“Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day” (John 6:54).
From Genesis to Revelation the Word of God is consistent as it sets forth the good news that salvation is of the Lord. When Adam and Eve transgressed the will of God in the Garden of Eden they ran and hid in shame.
Never again would they have ventured to walk and talk with the Lord of Glory in the cool of the evening.
Never again would they have greeted the Lord and shared with intelligence and excitement the wonders of creation they had discovered during that day. Sin had killed all desire to have fellowship with the Creator. Sin had stripped the man and woman of their light covering and left them unclothed and ashamed.
Only because the Lord sought for Adam and Eve did the way of salvation become known.
Time passed. Multitudes populated the earth, and yet the pattern and principle of redeeming grace pursuing wayward souls remained. It has to be this way because man by nature wants nothing to do with a holy and righteous God who condemns sin, and exposes the secret shame of a life.
The words of Jesus are so true as He Himself declared to the Jews, “No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him.” These words offended the Jews and the Bible says they began to murmur.
“Why did Jesus say that?” they asked one another. “Do we not have a free will in the matter?” “ Is there no salvation apart from Him?”
More than two thousand years have passed, but human nature has not changed. Individuals still murmur against the plain teaching of the very Son of God Himself.
There is only one position for faithful pastors and Bible teacher to take, and that is to say with Jesus, “Murmur not among yourselves.” It does no good. God will be God. Jesus will teach the truth and according to Jesus in John 6: 65 “no man can come unto me, except it were given unto him of my Father.”
The Church does not need to prove the reasonableness of the Divine provision, but rather to set forth the wonderful historical truth that in matchless grace God has given to certain precious souls all that is necessary for salvation. One illustration is found in John 4.
It is a familiar story. Due to opposition from the jealous Pharisees, Jesus had left the southern region of Judea and moved northward in the land of Palestine. His destination was an obscure well outside the city of Sychar in the middle part of the country known as Samaria. The Bible says in John 4:4, “And he must needs go through Samaria.”
What compelled Jesus to go to Sychar? Why must He go there? From a Divine perspective Jesus must go because He had a date with the destiny of a particular woman. In the eternal degree of God it had been foreordained that an outcast of society should met the Savior. On a mission of mercy, guided by eternal wisdom, Jesus went to a neglected field called Sychar.
Jacob’s well was at Sychar and so to all devout Jews a claim to fame. Along with Abraham and Isaac, Jacob was a great father of the faithful. Every Jewish child learned about the life of Jacob and how he fled from his brother Esau. With a staff only he went across the Jordan on a flight to safety.
The earth was his bed, a stone was his pillow, but angels became his companions. Then, in matchless wonderful grace God appeared to Jacob in a dream. When he awoke he continued on his journey. On another night, the angel of the Lord would wrestled with him. Jacob lost the match but he gained an immortal blessing. Time passed and Jacob knew both happiness and heartache. His children wounded his soul.
Reuben committed incest.
Dinah was disgraced.
Simeon and Levi had committed murder.
Er and Onan were struck dead.
Joseph was lost.
Simeon was imprisoned.
The birth of Benjamin proved the death of beloved Rachel.
In his old age, Jacob was driven by famine to Egypt to die among the heathen. Tradition says that before he died, he gave his son a parcel of ground. On this ground a well was dug and by it Jesus sat one day being thirsty.
It is a great mystery how Deity was clothed with humanity, but the Maker of heaven and earth became so weary. He was glad to rest on a stone.
Around noon, the Bible says there came a woman of Samaria to draw water. For the woman, from a human point of view, there was going to be an accidental meeting with a Stranger, but from God’s point of view, the accident was only another incident in the outworking of a wonderful Divine plan.
For this very moment, the Savior had come into the world.
For this very moment the woman had been led to meet her waiting Lord and Savior. A casual decision to go get some water from the local well became the most important decision of this woman’s life, for that simple event led to eternal salvation.
As the woman came near the public well, she did not speak. Custom prohibited a man speaking to any woman in public. Jewish prejudice condemned all Samaritans and held them in contempt. No doubt the woman dreaded the scorn sure to follow from any encounter with a common Jew so she was silent and surprised when she heard Jesus say, “Give me something to drink.”
Holding the spiritual cord of love in His hand, the Divine sovereignty, Jesus began to draw this woman to Himself. It was His intent to make her thirsty for the living waters of life before He left her. Oh, have you not heard. My Jesus has enough water for sinners to drink from. As John Wesley cried,
“Enough for all,
enough for each,
enough for evermore.”
The woman was amazed that Jesus, being a Jew, should ask help and water from a Samaritan and she told him so. Not offended, Jesus took the opportunity to take the thread of love wrapped around this woman and pull her even closer to Himself. “Woman,” said Jesus, “If thou knew 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.”
With these words Jesus sought to inspire in the woman a deep, ardent longing after life, abundant life, eternal life. Jesus knew already the true state of this woman. She had no quality of life. She was an adulteress. Relationships to her were superficial and meaningless; still she kept trying. Several marriages finally ended in the lowest form of self-esteem, she lived with a man who was not her husband. Her physical thirst speaks well of the thirsting of her soul.
But there was a deeper tragedy. The woman did not understand the meaning concerning spiritual water for the woman only knew about physical, literal water and so she said, “Sir, thou hast nothing to draw with, and the well is deep.”
Nothing? Does Jesus have “nothing?”
Who filled the oceans from the hallow of His hand?
Nothing?
Who causes the clouds and makes them treasures of His rain?
Nothing?
Who for thousands of years has opened fountains of joy in myriads of hearts?
If the woman only knew. Jesus Christ has everything, for all power and all authority both in heaven and on earth has been given to Him. Still, the unrenewed heart would limit the Holy One of Israel.
The unconverted mind can look into the very face of the Savior and see only a Stranger in Jewish garb. This is why electing love can never be based upon some foreseen faith in the unbeliever. There is no faith to be seen. The natural heart is incapable of expressing saving faith apart from Divine enablement and the illumination work of the Holy Spirit.
The only thing that the person in a non-converted condition can do is to flee from God and when finally confronted, argue with Him. That is what the woman at the well proceeded to do. In verse 12, a measure of doubt and sarcasm is used as the woman retorted, “Art thou greater than our father Jacob, which gave us the well, and drank there of himself, and his children and his cattle?”
There is no historic authority for this statement of the woman – merely a tradition. Unfortunately, myth once planted firmly in the mind is difficult to dislodge. The amazing thing is how gracious the Lord was. He did not walk away and leave the woman to her doom. Rather, He continued to concentrate on her inner need.
The question is not, “Is Jesus greater than Jacob?”
The question is “Will this woman drink of the water of life?”
Jesus said, “Who so ever drinketh of this water shall thirst again.”
Every person who has tried to satisfy the soul’s thirst with the waters of this life knows what Jesus says is true. There are countless millions upon millions who could stand and testify that the waters of this life do not satisfy.
Those who take drugs drink again and again from the polluted stream only to be thirsty.
Those who long after more pornographic material find their soul is not satisfied.
Those who try one intimate relationship after another find, like the woman at the well, discover the blue bird of happiness keeps flying away.
The old longs for something more come back.
Earth’s devotees often conceal an aching heart beneath a smiling face. The frantic search continues.
There is a fountain of gold to which multitudes continually resort.
There is a fountain of glory where many battle their bloody way.
There is a fountain of pleasure that attracts millions, only to poison their peace.
On his last birthday, the poet Lord Bryon wrote these words, “My days are in the yellow leaf, The flowers and fruits of life are gone, The worm, the canter, and the grief are mine alone. The fire that in my bosom preys, Is lone as some volcanic isle, No torch is kindled at its blaze a funeral pile.”
There is a cure, and that is to drink of the water that Christ shall give. I am afraid that many religiously inclined souls have only tasted of the waters of life. Then they turn from the fountain to drink again from the muddy waters of inner corruption. Jesus said those who drink of the water that He gives should never thirst. “Sir,” she prays, half in jest, half in seriousness, “Give me this water that I never come here to draw.”
The Lord who knows His own ignored the sarcasm and honored the deepest longing of her heart. But first, the issue of sin had to be dealt with.
Suddenly, dramatically, Jesus confronted the woman with the sin issue. All the sorted details of her loose life are not exposed. Rather, the heart of the sins is exposed. “Go call thy husband, and come back.”
The woman’s heart fluttered. Her movements halted for just a moment. Hardness crept into her voice. “I have no husband,” she said.
Technically, what she said was true. At the moment she was not legally married but her answer concealed more than it revealed. She could not fool the Lord and so the Lord exposed her life—not to be cruel but in order to induce a heartfelt repentance.
Mark it down. Unless there is a true exposure of one’s self before the living Lord and the soul is acutely aware that God knows the sin of self, there will be no true repentance and no inner conversion. This matter of mourning over sin is serious.
Why do we have so many dry-eyed conversions?
Why do we see so many turn back to their wicked ways?
Is it not because they have never seen themselves guilty and exposed before God?
Like all people who act badly and do not want to change or talk about it, the woman changes the subject. For a long time, much debate had raged over the proper place to worship and the woman brought up the ancient controversy? The same thing happens today. Begin to take to a person about their relationship to God and all types of questions are asked,
“Why are there so many religions?”
“What about all the hypocrites?”
“Is the Bible the Word of God?”
“Why can’t evolution be true?”
There is only one ultimate issue to be settled in life,
“What do you think of Christ?”
Jesus explained to the woman that the place to worship God is in spirit and in truth. The heart of man has become the dwelling place of God.
Finally, the woman understood. Before her was the Messiah. Before her was God’s Prophet. With joy unspeakable and full of glory, the woman’s only response was to tell others.
Just a moment ago she was not prepared to confess her guilt. Now she runs to tell others. “Come, come quickly, come now and see a man which told me all things ever I did. Is not this the Christ?” Indeed ,He is.
Perhaps you know of someone who has not dealt honestly with the sin issue. Every time it is approached the subject is changed. The mind recoils from admitting to the sin of adultery, blasphemy, violating the Sabbath willfully, lying, cheating, being violent, being willful, being proud or mean-spirited. This issue is not feeling guilty but feeling the need for a Savior and then crying out, “Lord, Jesus come and cleanse me. Allow me to drink of the water that you give.”
For those who have drunk at the Fountain of Living Water the words of Jesus are true. He has given a well of water springing up into everlasting life.
We understand that the electing love manifested to us was not based upon foreseen faith but upon the sovereign decision of God to have personal mercy.
We believe our salvation is so great because of this unconditional choice to mark us out, find us alone, confront us with sin, and provide the water of life.
We offer the water of life to others to drink. May God grant great grace to understand and by faith in Christ to drink. Amen.