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166.
For thou hast drawn.
Boy.
Let's pray our God.
Father were thankful that we.
Are here as a few who have been drawn after the Lord Jesus.
And what a wonderful thing it is, Lord, to be in thy very presence as gathered.
By the Spirit of God.
Here to depend upon thee where we're still running, We're still in the race down here.
And thou hast left us here to represent thee.
And we need strength for this race and our father.
Food for the Spirit? We ask.
By the Spirit, from the word that's written by the Spirit and full liberty for him, we ask in the worthy name our God and Father of thy Son our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
Could we read the 1St 38 verses of John 4 to look at Jesus?
As the one who brought grace and truth.
To such as we.
John 4 the 1St 38 verses.
Some brother will read it for us.
Still on the floor.
When therefore, the Lord knew how the Pharisees had heard that Jesus made and baptized more disciples than John, though Jesus himself baptized not but his disciples, he left Judea and departed again into Galilee.
And he must needs go through Samaria. Then cometh he to a city of Samaria, which is called Sychar, near to the parcel of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. Now Jacob's well was there. Jesus, therefore, being wearied with his journey, sat thus on the well, and it was about the 6th hour. There cometh a woman of Samaria to draw water. Jesus saith unto her, Give me to drink.
For his disciples were gone away unto the city to buy meat, Then set the woman of Samaria unto him. How is it that thou, being a Jew, asketh drink of me, which am a woman of Samaria?
For the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans. Jesus answered and said unto her, If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, give me to drink, thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living Water. The woman sat 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?
The well and drank thereof himself, and his children, and his cattle. Jesus answered and said unto her, Whosoever drinketh of this water, shall thirst again. But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him, shall never thirst. But the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life. The woman sat unto him, Sir, give me this water, that I thirst not.
Neither Come, hit her to draw, Jesus saith unto Herb. Go call thy husband, and come hit her. The woman answered, and said, I have no husband. Jesus said unto her, Thou hast well said, I have no husband, for thou hast had five husbands. And he whom and he whom thou now hast, is not thy husband. In that sets thou truly the woman saith unto him, Sir, I perceive that thou art a prophet.
Our fathers worshiped in this mountain.
And ye say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship.
Jesus saith unto her, Woman, believe me, The hour cometh, when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father, Ye worship ye know not what we know what we worship. For salvation is of the Jews. But the hour cometh, and now is when the true worshippers 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.
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In spirit and in truth, the woman Satath unto him, I know that Messiah is coming.
Which is called Christ. When he has come, he will tell us all things. Jesus saith unto her, I that speak unto thee, am he? And upon this came his disciples in marvel, that he talked with the woman. Yet no man said, What seeketh thou, Or why talketh thou with her?
The woman then left her water pot and went her way into the city and said to the men, come see a man which told me all things that ever I did. Is not this the Christ?
Then they went out of the city, and came unto him. In the meanwhile his disciples prayed him, saying, Master Eve, But he said unto them, I have meat to eat, that ye know not of. Therefore said the disciples, 1 To another, Hath any man brought him aught to eat? Jesus saith unto them, My meat is to to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work. Say not ye.
There are yet four months, and then cometh the harvest. Behold, I say unto you, lift up your eyes and look on the fields, for they are white already to harvest.
And he that rapeth receiveth wages, and gathereth fruit, until life eternal, that both he that soweth and he that reapeth may rejoice together. And herein is that saying true, 1 soweth, and another reapeth.
I sent you to reap that whereon ye bestowed no labor. Other men labored, and ye are entered into their laborers.
They thought it'd be good to take this up.
In simplicity as to the grace and truth that came by Jesus Christ.
In this chapter, going after one soul.
The condition that she was in as a Sinner.
And.
Having the subject brought up by her of worship, the Lord takes it up.
And.
Develops that God wants people to worship him, and this goes on to the day in which we live and the last verse that was.
Read.
Verse 38 I sent you to reap that whereon he bestowed no labor.
The Lord was talking to his own there then, he says, Other men labored, and Europe entered into their laborers.
Tells us of a work that God has coming down to 1995.
In this age of the Day of Grace.
Still seeking others to have for his glory down here.
And to carry on his work with the loveliness of the person. I hope that can shine out to us all when we think of Jesus, where he was and where he was going that.
He must walk that journey.
And it says must.
And evidently that applies more than anything to this one person.
We have the gospel in this chapter in the 14th verse.
And the Lord is seeking us with that gospel.
The 14th verse. Whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him, shall never thirst with the water that I shall give him, shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life. I trust that every boy, girl, man, and woman has drunk well at that water of life.
00:20:07
And now has everlasting life. But the very figure that's used is typical of the subject that is developed on worship here in this chapter that.
The water of life comes down into our hearts, and we weren't even a Samaritan. We weren't even a half Jew. We were Gentiles. I speak to myself and most here, perhaps without God and without hoping this world. But now God has sought us with the gospel. He saved us, and He's put that joy in our hearts. You can preach the gospel from this chapter, Drink and live. God has made the gospel so simple.
You can take the third chapter where.
He appeared to Nicodemus a ruler.
And in the place of blessing as an Israelite.
But he has to be taught like the bitten.
Israelites that were bitten by a serpent to look and live, so the.
Simple gospel in the third chapter is look and live. God makes it so easy to be saved.
I remember a little boy got saved one night and he got home and he talked to his little sister and bigger sister was he said. Why don't you get saved? It's so easy and it is just look and live now in our chapter it's drink and live and to carry on the thought in the.
5th chapter.
It's hear and live.
And in the 6th chapter, it's Eat and Live. That's the simple gospel. In these chapters. Well, we all start with the gospel and the Lord came down to bring grace and truth to us and then to get some worshippers of the Father. That's just a simple introduction to the little section we have read.
We have in the book of Acts.
Chapter 2 in Acts, the Jew is brought in to blessing.
Repentance is offered to Israel.
And then in chapter 8 we have the Samaritans brought in.
And then in chapter 10 we have the Gentiles, and so in John's Gospel, in chapter three you have.
The Jews. Nicodemus, a representative of the Jews.
The Lord says to him, You must be born again. Ye you Jews, you need a new beginning.
You must be born again. And then that verse 14 As Moses lifted up in the serpent in the wilderness, Even so must the Son of Man be lifted up. The Lord was lifted up, He must be lifted up. He had to be in order to form the foundation for the blessing that we've been brought into.
And then in this chapter, it's he must needs go through Samaria.
And that was to meet one single soul. There she was a Samaritan. They were to be brought in. And at the end we didn't read those verses in verse 42. It says in verse 41 many more believe because of his word and said unto the woman. Now we believe not because of thy saying, for we have heard him ourselves, and know that this is indeed the Christ, the Savior of the world. So the same pattern that you first and then the Samaritans, and then in chapter 12.
It says verse 20. There were certain Greeks among them that came up to worship at the feast. The same came therefore to Philip, which was of betseda of Galilee, and desired him saying, Sir, we would see Jesus, and so the Gentiles are brought in, except the corn of wheat fall into the ground and die in abideth alone. But if it die bringeth forth much fruit. Chapter 10. He speaks of the sheepfold and his sheep. In the fold is Jewish sheep, and he says other sheep I have.
Which are not of this Jewish sheepfold. And also I must bring there shall be 1 flock and one shepherd. That's the Gentiles. That's us. We've been brought in. But I was thinking he must go through Samaria, one single soul.
00:25:00
Meant so much to him that he would go through that despised place. The Jews would have avoided it and gone around it. But he was he was called to go there. He must go there. There was a moral need. There was a spiritual need.
We hear so much today being made of numbers and of large conversions and so on, large congregations. Here was a congregation of one.
One woman, poor sinful woman, and she was brought into blessing, and then she became an evangelist.
Come see a man that told me all things that ever I did. Is not this the Christ? And many were one for him through the testimony of that woman.
But one single soul.
He went, he had to go. He must need to go through Samaria in order to meet that single soul, bring her into blessing.
It shows the value that God has for an individual, doesn't it? And we should be sensitive in our desire to reach souls to individuals.
The blessing that resulted from this one soul that was met, like you mentioned, was.
Spread through the city of Samaria, and I've carried it further to what was mentioned in the book of the Acts.
Acts Chapter 8 Philip goes down to Samaria and preaches the gospel, and there's great blessing.
But he was, as it says in verse 38, the other men.
Had labored, and Philip was one who entered into those laborers. So that blessing in Samaria I would take it was probably part of the harvest of the seed that was sown when the Lord Jesus was there during his lifetime.
And don't you think that the harvest still goes on in the same way where you follow on in the book of Acts and you have one of the descendants of?
Ham brought in to blessing the.
Ethiopian Eunuch. They follow on to the next chapter in Acts, and you have one of the descendants of.
Shem brought into blessing, that's.
Paul, you fell on in the 10th chapter, and you have one of the descendants of Japheth brought into blessing. That includes the whole world, because the whole world was settled out by those sons of Noah and God had every one of us here in view. We are elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father on time a few years ago was up in the east visiting and.
I'd heard of a young man that gotten saved and I thought it was kind of a sensational.
Conversion, maybe. And I met him and I asked him the simple question. How did you get saved? He said, oh, God saved me. How did you get saved? The same way that's true. Every one of us, and God in Christ is going after one woman here. I know the grace of this man. Let's just notice.
In the.
In our chapter that the woman asks the question in verse nine, I think this shows the grace, the grace of the Lord Jesus, she says. How is it that thou being a Jew, ask us drink of me which am a woman of Samaria or the Jews have no dealings with the Samaria? She was astounded. And when we think of the grace of that person, who he was?
Where he came from.
That foreign country, heaven itself. And here he came right to this.
One woman in Samaria, and he sat there on the well, waiting for her until she asked him this question. Well, isn't the answer here how it's grace, Massless grace, infinite grace that saw her and wanted her, that saw you and wanted you and me. It's the same person to have before us the grace, the grace and the truth that came by Jesus Christ.
Well, he asked the woman. Give me to drink. We're never told in this chapter that he got that drink of water. But he did get another drink, didn't he? I have meat to eat that you know not of, and he was fully.
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Delighted that he had brought her into blessing a single soul. Joy in heaven over 1 Sinner that repented more than over 99. Just persons that need not repentance.
They think they don't need it. Everyone needs it.
But one soul.
Really neat how that grace shows itself, isn't it? I take it that grace is love in action. As love flows forth from God, as light flows out. It touches you. You feel it as grace. And what are the normal manifestations of that grace as you feel it? Kindness towards us in Christ Jesus, doesn't it? He sat down. He spoke across instead of down at her and he opens himself wide open and she takes advantage of that.
We forget so soon what grace is, don't we?
We wouldn't if we would have.
Gone to this field, perhaps to start a work in Samaria. I don't suppose we would have started with a woman. I don't suppose we would have started with this woman, least of all the moral place she was in society. But this is where the grace of God starts. And, brethren, if we don't realize, if we don't feel that God begins at the very bottom.
And sometimes we don't bottom out first and we think that we're still got some ranking.
Amongst human beings at large, and we come into blessing, and the measure that we do apprehend grace.
But if we don't go to the bottom, rather than realize that grace works where man is brought to nothing.
There's going to be problems ahead because we're not done with ourselves. God is done with what we are, but as men in the flesh. But sometimes we haven't gotten to that point, and if we haven't, there's trouble ahead. We need to. It's important to realize that where man is at the very bottom, that's where God starts.
And so truth exposes her.
Grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.
Truth exposes this woman, and so the Lord says to her in verse 16, Go.
Call thy husband and come hit her. Well, she's exposed. She has to open up, the woman says. I have no husband. Then the Lord shows.
His omniscience, he says, Thou hast well said, I have no husband, for thou hast had five husbands.
And he Hume down Now I asked, Is not thy husband? And that sets thou truly? She said, the truth in that Norman takes up this amazingly, and the Lord leaves the subject. Sir, I perceive that thou art a prophet. Well, she found that she was in the presence of one who knew all of her past. And later on she said, come see a man which told me all things that ever I did. Is not this the Christ? She learns who that man was? He's a prophet, and he's more than a prophet. He's the Christ. So.
Grace and truth and truth operates and brings up this wonderful subject of worship.
In the third chapter, the Apostle the Lord.
Is dealing with the very upright man esteemed respected in society a doctor of the law, a ruler of the Jews, Nicodemus?
And you talked about going to the very bottom. The deepest need the Jew was, was one that could say we have Abraham for our father. They had a boast. They had a claim that the Gentile didn't have. Gentile couldn't go back in his genealogy and and find someone that he could boast in that you could. Man of faith, Abraham. But the Lord says to Nicodemus, except a man be born again, he cannot.
See The Kingdom of God. He needed an altogether new beginning, a new start.
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A man be born of water and of the Spirit. He cannot enter the Kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh. You can train it, You can educate it, You can sublimate it, You can do everything to it. It's still flesh. And that will never enter the presence of God. That which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye you Jews, all of you must be born again now. He never says that to a Gentile. He doesn't say that to this Samaritan woman.
She wouldn't need that truth. So what? He says to her, If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, give me to drink, thou wouldst have asked of him.
And he would have given the living water.
Sir, thou hast nothing to draw within. The well is deep. For whence that hast thou that living water?
Jesus answered and said unto her, Whosoever drinketh of this water, shall thirst again.
But whosoever drinketh of the water, that I shall give him the Spirit of God as the power of life, we had in John 3 the the giving of life, being born again, having eternal life through faith in the Lord Jesus. Now we have the power that operates on that life, the Spirit of life in Christ, the Spirit of God. It's to the it's this, this higher truth, the most basic fundamental truth, was given to Nicodemus.
The ruler of the Jews, the one that was trusting in his own religiousness.
Some of you may be trusting in the fact that you were raised in the meeting.
That, and that's a tremendous privilege. I didn't have that privilege.
There are many here that haven't had that privilege, that have been like the Samaritan woman brought in totally from the outside, an outcast despised by the people of God.
Or a gentile that was even worse than that dogs scum as far as the Jew is concerned.
There were those that thought so highly of themselves, the Jews, and the Lord says to him.
Ye you Jews, you need an altogether new beginning. You must be born again.
But he doesn't say that to her. He just says, if you only knew the heart of God, you only knew the grace of God, the gift of God.
And who it is that is talking to you? If you only knew who I am, you would have asked of Maine, and I would have given you living water. And then she wanted that water. He had awakened a desire in her heart.
And then, as crime has just brought before us, call your husband. I have no husband.
Thou as well said, I have no husband, but thou has had five husbands, And he whom thou thou hast, is not thy husband, And that sets thou truly He'd let her know he knew all about her. And as she went away, and left her waterpot, and went away into the city of Samaria, and said, come see a man that told me all things that ever I did, is not this to Christ?
He could say he offered me living water and he knew all about me when he did it. He didn't discover something about me from me, but he told me all that I was. Now that's the heart of God. That's the grace of God. That's the wonder of God. If thou knewest the gift of God, If you only knew God as a giver, that's Christianity, isn't it? God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son.
That's so important to get ahold.
Souls. That God is a giving God. And Judaism was just totally the opposite. Basically, it was.
The Jews put themselves under law by saying all that the Lord hath said, will we do. So it was basically.
What man could do for God? Christianity is just totally the opposite. It's what God has done for man. God is a giving God. And, O brethren, we need to realize even as believers in the Lord Jesus.
We need to know God as a giving God and he delights in giving. That's the kind of a God he is, a God who is rich in mercy, no end to those riches of his grace. And even in as believers in the Lord Jesus, we have to continue to look up and say, Lord, without Thee we're nothing, We have nothing. We'll make a mess of it yet.
And we have to continue to receive from that abundance that is there for us. That's Christianity. It's so important that our hearts, naturally speaking, revert to Judaism. What does God get from us? And there is a response, brethren, but it's the result of understanding what God is and has done for us that's so important that we get ahold of them.
00:40:17
The heart.
Just what we've been saying. And that's where worship begins in the heart.
And the very illustration the Lord uses here, a well of water springing up, that's.
Mountain, now a fountain. A natural fountain is produced by.
Rain coming from heaven on high ground and working down through.
The crevices.
Of the mountain or hill and building up a pressure within.
And then it finds an outlet and it springs up to the same level as the pressure. That's exactly what worship is.
Is God producing in the heart a sense of who Christ is and of what he has done?
And then he delights to have that soul returned to God in Thanksgiving and.
Worship. And so the subject of worship comes out, but the very illustration a fountain tells us. Like David says when he has the congregation together in First Chronicles 29 he says of thine own Have we given thee? Well, there's lots of praise and Thanksgiving in that First Chronicles 29. It's the way of worship.
Learning of Christ His loveliness, his grace and truth, And of course now the whole revelation of Christ in the crossword, and where He has gone now and lives for us, the man on high in the glory for us, if we just.
Drink of that fountain.
We will fulfill the warning that's given twice in the Old Testament. See that none appear before me empty.
Worship is not a quick reaction always. It's getting the heart filled up to learn who that Savior is, the grace of that man that came from God's right hand, He who is God over all things, blessed forever. It says in Romans 9, that's Christ. But he came down, He took the lowest place. Here he is sitting on a well in Samaria talking to this sinful woman and talking about worship. Doesn't that feel your own soul? It ought to.
Surely this chapter is meant to fill our hearts with Christ, isn't it? I've enjoyed it so much that we see grace and truth exemplified here in a wonderful way.
So often I speak for myself, but so often we're out of balance in these things.
Reminds me of a story that our late brother Armstead Barry told me some years ago, and it reminded me that even the greatest and best servants of the Lord have to admit that they earn these things. And he told the story of how Brother Bella of the last century and Mr. Darby were walking together to a reading meeting. And they of course, were very good friends and in the course of their conversation toward the meeting.
Mr. Darby turned to Mr. Ballard and he said, Brother John, I want you to remember tonight that the Saints have consciences as well as hearts. Well, Mr. Belt was pretty quick and he turned to Mr. Darby and he said, You, brother John, you remember that they have hearts as well as consciences, because one's ministry tended to be more for the heart and the other for the conscience. But here in this chapter we have one that makes those things.
In such a perfect blend that he didn't let this woman, as we would say off the hook about her sin. Grace without truth would have not brought her sin before her, but he did, very directly. And yet what was the result? There was so much grace in that Blessed One that had attracted her to him.
Truth without grace will always cause man to run and hide as it did in the Garden of Eden.
Grace without truth is not revealing the character of God, but here was one who came in grace and truth and.
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I've enjoyed the fact, Brother Buchanan, that that really is what produces worship in our hearts is the appreciation of that blessed One, isn't it? Which one of us can ever hope or expect to be like he was, and yet he has called us to follow him and to have that that character in our own lives.
Story and I know some have heard this before, so I trust you'll bear with me. But many years ago there was a little school house in Iowa where they were having an all day meeting and this chapter was read and at the end of the time of the meeting it was about time for dinner. And this little school house is heated with a pot belly stone. I don't know if children understand what that is, but that's a little stove.
You just eat it with wood or coal or whatever it might be and it gets pretty hot. Well, this brother went outdoors and there was icicles on the roof and he brought in an icicle and he brought it in and he called the children around the stove and he said, children, I want to explain this chapter to you as simple as I can. And he said, you look at this icicle and he broke it in two and he put 1/2 of it on the floor and he stepped on it with his foot and he just brushed it.
Then he took the other part of the icicle and he laid it on the potbelly stove and it just melted. Well, he said that describes the Lord just melted the heart of this woman. You and I might have been like the putting the icicle on the floor and just crushing it, and sometimes we have that attitude. But the the part that he brought out that I thought was so nice is that the Lord just melted the heart of that woman. And you know, brethren, when our when we really realize how much grace has been shown unto us, it'll melt our hearts. And I believe it would produce worship in our hearts.
I thought it was a rather nice little illustration, and I know there are a lot of children here. I hope you'll understand. What we're talking about here is the love and the heart of the Lord Jesus for that poor woman. And he just melted her heart. And that's what produces praise and Thanksgiving in our heart. That's what he felt.
So beautiful. The way the Lord introduces himself to this woman and how she grows in her knowledge of him. And that's what produces worship in our lives, brethren, is to get to know Jesus better. Who is he?
But the first thing she notices is this man sitting on the side of the well tired, weary man.
I suppose if she would have, if you would have asked her before, how do you expect to the Messiah to come because she knew about him. This would have been one of the least expected ways that she would have of meeting him. Isn't this beautiful how she just you just sitting there and then?
She perceives that he's a Jew in verse 9, then a little later in verse 12, she.
Says. Are you greater than our father, Jacob? There's an increase.
In her knowledge of him, then, as it has been mentioned in verse 19, she perceives that he's a prophet. And then in verse 26, the Lord Jesus reveals that he is the Messiah. He doesn't come directly with the truth that he's the Messiah, but he introduces her and wins her. Oh brethren, there's something here for us to learn.
In our dealings.
With souls, says in Proverbs he that winneth souls is wise to confess off times, Brethren, that I haven't won souls, I've driven them, and we do that unconsciously. We drive souls away. Perhaps we say we're being faithful, we're being truthful.
But what a beautiful example here. This woman was not driven away. She was attracted. She was drawn. And when she finally did go back into the city, she just leaves her water punch. She just forgotten about it. There was no thought about that water plant. She had something that was greater now, and she had to share it. She had to share it. What a beautiful way, the Lord.
Draws his side, leads us into the knowledge of himself. It's not instantaneous.
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But this is his working in everyone of us.
Pharisees were very envious of that ability. They saw that Jesus could draw and they couldn't. I would like to suggest one of the secrets of why and how Jesus could draw and the ones like the Pharisees could not, is that he held in him as we've been saying grace and truth. And how does that manifest itself when you're dealing with someone who has sinned? Well, very simple. There are two ways in which you can view sin. One is wickedness.
And all of us who have a little bit of Pharisee in our heart and know very well what that's like, oh, you wicked Sinner. And the other is weakness. Lovely to see the balance that the Lord Jesus had in all these dealings. In John, take the woman in in chapter 8, he takes her up on the ground of weakness.
And not only that of wickedness, but he holds them in balance, so that he can say go thy way, and sin no more to one, and he can say to this woman.
That was had five husbands and wait on her response and she comes right out with it because you can see that he is in balance on that weakness and wickedness.
And often we press the wickedness and as I say, it makes me like a Pharisee and people draw back from me. But if I approach on the ground that I'm trying to help you and support you, can you tell me why it was that you've done a thing like this? It seems rather bad. That's taking them up on the ground of weakness. Lovely to see that in Jesus, isn't it?
It was the love of the Lord, for her soul had shone forth to her. She felt it because he was gracious to her and all these questions that she raised and challenges, and he answered them graciously. But the point is that he had that love for her soul and he would deal with her patiently. And what really touches my heart is that when she went back into the city, she didn't say I've learned the truth.
But she said, come see a man, and that is really the heart of the gospel, to see that is Jesus Christ, the man who came to die for us. And when we present the gospel, I hope that we all will always have in our hearts, come see a man.
But.
Finish it. Come see a man that told me all things that ever I did. He told me all the evil that I have done. He exposed it. He revealed that to me there can't be any cleansing of the soul until we come to grips with our sins. And he doesn't sympathize with our sins. He sympathizes with our weaknesses, but our sins he does not sympathize with.
We don't. We don't want sympathy for our sins. We want to judge them. So he brings to our conscience the evil of our sins, so that we will come to judge them as he abhors them. God hates sin. He doesn't have any sympathy for sin, but for our weakness. Yes, we have a high priest, a great high priest, who sympathizes with our infirmities, our weaknesses. That's an entirely different thing than our wickedness and our sins.
He has no sympathy for that.
As we come to a close it, it just occurred to me we didn't read verse 39, but I think the spirit of God here shows us just what we've been talking about about how this woman perceived the Lord Jesus verse 39 and many of the Samaritans of that city believed on him for the saying of the woman which testified. He told me all things that ever I did and saw. The Spirit of God has been pleased to make that point twice in this chapter.
And I think it highlights what we've had before is it is the balance of grace and truth and that and we know in other parts of the Scripture or it speaks to the gospel, it speaks of repentance. And so it's the center owning their sin and coming short, but coming to that one who loved them and gave himself for them.
When dealing with the soul.
The Lord always did it this way, as He does here. We don't do any favor to the soul to to make little of their sins.
00:55:08
In fact, true restoration consists in bringing that soul to see the evil of their their sins and judge them and forsake them and abandoned them. Then there can be true restoration. So when we when we go to a soul and we sympathize with the evil that they've done or the wrong course that they are in, that's not God. Now we have to lead them to judge that wrong course and that wrong path of that evil, whatever it might be.
Forsake it and abandon it. And then the grace of God is there to fully meet them and to restore them and bring them into blessing. But in no way do we help a soul by making them feel comfortable in any way in their sin.
He didn't reprove her, did he though? He just simply stated what was a fact, And I think that's so beautiful. He brought it out into the light and she judged it. As soon as she saw it in the light, she judged it. And I think that's where sometimes we drive souls too. We make the judgment that they must make for them, and that doesn't help them either, simply to manifest the light and let them come to the right judgment about it.
Isn't that right?
He was the Lord was the severest with the Pharisees.
He was very severe with them because they were trusting in their own righteousness. They were a bunch of hypocrites.
So much.
Thy name my wall?
The Lord.
Said.
Every holes, no matter.
Holy Grace.
All I divide.
We also sing #43 in the appendix.
43 In the appendix reading verse three, thy word thyself reflecting, that sanctify by truth, still leading on thy children with gentle heavenly growth. Thus still the work proceedeth the work begun by grace, for each is meet and training Father to see thy face. 43 In the appendix.
Oh God of grace.
We give you.
My sorrow.
We were.