Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] All right. Good to see everybody today.
[00:00:02] And we are going to be in John 4 this morning, and hopefully we will finish our study of our case study on the Samaritan woman in our study of the school of evangelism.
[00:00:24] So let's go to John chapter four and pick up where we left off.
[00:00:33] Seeing how we read most of the chapter this time, what we'll do is we'll read the second part of the chapter from verse 27 to verse 45, because we will.
[00:00:46] Hopefully we will be looking at these verses. So I'll go ahead and read those to kind of get it fresh in our mind. Verse 27 says, and upon this, that is when Jesus says plainly, I that speak unto thee am he that is the Messiah.
[00:01:01] And upon this came his disciples and marveled that he talked with the woman. Yet no man said, what seekest thou? Or why talkest thou with her?
[00:01:10] 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? Then they went out of the city and came unto him. In the meanwhile, his disciples prayed him, saying, master, eat.
[00:01:28] But he said unto them, I have meat to eat that ye know not of. Therefore, said the disciples, one to another, hath any man brought him ought to eat. Jesus saith unto them, my meat is to do the will of him that sent me and to finish his work.
[00:01:42] Say not ye, there are yet four months, and then cometh 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 reapeth receiveth wages and gathereth fruit unto life eternal, that both he that soweth and he that reapeth may rejoice together. And herein is that saying true. One soweth, and another reapeth, I sent you to reap that, whereupon ye bestowed no labor. Other men are labored, other men labored, and ye are entered into their labors. Now you can see why the Lord is saying this at this moment. We've already covered these verses in context with the idea of sowing and reaping. But you can see in this context why he's saying this, because he is basically in the middle of a conversation with the Samaritan woman in which he is essentially sharing the Gospel with her. And so this. That's why this occurs right in the middle of this context. So while he's trying to teach her, he's also trying to instruct his disciples about what they should be looking at, and we've already, we saw last week. Are the disciples eyes focused on what they should be focused upon? No, they're focused upon the fact that she's a Samaritan, the fact that Jesus is talking to her, which was outside of the box. They were focused on getting food from the city. They were focused on a lot of other things. All human things. Not necessarily evil, but all human things. And Jesus is saying, he mentions eyes in verse number 35. Lift up your eyes, look on the fields. Look, look what's around you. All right?
[00:03:22] 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 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. Let's pray together.
[00:03:56] Our Father in heaven, we thank you for the opportunity to meet together in our Sunday school class. We thank you for the kids classes downstairs and those that are teaching them and instructing them. Faces that we haven't seen in a while that are back. Lord, thank you for that. Thank you for your goodness to us, please, as we look in your word. This is your word, not ours, not man's. We pray that you would help our hearts to be open to receive it.
[00:04:21] Be our teacher, Lord. We pray in Jesus name. Amen.
[00:04:27] So we've already seen how that in John 4 with this Samaritan woman, that there was a racial element. In other words, the Jews looked down on the Samaritans. They did not like the Samaritans and would actually circumvent the area of Samaria just to avoid the Samaritans. They have no dealings, even as this woman pointed out, no dealings with the Samaritans. And yet the Lord goes straight for her because his compassion doesn't see those boundaries. Because of course the Lord is thinking spiritually, he's not just thinking of carnally and human centered thinking. The second thing we saw is that the Lord was what I termed soul conscious. In other words, while other people were paying attention to the human, the human aspects of this interaction, the Lord was thinking of this woman's soul. How do you know that? Because he brought up the subject of eternal life. So the Lord brings up this. And he's thinking about this woman's.
[00:05:32] This woman's eternal, you know, her soul's condition as it relates to salvation, as it relates to the Gospel. And. And so that's something. And of course, as I said just a minute ago, that's what he's trying to instill in the disciples. I wonder how many times after this, many years later, they looked back and remembered and thought, you know, what was our Lord thinking of whenever he was talking to this woman? And what were you thinking of? And so.
[00:06:07] And so you see this concept of being soul conscious.
[00:06:17] Now, if you look at what the woman says back at the top part of the chapter, the first part of the chapter, what I want to draw your attention to is the way this woman reacts.
[00:06:30] So in verse number 10, Jesus says, if thou knewest the gift of God and who it is that saith unto thee, give me to drink, thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water. The woman saith, of course. So our Lord is obviously not talking about regular water. But whether this woman knows that or doesn't know that, what she does do is she reverts the conversation, redirects the conversation back to a physical matter. So she's talking about water.
[00:06:59] Whence then hast thou that living water? Verse 11. And then she brings up Jacob. And then Jesus replies and says, notice so our Lord is from the very beginning, from the time he says in verse number seven, give me to drink.
[00:07:18] The Lord's mind is on her soul. Okay, right. We see that he opens up the conversation talking about. He introduces living water to her, the gift of God, which, of course, would have been mysterious. We all know that. And the woman turns the conversation back to the well water. And so what does Jesus do? He turns the conversation back to the living water.
[00:07:44] He says in verse number 13, 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. So that gives us a little more information. Remember, this woman was hearing this for the first time. Not like us. Not like us. When we're reading it, we are already familiar with all this, so we automatically know what Jesus is referring to, but she doesn't.
[00:08:15] So the Lord brings up living water, the gift of God.
[00:08:20] And then finally in verse 14, he kind of pulls it together and he says, this is talking about everlasting life. This is a Spiritual and eternal matter.
[00:08:31] What does the woman do? In verse 15, the woman saith unto her, sir, give me this water that I thirst not, neither come hither to draw. So what does she do? She goes back to the physical.
[00:08:45] The Lord is trying to get her attention and her mind on something that's eternal.
[00:08:51] And her mind is going back to the physical. I don't know how many times.
[00:08:57] Dozens and dozens, maybe even hundreds of times. When I was a missionary in Cambodia and I brought up the question, these eternal spiritual truths to people, how many times they would attempt to. To turn the conversation or interpret what I was saying in a physical sense, in a way. In other words, you would talk about the gift of God or the grace of God, and it would automatically be assumed. People would automatically assume that I was referring to being wealthy or. Or some sort of material blessing. And that's not what our Lord is talking about. He is not providing and digging wells is fine, obviously, but he is not talking about supplying her, you know, her need of water in perpetuity or anything like that. He's talking about her spiritual need, her eternal need, but yet she reverts back. So in evangelism, what you find, the principle I want you to see from this, and we'll see a little bit more in a minute, is that's oftentimes what people will do.
[00:10:10] We're talking about. We want to talk about one thing, and they want to talk about something else.
[00:10:15] And I think the reason they do that. And so it begs the question, when we want to talk about one thing. Here's the thing. What is that thing that we should be talking about?
[00:10:27] What is that thing that we should be talking about?
[00:10:32] Exactly. Now hold that thought, because we're going toward the end of the lesson, we're going to see that more clearly.
[00:10:38] But most people are not wanting to talk about their spiritual condition. You know why? Because a lot of people, by default, by nature, are very uncomfortable with those questions.
[00:10:53] And so they are more comfortable talking about things that. That are temporal, that are physical. They just avoid the subject. You know why? Because there's a lot of. I'm just being honest with you. There's a lot of doubt that just swims around in people's minds about these questions.
[00:11:11] They don't have answers, and they don't know where they turn for answers.
[00:11:14] And so they just avoid it.
[00:11:17] Just avoid it. Eternal life. I have no idea what that is. I'll deal with that later.
[00:11:24] Want to talk about the well.
[00:11:27] But what the Lord does is he patiently turns the conversation Back.
[00:11:35] Alright, look at verse 16.
[00:11:39] So she says, sir, give me this water that I thirst not, neither come hither to draw. So you would agree this woman has misunderstood, whether on purpose or not, has misunderstood what the Lord is saying, right? She's thinking of water, H2O. And Jesus is talking about something totally different. There's a disconnect. Okay? Notice the Lord drops the subject temporarily and he says, go call thy husband and come hither.
[00:12:09] Now keep reading the verse 17 and verse 18.
[00:12:14] 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 thou now hast is not thy husband. In that, saidst thou truly.
[00:12:30] Okay, now we have verse 17 and 18. Right?
[00:12:37] He says plainly he knows her marital situation. He knows that she is a one. So let's just put it out there. This, this woman is a woman who is no doubt known as a woman who does not have a good reputation.
[00:12:56] She's been married five times.
[00:12:59] And you could say, well, maybe she had the misfortune of having five husbands, all of whom died. That is unlikely. Maybe one, maybe two, whatever. But it is unlikely that all five of her husbands died. That. That's more of a hypothetical. All right, so in all likelihood, she's had marriages that have failed. Right now she has a man that she's cohabiting with who is not her husband.
[00:13:27] That is a sin, right? That is adultery. Right.
[00:13:33] Her marriages have dissolved. And the Lord made it plain. We've already studied that in Matthew. The Lord made it plain. That's adultery. So she's. She's. Right now she's living in a state, an immoral lifestyle. She has an immoral lifestyle that she's parading around as if it is moral and it's not.
[00:13:49] Notice, the Lord nails this thing. He doesn't talk around it. He doesn't. He doesn't.
[00:14:01] He doesn't make it seem anything less than it is. He nails it on its head. Okay, but when he. I want to ask you a question. In verse 16, he says, Go call thy husband. We already know that he knew very well she had no husband. And he knew very well at the time he asked this first question that she was living with a man who was not her husband. The Lord knew that. So the question then is, and this is the point, why did he ask it?
[00:14:30] If he knew full well the answer, why did he ask it? It reminds me of in the Garden of Eden, after Adam and Eve had sinned, did God know where they were. Of course he did. And yet he comes and says, adam, where art thou?
[00:14:48] The Lord is not trying to get information. The Lord doesn't ask questions to get information, does he? No, he already knows. And this is a perfect example. So then the question, and maybe you can help me brainstorm, why then is our Lord asking this woman to call her husband?
[00:15:08] You know what he's doing?
[00:15:10] He's bringing the subject up.
[00:15:14] Now, I'm reading between the lines here, so I confess some of this. You know, there might be some, you know, the Bible doesn't say it perfectly clearly, but this is probably a sore spot.
[00:15:27] This is probably a sore. This deals with her reputation. Some commentators have noted that the time in which she came would have been in the heat of the day, the sixth hour. So it would have been hot.
[00:15:39] And it is not normally the time that you would go to the well, especially if the well was distant from your city. I mean, can you imagine walking several miles to go to a well in the heat of the day? That would not be fun. And then carrying the water, eight pounds a gallon, not counting the container it's in, that's no fun. How many of you like to carry a five gallon bucket full of water? That is no fun. That's no fun.
[00:16:06] So there might be something there. But the point is, here's what I want you to see. This deals directly with this woman's sin. And Jesus brought, brought it up.
[00:16:19] Now let me ask you a question. As we think, you know, meditate on this further.
[00:16:24] Was adultery and this immoral situation this woman is in, was it the only sin that she had in her life? Certainly not.
[00:16:33] Certainly not.
[00:16:35] But it likely was one of her major sins. Major. You know what I mean when I say that.
[00:16:41] So, and this is an observation, you can take it, and you're dealing with people. You're trying to share the gospel with people.
[00:16:49] What I've noticed is a lot of people have what I call a representative sin.
[00:16:57] It's not the only sin that they have in their life, but it's one that represents the whole. It's the big one, sometimes the big sin. And it's not necessarily as big to God or big to me or big, but it's big to them and it represents. This sin represents something that is a major matter to them.
[00:17:18] And all the other sins, yes, they're bad. And all the other immoralities that they might be involved in, yes, those are bad, but those kind of fall from that major sin.
[00:17:28] So by dealing with that major sin, and as God sees It you're touching on all the others at the same time that they view as lesser sins. In this case. Why did the Lord bring this up? Here's the point. Is the Lord trying to get her well, you need to move out. That's not the point. He's trying to bring up her condition. He's trying to bring up her sinful condition. But he didn't speak in generalities like, you know, well, are you a sinner? And I know that's fine and good, and that's all fine and good, but notice the way he did that was by nailing a specific sin.
[00:18:06] Oftentimes people, I should say, sometimes people will bring up those. Those kind of top level, again in their own mind, top level sins in their lives.
[00:18:21] They'll bring it up, what do you. And they'll say, how many of you have been in a situation you've been witnessing? And someone says, well, what do you think about.
[00:18:31] What do you think about drinking? Or what do you think about, you know, evolution? Or what do you think about whatever, what do you think about this church or this religion?
[00:18:43] Oh, I'm this, I'm that.
[00:18:46] And they throw that out.
[00:18:49] You see, our Lord used a specific sin to help the woman see that she is a number one, to help her to see where she stood with the Lord and also revealed what our Lord's opinion was on it. But it was also to see where she was on that sin, whether she was willing to confess that thing and acknowledge it.
[00:19:11] And she does.
[00:19:14] She says, for thou has had five husbands, and he whom thou now hast is not thy husband.
[00:19:23] Now, I want you to remember a couple of things when we're sharing the gospel with people. Look, people are sinners. We're sinners too, obviously. But people have sins in their lives that they cherish, they love, and they clasp, and they hold onto it. Certain sins, some more than others.
[00:19:46] It is essential that we make those things clear, that we don't stay generic, because the reality is, and this is a script, Jesus said, except you repent, you shall all likewise perish. So there is a heart, and we've covered this in our school of evangelism. But there is a heart matter dealing with sin where if someone absolutely holds onto a thing and will not acknowledge how evil it is in the sight of God, they will go to hell holding on to that thing.
[00:20:20] They will. And it might be some, some pesky little thing in our view, but it must be brought up.
[00:20:32] See, there's a problem in our evangelism when we're Avoiding the topic of sin.
[00:20:40] Evangelism really starts with this subject.
[00:20:45] It really does, because sin is the whole problem.
[00:20:48] It's the whole problem.
[00:20:50] We cannot avoid it. Our Lord did not avoid it when he is seeking to give her everlasting life.
[00:21:00] The other thing I want you to see about this before we move on is this.
[00:21:05] This woman was likely a woman with a bad reputation. She had a checkered moral past, and that's beyond the fact that she was a Samaritan, which was a despised race to the Jews. But the Lord did not shun her as a result of that. He did not shy away from her, though. He obviously nailed her sin.
[00:21:27] In other words, sometimes in our evangelism, we want to interact with just clean, upstanding sinners.
[00:21:38] That's not right.
[00:21:40] Well, what will they think if I'm talking to someone?
[00:21:45] It's not right.
[00:21:48] The Lord actually went to knowing full well who would the whole of this lady's past and all of those things. He targeted her. He wanted her to be saved and her sin did not. Her sin and her checkered past and her moral failures and all those things did not dissuade him. Isn't it amazing? Now think about God. Isn't it amazing that no matter what sin, no matter how ungodly, no matter how much, no matter how often, it never gets to the point where God just says, you know what? I don't want to deal with that person. Actually, to the contrary, Romans 5:20 says that God gave the law that the offense might abound, but where sin abounded, grace did much more abound. So listen, the more you increase sin, the more God's grace overflows to still call out to that sinner. Do we understand that? So that's what our heart and mind should be on this matter.
[00:22:52] Now look at what the Woman says. Verse 19.
[00:22:57] The woman saith unto him, sir, now this is in response to what he said about her husbands. Now, sir, I perceive that thou art a prophet.
[00:23:05] A little bit of flattery, maybe. Our fathers worshipped in this mountain. And ye say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship. You know what this is? This is another distraction.
[00:23:18] You know what this distraction is? The Lord's trying to get her to see her sin. He's trying to bring up the subject of eternal life, trying to help her to see where she stands with God and what her need is. And she says, I want to talk about a religious debate.
[00:23:32] The Samaritans say we worship in Mount Gerizim, which is where she is. And the Jews say you worship in Jerusalem. What do you think about that?
[00:23:42] A religious debate. I don't know how many times this has happened.
[00:23:51] This turns the conversation from spiritual and eternal things to religion.
[00:23:59] And not only to religion, but she turns the conversation to outward religion. What she's talking about is all the sacrifices and practices and traditions and all that stuff that happened because there was a temple on this mountain that she's referring to in Samaria. There was a temple, just like there was in Jerusalem. And so she's saying, I want to talk about this. I don't want to talk about my husband's. You sound like a great guy. You're a pretty smart guy. You're a pretty smart guy. Now I want to talk about. I want to talk about now. Where are we supposed to worship now?
[00:24:29] But that's to the peril of her soul. That's the thing.
[00:24:32] She wants to talk about something that doesn't even matter. And what Jesus says is, when he answers her, he says, woman.
[00:24:42] Every time I read that, Devin smiling, he knows what I'm talking about every time I read this. Because Jesus said this to his mother. He said, woman, but it didn't carry the same thing it carries with us. I'm afraid he says it might be like saying, ma'am, maybe we could. In our mind, we can think, ma'am, and maybe that's a little friendlier. Believe me. The hour cometh when you shall, neither in this mountain nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father.
[00:25:09] Now notice you might think our Lord is that Jesus is skirting the issue, because this is a major issue.
[00:25:17] The truth is, the Samaritans are wrong.
[00:25:21] They're worshiping a false God in a false place. They're not worshiping God. According to the scripture, Jesus does not skirt that. He says, 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 worshiper shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth. For the Father seeketh such to worship him.
[00:25:45] God is a spirit, and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and truth. So she wants to have a religious debate. She wants to talk about outward religion. She's distracting the conversations of that Jesus is. Jesus reminds her, you want to talk about the outward practice, the form of religion, whether it's here, whether it's there, what you do, what you don't.
[00:26:07] Jesus says, but God's looking at your heart.
[00:26:12] He's looking at your heart.
[00:26:14] They that worship him must worship him in spirit, inwardly and in Truth, not just the form, but the reality.
[00:26:24] But see, that's. Most people view religion as the form. You understand that. Just like this woman. Why did her mind go to that? Because that's how most people view faith and religion. It's the outward works, not the inward part. But what the Lord is saying is the inward is all that matters.
[00:26:43] Even if you went to Jerusalem and gave the offerings, if your heart isn't there, God ain't having. God's not having anything to do with it. Because in the Old Testament we find that exactly they drew nigh to God with their heart and with their worship. With their mouth rather, and with their worship. And God says, their heart is far from me. He didn't accept it.
[00:27:02] Right here Jesus is saying there's coming a day. That day is now when God's looking for people who are worshiping him in spirit and in truth. God's looking at your heart.
[00:27:15] And the Lord brings the subject back, brings the subject back to the eternal things. Now, we only have a little bit of time, so I want to go back to my original question.
[00:27:30] When this woman distracts, several times she distracts.
[00:27:34] The Lord brings it back to what subject is he constantly bringing it back to? And here's what I want to suggest to you.
[00:27:43] The main and most important topic. Now remember, there is no gospel at this time like we think of the gospel that Christ died for our sins, was buried and rose again. That hasn't happened yet. So obviously that's not something they're talking about about. But there is something that is very similar to what we say that is being spoken of here. Verse number 10. Look what it says. If thou knewest the gift of God and who it is that saith to thee, give me to drink.
[00:28:14] It says, thou wouldest have asked of him and he would have given thee living water. So the Lord is directing the conversation back to who I am, right? Who's giving living water. Verse 14 says the same thing. He says, the water that I shall give him. The emphasis is not even really on the water, but on the person that gives the water.
[00:28:40] Look at verse number 12. She says, Art thou greater than our Father Jacob? What's the answer?
[00:28:47] Yeah, again the conversation. She asked is, are you greater than Jacob? Is it Jacob or Jesus?
[00:28:55] We're going back to the person of Christ. You read verse number 19. She says this, sir, I perceive that thou art a prophet. Again, who is Jesus? Is Jesus a prophet?
[00:29:10] And then we of course saw that Jesus told her all things that that ever she did. We saw her talk about her husband's. Who is this person that knows all about her? Then in verse number 26 we say she talks about the Messiah. Jesus says in verse 27, verse 25 rather. And in verse 26, Jesus says, I am the Messiah. And then in verse number 42, the men say, the other Samaritans say, 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.
[00:29:51] So here's what I want you to see. What is the main topic?
[00:29:54] What is Jesus trying to get her to come back to? Is him, him, Him. That's what evangelism is all about.
[00:30:03] If in our evangelism we are not talking about Jesus, we are so dreadfully wrong.
[00:30:10] It's all about Jesus from start to finish. He did it all. Do you understand? He did it all. He died upon the cross. He took our sins. He rose again. He offers grace. He offers forgiveness. And when we trust in him, he forgives us and saves us. We are trusting Him. The whole conversation is about Him. But there's a secondary topic that is important as well, which is the woman's sin, something Jesus brought up and discussed with the woman.
[00:30:47] So this helps us to understand what should be our focus. People will try to distract us from the main topic. There's all kind of religious ideas floating around in their head. They will try to distract us. We need to get back to the main thing and the other thing, secondary thing that supports the main thing.
[00:31:07] Now notice what happens. It's what I call the domino effect.
[00:31:12] Jesus, our Lord is having a conversation with a single individual.
[00:31:17] But in verse number 28, the Bible says the woman then left her water pot and went into the city and saith to the men, come see a man. Which told me all things ever I did. Is not this the curse? Christ, even though our Lord was alone at the well with the woman, no one else was there and it was an individual conversation. This one conversation bloomed into a huge evangelistic event because in verse 40, the Samaritans came to him and asked the Lord to stay there. And he stayed for two days and he taught and verse 41 says, and many more believed because of his own word.
[00:32:01] So Jesus, it wasn't a one time conversation. As a result of this one conversation and the testimony of this woman, a huge opportunity expanded. That wasn't the original intent at all. Well, maybe to the Lord it was, but initially that's not what was in view.
[00:32:18] There was much fruit from a single conversation. And most of that Fruit was would not be harvested by Jesus himself.
[00:32:27] We talked about in Acts chapter 8. Philip came later and he was well received. You know, that was only a few years after this event.
[00:32:36] And that same name Jesus, Right of Nazareth, was the same name Philip was talking about when he went later.
[00:32:44] That ground had been prepared for those that would be saved later. Not just these that trusted him and believed in Christ at this time, but much later there would be more.
[00:32:54] And that goes back to our original subject with the sowing and reaping.
[00:32:58] The last thing I want us to see this morning is this.
[00:33:03] This woman knew almost nothing about Jesus.
[00:33:12] This example demonstrates how effective a witness witness a person can be even though they are wholly ignorant, don't know Bible verses, don't know how to witness, is not trained and is not knowledgeable. This woman is that she just met the Lord. She's obviously ignorant of him.
[00:33:35] But here's the one thing that she has, and this is the one indispensable characteristic to be a witness for Christ that you must have, even if you don't know anything else, is you have to have yourself a personal encounter with Christ.
[00:33:56] That's the one thing she had that you can't get in a Bible college or in a Sunday school class on the school of evangelism. You yourself have to know Christ personally. And she did, even though she didn't know anything else. But what she did is she took what she did know. Verse 29, is not this the Christ?
[00:34:16] She learned what she learned not from the teaching of others in some school, although that's not all bad.
[00:34:22] But she learned what she learned from a personal encounter with Christ in her own life.
[00:34:29] That's what made her witness effective. Combined with the reality that that checkered past that everybody else knew all of that woman's history framed what she said about Jesus and such that the bad history of her life was then used for good.
[00:34:54] Because that was what informed people's ears when they were listening to what she was saying. He told me all things. He said everything you did.
[00:35:07] Here you have a relatively ignorant, untrained person being an effective witness that the Lord used to bring people, more people to Him.
[00:35:18] No training, no knowledge. But she did have an encounter with Christ.
[00:35:24] And that's what made it a simple but effective witness. Let's pray together.
