NEVER thirst! Is such a thing possible in this weary world? Has anybody ever proved it true? Have any waters of Marah bitterness ever been sweetened? Who is it that so speaks and offers these refreshing streams? Ah, it is Jesus, the Saviour of lost sinners. To Him you must go, for He only can satisfy the longing soul with good things, but He can. And not only can this precious Saviour, the Christ of God, give present joy; this He does and more. The water that He gives is deep as a well―a well that never can be fathomed, and it is ever bubbling up with freshness, springing up, and that unto everlasting life.
Blessed figures these are of spiritual blessings unknown to the world, incomprehensible to the natural man, but proved to be more real than life itself by all who in simple faith have trusted the One who makes this stupendous offer. It is the soul’s enjoyment of Christ in the power of the Spirit, the present and everlasting portion of the simplest believer in Christ.
Give me this water! cries the woman of Sychar’s well. A deep longing takes possession of her heart that she may experience for herself what she had never thought was possible in such a world.
“The woman saith unto Him, Sir, give me this water that I thirst not, neither come hither to draw.”
That I thirst not! What a confession after a life of searching for earthly happiness! She now admits the worthlessness of the one, and yearns after the possession of the other. The blessed Saviour has brought her to this very point. In matchless grace He has awakened within her a desire after Himself. But stay, there is another question. What about her sins? Ah, this must be settled, for God is God, and though full of mercy, grace, and love, He yet is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity, and cannot look at sin― “Go, call thy husband, and come hither.”
With what admirable delicacy He probes her conscience, and what perfect knowledge of all her guilt He lets her see that He possesses. She was in the presence of God without knowing it. Her conscience now begins to work, and conscience always brings distress. The One who sat on Sychar’s well was a perfect stranger to her, and yet He knows her whole life. All things were naked and open to His eyes. Of what use to try and hide anything? And yet He does not condemn! Not now at least, for this was the day of grace, and He had not come to condemn but to save. But the time of condemnation is coming for those who refuse the wooings of His grace.
“Sir, I perceive that Thou art a prophet,” is now her thought. Not yet does she know fully who it is, but she realizes that one is there who puts her in connection with God, and uneasy at this she starts a question as to worship. The Christ of God had been dealing with her conscience as to what her own life had been, and this was personal work, and how quickly we turn away from this to think and speak of others!
“Our fathers” did this, and “ye say” that; some say that this is the place where men ought to worship, and others say that that is the place. And is it not even so today?
But in Christianity there lies a deeper thought than the place of worship, it is the Person. Never before had such a thought been presented as worshipping “the Father.” The idea of such a relationship had never entered into the mind of a Samaritan, or a Jew, or anybody else. It is not “the Almighty” as Abraham knew Him, a point beyond which many even today never get; nor is it Jehovah, the character in which He made Himself known to Israel. A revelation of an altogether different kind is here, however feebly it may have been grasped by her, or indeed by any since Pentecost, when the Spirit of adoption was given whereby believers can cry, “Abba, Father.”
“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,”
What a collection of precious truths we have here. The blessed Saviour was Himself present as the revealer of the Father. This characterizes the Gospel of John from its very beginning.
The Son was there in lowly grace revealing that Father as He knew Him. He had come to seek lost sinners, and to put them into the same relationship with that Father as Himself, and to this poor outcast of Samaria He reveals this profound and wondrous truth. Not to Nicodemus, the learned and deeply taught master in Israel, does He reveal those things, but to this most unworthy member of a despised race. This is God’s way, and it fills us with wonder and with praise.
The Father whom He came to reveal was seeking such, even such as she, such as any of us, either writer or reader, that we might worship Him as so revealed.
True worshippers! and what is this? That there must be sincerity is freely admitted, but is there not more than this implied? None are true worshippers who are not children of God. To worship the Father we must know Him as such, and hence we must be children. It is not now a nation of worshippers kept at a distance, with a priest to draw near in their stead; this was Judaism. Now in Christianity it is God fully revealed in Christ, revealed to us in that character in which the Son knew Him; thus revealed that we might know Him too, and knowing Him as our Father, might draw nigh each one as a child in the full confidence of love. Worship now is not according to outward rites and forms and ceremonies, as it was in Judaism, but they that worship the Father must worship Him “in spirit and in truth.” That is to say, Christian worship is in the power of the Spirit according to the full revelation of God as Father.
How all this strikes at the root of ritualism in all its forms! What place have vestments, crosses, incense, processionals, &c., in this worship in spirit and in truth? The truth of the Church is not here revealed, nor the gathering together of the members of the body of Christ, this was to follow in due course. Here it is the knowledge of the Father, each one for himself, and the liberty of heart in the confidence of that Father’s love, removing all servile fear, and drawing forth the praise and homage and adoration of the soul. And to this poor outcast of Samaria is all this made known, and for the first time.
“I know that Messias cometh.” What feelings of awe and wonderment are now awakened within her breast!
“The woman saith unto Him, I know that Messias cometh, which is called Christ: when He is come, He will tell us all things.”
There was something about this stranger that brought to her mind hopes and anticipations of coming glories and blessings connected with Messias’ reign. She had heard of Him, and, sinner though she was, had accepted the common belief of her times. This was the belief of the mind, but how different is this from the faith of the heart, and the personal knowledge of the One in whom that faith is placed. To this point the blessed Saviour was leading her.
He had excited desires within her for those living waters which He alone could give. He had aroused her conscience as to guilt which she would feign have forgotten. He now awakens her heart to think of the long-promised Messias, the bruiser of the serpent’s head, the accomplisher of all the promises of God, and then, wonder of wonders! “I that speak unto thee am He.”
What a moment was this when she stands face to face with the Hope of Israel! The proud Pharisees had rejected Him, Jerusalem with all its dead ceremonial, and its empty form of religion would have none of Him; but here, a poor, guilty sinner receives Him by faith, and is led to behold a beauty in Him which the others had utterly failed to see.
“He came unto His own (the Jews), and His own received Him not.
The woman then left her water pot. What else could she do? She had found the spring of living waters, what further need was there for this little water pot? And so it is with the soul. To give up the world before Christ is possessed and known is the vain effort of the monastic system. But the truly converted soul has fresh and infinitely better joys than all this poor world has to give. But more, the Christian has a new object in life and fresh occupations.
“The woman then left her water pot, and went her way into the city, and saith to the men, Come, see a man which told me all things that ever I did: is not this the Christ?”
To spread the fame of Jesus is now the business of her life, and what wages of present joy she reaped, and what fruit of future glory she was gathering for that day of heavenly harvest when sowers and reapers shall rejoice together, and that, too, along with all the company who have received the word through their means!
“Many of the Samaritans of that city believed on Him for the saying of the woman, which testified, He told me all that ever I did.”
Christian reader, the fields are white already to the harvest.
“Where hast thou gleaned today?”
A. H. B.