you will not believe. I'll tell you when you will believe,
when God opens your eyes. And if God doesn't open your
eyes, you're going to hell. Preacher, you talk like the whole
of my eternal destiny is in God's hands. It's time somebody told
you the truth. It's in God's hands. If God has
mercy on you, you will have mercy. If God doesn't have mercy on
you, there's none. He said, I will have mercy on whom I will have
mercy. The hearing ear and the seeing
eye are of the Lord. Blessed are your eyes for they
see. Blessed are your ears for they
hear. Let's look at another well. Genesis
21 again, verse 27. at the well God meets the sinner
at the well God reveals himself to the sinner and at the well
God reveals a covenant in fact it's at the well God made the
covenant Genesis 21 verse 27 Abraham took sheep and oxen and
gave them unto Abimelech and both of them made a covenant
and Abraham set seven ewe lambs of the flock by themselves and
Abimelech said to Abraham what mean these seven ewe lambs which
thou hast set by themselves and he said for these seven ewe lambs
shalt thou take of my hand that they may be a witness unto me
that I have did this well wherefore he called that place Beersheba
well of oath or well of promise Beersheba Because there they
swore both of them. The patriarchs in the Old Testament defended their wells. Read this
book. They fought wars about wells,
Dwight. I mean, they fought wars over
water. Over water. How come? Because they had to have it.
They had to have it. And they were willing to sacrifice
whatever had to be sacrificed to defend and keep their whales. Because without them, they would
die and their families would die. That's a pretty good picture
of the believer's attitude toward Christ. Give me Christ or else
I die. He's not an option. I've got
to have it. I've got to have it. Here, in
Genesis 21, we're told about a covenant that was sealed with
an oath at a well. Does that remind you of anything?
It should. Hebrews chapter 7, our Lord Jesus
is a priest, unlike other priests, a priest established after the
order of Melchizedek by the oath promise and covenant of God,
and made thereby surety of a better covenant before the world began. Jesus Christ stood forth as our
substitute, our representative, our Savior, our Mediator. He stood forth as our surety,
and God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, trusted to His hands,
the hands of the divine Mediator who would assume human flesh,
trusted to His hands the saving of our souls. And Christ took
on himself total responsibility for me. Get hold of that and it'll float
your boat when everything else around you is sinking. Christ
took on himself total responsibility for me. That is to say, he's
responsible for my sins. He's responsible to fulfill the
righteousness of God for me. He's responsible to pay my debt. He's responsible to bring me
to glory. And Christ Jesus, this is what
the book says of Him. He shall not fail. You can trust Him. You can trust
Him. Here's the fourth well, chapter
24 of Genesis. When God meets the sinner and
reveals Christ in him, makes his covenant known to him, the
sinner calls on God in prayer. And here is Abraham's servant
Eliezer seeking a bride for Isaac by the commandment of Abraham.
As he went about his business, he stopped by a well to pray,
seeking God's direction, God's will, God's mercy, and he seeks
it at a well. seeking it in Christ Jesus. Verse
10, Genesis 24, And the servant took ten camels of the camels
of his master, and departed, for all the goods of his master
were in his hand. I can't preach on that, let me
go on. And he arose, and went to Mesopotamia, unto the city
of Nahor. And he made his camels to kneel
down without the city by a well of water at the time of the evening,
even the time that women can't go out to draw water. And he
said, O Lord, God of my master Abraham, I pray thee, send me
good speed this day, and show kindness unto my master Abraham. Christ, the well of salvation,
is that one through whom and by whom we have access to God.
He is for us a well of prayer, a place of prayer as a place
of mercy. We're bidden to look like that
publican to the mercy seat. God be merciful to me, the sinner. The mercy seat is described by
Isaiah in his vision of the Lord in his glory as a throne. That's the same mercy seat you
see represented back in the tabernacle. Isaiah sees the Lord sitting
on a throne, sitting on a mercy seat. And that's exactly what
John saw in Revelation chapters 4 and 5. And that mercy seat
is described by Paul in Hebrews 4 as the throne of grace. And he bids us come boldly to
the throne of grace, to the well of salvation, Christ Jesus, that
we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
Genesis 29. Verse 1. If God will graciously put in your heart a prayer to
seek the Lord, it won't be long until you'll find rest for your
soul in Him. And here's a well of rest. Then
Jacob went on his journey, and came into the land of the people
of the east. And he looked, and behold, a
well in the field. not in the wilderness, not in
the desert, in the field. And lo, there were three flocks
of sheep lying by it. For out of that well they watered
the flocks, and a great stone was upon the well's mouth. And
thither were all the flocks gathered, and they rolled the stone from
the well's mouth, and watered the sheep, and put the stone
again upon the well's mouth in its place. This well you find in the green pastures
of God's Word. And here his flocks lie down
and rest. And Christ's shepherds give his
sheep water from the well. This well of rest is our Sabbath
rest in whom we delight. A well of satisfaction for our
souls, no matter what our souls need. This is that well of Bethlehem. You remember when David was hiding
from Saul, and his soul was in distress, and he cried, Oh, that
one would give me to drink of the water of the well of Bethlehem. I could just, if I could go down
to Bethlehem one more time, get a drink of water, oh, it'd soothe
my soul in this time of heaviness and sorrow. Children of God, listen to me
now. Listen to me. Your pastor will say amen to
what I'm about to tell you. We're available to you at any
time for any need you have. But our object is to fix it so
you don't need to lean on us. God's servants don't engage much
in what folks call pastoral counseling, because we point you to the counselor.
And when your soul's heavy, and you've got trouble, you say,
I just, I need to talk to somebody. Go talk to somebody. Bury yourself in this book, and
pour out your heart to Christ the Lord, and drink from the
well of salvation. Now turn to Exodus chapter 2.
I'll show you another well. It's a well of refuge. Now when Pharaoh heard this thing,
verse 15, he sought to slay Moses. But Moses fled from the face
of Pharaoh and dwelt in the land of Midian, and he sat down by
a well. Now the priest of Midian had
seven daughters, and they came and drew water and filled the
troughs to water their father's flock, and the shepherds came.
and drove them away. But Moses stood up and helped
them, and watered their flock. To this well alone we must come,
like the daughters of Jethro and hireling shepherds, and those
preachers who hate the gospel of God's free, sovereign grace
in Christ, who will do their best to drive sinners away from
the well of refuge to a refuge of lies. But God's servants like Moses stand up to help thirsting
souls. And I find it interesting that
it is Moses who's represented as driving away the false shepherds. Because Moses declares that which
justice requires and no other well of salvation can be found
but Christ Jesus the Lord. No other refuge. God says, Behold,
a king shall reign in righteousness, and princes shall rule in judgment,
and a man shall be as a hiding place from the wind, and a covert
from the tempest, as rivers of water in a dry place, as a shadow
of a rock weary land. Now, let's get to John chapter
4, 2 minutes, verse 6. Now, Jacob's well was there. Jesus therefore, because Jacob's well was there,
Jesus being wearied with his journey, sat thus on the well. Because he must needs go through
Siberia. And it was about the sixth hour.
The Lord Jesus, who sat on this well, is Jacob's Savior. Who was Jacob? He is that man, that body of
men and women, that innumerable multitude of men and women, who
are described by God in Romans chapter 9 as sinners, chosen
by God's free sovereign grace. He said, Jacob have I loved,
but Esau have I hated. Our Lord came to this well to
fetch one of the children of Jacob. Jacob, who was he? He was described in the scriptures
as a blood-bought redeemed sinner. Thou hast with thine arm redeemed
thy people, the sons of Jacob. Who was Jacob? He was a sinner, conquered, broken
by grace. There was a man who wrestled
with Jacob. Not Jacob wrestled with a man.
A man wrestled with Jacob. There's a big difference. And
that man was Christ Jesus the Lord. And the object in wrestling,
I used to be pretty good at it. I wrestled in high school, wrestled
in junior high school, and then I did some wrestling on the streets.
But the object in wrestling is to pin a fellow. to defeat him,
to hold him down. That's what God does when he
comes to wrestle with the sinner by his grace. And he always accomplishes
his object. He conquers the sinner and breaks
him. Breaks him. Breaks him. Central Kentucky, where we live,
they raise a lot of horses. Race horses and show horses.
Lots of them. Beautiful animals. Beautiful
animals. One of the fellows who used to
be in our church, he's with the Lord now, he had some thoroughbred horses,
and I went out to visit him fairly often when I came down. First,
he was sick, and we'd talk a little bit. He'd talk a little bit about
his horses. He told me one day that his daughter was out with
one in the corral. I said, what's she doing? He said, she's working
on him, gentling him. I said, what? Gentling him. They don't break them. They don't
break them. They gentle them. That's the
reason they act tough like they do. All the time. They have to
hold on to them tight. Somebody's got to lead them into
those chutes to race. Somebody's got to hold on to them, take
them out to parade them around the ground at the fair to see,
because they've just been gentle. They're not broken. They don't
want them broken. They want them to retain that
wild spirit. That's not how God deals with
sinners. No, God deals with sinners just
the way you had it pictured in the old west when they'd get
some horses from the wild and they'd bring them in the crowd
one at a time and they'd throw a saddle on them and they would
ride them and ride them and ride them and ride them and ride them
and ride them and ride them until the horse could hardly stand
up. Ride them! Ride them into the ground! Ride
them! Until they're broke and they
have no more will to resist. When God thus rides you into
the ground, you'll drink of this well. Amen. I won a few matches and lost
a whole lot of matches. My son was the wrestler and the
wrestler was his dad's footstep. The wrestler was the same tournament. But he lost some matches too. Thinking about that,