As Brother Jay was reading this
scripture, I think every one of us will agree on one thing,
the thing that stands out in this whole scripture. And that
is that our Lord Jesus Christ's main objective in coming to this
well, sitting down there, sending his disciples to town, all of
this, was to bring a Samaritan woman to a knowledge of himself.
I'm just confident of that. And among the things that convinced
me of that is this. In verse 8 of John 4, it says
his disciples had gone into the city to buy meat. The Lord was
hungry and weary and tired. Now after he talked with this
woman, down here In verse 31, his disciples said unto him,
Master, eat. And he said to them, I have meat
to eat that you know not of. My soul is filled. My heart is
filled. My mission's accomplished. I
have meat to eat that you know not of. I'm rejoicing. He brought
one of his sheep home. And I'm sure of that. And this
I'm confident of without beyond a shadow of a doubt. Our Lord
will seek and find his sheep. He said, The Son of Man is come
to seek and to save that which was lost. The angel said to Joseph,
Thou shalt call his name Jesus, he shall save his people from
their sin. In John the 10th chapter, turn
over there while you just hold chapter 4 with your hand there,
but in John chapter 10, our Lord says this in verse 16. Other
sheep I have. which are not of this fold, speaking
of the disciples of that generation, of that particular group. Them
also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice, and they shall
be one fold and one shepherd. And then in verse 24, the Jews
came round about him, and they said, How long are you going
to keep us in doubt, or hold us in suspense? If you be the
Christ, the Messiah, tell us plainly. And he said, I told
you. I told you. I told you, and you didn't believe
me. The works that I do in my Father's name, they tell you,
they bear witness of me, but you believe not because you're
not of my sheep. As I said unto you, my sheep
hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me, and I give
them eternal life." This Samaritan woman was one of his sheep, and
our Lord came here to call one of his Over here in the book
of Acts, chapter 18, I want you to look at this passage. In the
18th chapter of the book of Acts, the Apostle Paul was down here
in Corinth, and he was running into all kinds of problems. Opposition,
rebellion, persecution, imprisonment. He was having a hard time. And
I think, like Brother Joe said last night, he was about ready
to leave town, just about ready. to pack up his tent and leave
town. And here in verse 9 it says of
Acts 18, Then spake the Lord to Paul in the night by a vision,
Be not afraid, but speak, and hold not thy peace. I am with
you, no man is going to set on thee to hurt thee, for I have
much people in this city. Our Lord said, I've got some
sheep here. I've sent you down here, just
like our Lord came to the whale, came to Samaria. Paul came down
here to Corinth, and he was about ready to leave, about ready to
run him off. And the Lord told him, stay there. I have much
people in this city that have got to hear the gospel. They've
got to hear the message, and they're going to hear it. And
they're going to believe, and they're going to be one fold,
I'm going to call them. So verse 11 says, he continued there,
For 18 months, teaching the Word of God, and nobody touched him,
nobody harmed him. The Lord kept him because he
was God's instrument of grace. He was God's means of salvation.
He brought the gospel, the Lord's peace. Turn to 2 Timothy, here's
Paul speaking again. What I'm establishing is this.
What I'm setting forth before you is the Lord's object was
to bring this Samaritan woman to knowledge of Himself. He came
down here for that purpose. He came to Samaria for that purpose.
He came to the well for that purpose. He will go to the Ur
of the Chaldees for Abraham. Yes, He will. He'll go to Jesse's
home to anoint David. He'll send somebody there. He'll
go to Jericho for Zacchaeus, and He'll get him too. He went
to the land of the Gadarenes, and they told him to leave, and
he left, but he didn't leave until he got one of his sheep,
the man in the tombs. He went down there to get him,
and he wouldn't leave without him. He went to Bethany for Mary,
Martha, and Lazarus. And he went to Damascus and met
Saul of Tarsus. And he went to the desert and
found the eunuch, but he'll find his sheep. He's got one in Ashland,
he'll keep his preacher there till he calls him. or two or
three or six or eight. When he calls him, he'll let
his preacher lead. But now he'll send him for his sheep. I'm just
certain of that. And Paul says that in 2 Timothy
2. He says in verse 9, you see it?
2 Timothy 2.9, I suffer trouble. And brethren, it's not going
to be an easy task. I wrote a man this week and I
told him, I said, if you preach the gospel of grace, you're going
to find more enemies than you do friends. Now that's so. Our Lord found more enemies than
friends. I tell you this, the enemies you find will be real
enemies, and the friends you find will be real friends. That's
right. There won't be any gray matter,
any cloudiness here. It'll be fire against you. That's
what Christ said. He that is not firm is against
me. There's no neutral ground on this battlefield, because
it is a battle. And Paul said, I suffer trouble
as an evildoer. Even unto bonds, they'd even
put fetters on my wrists and my ankles. They'd even put me
in prison. But they can't bind the Word
of God. The Word of God's never put in prison. It's never locked
up. It can't be contained. Burn it and God'll raise up to
more. That's right. Therefore, I endure all these
things. I endure these things. I suffer
these things. I put up with these things for
the elect's sake. That's why. That they may also
obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus with eternal
glory. That Paul said is why I'm here.
And I'll go to prison, and I'll suffer bonds and fetters, and
I'll suffer mocking and ridicule. I'll do that for the elect's
sake. For the elect's sake. Now that's
as clear all the way through the Scripture. All the way. You want to turn to John 6? That's
what our Lord says in John the 6th chapter. Let every word be
established by the Word of God. Let every witness be established
by the Word of God. If they speak not according to
the Word of God, there's no light in them. And I'm speaking from
the Word tonight. Our Lord said in John 6, 37,
All that my Father giveth me shall come to me. There comes
unto me, and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast
out, for I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but
the will of him that sent me." This will has been purposed and
planned from all eternity. Known unto God are all his works
from the beginning of the world. It's been established, it's been
purposed in the mind and will of God, it's been set, and Christ
came here to do it. And he said, verse 39, this is
it, this is the will. This is my Father's will, which
I came to accomplish. This is the Father's will, which
is sent me, that of all which He had given me, all which He
had given me, when did the Father give these people to the Son?
Why, He gave them to Him before the foundation of the world.
And Christ said, of all these that the Father has given me,
I'll lose nothing, nothing, not a one of them. And Israel leaving
Egypt is a picture of this. Israel was not all saved, but
they were all saved from Egypt. Moses wouldn't leave a hair nor
a hoof behind. Not a child, not a sheep, not
a dog. He wouldn't leave anything that
belonged to Israel in Egypt. Every one of them were delivered.
Every one. That's what Christ said. I'll
lose nothing, but I'll raise it up again in the last day.
Now look at John 4. Come back to our text. That's
what it says in John 4, verse 4. It says he must, he must,
needs go through Samaria. He must. He must go through Samaria
because there is one of his sheep. There's one of his own. He came
to redeem her. He came to call her unto himself. And it says here in verse, down
here in verse 6, now Jacob's whale was there. Let's get this
picture in our minds a little bit. Our Lord came, going through
Samaria, and on purpose, deliberately, he came to a certain place. It's
a parcel of land, it says here, that Jacob gave to his son Joseph,
and Jacob's well was there, and it says in verse 6, the Lord
Jesus being wearied, wearied with his journey. And you know,
I nearly stopped there, and I will for just a moment, because there's
something here that's special. It says, our Lord was weary.
It was noon. It was the sixth hour. High noon,
hot noon. Nobody was there. There weren't
a soul at this well. This was a place where people
came to draw water. This was a gathering place. This
was a social center. This was Jacob's well. This was
an old well. Been there a long time. This
was a special place, but there was no one there. And our Lord
was tired and weary, sent his disciples on into the city to
buy meat, but he sat on the well, being wearied with his journey.
That tells me several things. Number one, our Lord had greater
mental strain than did his disciples. He sent them on. He sat there,
tired and weary. He had a weariness they knew
not of. And then He was in all points
tempted like his brethren. He did not spare himself nor
exempt himself from fatigue. Can you imagine God getting tired? But our Lord was a man. And he
sat down on that well weary and tired. He was in all points tempted
as we are. He would not exempt himself even
from fatigue. He would not work a miracle for
his own refreshment. He did for others He worked many
miracles for their refreshments, but as far as I can understand,
as far as I can find in the scripture, not one time did he work a miracle
for his comfort. Do you know of one? I don't know
of one. Not a one. Not a one. And he would not refuse
to bear the heat, and the toil, and the thirst, and the exhaustion,
and the fatigue, and he sat down on this way. But I believe there
are other areas in which he was wearied too. I believe he was
wearied with men's sins. Tired and wearied. I believe
he was wearied with the unbelief of people about him. I believe
he was wearied with their formal worship. He was wearied with
their traditions. He was wearied with their disputing
and rebellion. Isaiah said in chapter 7 verse
13, O house of David, Is it a small thing for you to weary men? But
will you weary God also?" Our Lord Jesus Christ sat down on
this whale, weary, weary of His journey, weary with His journey.
And He sent His disciples on into town. He sat there. And
it says in verse 7, There cometh a woman of Samaria to draw water. This is exciting to me. I've
read this so many, many times. I've preached from it so many,
many times. But it never ceases to be exciting. Our Lord's waiting
for her. He's waiting for her. And she
comes to the well. Now, I know why she came at 12
noon. This woman was notorious. This woman was... She was the
person they whispered about in town. You see, this wasn't 1980. This was way back yonder. And
she'd had five husbands, and she was living with a man that
was not her husband. And she was the topic of conversation
in the village, in Samaria, in the town. They knew her, they
knew about her, and they talked about her. She was a loose woman,
a sinful woman, like the harlot that washed his feet, like Zacchaeus
who climbed the tree, like the thief on the cross. She was a
bona fide, well-known, self-confessed, unadulterated sinner. That's
what she was. And she came to the well at that
time hoping she wouldn't find anybody, because she didn't want
to talk to anybody and she didn't want them to talk about her.
You see, the women didn't come to draw water at noon, they came
in the morning to draw water. They came first when it was cool,
and secondly they came to get their water for the day, for
their washing, for their cooking. for their children, for their
drinking purposes. They didn't come at noon when
the sun was at its peak. They came in the morning when
it was cool and got the water for the day. But she came at
noon. God brought her that noon, too. God brought her that noon. And then at the end here, I'm
going to skip over to the end because we're going to talk about
what happened in between. But over here in verse 29, this
woman went downtown. She left her water pot, verse
28, She was so excited she left her water pot, verse 28, and
went into the city and said to the men, come, come, see a man
which told me all things that ever I did. Is not this the Christ? Is not this the Christ? I found
the Christ. Now something happened in between.
Here was a woman. Here was a woman that came to
a well at noon to draw water to take to her house. And she
left there so excited that she left one of her most precious
treasures, the water pot. She left it there and ran down
into the city. Now here are five things. I call
it our Lord's method of grace. What happened that day? Something
happened. And I believe, though as I said
this morning, the Lord Jesus Christ does not, everyone doesn't
have the same experience. Everybody does not have the same
degree of conviction or the same degree of mourning over sin or
the same degree of knowledge. I believe that Saul of Tarsus
had more knowledge of God and the Word than the thief on the
cross. I'm sure of it. I'm sure that
Saul of Tarsus had more knowledge of the things of God than about
any person the Lord met. His experience, his degree of
conviction or his knowledge and so forth was different even from
this woman. But there are five things I believe that happens
in the life of every person whom God saves. God's method of grace. Now here's the first one. The
first thing here, the Lord crossed this woman's path. That's got
to happen. He crossed her path. It says
he must need to go through some area. He came to the well, and
sat thus on the well, and sent his disciples away, and she came. Now our Lord came there to do
his Father's will. He came there to find one of
his own. He came there to save one of
his sheep. He came there to reveal himself
to someone. He came there for that purpose.
What'd she come for? Well, she didn't come to hear
a sermon. She didn't come to talk spiritual things. She came
to draw water. She was busy about her own business. She came to do her chores. She
came to do what she had to do and what she did every day. But
I tell you this, even as our Lord Jesus Christ came to this
well to do his Father's will, she came to do her Father's will
too. That's right. She came to meet Christ. She
didn't know that. The Lord of glory met the sinner at the well
and crossed her path. And this is what I'm saying,
and I said this to our Sunday school class this morning. Every
person whom God redeems, every person whom God saves, I don't
say every person who gets religion, and every person who makes a
decision or joins a church, but I'm saying every person whom
God, to whom God reveals himself, and whom the Lord God is pleased
to save, he's going to cross that person's path in his true
character, in his true attributes. I believe that in his true power,
in his true person. Those whom he wills to save,
those to whom he wills to reveal himself, those whom he wills
to call to himself, those whom he wills to save by his grace,
he's going to cross their path. You've got to do it. Because
Romans 1.16 says, I'm not ashamed of the gospel, it's the power
of God unto salvation to everyone that believe it. Turn to 1 Thessalonians. 1 Thessalonians chapter 1. I
hear Paul writing to the Thessalonians, and he says this in chapter 1
verse 4. Brethren, I know your election
of God. Knowing, brethren beloved, your election of God. For our
gospel came to you. What is the gospel? It's concerning
his son. It's the gospel of his redeeming
grace. It's the gospel of substitution.
It's the gospel of justification and sanctification. It's not
another gospel, some gospel, a gospel. It's the gospel. Paul
said the only gospel. And it came to you not in word
only. It came in word, but not in word
only. It came in power. And so here's
a woman down in Samaria. She's living in sin, open rebellion. She doesn't care. She's not interested
in anything but what she's doing in herself. She comes. She comes
indifferently. She comes carelessly. She comes,
as she does any other day, to a well. But the Lord of glory,
who purposes and plans all things, sent his son to that well to
meet that sinner, and he crossed her path. He cost her pay. All right, what's the second
thing? Something else. In John chapter 4. Our Lord,
secondly, when he cost her pay, he created an interest. Listen
to verse 7. Then cometh a woman of Samaria
to draw water, and Jesus saith unto her, Give me a drink. Give me a drink. And the woman
said to him, verse 9, How is it that you, being a Jew, ask
drink of me which am a woman of Samaria." The Jews, don't
you know the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans? And Jesus
said unto her, now watch this, if you knew, if you knew the
gift of God, if you knew who it is that saith unto you, give
me to drink, you would have asked of me And I would give you living
water." The woman said, You don't have anything to draw with, you
don't have a bucket. And this well is deep. This well is deep. Whence then hast thou this living
water? And he said to her, he said in
verse 13, Whoso drinketh of this water will thirst again. Now
what did the woman come to the well for? She came to the well
for water, natural, material, physical water. She came for
fleshly refreshment. And our Lord Jesus Christ said
this to her. He said, whoever drinketh of
this water, and we do. We eat our food and drink our
water and shake hands with our friends and go about our business
and our entertainment and all these other things. And he said,
you drink of this water, you got to come back and drink again.
Because this water can give you no lasting satisfaction and lasting
peace. I don't care what relationship
you have in this world. I care not what vocation you
pursue. I care not how much fame and
acclaim you secure. I care not how much wealth you
accumulate for yourself. I care not how big a home, how
big a ranch or property you get. I care not how many stocks or
bonds. There's nothing in this life
that can give your soul any peace, any joy, any rest of any continuing
length of time. That's exactly right. We're dying
men. And everything about us is dying
and everything about us is fading. The flesh is like the grass of
the field that withers and fadeth away. The glory of man is like
the flower of the field that's here today and gone tomorrow.
Our lives are vapors and shadows and there's no substance to them. Christ said, drink of this water
and keep drinking, keep drinking, keep drinking until you die and
you'll never be satisfied. But he said, I've got water to
gill. that you drink of it, you'll never thirst again. And not only will you never thirst,
but you'll never die. And not only will you never die,
but you'll never be ashamed. And not only will you never be
ashamed, but you'll never be condemned. For he said, when
you drink of this water, this spiritual water, this living
water, It's going to be in you, an artesian well, a spring that
just keeps flowing and keeps producing and keeps filling you
up from within. You see, you don't get your peace
from without, you get peace from within when Christ dwells in
your heart. Nothing in this world can give you peace with God except
Christ. Nothing in the world can give
you peace of conscience and heart except to know that you have
the righteousness of Christ and the mercy of Christ and the forgiveness
of the Father. Nothing can give you peace with
others unless you have peace with God. And when that peace
is within, that's where it comes from within. It's a heart peace. It's a peace of conscience and
spirit and soul. And Christ said, you'll never
thirst again. Now brethren, she got interested. And she said in verse 15, she
said, Sir, give me this water. Give me this water. Now I know
she didn't understand everything he's talking about because she
said, give me this water that I thirst not and neither come
hither to draw any more. But nevertheless, she had an
interest. He was talking to her about something in which she
was interested. He was talking to her about something she needed.
And she said, I'm interested in this. And this is what our
Lord does. You see, when He sets His affections
on a sinner, when He purposed us to redeem a sinner, He's got
to cross that sinner's path. Now, there's got to be a confrontation
between the Lord and the sinner. You say, how does our Lord cross
men's path today? In the gospel, in the preaching
of the gospel, in the Word of God. And this is the reason that
we must give our services Not just to entertainment and singing
and promotion and production and programs and entertainment.
We've got to preach Christ. And you see, there may be someone
here tonight. It may be a Samaritan woman here
tonight or a Samaritan man. You may have come here just out
of, like this woman, she always went to the well. She went every
day to the well. No unusual thing for her to go
to the well. No unusual thing. You go to church. You've been
going to church ever since you was a kid. You started in the
nursery and you're still going. You're still going to the well.
You still don't have any peace. You still don't have any joy.
You still don't have any rest. You still don't have any fellowship
with God. You still don't have any living water, but you're
still going to the well. Still drinking from the tradition,
or drinking from the doctrine, or maybe drinking from the rituals,
or drinking from the ordinances, and they're never satisfied.
You may get to be 40 years of age, so old Tarsus was before
God confronted him and met him in the person of Christ. But
one day, like this woman at the well, maybe tonight, you've come
here. It may be our Lord looking for you. It may be he set his
love upon you. It may be that you're one of
his own. It may be you're one of his sheep, one of his jewels,
one of his elect. Who knows? He knows. But he'll
cross your path, and he'll cross your path with the gospel. I
must continue to preach the gospel. Jay, Joe, Bruce, Bill, Darwin,
whoever speaks here, Charlie, must preach the gospel. Because
what of God's sheep just might come to the well? You say, do they come looking
for it? Usually not. Most of them think
they already got it. Most of them don't come looking
for it. They find it, as far as they're concerned, quite by
accident. But they come, and our Lord, and in that confrontation,
in that meeting, our Lord confronts them, He confronts them and presents
to them, creates an interest. A fellow listens, and he says,
I haven't heard that God preached before, or he says, I haven't
heard that condition of man preached, or he says, I haven't heard that
way of salvation, or I haven't heard this. And I'm interested. I'm tired of trying to win my
way to the skies by what I do. I know it's not working. It's
not working for me. It's not working for those that
suggested it to me. I'm weary and sick of it all.
I'm tired and I'm tired of present day false religion. I want to
know the living God. I want to have joy in my heart,
and peace in my soul, and rest in my spirit. I want to walk
with God like Enoch. I want to know God like Abraham. I want to love God like John.
All right? No, it's the next. Here's the
third thing. In verse 16, our Lord presented to her a problem. And He did this deliberately.
He said, Go, call your husband, and come here. And the woman
answered and said to him, I don't have a husband. I don't have
a husband. And Jesus saith unto her, Thou
hast well said, I have no husband. Ye really had five, and he whom
thou now hast is not thy husband, in that ye said truly. What's
he doing? He's presenting, he's posing a problem. And it's a
problem, this is the reason she had no peace. S-I-N, sin. It takes different forms. It
may be somebody here tonight just had one husband, but you
still don't have peace. It wasn't the Lord Jesus Christ
dealing with her solely on the point that she was living with
a man that was not her husband, or she's been a divorced woman.
He was dealing with her on the point of sin. And this must be
dealt with. We have a problem that keeps
us from God. We have a problem that keeps
us from peace. We have a problem that keeps
us from rest. We have a problem that keeps
us from acceptance. And that's our sins. And our
Lord's got to confront us with them. We've got to face them.
We've got to confess them. We've got to acknowledge them.
And we've got to deal with them. And God's got to deal with them.
Turn, if you will, to the book of Psalms 51. This is what David
is saying in Psalm 51. In Psalm 51, he says in verse
2, wash me throughly for mine iniquity. Cleanse me from my
sin. I acknowledge my transgressions. And my sin is ever before me
against thee, and thee only have I sinned, and done this evil
in thy sight, that thou mightest be justified when thou speakest,
and clear when thou judgest." Every one of God's sheep. Now
listen to that. Every one of them. If he's going
to save them, if he's purposed to redeem them, if he's set out
to call them, if he's set out to save them and convert them,
he's going to meet them. He's going to meet them in the
gospel. He's going to meet them in a revelation of himself. The
Lord Jesus Christ, in all of his glory, character, attributes,
his redemptive beauty, he's going to meet him. And he's going to
create an interest. They're going to be interested.
They're going to be interested. They're going to be... I'm not
talking about just getting to the sweet by and by, you know.
They're going to be interested in that living water, in that
inward life. Not just an outward reformation
and not just an outward profession, but an inward life, a regeneration,
a well of living water springing up, a true heart knowledge of
God. They're going to be interested in that. And then our Lord, every
time, he's going to present them with this problem. You can't,
in yourself and in your sin, have any kind of relationship
with God. That's got to be so. We've got to face that. We're
not fit to have company with God. We're not fit to have fellowship
with God. We're not fit to commune with
God. Something's got to happen to us. There's got to be a regeneration. There's got to be a renewal.
There's got to be a new life. There's got to be a new nature.
We've got to be cleansed. We've got to be sanctified and
justified and redeemed and regenerated. There's got to be a new creature.
Our sins have got to be paid for before God. There's got to
be an atonement and satisfaction and substitution and sin offering.
Sin's got to be put away. But we're going to have to face
the sin problem, which this woman did. This woman did. There can't
be any peace with our past. There can't be any peace with
our present. And there can't be any peace when we know our
future. Sinners. Sinners all of us. All have sinned
and come short of God's glory. All we like sheep have gone astray.
Oh, let's not bring up what we said and what we thought and
what we've done. Lord, don't bring that up. Well,
I've got to bring it up. Got to bring it up. It's got
to be brought up. Because God's got to deal with it. You've got
to deal with it. We've got to confess it, not
to men, but to God. We've got to acknowledge it.
If we confess our sins, He's faithful and just to forgive
us. He that hideth his sins shall not prosper, but whoso confesseth
and forsaketh his sins shall be pardoned." Justified. So our Lord presented her with
a problem. What are you going to do about your sins? I know
you want life, you want God, you want fellowship, you want
peace, you want rest, you want joy. What are you going to do
about your sins? Well, typically, of Adam's children, where did
she go? Read the next few verses. She
said, I perceive you a prophet, verse 19. Our fathers worshipped
in this mountain. That's just like a child of Adam.
You know where she headed when she found out she had a problem?
She headed to her religion. That's exact. She headed. You
know what she started saying? In other words, we preach, and
a fellow gets under conviction and gets troubled about, if what
you say is so, I'm lost. If what you say is so, I'm not
saved. If what you say is so, I don't know God." Well, what
I'm saying is so because I'm getting it out of here. So you
know what he does? I made a profession. You see,
my mother and father were church members. In fact, my dad was
a preacher. He was a preacher. This is what this woman, she
says, said. She says, our fathers worshipped in this manner. I'm
not a heathen. She said to him, I'm not a heathen.
I worship. I worship God. I go to church every Sunday.
And we give our tithes, and we give our offerings, and we teach.
I teach Sunday school. I worship in this mountain. And
I'll tell you this, we're not like you Methodists either. We're
not like you Jews. We're Samaritans. We're not like
you Methodists, or you Catholics, or you Presbyterians, or you
something else. You say that you're supposed to worship kneeling.
We say you worship standing. You say you're supposed to sprinkle.
We say you're immersed. You say you're supposed to pass
the plate. We say you're supposed to have a box. You say you're
supposed to wear hats. We say you don't wear hats. We
say you do this. You say you do that. They do
it every time. Do it every time. They'll go to their religion.
They'll go to their tradition. They'll go to their ritualism. They'll go back and talk about
what their fathers taught them. This is what our fathers taught
us. And you know what our Lord said to her, verse 22? He said,
Woman, you're worshiping, but you don't know what you worship.
Your worship is an ignorant worship. It's like those people in Romans
10. Paul said they have a zeal of God, they have an enthusiasm
of God, but it's not according to knowledge. They're going about
through their ritualism and through their ceremony and through their
traditions and through their doctrines to establish a righteousness
before God, and they have not submitted themselves to the righteousness
of Christ. Ignorant, ignorant worship. Superstitious, ignorant ritualism. You don't know what you're worshiping. You just don't know. And that's
what our Lord will do. That's the fourth thing. He'll
destroy your false refuge. He's got to destroy it. You see,
a man is not just stripped of his carnality, but he's stripped
also of his righteousness. Old George Whitefield has a sermon
on this subject. He calls God's method of grace.
He comes at it from an entirely different point. But he says
this, every man who truly repents will repent of what he's done,
of his sins, he'll repent of what he is, a sinner by nature. And he'll repent of his good
deeds. He'll say they're filthy rags.
He'll call them rubbish, call them dumb. And what you'll do,
here's what you'll do. If you ever, if Christ ever crosses
your path, if he ever confronts you personally, himself, in his
word, in his gospel, if he ever does, I don't know whether he
ever will or not, but if he ever does. And he interests, creates
in you an interest after a real salvation, a real regenerating
new birth experience, an inward grace that never dies. He said,
you drink of this water, you'll never thirst. I guarantee you'll
never thirst. You'll never be condemned. You'll
never be ashamed. You'll never die. You got life
in you. You can't die. You already died
on Calvary. Eternal life. You see, eternal
life is not how long it lasts. Somebody's throwing us a curve.
It's not how long it lasts. Everybody's going to live forever
in hell or heaven. Eternal life is the quality of
it. It's divine life. It's a new nature. It's a joyful
life of peace and rest. It's not this quibbling, debating,
quarreling, fault-finding, back-biting, church-going life that people
know today and call it Christianity. Hogwash! That's not it. It's
life! God's life in your heart. It's
when you walk with Him in the mill, and you walk with Him with
the creek bank fishing, and you walk with Him when you're playing
ball, and you walk with Him when you're in your own house, and
you sleep with Him at night, and you wake with Him in the
morning, and you're on the mountain and in the valley and everywhere
else, but always with Him. Life! That's what He's talking
about. She said, I'm interested in that.
I am too. You will be too if He ever explains
it to you. But he says there's a problem,
you see. It started back there in the garden when man turned
on God. When man saw his will instead
of God's will, his way instead of God's way, the devil's lies
instead of God's truth. And that's where it started,
and it's come on down to this day. And he said something's
got to be done. Something's got to be done. And you say, well,
I've done it. I've taken care of that. I've
gone to the mountain. Or I've gone to the valley, or I've gone
to the pool, or I've gone to the altar, or I've gone to something
else." And he says, you don't know what you've done. You've
just gone through another ritual. You've just added more sins to
your sins. You've added the sin of self-righteousness
to the sin of rebellion. And God's displeased. He said,
God says, I'll spit you out of my mouth. I despise your altars
and your sacrifices. I despise them. You don't know
what you're worshiping. Verse 23, he says, The hour is
coming, and now is, when true worshipers worship the Father
in spirit and truth. For the Father seeketh such to
worship him. God is a spirit, and they that
worship him must worship him in spirit and truth. And Jett
shut her mouth, and she came out of her religious refuge,
and she says, We're in a fix, aren't we? But she says, I'll
tell you, Moses said that when the Messiah comes, when that
prophet, that priest, and that king, when He comes, He's going
to tell us everything we need to know. He's going to meet every
need. And that's when the Lord Jesus
Christ in the fifth place, and He'll do it every time, He presented
the remedy. He said, I'm He. The remedy,
my friends, is not in the mountain. The remedy is not in the pool.
The remedy is not in the feast. The remedy is not in the altar.
The remedy is not in you. The remedy is not in the preacher.
Don't waste your time going to hear that famous evangelist.
He hadn't got the remedy. The remedy is Christ. I am He. I am He. And I'll tell you, that's
when the Messiah comes, when the Christ comes. I can see that
old man Simeon. He'd been going about the temple.
and the service of the temple all those years. And his hair
had grown long and white, and his beard long and white, and
his shoulders too, and his steps slowed. And he's waiting for
the Messiah. He's waiting for the consolation
of Israel. He's waiting for the promise
of redemption. And God told him that he wouldn't die until he'd
seen the Lord's Christ. And one day a little Jewish maiden
and her husband Joseph came in and they had a baby in their
arms to do with him according to the Jewish law. And they walked
up and put that baby in the arms of that old priest. And he looked
down at him. And brother, I tell you, his
heart leaked, and his eyes sparkled, and his mind, the wheels of his
mind spun around, and he lifted his eyes to glory, and he said,
Let me die now. I've seen thy salvation. I've
seen him. I've seen him. There's God's
method of grace. It doesn't matter whether you're
50 or whether you're 14. It doesn't matter whether you're
black or white. It doesn't matter whether you're steeped in religion
or steeped in rebellion. God will cross your path in the
person of his Son by his gospel. And I'll tell you, he'll create
an entry. You'll quit chewing gum and looking at the ceiling
while the preacher's preaching. You'll hear something. You'll
hear something. You'll quit planning your next
meal and your next social engagement, and you'll quit looking at your
watch wondering when the hour is going to be over if you ever
start hearing him speak through his word. You'll quit worrying
about who's there and who's not there and be glad you are there.
And then you'll say, Lord, I want a drink. Oh, I want a drink. And he says, well, we've got
a problem. And he'll show you what it is. You'll see what you've
never seen before. You'll admit what you've never
admitted before. You'll see a cesspool of wiggle tails like you've never
looked at. You'll see a black, dirty cistern
like you've never seen before. You'll see the rottenness of
hell itself because he'll let you look at your heart. You'll
say, oh, woe is me. I'm a man of unclean lips. You'll
say, oh, I abhor myself. I repent in sackcloth and ashes.
And you might even go back to that experience, back to that
decision you made when you was 12 or 14 and say, Lord, won't
that do? He says, that won't do. And you go back and say, well,
my brother was a preacher. Well, that won't help you here.
Yeah, but Lord, Mama took me to the nursery and primaries
and juniors and intermediates, and Lord, remember, I took my
paperboy money and gave you 10% of that. That won't do. Well,
Lord, when the Messiah comes, He'll tell me, I'm He. Now, you
cast yourself upon Him, and you do it privately. And you do it
personally, and you do it willingly, and you do it lovingly, and you
do it forever. And then you tell folks about
it. And then you tell folks about it. Then you follow him in baptism,
like the Ethiopian eunuch. He said, Here's water. What does
hinder me to be baptized? And Philip said, Why, nothing.
If you believe. He said, I believe that Jesus
Christ is the Messiah. And they went down into the water
in a confession of faith. Our Father, we're grateful that
in your mercy you didn't leave us alone. But one day you confronted
us, you crossed our paths with the true gospel. You sent a messenger. We're grateful most of all to
you. We're grateful most of all for your gospel, but we thank
you for that faithful messenger who dared to be despised and
hated, who dared to tell us the truth about ourselves and about
you and about redemption. And you created in our very souls,
in our innermost being and in our hearts, a desire to know
Christ. And you showed us that which
kept us from knowing him, that which separated us and our God.
That which cast us into darkness, outer darkness, blackness, it's
our sins, it's our sins. And Lord, we couldn't reach back
and hang on to anything because there wasn't anything to hang
on to. All of that that we knew in the past was rubbish and filthy
rags. And we just laid ourselves open.
Lord, save me or I'll perish.