I have a message for us tonight
found in Proverbs chapter 5, if you would like to turn there. We have further instruction,
further exhortation. And it started with the strange
woman, that's still what he's talking about, to flee away from
her, to not approach a doorstep, don't go near her. Telling us
to steer clear of the law for justification is what he's telling
us. Stay away from the law. Don't
go to Mount Sinai. It's the same thing we've been
studying over in Hebrews. I think that was really interesting how
the Lord paralleled that for us. He's telling us to stay away
from thinking, just stay away from the kind of thinking where
we can work our way to heaven, where we can be good enough for
God on our own. We can do something to please him. He's telling us
what we always say each Sunday, look to Christ as all of your
acceptance before God. And we say exactly the same thing
on Wednesdays too. Look to Christ for all your acceptance
before God. That's what he's telling us.
That's what he's telling us, don't go near that woman. Look
to Christ, look to Christ. She's just the bond woman. Now
our Lord presents this information in the form of water. And in
these verses we're about to read, he says the word cistern, the
word well, the word fountain, and the word river. And we read
in our call to worship about the Lord, people are going to
have the fountain of life, that the fountain of life is with
him, that the river that they have is Christ himself. That's
what he was talking about over there. So let's read this together,
and I pray the Lord will allow me to deliver this message to
you as he has revealed it to me. Proverbs chapter five, verse
15 through 18 says, drink waters out of thine own cistern, and
running waters out of thine own well. Let thy fountains be dispersed
abroad and rivers of waters in the streets. Let them be only
thine, let them be only thine own and not strangers with thee. Let thy fountain be blessed and
rejoice with the wife of thy youth. We can apply this to physical,
Anytime you read the scripture, you can apply it to physical
and go throughout the book of Proverbs. There's some really
good advice in Proverbs. Wisest man that ever lived beside
the Lord Jesus Christ, the wisdom that the Lord gave to Solomon,
he was able to give some good instruction. But our responsibility
is not to just talk about the physical and tell us that part
of it. Our responsibility is to run
to Christ, wherever he is on this page, as fast as we can. That's my responsibility each
time that we stand, to make sure to declare Christ to us. If we
can find the Lord in this, it will be because he calls us to.
If he doesn't call us to find him, then it'll just be like
reading a newspaper. It'll just be like reading another
book. He's got to cause us to see his face. He's got to cause
us to see him and hear him You remember the impotent man at
the Pool of Bethesda? Angel of the Lord would come
and trouble the waters one time per year. And the impotent man
had laid there for 30 years, didn't have anybody to help him,
did he? The Lord passed by, walked past all those people. And that's
the point I was making. We won't see the Lord unless
he rebuilds himself. Walked past, there's a city of thousands of
people right there. It was in the middle of the day.
They're walking through. He walks right up to this one man and
said, wilt thou be made whole? Well, that's you and me. with
no hope of being healed from our sin, no hope of being made
well of our sin on our own. Even if it was something like
jumping in a pool, it would have never happened. He said, wilt thou
be made whole? And he said exactly what every
believer is made to confess. Sir, I have no man. I'm helpless. I have no man. I don't have the
strength in myself and I have nobody that can help me. That's
us by nature, isn't it? That's exactly right, it's us
by nature. And the Lord, he said, I have no man when the water
is troubled, but somebody else steps right in front of me before
I can get in it. And the Lord told him to take up his bed and
walk. The Lord said, rise, rise. And he did. It wasn't a request. It wasn't a, didn't even answer
the Lord. When the Lord said, wilt thou
be made whole, he didn't make him draw out some, no, it wasn't
an offer. He was saying, get up. And he
did. And that's what he does, isn't
it? He comes to where we are. He says, rise. And that man received
strength. And that's the power of the Lord's
word, isn't it? That's you and me. At the pool of Bethesda,
we have a heart problem. We're impotent. We can't, we
have no hope of getting into the pool to be made whole. The
Lord Jesus Christ got to come to where we are and heal us.
And so as we look at this, we could look at the physical, But
a lot of times we want to, well, not a lot of times, every time
we want to see the spiritual side of it. We want to see what
is the Lord saying here? What is the Lord revealing to us? Something to mention as we're
talking about this strange woman and then this entire passage
is if we think, what the Lord did to that impotent man, he
said, wilt thou be made whole and he drew out the, Acknowledgement, I have no man.
He's saying I am powerless. I am unable. I am, I can't do
anything myself. And that's what he makes us say.
That's what he makes us confess. And if you are going to the strange
woman for justification, going to the law, then you're not saying
I have no man. You have confidence. We have
confidence in ourself then. Do you see that? That's the problem
that men think, is that they can see their sin and their problem,
and then they think there's something they can do to fix it. And did
you know the Lord calls that evil? The Lord calls that evil.
Listen to Jeremiah 2.13. For my people have committed
two evils. They've forsaken me, the fountain of living waters,
and have hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns that can hold
no water. Broken cisterns that can hold
no water. Did two things wrong, didn't they? They forsook the
fountain of living water, then they hewed their own cisterns
out. Now a cistern is something that we're dealing with in this
passage, but just in case, I'm sure everybody here is familiar
with a cistern. It's just a vessel that catches rainwater, pretty
much, and it stores the water for a later date, whenever you
need it. A lot of people use it to water their animals, water
their cattle and things. But what he's telling us here,
that if we put our hands to the finished work of Christ, then
we're hewing out broken cisterns. That's what we're doing. That's
what he's telling us. Can't hold any water in a broken cistern,
can you? But if the Lord gives us a new heart, we will come
begging to him. We will come begging him for
that water, for that living water, as we've been hearing about already.
We come to Christ begging for his water and his life. God's
gift is what I've titled this message, and I forgot to tell
you that before now. God's gift. God's gift. The gift of God,
actually, is what I've titled it. We call it God's gift, whichever.
The reason I've titled it that is because I know that men have
the, they don't have it right whenever they talk about the
gift of God. And I hope the Lord enables me to declare what the
gift of God actually is tonight. What does the Lord say? The wages
of sin is death, but the gift of God is what? Eternal life
through Jesus Christ our Lord. That's the gift. That's the gift. It wasn't just baby Jesus meek
and mild in a manger that tried to save people if he'd let him.
That's not a gift at all. That didn't accomplish anything.
No, God's gift is eternal life. by Jesus Christ, that's his gift.
That's his gift. We cannot produce the water of
life, only he can. We can't drink from the fountain
unless he enables us to. Do you know, we are born dead. We are born thirsty and don't
even know we're thirsty. I mean, a dead man is not thirsty,
I suppose, but you understand what I'm saying? We have a need
that we don't even know we have until the Lord says live. And then
we thirst. Blessed are those that hunger
and thirst after righteousness. They shall be filled. And the
Lord causes us to thirst after him and fills us with Christ. Fills us with Christ. Unless
he changes us first, we can't drink from the fountain. He's
gotta change the inward parts. We're born with broken cisterns.
And everything we do to try to fix it, it just breaks it worse.
Ain't that true? I'm gonna try to fix my cistern
that can't hold any water. To make it hold water, it can't
do it. It don't work. It does not work. Here's the
good news. God committed his love toward
us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. That's the good news. That's
the good news. A cistern can only collect water. It doesn't
produce it, does it? Everything in this passage the
cistern, the fountains, the rivers, every single one of them, they
don't produce water. Think about that. A well doesn't
produce water. A well is a conduit that enables
you to get the water out from where it's located. It's an apparatus.
That's what it does. A cistern is just a device that's
used to collect water, but it cannot produce water. You and
I, not only are we unable to produce water, we can't even
hold the water by birth because we're broken cisterns. We're
broken cisterns. And we're wells without water,
the scripture says, by nature, that's what we are. But the Lord's chosen people
are made to take the water. They're given the ability to
taste and see that the Lord is good. They're given the ability
to drink from the fountain. They're given the ability to
look to Christ, to look to Christ. We used to fool ourself in thinking
we were producing water, that we were producing living water.
We weren't. Everything we were doing was just dead works. You
remember living the lifestyle we had in false religion. It
was doing works and doing, doing and doing and doing. It never
did, nothing was ever accomplished. It was always more to do and
there was no rest. There's no rest in that gospel
whatsoever. We thought we were producing living water. We really
did. We thought we were doing what we were supposed to. No,
we were actually Breaking the cistern more, that's all we were
doing. That's all we were doing, that wasn't, only the Lord can
fix us, and he does, and we no longer fool ourself. We know
that all we produce is sin, we know that our cistern doesn't
produce water, we know that our well is dry without him. We can't produce anything that
can save us, but the Lord Jesus Christ did. The Lord Jesus Christ
did. Listen to Psalm 36 again, we
heard this earlier. For with thee is the fountain
of life. I love that. For with thee is
the fountain of life. Not with me, and not with you.
With God, there's the fountain of life. It tells us the location. It tells us the object. That
tells us there's only one. And where it's at, it's with
him. He is the fountain of life. And he says this, in thy light,
we shall see light. I love that too. The only way
we're going to see the light is in his light. If he doesn't
give us the light, we'll never see the light. And one of the
writers said, oh, taste and see that the Lord is good. Even, even the woman at the well,
knowing that salvation's of the Lord, knowing that, uh, She knew
of the Messiah. She knew of many things, but
she couldn't see him. She was a broken cistern. She
has a well that didn't have any water. She was living her religious
life, had everything figured out to the best of her ability,
she thought, that she was okay. But we see what, let's turn over
there to John chapter four. She didn't know that she was
talking to God. That's the point I'm making.
And that man, that man, the impotent man at Bethesda, he didn't know
he was talking to God either until the Lord revealed himself. Now the Lord here has said he
must needs go to Samaria and he comes to the city where the
well of Jacob is and he sees this Samaritan woman and he goes
up to her and says, give me drink. Now look right here at verse
nine, the Samaritan then say at the woman of Samaria unto
him, how is it thou being a Jew ask me a drink, which am a woman
of Samaria for the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans.
Jesus answered and said, and this is, this is where, the text
came from, the title came from. Jesus answered and said unto
her, if thou knewest the gift of God and who it is that saith
unto thee, give me to drink, thou wouldst have asked him and
he would have given thee living water. The woman saith unto him,
Sir, thou hast nothing to draw with, and the well is deep. From
whence then hast thou that living water? Art thou greater than
our father Jacob, which gave us this well, and drank thereof
himself and his children and his cattle? Jesus answered and
said unto her, Whosoever drinketh this water shall thirst again,
but whosoever drinketh the water that I shall give shall never
thirst, but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well
of water springing up unto everlasting life. She says then, sir, give
me this water. Sir, give me this water, that
I thirst not, neither come hither to draw. Men ignorantly declare
that the gift of God is that Jesus Christ died for everybody. He ignorantly declared that,
and that's not true. That's not scriptural. That's
not fact. Somebody has come up with the
lie, and that's the strange woman. That's who that is. If there's
people in hell that God loves, what does his love have to do
with salvation? There's people in hell that God shed his blood
for, Jesus Christ shed his blood for, what does his blood have
to do with salvation? Do you see what I'm saying? It's just
not accurate. Men say, all you have to do is
accept the gift. And I said it this way to my
wife in the car, and I'll try to say it to you all a little
better, but you remember being in elementary school, passing
notes around, and if you wanted to be boyfriend and girlfriend,
you'd say, will you be my girlfriend? Or boys say, will you be my boyfriend?
Circle yes or no. They're acting like that's how God is dealing
with a man with salvation. That's so foolish. He's God. He's God. And that's what we're
being warned of here, is don't think of him too, you can't think
of him too high, but definitely don't think of him lower than
like that. That's not God. John 3.16 is one of the most
misconstrued verses in all of scripture. They don't, that whole
chapter he's talking to Nicodemus about. Not just for the Jews,
Nicodemus is for the Gentiles also. That's what that's all,
that one word, world, for God so loved the world, he's saying
it's not just for the Jew. Not just for the Jew. God so
loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever
believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life. Well,
who's the whosoevers? The ones that are thirsty? the
ones that need the fountain of living water, the ones that are
impotent beside the pool of Bethesda, the one that don't even know
that they need them. Everybody needs them, but whosoever is
the one that calls out, they're the ones that God makes a need
that only he can fill, only he can fill. Gift of God is that
he purchased eternal life by his own blood on the cross of
Calvary for his people. That's the gift of God. He's
given his people that gift. Not as a accept or reject gift. No, we were dead, and when we're
brought to life, he gives us faith to believe him. He enables
us to enjoy, the word's receive, but receive is, it's passive. We receive it. This gift of God
is eternal life, found in Christ alone. The gift of God is repentance
and faith, isn't it? The gift of God is being shown
that you're a sinner, and you need a Savior, and the gift of
God is you looking to that Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, as all
your righteousness and acceptance before God. This is what the
Lord's telling her. If thou knewest the gift of God,
and if you knew who was talking to you, if you knew who was speaking
to you, if you knew who I am, and the gift of God. No man come to the Father, but
by the Lord's choice, by the Lord Jesus Christ's choice, it's
his power. She's talking to God and cannot see him. Does that
frighten you? That frightens me. That frightens me because
if I don't It doesn't frighten me that he has all the power.
It frightens me that I know in myself, if he does, I would not
see him, I would not believe him. That myself frightens me. Does your self frighten you?
Your sin frighten you? Yes. How do you know you're a
believer? I'll tell you what I believe. The Lord saved his people from
their sin. I can tell you that. Well, how do you know that you're
one of his? Well, every time I examine myself,
I can't find anything within me that says I know for a fact
that I'm one of God's can't do that. Why? I see too much of
my sin, but as soon as I look to the lamb, I can rest in his
finished work. As soon as I'm made to see his
face, I can rest in him. When I have the drink of the
fountain of living water, that's whenever I'm believing right
then. And that's by the grace of God,
isn't it? She's talking to God and can't
see him. Then, you know what he does? He creates a well inside
of her just like he said he would. He creates a cistern inside of
her that can hold living water. Matter of fact, David put it
this way, my cup runneth over. That's the cistern, the cup runneth
over now. What is the cup running over
with? Grace and mercy and grace and mercy. Believing God that
we would have never believed God unless he enabled and made
us to do so. Notice that he says the word
everlasting, the very last, or verse 14, but whosoever drinketh
this water that I shall give him shall never thirst, but the
water I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing
up into everlasting life. I love the word everlasting.
And every time we come across it, I'd say, I'll probably say
something about it because I love it so much. It literally translates,
never having a beginning and never having an end. Can you
explain that to me, how eternal life never had a beginning and
never had an end? I can't explain that to you, but I know our timeless
eternal God, that's, he's always seen his people in Christ. What rest there is in that? There
was never a time that they were outside of Him, never a time
whenever they were lost. Now we were in our state as in
the flesh, we were dead in trespasses and in sins, and the Lord had
to wake us up, so to speak, call us out of darkness into His light.
But as far as God's concerned, He never, He didn't ever lose
one sheep, not even for a second, never. They've always been seen
in Christ. I love that. We were unable to get to God
or even approach Him. Didn't even know, where would
you go? How would you approach God? Where is He at? He could
be talking to you right in front of you like these two, and we
didn't even know Him. We didn't even know Him. And
yet He came right to where we were, right to where we were,
and He said, wilt thou be made whole? Wilt thou be made whole? And we confessed, Lord, I don't
have anybody. I can't get in the pool. Everybody steps in
front of me. I'm not strong enough. I can't do this. I'm a sinner. I'm a sinner. He says, take up
your bed and walk. Receive your strength. And I
love that word, immediately. And immediately, he received
strength. Immediately. Couldn't approach God, so he
sent forth his son, and by his own blood, he purged our sin.
Sin of God's elected people have been put away. They're gone.
They're gone. Revelation 21.6 tells us, I am
Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give unto
him that is a thirst of the fountain of the water of life freely. Freely? Freely. It's already
been paid for. You might go to some store and
somebody buys something and it gets rung up twice and you buy
something twice. Not with this, not with this transaction, it
was one and done. Can't add one thing to it or take away one
thing from it. The price has been paid, the blood has been
shed. Whosoever will, let him come, take of the water of life
freely. Freely. Come by without money, without
price. Come by. Revelation 22, 17 says,
and the spirit and the bride say come, and let him that heareth
say come, and let him that is a thirst come, and whosoever
will, let him take the water of life freely. Question, I have
a question for us. Are you thirsty? Are you thirsty? Do you hunger and thirst after
righteousness? The Lord said, blessed are you, for you shall
be filled. But only thirsty people drink. You ever heard that expression,
you can't take a horse to water? You can't. Make a horse, you
can take a horse to water, but you can't make him drink. I couldn't
get that one out. You know what it is, you know the saying. Well,
that's true, isn't it? Well, if you give them a salt
lick, then they're gonna end up getting thirsty enough to
drink. You kind of help them along, coax them a little bit
there, you know? What does the Lord do? The Lord makes us see
that we're in a desert and that we're thirsty. But nothing can
satisfy the longing soul like the precious Lord Jesus Christ
and his blood. Nothing can satisfy the longing
soul, the sinful soul, like seeing that it is finished. It is finished. Sin's been put away. Sin's been
put away. We didn't become thirsty until
Christ had already made us alive and filled us. Isn't that true?
We didn't become thirsty until the Lord brought us to life,
already had filled us with living water, and then we became thirsty.
Explain that. That's how it worked over there.
I wasn't thirsty until Lord called us out of darkness into his light.
Has to be that way because dead men, dead men can't drink. They don't get thirsty, they're
dead. Well, they go on talking in this
chapter, the woman, she says, give me this water, verse 15.
And then the Lord doesn't even respond to that. And I love how
he just, Some people think maybe he was being rude. I don't think
so. I think he was on business. He had a point to make. He didn't
have time to, he was doing business of God. He said, go get your
husband. She said, give me this water to drink. He doesn't even
acknowledge anything. He says, go get your husband.
And she said, sir, I have no husband. He said, rightly spoken.
He said, you've had six, or you had five, and the one you have
now ain't your husband. She said, oh, sir, I perceive
that you're a prophet. So she immediately starts getting
religious. Isn't that how it goes whenever you go around?
They ever find out anything, you go to church and somebody,
they'll pull out their religious card right then and say, oh yeah,
well, I'm a member at the first church of this and that over
here on the, on whatever. And I've had somebody show me
their card, their actual, they have a membership card. Not making
fun of anybody. I'm just telling you that that's
sad, because that's the righteousness. That's what she was doing. See,
she hadn't been made thirsty yet. She wanted that physical
water where she didn't have to drink anymore. But she didn't understand
she was talking to God. And he was getting right to the
heart of the matter. Well, I'm going to expose your righteousness.
I'm going to expose your religion. I'm going to expose what the
real problem is here. And it was that we worship in this mountain.
But you say we should worship in Jerusalem. Let's read this
together. Verse 20. Our fathers worshiped
in this mountain, and ye say that in Jerusalem is the place
where men ought to worship. Jesus said unto her, Woman, believe
me, the hour cometh 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. But the hour cometh, and now
is, when true worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit
and in truth, For the Father seeketh such to worship him.
God is a spirit, and they that worship him must worship him
in spirit and in truth. She says, I know that Messiah's
cometh, which is called Christ. When he has come, he'll tell
us all things. She's talking to him. I know Messiah's coming,
and when he comes, he'll tell us all things. I love our Lord's
response right here. Jesus saith unto her, I that
speak unto thee, and, do you see that word he's in italics?
He said, I am. That's what he said. I am. I
am that I am, just like he told Moses. Well, what happened after
that? Well, upon this came his disciples
and marveled that he talked to this woman, because she was a
Samaritan. Yet no man said, why seekest thou? What seekest thou,
or why talkest with her? The woman then left her waterpot
and went her way into the city and said to the men, come see
a man which told me all things, whichever I did. Is this not
the Christ? Then they went out of the city the same, then came
unto him. The Lord said, I am. He saved
that woman. She believed on him. And she
said, I've got no use for this water pot anymore. I've got no
use for, this is not my need now. Now I need living water.
And of course she needed water later on as a human being, you
understand what I'm saying? But her priorities changed. And
that's exactly what the Lord does whenever he, somebody said,
why do you go to church all the time? My priorities were changed.
Why do you, we used to drive. It was, at best, it was an hour
on every time we would drive, but it would always be on a major
interstate. It was always bumper to bumper.
It was always, we had to get there. We have to go through like five
o'clock traffic just to get there. And we would always end up tailgating
out of the back of the car with soups and things before service
because we couldn't eat at home and then head down that far.
And somebody said, why do you do that? Why do you do that?
Lord changed my priorities. Not for any glory of man. We
had to be there to hear the truth. I had to hear about this Savior
one more time. I had to hear about the fountain
of living water. I had to hear about the Lord
that saved His people from their sin. She left the water pot behind.
She didn't say, come see Baby Jesus meek and mild, did she?
She didn't. She said, come see the alpha
and the omega, the beginning and the end. Is this not Christ? Is this not God? This is God's
salvation. This is him. How else could she
believe that unless God gave her faith? You and I, brethren, we do the
same thing that she did. We beckon them,
we bid them to come. We tell our family, we tell our
friends, come see a man. Told me all things ever I did
is it's not Christ. Hey, why don't you come to service? People
will say, yeah, well, you know, I should. And you're thinking,
yeah, you know, you really, really, really should. It's life and
death. All we can do is just praise
the Lord, give him a desire. That's all you can do. Lord,
bring him. Now go back to Proverbs chapter
five and closing. Now I wanna parallel this with
what we've heard tonight thus far, and hopefully the Lord will
allow us to tie it together. Verse 15, drink waters out of
thine own cistern, and running waters out of thine own well.
Let thy fountains be dispersed. Let thy fountains be dispersed
abroad and rivers of waters in the street. Let them be only
thine own. Let them be only thine own and
not strangers with thee. Let thy fountain be blessed and
rejoice with the wife of thy youth. You know what we're doing
right now? We're dispersing that water. That's what we're doing.
That's what preaching the gospel is. That's what we're doing.
And you can't have, when the Lord's people meet together and
they worship, In spirit and in truth, as the Lord was talking
about over there, you're dispersing the water. That's what he's doing. I said us. You understand it's
him. It's all him. It's all him. Just as the Samaritan woman did,
she said, come see a man. Is that not what we're doing
right now? Come see a man. Come see a man. The one that
really put away the sin of his people. Drink from this cistern. Drink from this fountain. Drink
from this, draw from this well. You'll be satisfied. You'll be
satisfied. The spirit and the bride say
come. Whosoever will, let him come. Take of the water of life
freely. This is the gift of God. This is the gift of God. Come
to Christ. He's the fountain of living water.
He is his salvation, his eternal life, that's his gift, all by
the finished work of Christ alone on the cross of Calvary. There's
a song called There is a Fountain, and we're gonna sing that in
just a second, but I wanna read you the words. There is a fountain filled
with blood drawn from Emmanuel's veins, and sinners plunged beneath
that flood lose all their guilty stains. The dying thief rejoiced
to see that fountain in his day, And there may I, though vile
as he, wash all my sins away. Dear dying lamb, thy precious
blood shall never lose its power till all the random ones of God
be saved to sin no more. E'er since by faith I saw this
stream, thy flowing wound supply, redeeming love has been my theme
and shall be till I die. Let's sing that. Number 222,
let's stand together.