Serial Wife With A Serious Thirst, Journey #44

Serial Wife With a Serious Thirst Part 2
Journey #44
Jesus want to penetrate the woman's spiritual darkness.
He makes it clear that water from this well can satisfy thirst only for a short while.
Jesus want her to stop looking at the physical and look for the spiritual satisfaction.
Jesus has created a desire in this woman's heart for the spiritual water.

"The woman said to Him, "Sir, give me this water, so I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water" (John 4:15).
She is thirsty for spiritual water, but then her thinking goes right back down in that well again!
Is it possible that her physical thirst can be so quenched by this Stranger that she will not need to make constant trips to this well?
But is there a deeper stirring---is there something more for her than just the physical water?
Is there something here for my deepest thirst?
An opening has come.
Everything that has taken place between Jesus and this woman had been preparation leading up to this moment.
If she cannot face herself and admit that her tangled relationships are sin, she can never drink of living water.
The gift is free, but it cannot be received without repentance.

John 4:16 Jesus said, "Go call your husband and come back." She told Jesus, "I don't have a husband."
Jesus knows and understands us. This woman was living in a sinful way, and Jesus knew all about her. But He wasn't angry with her.
Instead, he invited her to come and drink the Water of everlasting life.
The woman was surprised because she thought Jesus would condemn her.
If we knew how much Jesus loves us, we wouldn't be afraid to come to Him about the things we know are wrong in our lives.

She says, "I don't have a husband."
Jesus was so kind and so loving--He said, "you're right. You don't have a husband."
"You have been married 5 times and you are not married to the man you are living with right now" (v17).
You know what I think she was looking for, with being married 5 times, and probably numerous affairs?
She was looking for someone to love her.
What a symbol she is of our age---lonely and restless, desperately searching for some kind of deep belonging, going from one arrangement to another, always hoping that this "roommate" will workout better than the last one.

That's the reason so many people mess up their lives, because they're looking for somebody to love them, and they do things like this woman.
In spite of who they are, or what they have done-----
God loves them------loves her, and Jesus was kind and gentle with her.
The Pharisees would have been harsh and condemned her for her sin.
They would have been ready to stone her...........But not Jesus.

At that point when Jesus told her about her multiple husbands, He had never seen this woman before, there is no way He could have possibly known.
She falls back on the old antagonism, the competition between Jerusalem and Mount Gerizim. John 4:19-20.
This woman is well aware of the stubborn loyalty every Jew had for Jerusalem, the "Holy City." At this point, perhaps she wants to change the subject (again).
She tries to start an argument and one of the most fierce arguments in Jesus' day, between the Samaritans and the Jews, is where you are supposed to worship.

The Samaritans refused to worship in Jerusalem, preferring their own temple on Mount Gerizim, which had been built about 400 B. C.
This place of worship had been burned by the Jews in about 128 B. C.
A.D. 6-9 Samaritan desperados strewed human bones over the temple area in Jerusalem.
Little wonder then that a Jew would attempt to avoid any contact with them.
But NOT Jesus! "He needed to go through Samaria" (v1).

Now the only place set aside for sacrifice, according to the OT, is in Jerusalem at the temple on Mt Moriah.
That's the reason there is no sacrificial system today in Judaism---- because sitting on the very spot where the temple used to be, is what is called the Dome of the Rock.
That huge golden dome is the second favorite mosque in all of Islam, the first favorite mosque is the one at Mecca down in Saudi Arabia.

She thought she could start a fight because she said to Him: "Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship" (v20). Jesus said, "God's way of salvation is made available through the Jews" (v23).
(He was speaking of Himself as Savior).
She must first know the truth and understand she is a sinner who needs to be saved.
Jesus again moves beyond the old resentment to deal with the reality of worship as He says the most enlightening thing.
"God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth" (V24).
In other words, God is a spirit that is not contained in a particular building.

Jesus said to her, 23: "But the time is coming, it has, in fact, come--when what you're called will not matter and where you worship will not matter. For true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshiper the Father seeks."
"God is spirit, and His worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth." We are to worship God in our hearts and in our spirits.

John 17:17 Jesus was praying and said, "Sanctify them (set apart) by thy truth, thy word is truth."
The truth He is talking about here is the Bible.
God wants us to worship Him the way the Bible teaches that He should be worshiped in John 4:24.
Is this woman seeking for the "right" altar?
At which place can she find forgiveness---Jerusalem or Gerizim?
Where can she be set free from her burden of sin?

Earlier in John chapter 2, in the cleansing of the temple Jesus made it clear that He will be the "place" of worship, that He is the temple of God.
So it is no longer a question of Jerusalem or Gerizim, but of being rightly related to the One we worship.
We are to worship God in spirit and in truth for worship is not confined to any one place.
"Truth" means He is to be worshiped as the Bible teaches. Jn 17:17
We are to worship God in spirit and truth from the heart.
Truth means not only the revealed truth in the Scriptures, but also the Lord Jesus Christ who is Himself the Truth incarnate. He is Truth in human form.
His Spirit leads us into all truth; by the Spirit we are brought to the Father and are able to worship Him.
That's why Jesus said we must worship God in spirit and truth.

"The woman said, "I know that Messiah" (called Christ) "is coming. When He comes, He will explain everything to us" (v25). "We'll get the whole story."According to her tradition, she knows the Messiah is coming, a teacher and lawgiver in the tradition of Moses. He will announce God's final and absolute truth.

26: "I am He," said Jesus, "you don't have to wait any longer or look any further."
This is the only place in the Gospel where Jesus speaks of Himself as the Messiah prior to His trial, and He does so to a Samaritan.
Jesus has issued an invitation. The time of decision and opportunity has come.
She immediately responds to the invitation!

There is an interruption...the disciples have returned to the well.
27: "Just then His disciples returned and was surprised to find Him talking to a woman. But no one said what they were all thinking, but their faces showed it."The woman took the hint and left. There were rules governing the relations of men and women in public, even husbands and wives.

One of the sayings of the Rabbis: "A man shall not be alone with a woman in an inn, not even with his sister or his daughter, on account of what men may think. A man shall not talk with a woman on the street, not even his own wife, and especially not with another woman, on account of what men may say."

The disciples were somewhat taken aback that He is conversing with a woman,
but interestingly, no reference is made to her being a Samaritan.
They didn't comment or voice any of their questions.
Perhaps they were beginning to understand Jesus' love for people and not holding to tradition when it got in the way of others coming to believe on Him as Messiah.

The woman hurries back into the town. She "left her water pot" (v28).
Why slow herself down with a water pot when she is anxious to share her awakening faith?
Living water springing up into eternal life cannot be contained in a clay pot.

".......The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart" (that is, the word of faith that we proclam); because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved"
For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved."
"For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved" (Romans 10:8-10, 13).

This Samaritan woman went through all the city telling people that she had found the Messiah.
And she said, "He told me all that I have ever done. He knows me inside and out. Do you think He could be the Messiah?"
She was excited, but what so excited her was that, after all she has done, the life she was living, she could become a believer and follower of the Messiah.
Jesus offered her a new life......and everlasting life.

Sometimes people think they want things so badly that they commit horrible sins to get them. Then they believe that there is no way God could ever forgive them.
Jesus is not so interested in what we are, as what we will be, when we put our faith in Him.
He's not so interested in our past as He is in our future.
We can't change the past, but we can change the future by what we decide to do today.
This Samaritan woman may not have a message containing a number of Christian theology details to share, but she has met a Man who knows all about her.

The joy and surprise of her conversion experience was so great that she couldn't hold back the desire to share it with others!!
She had seen the light! She had been saved!
She knew the truth...and the truth had finally set her free from the torment she had been living in. She is filled with the Living Water and she will never thirst again!!
She is drinking from the Well that will never run dry! Yahoo!




Jesus said, "Whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst again."
John 4:13

You cannot hold it inside when you get saved and you wont to tell everybody in the world about him even shout it from the mounitans for the whole world to hear,
I got that song by Sam Cooke Jesus gave her water and it was not from the well

I guess she had to go home and tell her room mate that he had to go!!

Thanks, Maggie. I enjoyed that.

I am glad you mentioned that, Marlene. We have our own Samaritan Story right in our neighborhood.
This woman and man were living together for 18 years. One day the Water of Life spoke to her and she believed that He could give her what she had longed for all her life. She accepted Him as Savior and Lord and He began a new thing in her.
She told the man that it was wrong for them to continue living that way and they should get married. He left. She is serving the Lord Jesus Christ in one of the largest and fastest growing Bible churches in the Hill Country! Yahoo!

How wonderful it is that when He comes in He makes all things new!

That is so right, Maggie!! That is a great story!!

And he decided to leave after 18 years, huh? He might as well have been married after being with someone that long!!

He probably didn't want to be married to a Christian. When you are a follower of Jesus Christ there is a price to be paid. He didn't promise us an easy road. On the contrary, He said, "Don't be surprised when the world hates you...remember they hated me first."

We sure are seeing this now more than ever with Christianity being under the microscope every time we turn around!!