Come See A Man...! - Part Three
SCRIPTUREJohn 4:7-26
A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” (For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.) Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” The woman said to him, “Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.” Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but kwhoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.”
Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.” The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true.” The woman said to him, “Sir, I perceive that you are q prophet. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.” Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” The woman said to him, “I know that, Messiah is coming (he who is called Christ). When he comes, he will tell us all things.” Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am he.”
LESSON
You may have lost everything you had so that you must take a small place in a community where you were once a leader. You may have used your last savings and not know where money will come from to buy tomorrow's bread. The Lord Jesus meets you now, just where you are, and says to you, "If you only knew the gift of God. If you only knew all that I am willing to do for you and in you, if you will give Me the chance! I will give you living water that shall be all life to you."
When the Bible says "water," in nine verses out of ten, it does not mean H20. What a terrible thing to try to make "water" mean H2O when it means the Word of God or salvation. The woman said to him, "Sir, you've nothing to draw with." You see, her mind was on H2O and the well was deep. She did not yet understand.
This shows the heart of humanity. God comes offering a great gift and we begin to measure God by our methods of doing things. If people would stop trying to limit God, much greater blessing would come upon them. She saw merely the deepness of the well, the lack of a container, and asked, almost sarcastically, if Jesus were greater than Jacob, who had dug the well.
Do not expect to be rebuffed by the Lord if you come to Him with a doubt. If you are honest He will meet your need. What He will not tolerate is that you should use doubts as a cloak for sin. But where there is an honest doubt He will meet it. The woman had wondered about the water that He offered and had expressed the difficulties as she saw them. Then He made the promise stronger. Jesus said to her, "Everyone who drinks of this H2O will thirst again, but whosoever drinks of the supernatural water (the Word of God, the divine salvation) that I shall give him will never thirst. The water that I shall give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life." (See vv. 13-14.)
We have been going to all the springs of earth and have drunk deep, but always we have thirsted again. Some men have drained a cup at the well of riches, others have drawn water from fame, honor, pleasure. Some have even sought satisfaction at the wells of lust, or have drunk the exciting waters of crime, but no man has ever been fully satisfied with the products of earth's streams. But what a promise is this from the lips of the Lord Jesus! The believer shall have a new life. This new life shall be a continuing spring and it shall never run dry.
STUDY QUESTION
- Is there a significance in the comparison between water and the word of God in this passage?
- How does this passage give us assurance of the Lord’s provision?
- What does it look like daily to be satisfied with what Christ has given to us.
