The woman at the well

Let's turn, please, in our Bibles to John chapter 4. That would be the fourth book in the New Testament. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and then comes John. John chapter 4. For those that don't know me, my name is Scott McLeod from Canada, visiting John 4 and verse 4. Story about the Lord Jesus speaking to a woman, a sinner.

It says, John 4 and 4, and he must, that's the Lord Jesus, 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, and that would be as a result of walking 40 miles over a number of days, sat thus on the well, and it was about the sixth hour. That would be 12 noon our time. There cometh a woman of Samaria to draw water.

Jesus said unto her, give me to drink. For his disciples were gone away unto the city to buy meat or food. Verse 9. Then said the woman of Samaria unto him, and it's a good question, how is it that thou being a Jew asketh drink of me which am a woman of Samaria? For the Jews have no dealings, no discussion, no communications 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 said 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 give him, 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 said unto him, sir, give me this water, that I thirst not, neither come hither to draw. Jesus said unto her, go call thy husband, and come hither. 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 is not thy husband, in that sayest thou truly. The woman said unto him, sir, I perceive that thou art a prophet. Let your eye go down to verse 25.

The woman said unto him, I know that Messiah cometh, which is called Christ. When he is come, he will tell us all things. Jesus said unto her, I that speak unto thee am he.

And not a wonder, we read this in verse 27, upon this came his disciples and marveled. They wondered why that he talked with the woman, yet no man said, what seekest thou, or why talkest thou with her? Here's a lovely expression, then, or the woman then left her water pot, and went her way into the city, and said to the men, come see a man which hath told me all things that ever I did, is not this the Christ? Then they went out of the city, and came unto him. And finally, look at verse 39, the Lord Jesus goes back into the city, he preaches to a number of these individuals.

Verse 39, and many of the Samaritans of that city believed on him, the Lord Jesus, for the saying of the woman, which testified, he told me all that ever I did. So when the Samaritans were come unto him, they besought him that he would tarry with them, and he abode there two days. And many more believed, because of his own 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.

Now that's all we're going to read. We'll look to the Lord to bless the public reading of his word, and the thoughts that we'll take from it. I've been thinking upon this story for the last number of weeks.

I really enjoy this particular story. It's always wonderful to read through the Word of God, and to look carefully at when the Lord Jesus, God, spoke to humanity, someone who is a sinner. I find it very interesting if we look at this story from different perspectives, okay? We have got the wonderful perspective of looking at the whole story, so we can see how the story starts, and we can see how it ends.

We can see all the interaction in between, and those of us that have read it a number of times, it's a wonderful story to read, because the story ends a beautiful way. A woman who got up one morning in her sins. No peace.

There was a difference between her and her God. Her sin. And I would imagine that this woman, whatever knowledge she had of the Bible, she probably had a great fear of death.

And the fact that her sin was taking her to a real place called hell. That's an awful way to start the day. That's an awful way to live.

I can remember I was a I accepted the Lord Jesus as my personal Savior when I was 24 years of age. And I can remember many, many a days worrying about my sin. Wondering about meeting God in my sin.

Am I addressing someone tonight, and maybe that has been the number one thing in your life. You've been thinking about it. Is there really a God? Is it possible that I will meet God in my sin? Well friend, I want to use this story to try to encourage you that there is someone seeking for you.

Now that was unknown to this woman. See that was her perspective. When she got up on this particular day, it was just a normal day to her.

She had no understanding of all of these events that transpired over the last couple of days, as there was a man called Jesus Christ in a city called Jerusalem. And here she's living in this place called Samaria, Sychar, 40 miles between them. Now they didn't have cars back then.

They didn't have motorcycles. They just didn't hop on things and get there within an hour. This took the Lord Jesus possibly two to three days to travel this distance to speak to this woman.

Do you know what this woman was completely unaware of? And as you sit in this meeting tonight in your sin, do you know what you're unaware of? God is trying to find you. God has done things in your life. I can think of a verse right now in the book of Romans, not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance.

God showers goodness, blessings upon men and women, whether they acknowledge Him or not. Why? So they will come to the place where they acknowledge their sin and they accept the Lord Jesus as their personal Savior. This woman was completely unaware of this.

But this woman was not irreligious as we would say. This woman had a knowledge of the Old Testament. She's in the course of this conversation, she's talking to this man and she says, well we know that the Christ, the Messiah, the promised deliverer is coming.

So she was religious. She understood some of the things of the Old Testament. She understood that God did promise a deliverer.

But she didn't know who it was. She didn't know how to come into the good of being delivered from her sin. And you know what? I can sympathize with this dear woman.

Must have been an awful miserable existence. Am I speaking to someone tonight and maybe you've tried religion to soothe your conscience. Maybe you've tried good works to try to feel connected to God.

Maybe you've tried hopping around different churches trying to find if someone could just say the right thing or or give me the right program or or just tell me the right steps to take. I would be okay with God. Friend, listen.

You are in search of the only man that can take away your sin. It's Jesus Christ. It's not a church or a church building.

It's not a practice, a lifestyle. It's not found in anything that you and I could ever do, muster up and do for God. The only person, friend, that can take away your sin and give you peace is a man called Jesus Christ.

And you know what I find amazing? It's not a wonder when this woman finally met the Lord Jesus and she was just surprised. How is it that you being a Jew are speaking to me as Samaritan? Now that to our ears doesn't make a whole lot of sense because we really don't understand just the cultural difference between a Samaritan and a Jew. A Jew would have looked at a Samaritan as being kind of a half-breed.

Not fully Jews and not really fully Gentile. But we don't touch them. We don't talk to them.

We go out of our way to avoid them. So I was looking at this contrast. Here is a Jew with all of these cultural advantages of having the Word of God, knowing God, being religious, and here's this poor woman with nothing.

Yeah, not a wonder she would say, how is it that you're talking to me? Listen, friend, if I could get you to see this contrast, it is an absolute miracle that a holy God takes time to speak to sinners in their sins on the road to hell. An absolute miracle and people miss it every day. God tries to speak to sinners.

You know, often in our prayer meetings we make a big mistake. We're always asking God, God speak to sinners. That's his character.

He speaks to sinners. That's a result of his love that is in his heart for sinners. God is always speaking.

God doesn't turn off the speaker and let a sinner go quiet. God is always speaking. Do you know what we need to pray? And it's my prayer tonight.

You not sit, your ears will be open to hear it. You would start to reflect upon things that have been happening in your life and you would see them for what they really are. See, this woman, her first impression of this man, which from our perspective we understand to be God.

Now just think of it for a minute. Just sort of stand back and look at the snapshot. Here is the eternal God talking to a woman.

Talk about a golden opportunity. And all she saw was a Jew. That's all she saw.

She couldn't get any higher than that at the first. He's just a man and he's a Jew. That's why the Lord Jesus said to her, if you only knew the gift of God and who it is that's speaking to you, you would have asked me a question before I asked you one.

Friend, listen. Could I get you to see this? We are here tonight not to try to get you to join the gospel hall in Waukesha. Maybe that's how you see it.

Maybe you're waiting for the collection plate. We don't have a collection plate to pass to you. Maybe that's how you see it.

It's just another church going after money. You couldn't give me your money if you tried. I'd keep pushing it back to you.

Maybe you think it's about church membership. You're just waiting for someone. They've been really nice to me up until now.

They've been coming out. They've been, oh, they have nice little dinners here and they feed me and I'm waiting for the other foot to fall where they say, now we want your money. Now we want your time.

Now we want you. No, we are here to introduce you to God, Jesus Christ, who wants to save you. He has a gift for you.

It's called eternal life. It's knowing beyond a shadow of a doubt, based on the word of God, that my sins are all forgiven. I have been saved for the last 23 years.

I know, friend, that I am on this road and if I was to die, I'd be in heaven. You talk about a gift. I know that I will never, never be in this place called hell.

Friend, is there anyone interested in knowing that? That is a possibility. What I find so amazing about this conversation is it might have taken 10 minutes. 10 minutes! And do you realize what this woman saw in 10 minutes? She started out calling him a man, a Jew, a prophet, the Messiah.

You know where she ended? Savior of the world. That encourages me to preach the gospel. There is more to this meeting than just, as one man says, you know, frustrated auctioneers that have no job and we're just up here airing our lungs.

No, there's more to it. If you could get beyond the physical. Get beyond the physical.

And if you could see that we're preaching from the word of God, we're trying to introduce you to the only person who loves you, God Almighty. We're trying to introduce you to this man that he looks as a man to normal people, but he's actually God come down from heaven and he went to the cross of Calvary and he freely died for your sin and for my sin. What a message.

What a message. You know what the sad thing about the story is? And it's about you. The sad thing is the woman could have missed it.

And wouldn't it be a sad thing? Here's our perspective. Now, if we were reading this story and we understood that, man, this is the almighty creator standing before this woman. This is the one that holds and keeps life together.

And here's this woman looking at him. She just walks away. Just walks away.

She doesn't understand who he is and what he wants to give her. She just shuts down the conversation. You're going to discover a friend in the conversation that the Lord Jesus talked about some pretty personal things.

Am I addressing someone here tonight and you would like to be in heaven when you die? Do you know what you'll have to face first? It's your sin. Nobody, nobody will find themselves in heaven one day. Have you never had a point where they face their sin? Would you like to know what this woman's particular sin was that the Lord Jesus actually put his finger right on? This woman was living common law.

She was committing fornication with another man. Now, the world out there says that ain't sin. The Bible says it's sin.

And that sin is enough to take this woman to hell and, my friend, it'll take you to hell, too. Now, it must be quite a thing in her little mind as now she's looking at this man and all of a sudden this man, that's right, you've had five husbands. You know what that woman would have understood right off the bat? This man understands, knows everything about me.

Now, you know what? She could have done two things at that moment. She could have went, huh, it's a little too personal, mister. I'm going home.

Thank God she stayed. And she allowed the spotlight of God to fall upon her sin. Friend, listen, it's a very simple thing to be saved.

But I'll tell you what the hardest part is, getting to the place. It's very hard admitting that we're wrong. Very hard acknowledging before God that I have sinned.

And God, if you were to send me to hell, that's just what I deserve. That's what I discovered on April the 4th, 1990. I discovered from this Bible that my sin, I deserve to be in hell.

And God would be 100% right if he did it. I had nothing to barter with God. There was nothing that I could reach into my pocket and say, but God, look, doesn't this count for something? No, friend.

I want you all to understand tonight, not only is it a miracle that God would speak to this woman, it's a miracle that God would even offer her salvation. Friend, if I could just get you to see what you have been overlooking and pushing away for so many years, if not saved here tonight, you are actually pushing away the greatest gift, the greatest thing you could ever know, and that's your sins forgiven. I wonder if I'm speaking to someone again, and maybe you can relate to this woman, the burden of her heart.

You know, it must have been an awful thing, quite a thing, I should say. This woman, it's fairly clear. You can look into history and you can discover that there were actually three wells in this city.

Two of them were on the inside, one was on the outside. This one that she went to was on the outside. So it's the furthest distance to go for water.

And you'll understand from the chapter that she's going to get water at 12 noon. That's the hottest part of the day. People didn't go to get water at 12 noon, and they didn't go that distance to get it.

Do you know what she was trying to do? She was trying to avoid people. That's what she was trying to do. But I'm thinking of the Lord Jesus.

He knew exactly where to meet her. He knew the very moment when to meet her. And you know what I love about the story? This is the only time the gospel writer John is going to bring before you a water bucket singular.

And here's this woman holding on to her empty bucket. Do you know what that's a picture of? That is a picture, friend, of sinners, in their sins. Everything that this world has to offer you, it will never satisfy and it will leave you empty, just an empty bucket.

And I just thought of the contrast. Here is a woman, a sinner, with an empty bucket. Her life is miserable, and she's standing right in front of the giver of salvation.

Friend, how would you like to die? Would you like to die with your empty bucket? Your sin? Or would you like to die with the gift of God, which is eternal life? I think that's important, why the Spirit of God records for us. This woman understood, this is the Messiah. This is the promised deliverer.

And you know what the Word of God records? She dropped her bucket. And she turned around. You know why she dropped her bucket? Because she had Christ in her heart.

That's why. Friend, listen. As I told you before, I've been saved for 23 years.

I got saved when I was 24. I have one regret. I have one regret since trusting the Lord Jesus as my personal Savior.

Do you know what it is? I wish I had gotten saved earlier. Wonderful thing to know God as your Savior. Wonderful thing to have a relationship with God and to have that peace between me and God.

Wonderful thing to be able to read the Bible and understand it. And to understand, yeah, why did the Lord Jesus come? Why did He die? Friend, He died for my and your sin. So maybe as I'm preaching here tonight, maybe you're going back in your mind and you're looking for this experience.

See friend, listen. One thing I've been enjoying recently is this. See that door? You see heaven? Every, now listen carefully to me.

Every single person who's going to be in heaven, they have to be able to have a personal interview with Jesus Christ. You know, it's an amazing thing to think. You think of these massive corporations and they're so big they have to hire a whole department called Human Resources to look after hiring and firing and everything.

And the CEO, the president way up here, and he doesn't really have too much idea who HR is interviewing for a job in the company. He just sort of puts that responsibility off to them. But you know, God is different.

God does not have a HR department in heaven. God Himself is the interviewer. God Himself holds conversations with every single sinner before they get to heaven.

That's why it's so important friend to meet Jesus Christ. That's why it's so important that this woman stayed and she talked to the very door to heaven. So friend, if you're here tonight unable to go back into your mind and put your finger on the day when you met Jesus Christ, if you can't take your mind back to when you felt the finger of God touch your sin, that's something that a lot of people are not wanting to preach today.

Conviction and repentance from sin. Do you know where you are friend? You're still in your sins, heading to hell. You'll never be in heaven.

It's paramount that we get that into our heads. I've recently been talking to individuals and they've been trying to tell me that a person can be saved and not remember it. Can you imagine the greatest event that could ever transpire in a person's life? Can't remember it? Coming from absolute darkness into glorious light.

Can't remember it? Going from the bondage of sin into the liberty of sins forgiven. Can't remember it? Because they have nothing. They're still in their sins.

So friend, I trust as I close there might be someone like this woman. Ah, there's more to this than just the physical. Much more.

That man up there is pretty worked up. You know why I'm worked up friend? Because hell is real. Hell is real.

And there are people that woke up today and as we sit comfortably in this building, they have fallen into hell. That's why it's serious. That's why it's good to have a crystal clear moment when you accepted Jesus Christ as your savior.