Gospel—Stephen Rule
DISCLAIMER: The following has been auto-transcribed. We hope it will help you to find the section of this audio file you are looking for.
Good evening welcome.
If someone would start #2 for us, I'd appreciate it.
Any issues?
Full of fraud.
Oh my God.
OK, next one. I am or the name is a lot of the drinks. Uh-huh.
Yeah, it's a lot of.
The rest of the other games, and it's a lot of.
Them.
Uh-huh.
22 weighs in half. Three years from how long?
Umm.
Uh.
Umm yeah, I can't find.
My way.
Uh, let me see. That's all I do, uh.
Uh, let me see if there is any experience in my adventures. Because they were.
Dear Lord Jesus, we just ask that each says, each of us, listen to thy word this evening, and we'll be working our hearts to draw each one of us to thyself. And we think especially of one perhaps in the room who may not know Thee, Lord Jesus, as their personal Lord and Savior. And so we ask for them tonight that they would hear thy voice, that they would come to Thee as as Savior and repentance. And so we do ask for thy help and this work this evening, Lord Jesus, and we pray.
00:05:22
In thy name, Amen.
I'd like to go through with you this evening, uh, passage of Scripture and as I was something I'd enjoyed in my personal readings a couple of weeks ago.
And as I was reflecting on it this afternoon, I thought perhaps this is a passage that got taken up.
Maybe it was even last year here, I don't remember, but I believe it's the message that the Lord has for someone here this evening. So we'll go back to the passage and I hope it will be fresh.
You know, I was a teacher for 14 years, and early on in my teaching, I was teaching in the suburbs of Chicago.
And the school did something for the arts and culture and so on, where they had several days where they shut down all classes.
And they invited in, uh, speakers from the community and arts and they had, you could sign up for this, that and the other and teachers were to participate. So I looked down the schedule of classes and I found one that had to do with, uh, speaking on the radio And I, oh, that'd be interesting. I wonder what, what it is. I saw the name on it. It was, uh, best known news anchor in the Chicagoland area. I thought I'd be interested. So I came, he gave his little presentation. There was.
Opening for questions. And when he opened it up for questions, there was silence in the room. And I've been teaching a couple of years, but not very long. And I thought, well, that that looks uncomfortable. I think I'll help him out with the question if I ask the question. And I was shocked by how upset he was with my question.
My question was when you get on the radio and you know there's millions of people in Chicago land and he had a listening audience of probably hundreds of thousands.
How do you talk to maybe hundreds of thousands of people at the same time?
That's the worst question I could have asked.
Because he said to me you'd never talk to 100,000 people at a time.
You always speak as though you were speaking directly across the table with your friend. You talk 1.
One, I never speak into the radio and talk to hundreds of thousands. I think as I reflected on it later, he'd probably been asked that many times by people wanting to get into radio, and he was ready with his answer.
I'd like to turn this evening and read together with you A1 on one conversation.
Between the living Son of God and I trust your own soul. Let's turn to John chapter 4.
I'm going to have one person here time for me. The conversation part. We'll refer to other parts in the in the gospel in the chapter.
What I want you to see that an eternal change in your soul is not a question of your intellect. It's not a question of coming to understand and be able to explain better than the person seated next to you. You may already be able to do that.
The living change in your heart comes from coming to know and learn a person. It comes from coming to know and get to know the man Christ Jesus and so.
The stopwatch ready, I'm going to ask would you help me, Leo? All right, this is start and then stop and I'm going to ask you how long it takes. I'll tell you when to start. Just push the button there and it'll be start when I'll when I tell you and then stop. You tell me how long it takes.
I'm going to read with you the conversation. Most of you, perhaps all of you know the context around it, but the Lord Jesus was on his way to Galilee. He was on his way through Samaria, coming from Judea and Jerusalem. On his way through Samaria, He stops at a well, and we'll go back for a couple of details in a moment, verse 7.
Umm, sorry.
Yes, verse seven. There come with a woman. I'm sorry, Leo, ready start. There come with a woman of Samaria to draw water. Jesus saith unto her, Give me to drink. First disciples were gone away unto the city to buy meat. Then saith the woman of Samaria unto him. How is it that thou, being a Jew, ask a string of me which I 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.
00:10:01
And who it is that saith, who they give me to drink? Thou should have asked of 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 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 saith unto him, Sir, give me this water that I thirst not, neither come hit her to draw.
Jesus saith unto earth, Go call thy husband, and come hit her.
The woman answered and said, I have no husband. Jesus said unto her, Thou as well said, I have no husband, for thou hast had five husbands, and he whom thou now hast, tis not thy husband. And that said thou truly the woman saith unto him, Sir, I perceive that thou art a prophet. Our fathers worshipped 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. Worship Him. God is a spirit, and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth.
The woman saith unto him, I know that Messiah cometh, which is called Christ.
When he has come, he will tell us all things, Jesus saith unto her.
Either speak unto thee and he all right, Leo.
How long was it?
I'm gonna round it up.
3 minutes.
3 minutes.
Conversation by a Samaritan woman and the Son of God.
An amazing thing, isn't it?
You know.
A message isn't just the words, it's the person sent to give it. Let me give you the word of the verse for that. It's not just the words, it's the person sent to give it.
In Hebrews chapter one.
Read it from Mr. Darby's translation, Hebrews chapter one.
And verse two at the end of these days has spoken to us in the person of the Son.
He spoke to us in the person of the son. My family and I lived in Ecuador for six years, and while we were living there, the President of the United States never visited the country.
Fact A sitting president of the United States has never visited the country, but while we lived there, the Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld at the time came to visit the country.
One of my colleagues was his translator while there. And for a while that's just what she wanted to talk about. She was amazed with the retinue that he brought with him, the the security detail, that their attention to detail, all that they had to do. And she was very impressed with the person of the Secretary of Defense.
What the country wasn't important enough for the United States for the president of the United States to come to Ecuador? I want you to pause and reflect for a moment.
That the one who with his fingers made the stars sat weary.
On a well, talking to one woman.
That man has a message for you this evening. He has a message for you, the individual.
He came to speak to you.
He didn't come to speak to the world this evening.
He came to speak to you.
That person.
Who created everything that you look at out that window and throughout this entire universe?
00:15:00
That person who's keeping your heart beating at the moment and allowing you to breathe.
Was tired, they sat on a well.
And he said to a woman of Samaria, give me the drink.
That person is he hung on a cross said in the 19th chapter of the book where we read this evening.
I thirst.
That person in Luke chapter 4 it says after he was 40 days in the wilderness without eating.
That he hungered.
That person in the middle of a storm?
Lay down on a boat cushion. In the Bible you probably have in your hands that calls it a pillow. It was the kind of thing that a rower in those boats would have on the feet of wood to keep their rear end from getting sore while they rode hour after hour. It wasn't the cushy, carefully constructed pillow that you may have at your home. He lay down on that in the middle of the storm.
To get some sleep.
That man came to speak to you.
That's the message, and in fact, that's the heart of the message that I want to share with you this evening is who that person is. I believe that most of you, perhaps all of you, know what that person did. But it's the concern, my heart, that there are some, perhaps one here this evening that doesn't know that person. And I'm going to apply this chapter and say that this woman at Sycarswell had three.
Different, I'll say idols.
Mistaken views of God and the first one is in the first exchange.
Because he comes and says give me the drink and the response shows what that expression meant.
She says in verse 9, how is it that thou being a Jew ask us drink of Maine, which I'm a woman of Samaria, for the Jews have no dealings.
With the Samaritans.
A little bit later in this gospel.
That Jews say to the Lord Jesus, thou art a Samaritan.
And half the devil. It was an expression when you wanted to insult somebody.
And you were a Jew from Judea and you wanted to really put them down. You said you're a Samaritan.
I don't know. I've tried to think if there's an equivalent and I don't think there is that I could come up with that expresses in our culture today. Perhaps there is. I couldn't come up with it.
That expresses that same level of venom in the prejudice between.
The dew and the Samaritans. Thou art a Samaritan and half the devil.
They put it together. Perhaps that's the closest we can come to understanding.
Is there a person here tonight that looks on God like this Samaritan would have looked at the Jew?
As one that looks down on you.
There are people who in heart are separated.
From the Lord Jesus Christ, because their view of God is.
That is a hard master.
And perhaps an application if you're a believer in Christ tonight, but you're here and you're far from Him. Perhaps the reason is that your heart is slipped back to that view of God. Perhaps He hasn't given you what you asked him for.
Perhaps he's allowed a tragedy in your life. Perhaps he's allowed difficulty, and you look on him the way the Samaritan would look on a Jew as a hard man who's a long way off.
That has no interest in you.
You hold in your hands the true accounts of that person.
Stepping into this world and sitting down on a well and expressing something.
But she could understand, I think, better than our ears could understand when he said, give me to drink.
He never got that drink.
There's no record that he ever received that drink. There's no record that his disciples ever gave it to him.
There's no record that she ever put her water pot down in the well to bring it up. He didn't come to get, He came to give. The Lord Jesus Christ came to give to that woman. And the Lord Jesus Christ has come and his heart is open to give to you. And if your attitude or if your spirit, if your heart toward God has been that somehow this is a God who's come and taken from me what was mine.
00:20:13
Can you sit with this woman on CYCAR as well and listen to the Lord Jesus?
As he breaks down that wall of prejudice and she begins to see him with new eyes, not as one that came to be at a distance from her, but as one that came to speak to her heart.
Jesus answers in verse 10. It says Jesus answered and said unto her, if thou knowest.
Two things, look at them, the gift of God and who it is that says that they give me the drink now it's a vast of him, and he would have given thee living water.
So in the Old Testament is a figure of more than one thing. He's a figure of the flesh.
And if you look at the picture of what Saul was, he came to take, and Samuel tells the people when Saul is crown king, when they're going to get their king, I should say when they're going to get their king, he tells them he's going to take and he goes through the list. He's going to take the best of your young men. He's going to take the best of your field. He's going to take the best of your all of yards. He's going to take the best of all that you have.
That.
Is what Satan wants you to think of God in the garden when the serpent came to tempt Eve.
He said to her, He planted in her heart the doubt that God was a good in giving God, that there was something that he had withheld from Eve that would make her happy. For when the Son of God comes into this world, a world spoiled by that sin, he comes to make known to this woman, and this evening to make known to you two things.
Who he is personally as an individual to you.
And what he has to bring to you, not what he has to take.
When David, the man after God's own heart, as it's expressed with all his sin recorded in the Old Testament, when he came down to his brothers, he brought with him, He brought it from his Father, but he brought with him and he gave. And that was his character when he acted as a figure of the Lord Jesus. And it's the character of the Lord here, verse 11.
The woman saith unto him, Sir.
There was nothing to draw with and the well is deep.
From whence and 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.
Here's the second thought. Or maybe it's a non thought about God.
About 1700 years before Jacob had put a well down into that earth.
And for approximately 1700 years, the people had come to that well.
And put their water pots and their water skins down into the well, and they brought up water.
And they drank it and they got thirsty and they came back to that well again.
I spend too much time.
Trying to watch what's happening in the world of retail and publishing and so on because of the job I now do.
But I find that's very interesting and I think it's directly related to what we've just read. Everything in that water plot is the refreshment, a legitimate, in this case, refreshment that you can get in this world that comes and it goes.
There's a company that probably many of you have bought from before. Amazon, Amazon.com. Perhaps many of you have bought from them.
And their trend is to do the following, someone that studied them says.
That, in essence, what they try to do. Everything is built on narrowing that gap between.
I want it and I have it.
That's what they're built around, their entire process. Everything is built so that you can bring those two things together. I want it and I have it. And in fact, that same analyst said that the following statement is true. The rest is his projection.
That because now, because of medical things and so on, there are now interfaces between the brain.
00:25:04
And the body and they're working on them for people that have lost limbs, etc. And those interfaces are being made so that.
Something external to the body can speak with and give directions to the body.
Is have fun and have serious statement. This analystaboutamazon.com is that they're going to come out with something called the Amazon IMP, which stands for impulse. It's part of that neural link between the brain and the external. And all you'll need to do is think and if what you want.
Is physical. It'll be delivered to you.
If what you want is a happy feeling, your brain will be stimulated.
And you'll have it.
Now I'm gonna give you one more quote and I wanna go back to this chapter.
The founder.
The one that runs Amazon.com. Jeff Bezos has said the following.
If I've learned one thing in all my years of working with this company, it's this People are never satisfied.
So let's get that gap all the way down South that you just have to think.
Then you have it and that statement remains true.
But the Lord Jesus Christ came not to provide running water.
And a water tank for the woman of Saikar. He didn't come to bring an aqueduct to her home.
He came to put in her heart a well of living.
Water springing up to everlasting. Our eternal life springing up.
And I'll read it so I can get it perfectly correct from the verse where he says it in verse 14.
I shall give him the water that I shall give him shall be in him.
A well of water springing up into ever lasting life. The message of the gospel is not come to Christ.
And your life will be a happier 1.
The life, the message of the Word of God is not. Come to the Lord Jesus and all your relationships will improve.
The message of the gospel has not come to the Lord Jesus Christ and your wealth.
Will increase. Some of those things are legitimate water, legitimate refreshments in this world. There was nothing wrong with the water in the well of sight car. There was nothing wrong in the woman coming to that well. And there's nothing wrong in you sitting down and enjoying a view of the lake after this evening, or enjoying some food and a refreshment, or singing a hymn and enjoying the sound of that music. But that is not the message of the gospel.
The message of the gospel is that the Lord Jesus Christ.
Have come to give you new life, and that's brought out in the prior chapter.
And in this right here, this message to the woman is not that he's come to give her a better well or a better way of getting water out of it. The message is that he came to bring. And in this case, it's a figure of the Spirit of God to go in our hearts the power to make that new life real to her. And so it says.
I'll read it in full. Her response?
Or perhaps, but the Lord's response, perhaps before I do, I want to point out something to you a little further on that.
She says our father Jacob.
1700 years before. I'm sure there are many in this room that realize that when Jacob came, he wasn't coming to this well right here. He was going to the house where his mother had come from. His mother, Rebecca is going to see his Uncle Laban. And when he went to see his Uncle Laban and he arrived, there were flocks there that had come down to the well and there was a stone over the well.
And he saw his wife to be Rachel, coming with the flock.
And Jacob?
Ran, and he rolled the stone away, and he watered the flock for his future bride. Hundreds of years later, Moses in Exodus chapter two, he comes.
And he sees his future bride.
And she has a flock.
00:30:02
And he waters that flock.
That's what Jacob brought the father of Israel.
That's what Moses brought.
The Lawgiver.
But when Jesus, the Lord Jesus Christ comes.
He doesn't bring water out of that well.
I want you to notice a little later in this chapter, I think you'll see from the pronouns used that this woman was about to become after his death and resurrection, part of His bride. He didn't just bring for her water of her freshman on this earth. He brought for her the Spirit of God to live in her heart, to make His thing good to her, to be the power of the new life that He was giving to her.
And as it will say a little later on in this book, in John chapter 14.
He was coming to be there, to be with her forever.
And so.
The first error about God is perhaps that he is a God.
But angry and distant he's not.
The next is perhaps, and I didn't spell it out clearly, but it's implicit in what we've been talking about. The next is that perhaps God is indifferent that everything that goes on, goes on here underneath the sun, as in the SUN, as in the sun that shines in the sky. And everything that happens happens. And it's what you can see here on earth. Because when this woman is speaking with the Lord, she's speaking about a physical water and she's speaking about what?
Can see and what she can perceive and not about this.
Does living well, springing up in my heart, that's something outside.
The physical world.
Perhaps not in Word, but perhaps in practice.
You're an atheist.
Everything that matters exists where you can see it, where you can touch it, where you can feel it. Everything exists in things like water from a well in this earth.
I'm going to ask you to run through and not answer me, but run through in your mind.
Something like this?
When you get in the car and you're alone in that car.
You have to turn on sound.
I have nothing. Let me be clear, I'm not telling you. Don't turn on sound in your car.
My question is not that. My question is do you have to turn on sound in your car?
Because the silence.
Would allow.
Loneliness to pour in.
When you mow the lawn, When you do the dishes.
You have to flip something on.
So that it flows in and entertains you.
For males in the United States.
The vast majority of them on a survey.
Can't go into the bathroom.
Without taking something with them, generally an electronic device that doesn't have to be electronic, so I have to take something to fill that gap.
Because in the silence of one minute, 2 minutes, 3 minutes, 5 minutes, whatever it is.
Loneliness would flood in unless there was some external stimulus to fill it.
This woman was given.
A well of living water to connect her to the living Son of God.
And she had a refreshment that she didn't have to reach out herself to get. Reach outside herself to turn on, reach herself outside herself to pick up.
Let me ask you another question.
When those feelings come flooding in, there are many, many people.
00:35:01
Who will go to the refrigerator and they'll open it and they'll find something there?
That'll create a patch that patches over that feeling. But that's something outside the person and I'm not. Again, I want to be clear. You need to go to the refrigerator and you need to take some food out. You need to eat.
And there's nothing wrong with eating, so disciples have gone to buy bread. The Lord is having this conversation while he waits for them to come back.
With their bread. My point is not to say anything against eating. My point is simply to say is the satisfaction of your heart and what fills it. What fills up and patches over those moments? Is that what comes from outside of you?
Or is it that living connection with a living man in the glory, that's what he came to give? Something that didn't need some external source to keep it going in this world?
Verse 15.
The woman saith unto her, Sir, give me this water, that I thirst not.
Neither come hit her to draw.
Something that attracted her heart, She responds to him. I need that.
And perhaps where you're sitting tonight, you have a sense I need that.
I need that.
And she came to the only person that could show her teacher where it was going to come from.
And so we come to the third, I'll call it misconception about God, false God, idol. The first again was that God is an angry God. The next that he's distant, that what exists is just what exists in this world. And it's a practical, at least if it's not a professed atheism. This is going to give us the third.
Jesus saith unto her, Go call thy husband.
I'm going to read it wrong and put a period there.
Go call, I hope period.
That's not what it says.
It doesn't say go call thy husband because the Lord was not there.
To bring shame on this woman. The Lord was not there to create guilty feelings. That wasn't the end of the road. The Lord said go call thy husband and come hit her.
Come to me.
And if you're a Sinner, and God's created in your heart a fence that you're a Sinner, be before a holy God.
The message does not end with you are a Sinner before a holy God.
The message ends with at least in this sentence and come hit her.
For God that came into this world and became a man.
To bring salvation to your soul came with a message that includes.
The fact that you're a Sinner.
It includes the conviction of that, the sense of that in your heart and in your soul. But it doesn't end with that message. It ends with the message, And I want you in my presence forever. And so he says to her. Go call my husband and come hit her.
The woman answered and said, I have no husband. Jesus saith unto her, Thou hast well said, I have no husband.
For thou hast had five husbands, and he whom thou now hast is not thy husband.
And that said so truly.
Her answer shows how she understood it. You know the answer I perceive, Sir, and maybe I should read it before I go on. Sir, I perceive that thou art a prophet.
I'm gonna ask you some questions to answer, not in my presence, but in the presence of the living God.
Have you ever?
Hid.
Your history.
From your mom, your dad, your husband, your wife, your siblings.
00:40:07
Have you ever deleted it?
You ever used a private something so that there wouldn't be one in the first place?
And that goes for non electronic devices. Have you been in the presence of another person and hid the history of what you were doing?
Have you ever been thankful that the person sitting next to you couldn't see or hear what was in your mind at that moment?
Oh, I'm so glad they don't know what I'm thinking.
This woman came to a well to get water.
She met a man who put her whole life, as she expresses it later, on the screen before her eyes.
And then said, come into my presence and be with me forever.
You can't do that.
The first next to you in the same way to some degree perhaps.
But there's a person to whom your entire history? Everything.
Is completely on display at this moment.
And this message to you tonight because of what he did later in this book.
I guess I'm taking for granted that you already know what he did to carry it out this book. I'm sorry, this chapter is about a person.
And that's the burden on my heart tonight was that you'll come to know that person. His work is later in the book.
He went to the cross, I believe everyone here knows that. And on the cross he shed his blood.
In the blood of Jesus Christ, his Son cleanseth us from all sin.
It's not that your history doesn't matter to him, that he's done something about it.
It's that he took in three hours of darkness on the Cross of Calvary.
The wrath of God, a holy God against sin, to be able to put.
That away forever from His presence to be able to invite you into His presence.
But now we're ready for the third. I would call it misconception or misunderstanding about God.
The woman says, Sir, I perceive that thou art a prophet. Verse 20 Our father's worshipped in this mountain, and ye say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship.
Perhaps all of you know. I suspect some don't.
Where the while of cycar sits.
If you were to sit on the well of Sycar approximately 1 mile one way.
It's about a small mountain by the standards of the American or Canadian West.
For the 3000 foot peak called Mount Ebo.
One mile in the other direction, approximately, is another peak roughly 3000 feet above sea level.
Mount Gerizim.
Perhaps those names don't mean a whole lot to you, but in the book of Joshua and in the book of Deuteronomy, you can read about them in Joshua chapter 8, after they'd entered the land, after some difficulties at AI, Joshua must have gone back at least in the thoughts to the book of Deuteronomy. Well, not to the to the book the words of Deuteronomy, where the instructions were that when they entered the land.
They were to go to those two mountains. Six of the tribes on Mount Gerizim were going to read the blessings out of the law. Six of the tribes on Mount Ebal we're going to read the cursings out of the law, and the people would hear it. When they crossed the river at Jericho, they went straight from Jericho toward AI.
And a consent that Jericho had led the defeat. There's judgment. There's self judgment. They deal with it. And then immediately it's as though Joshua says we need to rest our feet on this book.
If we're going to take this land, we need to rest our feet on this book. So he goes straight up, way out of his way up towards the middle of Israel.
Six of the tribes stood on Mount Gerizim, the mountain of blessing, 6 on the mountain of cursing, and they read out of the book of the Law.
Now at this point.
Very roughly 14115 hundred years later, there was a woman sitting there.
00:45:02
And she says our fathers worshipped in this mountain. I have little doubts she was pointing to Mount Gerizim.
And on that mountain was a Samaritan temple.
The Samaritans were a people. 2 Kings 17 gives the history when the king of Assyria came.
And carried off the people, the tribes from the north of land. The others were settled there, and they were having trouble with lions.
And they decided that they didn't know the gods of the place, and so they brought back some of the children of Israel that knew.
The truth of God, or something of it, to teach the people of the place what the gods of the place were like.
And that religion had passed down. There was a temple sitting there.
Where did they plant that temple on Mount Ebel?
The mountain of cursing, No.
They suck that temple on Mount Gerizim.
The mountain of blessing.
But as you'll see, as we're starting to run slow on time, you'll see that the Lord doesn't.
Let her get away with that little remark. And he gently pushes it aside when he says salvation is of the Jews.
But it goes on to what's more important.
And that's what I think of Indiana. One of two ways. God is not a vending machine God.
And God is not a stereotypical grandpa God. I want to explain what I mean.
If you go to a vending machine, you drop in however many quarters or however many dollars, bills or whatever, and you punch E4 or the button in front of the thing and something tumbles out of the bottom and you pick it up and walk away. Do you give it something? It gives you something. It gives you the blessing that you're looking for. It gives you that little bit of water that you're going to thirst again for.
Many people like the Samaritan religion.
Want to camp out in the religious territory with a vending machine God?
They want to be able to offer up a little bit of good works.
Maybe a little bit of money, maybe a little bit of their time and get a little bit of blessing back. God is not a vending machine God. And God is not a stereotypical grandpa either.
Is what I mean. There are many different kinds of grandfathers, so some of you here may not be like this at all, but there are many that are grandfathers that come to the end of raising their children and all the difficult decisions that are in it.
And then along come the grandchildren, and they might see them just a few days out of the year, or maybe just a week out of the year, and the little 4 year old comes up and throws their arms around them and gives Grandpa a kiss and is so glad to see him. Grandpa's got four days and Grandpa got a big hug. Grandpa got a nice kiss and it's time to go. Well, as long as the parents don't object. Down and we'll get an ice cream cone.
And then we'll go out and play for a little while and as long as there's a happy relationship.
As long as there's a giving of love from the child, there's all the spoiling that I say the stereotypical grandpa would give. And some people want a God like that. They're going to God. That'll come in and Passover all of the sin, ignore it all and bring in blessing. God's too good to send anybody to hell.
God, somebody that will allow any road into his presence.
As long as someone sincere, as long as they really care.
As long as they're seriously interested, that's good enough.
And maybe if there's a little bit of intense in front of the idol.
That'll help.
God doesn't Passover sin that way. God doesn't ignore sin that way. God isn't fooled by camping out on the mountain of blessing and pretending that what's deserved isn't the mountain of cursing. Was that woman said on that? Well, the only thing that the book of Deuteronomy would have offered her from the part of Mount Evil and Mount Gerizim was the cursing of the broken law.
That's the only thing that she'd earned.
00:50:01
It's the only thing that she deserved.
That's the only thing you've earned. It's the only thing I've earned. It's the only thing I deserve.
And that's why the God of love and blessing became a man and the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, so they could sit there on that well and offer to her a way of blessing. It was going to come through the cross that lay ahead, but it was in his heart toward her not to pass over sin as though it were nothing.
To stamp it out of his presence, to take it away, to have it paid in full.
Forever at the end of this book of John in chapter 19 are recorded those words.
It is finished.
There's a place in central Egypt a number of years ago where they recovered a whole bunch of.
Papyrus documents about if I remember correctly in the early 70s they require they recovered a whole bunch of papyrus documents.
Preserved in the heat of the desert from the 1St century, from the time that the Lord was there on earth.
And they had tax documents and they had business documents and a whole bunch of other stuff in there.
And in particular on many of the I'll give you the name of the cast of documents, but it's a great big long word. I can't even something like Oxyrhynchus or something like that. Maybe that'll be enough for you to find it and check my words.
But stamped on any of those tax documents?
That word translated, it is finished.
A sense of paid in full.
The tax document is what the government demanded. It's what the authority of the country demanded.
And their satisfaction that the tax had been paid was paid in full. And when the Son of God.
Hung on that cross, the Lord Jesus as Son of man. Lord Jesus is a man hanging there.
And when the payment in full was made to the holy God, it called out that word before.
He delivered up his spirit, he said, finished. It's paid in full. I've taken care of that debt so that I can sit here with you this evening and express to you my love.
Two more things.
And our time is gone.
One thing I want you to notice the end of verse 23, it says the Father.
Seeketh such to worship him.
Talking about worshippers and spirit and in truth there's wonderful things in the chapter, many wonderful things that will not come to, but it says the Father.
Seeketh.
Lord Jesus was here, especially in this book, to do his Father's will, and he says, My Father wants you in his presence.
It says later in the book my father's house is open to you.
There's an abode there and it's open to you, he says. My father wants you.
We know that the Son of Man has come to seek and save that which is lost from the book of Luke, Luke chapter 19. So here he wanted to express all that he had in a relationship with his Father in a past eternity that he wanted to share with you for a full on into the forever of eternity.
This woman wanted what he had.
Her heart is expressed in a response. She says, verse 25 I know that Messiah is cometh, which is called Christ. When he has come, he will tell us all things. Jesus saith unto her, I that speak unto thee, and he.
For so long set of arguments.
I've taken far longer tonight than the Lord did at the well, layout time. Me reading that section at 2 minutes and 45 seconds. I don't know exactly how long it took.
But we'll call it 3 minutes. And in 3 minutes, this woman met a man that knew everything about her, that loved her, that came to give, not to take, that came to expose what was there so that he could take it out of the way, so that he could have a relationship with her.
00:55:04
There were five husbands that she'd had.
There was a 6th.
But she was with.
He just met the 7th.
There's no word about anymore. There's nothing else that she was going to ever need. She got to the 7th person.
Looking for satisfaction. And there aren't going to be anymore. There didn't need to be anymore for this woman.
But what about for you? But you take what you've heard tonight and say well.
Yeah, not interested.
Or will you respond to the person that's speaking to your heart at the moment?
Before I pray, I want to add one thing for those of you that share the gospel with others. I think it's precious. It's wonderful in this chapter. You know, when you share the gospel with others, sometimes it can be.
Hard. Sometimes you share the gospel and there's a wonderful response and it's extremely encouraging. Sometimes you share and you share and you share and you share and perhaps you never see fruit in that particular life.
I want to just give you a thought to encourage. I hope you as you give out the gospel.
It comes a little later in the chapter. The Lord is speaking to his disciples. We'll have to skip over a lot of the details.
But he says in verse.
Umm.
Verse 38.
He's speaking to his disciples now. I sent you to read that were on ye bestowed no labor. Other men labored near entered into their laborers.
Isaiah labored.
600 years before Isaiah labored at a time when the people that he was dealing with were carried off.
And the captivity.
Zechariah labored. Zechariah labored when the people were feeble.
You know Isaiah and Zechariah and others of the prophets.
Presented this Messiah.
The woman had just said when the Messiah cometh, how did she know that?
How did all these others that believed here come to believe so quickly In two days? Many of them believe.
Because work that had been done 600 years before, 500 years before approximately in the case of Zechariah and the other prophets, however long it had been.
Was recorded in a perfect register and when these souls were harvested.
Lord put the credit where credit was due, due in this grace. I have to have to say, doing this grace, the Lord hadn't forgotten. And it may be that you sow and don't reap, but the record of your sowing is being kept.
And when there's a harvest, a record of that harvest, the one that knows it perfectly will record it for your encouragement.
Let's pray.
Dear Lord Jesus, we just do ask that if there is one person here this evening, Lord, that doesn't know they personally, that in some corner of their heart has the wrong thought of thee, is the heart God.
Is an indifferent God.
Is a God that would wink its in Lord Jesus.
Just asked that they would come to know Thee as thou art this evening, turn from their sin and repentance, and come to Thee, Lord Jesus as their Savior. We'd ask it in thy name, Lord Jesus, Amen.