Reaching the Lost: Lessons from John 4

"Reaching the Lost: Lessons from John 4 on the Lord's Day"

Well, again, I bring you greetings in the name of our Lord, good to be with you friends for this session.

I invite you to turn in your New Testament to the Gospel of John, Chapter 4. The Gospel of John, Chapter 4.

My goal for this Lord's Day is to cover three personalities from the Gospel of John. And if you were here during the Sunday school hour, the first personality that we covered was Nicodemus. A very highly educated and sophisticated man, but lost. And the Lord explained to him a message of the new birth.

Now because of the length of this passage, which will be from Chapter 4, verses 1 through 19, I'm just going to ask you to follow along as we go through. And before we start, let's ask the Lord's blessing.

Our Father, we thank Thee for the Lord's Day, this chance we have to gather together as believers and those who fear God. And Lord, again, we pray that the Spirit of God would be our teacher, that they would use the wonderful Word of God to bless our hearts, to encourage us, to exhort us, and to comfort us. We pray in Jesus' name, Amen.

Israel at this point in their history was in a deplorable spiritual condition. The priesthood, as evidenced from Nicodemus' life, was spiritually blind. Were they religious? Oh yes, very religious, but lost. Their religion had become commercialized, which led to the Lord cleansing the temple. That would have been quite a scene as He went in there and had a short whip and tables were flying and coins were flying and animals were running for their lives. Because money changers were all over the place and doves were being sold and animals. He said, you've made this a commercial enterprise, made it a Walmart. This should be a house of prayer.

The Sanhedrin, that group of 70 members, the leaders of Israel, were spiritually blind, chapter 3 and verse 7. And our Lord's testimony, chapter 3 and verse 32, was rejected. As the scripture indicated, no man received His testimony.

Israel as a nation had a cold and heartless indifference toward their neighbors who were semi-heathen. I don't know if you've heard the word goy. Some of you may have, goyim plural. That's what a Jew would call a Gentile. They would call them the goy or the goyim. And they were very indifferent to their neighbors who weren't Jews. No concern for their souls, no love for their welfare.

And in this story that we're covering, our Lord shows Himself to be the Savior, not just of Israel, but of all men. The Savior of the world. In this story, our Lord gives an example of reaching out to souls who are despised by so many for whom no one gives a care. And the Samaritans would become the first fruits of the Lord's harvest in the Gentile world.

Now if you're there in chapter 4, notice in verses 1 through 8, our Lord takes a detour. And this detour was necessitated, verses 1 through 3, because of hatred. Verse 1, when the Lord knew, the Lord became aware of hostility, especially from the Pharisees. They had it in for Him. They didn't like Him or His ministry. Why was that? Well, jealousy primarily, because our Lord's ministry was a resounding success. He made disciples, as it says here. And by the way, made disciples were not born that way. The Pharisees were very frustrated at His success. They weren't having the success He did. In fact, they were enraged. If anyone has a following around here, it ought to be us having the following, not that guy.

Verse 2, Jesus Himself baptized not. He preached, He taught, He prayed, He administered the Lord's Supper, but He never baptized. Why is that? Well, I think one reason is that baptism is not a part of the gospel. It's certainly something that we should do when a person is saved. The first thing they should do is get baptized. That's their first act of obedience to the Lord, to be baptized. And when you think of baptism, may I suggest that you think of the word identification. When a person is baptized as a believer, they choose to be baptized by this local assembly where the pastor would baptize them. And they have chosen to identify with the cause of Christ through this local church. Just think of the word identification. So, baptism has nothing to do with salvation. It's an act of obedience, as I said, after salvation.

In fact, the thief on the cross is an emblem of that. In Luke chapter 23 and verse 43, we have this conversation going on between one of the thieves on the cross and our Lord. Both thieves at first had a wrong attitude, but the one had a change of heart, remarkably so. In fact, he said, Lord, notice the first word he used, Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom. And our Lord's response was, today, not tomorrow, today, thou shalt be with me in paradise. That word paradise is a precious word. It's a Persian word. It's used three times in our New Testament. It refers to a high walled, beautiful, beyond comprehension garden in which you would invite your most intimate friends to spend time together. Isn't that a precious picture?

In our town of Warsaw, Indiana, where we've lived for decades, this is in years past. We would take our small animals to a veterinarian, Dr. Clark. He was rough as a cob, old guy. He took care of the army mules in World War II. That tells you something about him. And he married his wife, Mabel. She was an army nurse, so she was his wife. And when I'd come, I'd start to tell him about the Lord, and as soon as I opened my mouth about the Lord, he said, Mabel, come take care of this guy, and he'd leave. And invariably, every time I went, I tried to share the Gospel, and Mabel, help this man. He would not hear a testimony about Christ. Then finally, I heard he was in the hospital. Ah, captive audience. So I went up there to see him, and I said, Dr. Clark, you know enough about medicine to know that you're dying. That's how he talked. And I gave him this precious story about the thief on the cross, who in the closing moments of his life, came to a saving knowledge of Christ. And wouldn't you know, that old rough as a cob guy got saved right there in his hospital bed. In fact, the next family members that came to see him, I just got saved. And his funeral, which was going to be a dirge, it was going to be so solemn and sobering. Now was a time of joy for the family, because many of them were saved and born again. But the thief on the cross didn't have an opportunity to get baptized, because like I said, it's not a part of the Gospel.

Now in verse 3 it says, our Lord left Judea. We see some pathos here, this is sadness. His time was not yet come to die. Now why is he leaving? Well, because he wouldn't stay to cast pearls before a swine. There comes a time when we need to leave. It's sometimes not only wise, but our duty to flee from persecution. Sometimes a humble withdrawal is more difficult than a proud, glorious resistance. In fact, some of the early Christians purposely put themselves in the Colosseum. Why? They would meet horrible deaths, yes, but they would have a better resurrection. That's what they were looking forward to.

Now in verse 3 he uses the word left, L-E-F-T, left. This particular word means he left something to its own fate. He left these people to their own devices. From now on, the bulk of our Lord's ministry will be from Galilee and elsewhere, Galilee of the nations. That was a Western province, so to speak, where all kinds of different people were out there. In fact, they had a special language. That's why the servant girl at the door recognized Peter as being a Galilee. I heard you talk, you're from Galilee. It's like in our country, when you get down below the Mason-Dixon line, you don't know if F-A-R means flames or distance, because of the particular eccentricities of each geographical group. So he leaves Jerusalem and Judea to themselves.

You know, my friends, the most frightening prospect in the world is to have the Lord Jesus leave you to your own devices. That would be horrifying. It reminds us of Romans chapter 1, where the Lord gave them up. He gave them over. He does that to some people when they say no to the Lord too many times.

Now this detour he's taking is also necessitated, verse 4, not only because of hatred, but because of mercy. Notice it says here, he must needs go. This is a moral need. He didn't pull out a map of Palestine and say, well, this is a shorter distance here. This wasn't a geographical thing. This was a moral thing. In fact, this was settled before the foundation of the world. Now if you expect me to explain that, I'll have to defer to Pastor Lipp to explain that. Some of these things I don't comprehend.

Normally, the Jews, to avoid Samaria, this is how much they hated the Samaritans, they would travel across the Jordan River to the east, and then go south through Gilead, and then re-cross the Jordan River to avoid Samaria. That's the links to which they would go to avoid these what they called people they didn't like.

Samaria was bounded on the south by Judea, on the north by Galilee, on the west by the Mediterranean, and on the east by the Jordan River. And Samaria was given to Ephraim and the half-tribe of Bonassa, under the first five-shot general of the Israeli Defense Forces, General Joshua. And after the division of the kingdom, Samaria follows Jeroboam in idolatry. You remember that Jeroboam and his minions and his followers said, well, you know, you don't have to go all the way up to Jerusalem. That's not a mountain for crying out loud. You have to go up Mount Zion to get there. It's a long ways, and we have a perfectly good golden calf here in Bethel. That's only 11 miles north of Jerusalem. And then in Dan, the uppermost geographical part of Israel. So they had two golden calves that they worshiped, one in Bethel, one in Dan. And the Assyrians brought five nations back to Samaria, who intermarried with the remaining Jews, forming this strange amalgamation religion with the basics of Judaism, combining with the false doctrine of the idolaters. And it yielded this. In 2 Kings 17, verse 32, the Bible says, they feared the Lord and served their own gods. Now that's what you and I would call cognitive dissonance. That's inconsistent thoughts and beliefs and attitudes. So they were idolaters is what they were.

And when the Jews returned under Ezra, the Samaritans said, well, I heard you're going to build a temple. We'll be glad to help you. Oh, no. You've got an impure bloodline, and you've got impure theology. You're not going to have anything to do with our temple. And so they were rejected. Now the Samaritans received the Torah. The Torah is the first five books of our Old Testament. But they wouldn't receive the historical books. So their neighbors, their Jewish neighbors, considered them impure bloodlines, impure religious practices. So they wouldn't receive Christ when they saw that he was going to go to Jerusalem. So that was enough for them. And when the Jews castigated Jesus, they could think of nothing worse to call him. Well, you're a Samaritan. That was like a cuss word to them.

So this detroit our Lord's taking was necessitated because of the hatred of the Pharisees. He was going to give mercy to this Samaritan. And it's because of ministry, verses five through eight. What was the place of this ministry? As it says here in verse six, Jacob's well. Jacob, Yaakov. That word means, may God protect.

In Palestine, if you were going to, for example, provide a crypt for your dead loved one. Let's say your parent died and you're going to have some way to place the body. They would approach a solid piece of stone with a hammer and chisels. Chink, chink, chink. Can you imagine the labor and the time to finally get enough space in there to put a human body. But that's what they did. Jacob's well was dug that way. Now this was a formidable challenge because this well was one hundred five feet deep. That's more than a ten story building. I can't imagine the labor that went into this. It was nine feet in diameter, fifteen feet of water in the bottom. That was what we call the well head.

Now there's type and symbol in this portion we're covering here this morning. What's the symbol here? Jesus was Jacob's well. In the Old Testament, Jehovah is compared to a well, Deuteronomy 33 and verse 28. The fountain of Jacob shall be upon a land of corn and wine. Also his heaven shall drop down with dew. So Christ, the God-man, was now sitting on the edge of this well as it says here in verse six. Being wearied. Now wait a minute, you said he's God. That's right. Well how could he get tired then? Because he was man. Now wait a minute, you're confusing me. Well, this is what theologians call the hypostatic union. The what? Hypostatic union. In other words, our Lord Jesus was man, yes, but he was also God Almighty. Absolutely unique in the world, in the universe. God and man in one personality. And that's why when some people, I don't know if you've ever heard this, but some people would say, Lord Jesus, you don't understand what I have to go through. You don't understand what it's like to live this life and it's hard, hard, hard, hard, hard. You don't understand. Oh yes he does. According to John 527, because he does understand, he's going to be our judge. He does know what it's like to go through the tears and the heartaches we experience. And that's why he can be a very accurate judge at the end of time. And he will be.

So he was a true man, but he was a poor man. When he gave the illustration of the coin, he had to ask for one. He had to have one. He spent many a night out of doors, primarily on the Mount of Olives. We'll talk more about that later. But he had spent many a night in the out of doors. He didn't have a fancy house. He didn't have a go-kart. He didn't have a golf cart. Now sometimes he would ride an animal when it was provided for him, but mostly he walked from one place to another. He's touched with the feeling of our infirmities. He's fully human, but not exempt from fatigue. So he was not exempt from hunger, thirst, pain, tears.

And what's the typical significance of his ministry here? He sat thus on the well. Now there's type and shadow here. This well was a picture of Christ. It's water, an emblem of his salvation. How do you get that? The primary writing prophet of the Old Testament was Isaiah. Now Isaiah chapter 12 and verse 3 says this. Therefore, with joy shall you draw water out of the wells of salvation. Or consider Genesis 21, the story of Hagar. You'll remember with me that Abraham and Sarah were just so looking forward to having a child, but a child never arrived. And they waited and waited and waited until Sarah was getting up in years and she's, I think Abraham, the Lord wants us to do this. You marry my servant girl, Hagar, and have a child by her and that will be our child. Well, I don't know, it's fine, but let's do it, Abbie. And so they did it. And Ishmael was born. The father of the Arab nations. A wild asses colt. Well, then finally when Sarah was 90 years old and Abraham 100, Ah! Abbie, I'm pregnant. What? Yeah, I can't believe this, but I'm pregnant. I'm expecting a little one. And so, wouldn't you know, this little one is born and Ishmael is watching all of this. He's saying, uh oh, Yitzhak came on the scene. Yitzhak means laughter. And so he developed a bad attitude because he saw his inheritance was going up in smoke when that child was born. So he got a bad attitude and Sarah wouldn't stand for that. You need to get rid of her, Abbie. Well, it was your idea, let's get rid of her, Abbie. And so they gave her some water and some food and Ishmael and off they went. And so finally the water was expended. There was no more food. And she sent him over there because she didn't want to see him die. And here she is sitting. She's an outcast whose water was spent. She sat weeping a picture of the despairing sinner and God opened her eyes to see a well. And that well, of course, for you and me is Christ, which was there all the time. What's the lesson? God opens our eyes to see him.

Now in verses seven and eight, we see ministry without prejudice. Here's this woman of Samaria. Our Lord has turned away from the elite, educated, sophisticated scribes and Pharisees, Herodians, Essenes, the Sadducees, to see this wicked woman. But she was a lost sheep. What's the time? It says here the sixth hour. According to Jewish reckoning, that would be 12 noon. Now wait a minute. I thought the ladies would get their water in the morning and the evening. They did. Well, then what's she doing there at noon? She didn't want to meet the ladies because they would call attention to her lifestyle. They would call attention to the way she chose to live, which was pretty bad. And so she purposely came at noon. She expected the wealth to be deserted. And she wanted the contempt and the sneers of the neighbor ladies. Well, the Lord was there first. Isaiah 65 one, I am found of them that sought me not. I am found of them that sought me not. So salvation is not only unmerited, it is unsought. Romans 3 11, there's none that seeketh after God. None.

The same with the idolaters Abraham. Abraham was an idolater. He sure was. He lived there in Padan Aram, land between the rivers. Tigris and the Euphrates rivers. And his father Terah was an abject idolater. But the Lord appeared to him in his mercy. And Abraham became a believer in Jehovah God. Can you imagine this conversation? Abraham approaches his wife Sarah. Sarah, honey, yes, Amy, we're leaving. We are? Yes. I thought we were living here. No, we're leaving. When? Tomorrow. What? Where are we going? I'm not sure. How long will we be there? I'm not sure about that either. So they began a life of faith. That would be quite a conversation to have in that marriage.

So the same with Moses as he tended his sheep in Acts chapter 7 and verse 2. He saw this bush burning which would not be consumed. The same with Jacob as he fled from his brother Esau fearing for his life. And at night he saw this picture of a ladder stretching from earth to heaven and angels ascending and descending. A picture of salvation. The same with Zacchaeus as he watched from a tree. The same with Saul of Tarsus as he went to Damascus to arrest believers. The same with Lydia making die from her shellfish. We love him because he first loved us.

Now, let's go back to our conversation here between this woman and our Lord Jesus, verse 7. Notice our Lord's polite. Give me a drink. Water is the cheapest gift that the world can offer. But to speak with a Samaritan woman as an Orthodox Jew would have been sinful. And to be beholding to her for a gift was unthinkable. An observant Jew would have taken that cup of water and thrown it to the ground. She couldn't give him anything. He was leading her to see her helplessness. And when she saw him sitting on the well as a Jew, she was indignant. What's that guy doing on our well? Why didn't he go get his Jewish well? Now, wait a minute. How could she tell he was a Jew? And she's thinking, if he says anything, I'll give it right back to him. She's getting ready for a fight.

Well, Jesus was alone, verse 8, because on this particular day the disciples were gone. There was two for $8 at Arby's, something like that. But there was no coincidence. Their presence would have interfered with this very personal conversation. And he's alone in John. He's alone with sinners more than any other gospel. He was alone with Nicodemus that night on a rooftop. He was alone with a Samaritan woman at a well. He was alone with a convicted adulteress. He was alone with a man whose eyes he opened. Being alone with the Lord is exactly where the needy and sinful soul needs to get.

Now, our Lord's taking this detour, verses 1 through 8. Now, for a 9 through 20, he gets in this discussion. First, it's about water, verses 9 through 15. How is it? Can you just see her? She probably stamped her. How is it? You're as a Jew, sitting on our well, our Samaritan well. Now, how did she know he was well? His physical appearance was Jewish. His speech was Jewish. She had that Aramaic dialect. But what was the dead giveaway? A ribbon of blue around the fringe of his garment. Well, what does that got to do with anything? Numbers 15, 38. It's a reminder of an observant Jew's obligation to obey God's law. So, an observant Jew would have a ribbon of blue around the fringe of his garment. And that would have been the dead giveaway.

In verse 4 of chapter 3, the first word of Nicodemus to Christ was how. And it's the same with this woman. With Nicodemus, he manifests himself as the truth, but with this woman as the grace of God. And we all meet the truth of God in his majesty and glory in a how. How can that be? How can this be? That questioning spirit. We reason instead of believing the truth. Our heart is born closed against the Lord. We listen to the lies and the nonsense of the devil and men. But when God speaks, we say, well, how can that be? We see in him no beauty that we should desire him. And she only saw the old prejudices. She saw a Jewish man on their Samaritan well and she's getting ready for a fight. When a sinner comes into God's presence, all they can do is to barricade, raise objections, because the enmity of our carnal mind is raised up.

Now verse 9, the Jews have no dealings with Samaritans. Drinking water from a Samaritan vessel would have made that Jew unclean. She has smarted under the cruel and treatment, prejudicial treatment of her Jewish countrymen all of her life. More than once she would have heard these words, get away from me, you mongrel Samaritan. Whoever ate a Samaritan's bread was as him who ate swine's flesh. The Jews thought more of the Gentiles than they did of Samaritans.

On verse 10 we learn about the gift of God. This is Christ himself. Isaiah 9-6, unto us a son is given. Salvation is a gift, it's free. If the Lord were to put a price on it, we couldn't afford it. Who it is that saith unto thee, verse 10, a man doesn't know his need, nor the one who can meet that need. Grace is an unknown concept, it's unknown language to lost people. What's this thing called grace? That's the power and desire to do his will. So she neither knew him nor understood his condescension. He was ready to give if she would become a receiver. Verse 10 says, thou would have asked of him, the only thing between a sinner and eternal life is an ask. But asking proceeds from knowing. And that lost soul has to see his desperate state, his looming danger, his awful fate, his rags, his filthiness, his beggarly condition, that he's spiritually bankrupt. I know when I was lost that people would call me a sinner, and who are you calling a sinner? I'd get all upset with them. So before we ask, God has to deal with our conscience and enlighten our understanding. So do our will and open our heart and our eyes.

Verse 10 just talks about living water. That's new life through the spirit, living water. It's explained in John 7, verses 37 through 39. At the feast of the tabernacles, observant Jews would carry water from the pool of Siloam at the end of Hezekiah's tunnel. And they would pour it into a silver basin by the altar of the burnt offering for the first seven days of the feast of tabernacles. The Jews had seven festivals that they observed, three of which were called mandatory. And every observant Jew had to come for those three. And that would include sons and daughters who had, old enough to have their bar mitzvah, so they'd be 13 and above. And so historians tell us that for those two months around those high holy days, those pilgrim festivals, there could be as many as a million people in the city of Jerusalem. I find that hard to believe, but that's what they say.

So what is this living water? Well, that's a fountain as opposed to a well. A source that constantly reproduces itself. Revelation 22, 1, and he showed me a pure river of water of life. Isaiah 64, 3, I will pour water upon him that is thirsty.

Now this woman, returning to her, she's listening to him, well, that was nothing to draw with. Like Nicodemus, she takes him literally, and how accurately she portrays our own blinded natural state. Her mind, like ours, is centered on wells and buckets and material things. You know, she didn't know who he was or what he was saying, but you can't get water without any bucket, and the well's deep. And Satan uses material things to keep the soul from Christ. Water pots, pleasures, palaces, electronic screens. Oh my. In the last few decades, electronic screens have just absolutely captivated our nation, especially young hearts and souls. I've had some parents say, well, my child's not addicted to that. Oh, is that right? Take it away from him and see what happens. Have you ever heard of a hissy fit? That's what would happen. We had a girl's home for five decades, and had it not been for this mother going down the upstairs hallway of their home at three in the morning, God only knows what would have happened. They had made the mistake of giving their only daughter a private computer in their private bedroom, on which she meant dangerous people. And she was literally making plans to murder her parents. I'm not exaggerating. In the parable of the sower, the things of this world are the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches.

So this Samaritan woman is concerned with the means, not the end. And many are concerned with their own efforts, and not the Lord's. So if she was limiting Christ, you can't draw water with no bucket! You know, well, I can only be saved in this or that church. I can't be saved until this or that happens. I'm not of the elect. I've sinned beyond reclamation. Many and more excuses are made to keep someone from Christ.

So what does he do? Verses 13, 14, and 15, he appeals to her inner thirst. The seed of spiritual thirst in man lies too deep for water to quench. And Solomon found out that wealth, opulence, luxury, indulgence, immorality, excess, abandon, does not satisfy. Well, what does it do? It gives you vanity and vexation of spirit. The rich man in Luke 16 portrays this. He fared sumptuously every day of his life and went to a devil's hell, Christless, hopeless, speechless, for eternity. What's the lesson? Don't go to the wells of this world! That's the lesson. The electronic screens. Lost men try everything this world has to offer and never get peace in their hearts. Why is that? Because our hearts have been created for eternity, not temporary pleasures.

Verse 14, shall never thirst. That's satisfaction for the soul. Now in verse 14, if you would look at that please, you'll see eternal security there. If it were somehow possible for a believer to throw away his salvation, verse 14 is a lie.

Now, verse 15, this woman's been listening to him now. She's listening, listening, listening. And she doesn't quite know what to say. Give me this water. She doesn't know what this water is, but it sounds pretty special. She still doesn't discern that he's speaking of eternal life. She's now willing to be indebted to a Jew, so this is really something. A transformation is taking place in her heart and her soul. Her prejudice has been overcome, but her conscience needs to be reached. A sense of need needs to be created here.

Verses 16 through 19, the discussion now about her need. What's the Lord going to do to awaken her conscience? Okay. Go call thy husband! Ooh! The red button was pushed. You could just see the red forming on her face and she dropped her head. She didn't comprehend the meaning of living water, so the Lord turns the conversation toward her morals so she would see her need as a sinner. And this was her hot button issue. This was her sin that she lived with on a daily basis. No one will seek salvation who doesn't see their need.

And what's her response? Verse 17, I have no husband. Even though she had been legally married five times, this present union was immoral and illicit. In other words, illegal. She was trying to close this conversation while masking the guilt and the hurt and the pain. But the Lord wouldn't stop. Verse 18, thou hast had five husbands. Well, the rabbis would allow two, maybe three, but not more than that. The implication is that the dissolution of these five previous marriages was her responsibility. And in her five marriages and the sixth one now being illegal, she's representative of her nation. Samaria, as a nation, was in a five-fold spiritual marriage to idols. Assyria brought five nations back, people from Babylon, Cutha, Ava, Hamath, Sepharvayim. Each had its own idol god, their equivalent of a husband. And her sixth man was not her husband, just as Samaria was not legitimately connected with God. Because earlier she said to the Lord, well, our father is worshiped on this mountain. And he said, no, no, salvation's of the Jews. So she stands here, she's stunned, she's speechless, not knowing what to say. Who is this man who has so accurately revealed my hall of shame and my guilty past? Her conscience now is very awake. It's been stirred to its depths.

This tells us something, my friends. Our Lord keeps accurate books about us. Did you ever think this thought that I have secret sins? Because we do. Solomon put it this way, there's not a just man upon the earth that doeth good and sinneth not. Not one. Every individual in this auditorium and around the world has secret sin, according to that passage. So these are things we choose to forget, we don't want to remember. But the Lord remembers them.

I perceive, verse 19, that thou art a prophet, so she blurts out this response, not knowing what else to say. How did you know this about me? And have we seen ourselves as guilty and lost and undeserving and bound for a devil's hell? The question of sin and righteousness has to be settled in the presence of God. And it was through her awakened conscience that she finally saw herself as a hell-bound sinner. Spiritual illumination comes more through the heart than through the mind. First she calls him a Jew, then Sir, and now a prophet.

Notice the contrasts between chapter 3 and chapter 4. A man named Nicodemus as opposed to an unnamed woman. A man of rank compared to a woman of no rank, privately drawing her own water at 12 noon. A favorite Jew compared to a despised Samaritan. A man of high reputation compared to a woman of bad reputation, immoral, fast and loose. Nicodemus sought Christ. Christ sought this woman. Nicodemus came by night. Jesus spoke, speaks to her at noon. But both Nicodemus and this woman sought obscurity. You must be born again to this sinful woman, he explains the gift of God's grace. Both needed to look at the serpent raised up. The voice in the burning bush to the fourth man in the fire. Every sin, bit and soul needs to look in simple faith that Christ crucified. You and I can have what Adam and Innocence never possessed. And the law of Moses never provided. What's that? Eternal life. Nicodemus was at the top of the ladder, a respected master of Israel. She was at the bottom, a despised Samaritan adulteress. Both were on the same level with God.

And notice spiritual truth doesn't always immediately come to us in an instant. Like this woman, we experience it by degrees. And notice the tact and the courtesy of our Lord in dealing with this flagrant sinner. They're not going to voluntarily come to our church or to our door. We must go to them in friendly courtesy and use creative and wise ways to get their attention and don't act superior. Because we're not. And notice if a sinner is willing to ask, Christ is willing to give salvation even though they had no thought of him. And notice the necessity of conviction of sin before a soul can be converted. No matter what our past life has been, a vile, a wretched, a wicked or evil, there's hope. There's salvation and forgiveness in Christ. But we all have to go through some area that's a type of this world. And as we do, don't provoke them. Don't be polluted by them. Be kind and loving to them. Reach out to them.

May I suggest that when you get up in the morning, put tracts in your pocket. And pray this prayer, Lord, lead me to a seeking soul today. Or give me opportunity to get rid of these tracts in a productive and positive way. And who knows how God might bless your efforts.

Heavenly Father, we thank you for this very dramatic story of an adulterous, a Samaritan wicked woman being approached by our Lord and coming to a knowledge of Christ. What a beautiful, beautiful story. Lord, I pray that anyone here in this auditorium that doesn't know him would be very soon to come to him in salvation. And help us, Lord, as believers to reach out to those around us. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.