John 4:1-18: A "Chance" Encounter.

When Jesus meets the Samaritan woman at the well, He asks her for a drink of water. But in exchange He offers her more than she could have imagined. Jesus relates to her a life giving message, one that offers eternal salvation rather than mere temporal satisfaction;   a universal message, one for all people regardless of outward appearances; and a confrontational message, one that does not shrink from pointing out sin. Listen in to learn how Jesus proclaimed good news to the lost!

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“Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. www.Lockman.org”

Transcript

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Hello everyone, this is Pastor David Spa, and this is Crosstown, my hometown. Indeed, I am David Spawn, and this is Crosstown, where we exposit God's Word, the Bible, mix in some apologetics and cultural observations from time to time, and seek to help those who join us to understand the Bible just a bit better and make practical applications so as to live lives that are pleasing to the Lord. Most of all, my desire is that God would be glorified and that his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, would be lifted up and praised. I also pray that the Holy Spirit will guide us here at Crosstown that all things might be done in a way that reflects God's truth, his power, and the authority of his word. Now, if you'd like to contact me, I would certainly love to hear from you. You can either click on the fan mail link that is under the description of this podcast, or you can send me an email at CrosstownMHT, that is Crosstown, my hometown, crosstownmht at gmail.com. Though I can't guarantee that I will be able to get back with you, I certainly will try. And of course, if you like this podcast, I can always use an encouraging word as some incentive to keep going. And if you don't like this podcast, you can write me as well and let me know where Crosstown is deficient, and then I can perhaps make some changes to improve the ministry here. A shout out to my nephew Jason Miller, who I understand listens faithfully to the Crosstown podcast. Thanks, Jason, for your support, and I hope you're growing in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. Well, let's get down to cases here today. Those of you who have been with me know that we are in the midst of a series in the Gospel of John. We finished chapters 1 through 3 and now we are set to begin chapter 4. John chapter 4, verses 1 through 42 is a unit, but I'm not going to be able to cover all of that today. There's just too much information there. But any divisions in this passage are to a degree somewhat artificial. But as is often the case, time constraints force me to break this down into several different lessons. As I see it, we'll be in chapter 4 for four weeks before we finish it up. Anyway, today we're just going to cover verses 1 through 18, which will be plenty, I hope, to sanctify us just a little bit and teach us the ways of the Lord. So hear the word of the Lord as it is found in John chapter 4, verses 1 through 18. Therefore, when the Lord knew that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John, although Jesus himself was not baptizing, but his disciples were, he left Judea and went away again into Galilee, and he had to pass through Samaria. So he came to a city of Samaria called Sikar near the parcel of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph, and Jacob's well was there. So Jesus, being wearied from his journey, was sitting thus by the well. It was about the sixth hour. There came a woman of Samaria to draw water. Jesus said to her, Give me a drink, for his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food. Therefore the Samaritan woman said to him, How is it that you, being a Jew, ask me for a drink, since I am a Samaritan woman? For Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans. Excuse me. Jesus answered and said to her, If you knew the gift of God and who it was who says to you, Give me a drink, you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water. She said to him, Sir, you have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep. Where then do you get that living water? You are not greater than our father Jacob, are you, who gave us the well and drank of it himself and his sons and his cattle? Jesus answered and said to her, Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst, but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life. The woman said to him, Sir, give me this water so I will not be thirsty, nor come all the way here to draw. He said to her, Go call your husband and come here. The woman answered and said, I have no husband. Jesus said to her, You have correctly said, I have no husband, for you have had five husbands, and the one whom you now have is not your husband. This you have said truly. Some years ago my wife, Sue, and I moved from central Pennsylvania back to northern Indiana where we come from, and we lived our young adult lives. I walked into a store to do a little shopping very soon after we moved back to Indiana, and I ran into a woman with whom I had gone to elementary school. Her name was Kathy, and it probably been, it was well over 40 years since the last time I had seen her. But she looked so much like she did when she was 11 years old, I could have found her blindfolded. But that's not the end of the story. About a month later, Sue and I went shopping in another place, and lo and behold, who did we run into? We ran into Kathy, the same woman from the previous encounter. Now what are the chances of running into someone twice in one month after having not seen her for over forty years? Of course, I don't believe in chance. All things happen for a reason, as ordained by God. I don't know the reason God had me run into Kathy. Who does? Maybe God in his providence had me run into Kathy for no other reason, but so I could use that story as an illustration for this podcast. The story we've just read in John chapter four is a fine example of another chance, quote end quote chance appointment. Of course we know it's not chance at all, but it's God's providential leading. After all, Jesus was always led by the Holy Spirit and always did what the Father instructed him to do, so we can be assured that when Jesus meets this Samaritan woman at Jacob's will, it is no chance event. Now again, verses one through forty-two are a unit, though I'm only going to cover verses one through eighteen today. But if we were to look at this text as a whole, we would see that it is a story of Jesus bringing a message of salvation to be shared with all people, that they might be saved and brought into the family of God. Now let's take a look at the first few verses here, which will help set the stage for this meeting between Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well. Verse 1. Therefore, when the Lord knew that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John, Jesus hears that the Pharisees knew that Jesus' ministry was growing and that he was making more disciples than was John the Baptist. This was probably common knowledge. After all, John the Baptist's disciples noted this too in chapter 3, and given the fact that Nicodemus pointed out the impact that Jesus was having on the Jewish leadership in the previous chapter, the Jewish leaders too would have noted the growth of Jesus' ministry. Verse 2, and this is a parenthetical statement by John, although Jesus himself was not baptizing, but his disciples were. John the author makes this aside, stating that Jesus wasn't personally baptizing, but his disciples were. This is no contradiction with chapter 3, verse 22, which says that Jesus was baptizing. As the one leading the ministry, Jesus was in charge of the evangelism, and what his agents did was on his authority, so ultimately Jesus is responsible for the baptisms. Verse 3. He left Judea and went away again into Galilee. Excuse me. We're not told exactly why Jesus left Judea for Galilee, but it is certainly associated with the Pharisees' growing awareness of Jesus' success. Perhaps in other places in the Gospels, as we see in those places, Jesus is sort of flying under the radar, concerned that his ministry not create too much of a stir until the time was right. We made a similar observation in chapter 2 when Jesus turned the water to wine. If you recall that episode, Jesus performed that miracle in a rather unobtrusive fashion. Verse 4. And he had to pass through Samaria. In order to get to Galilee from Judea, Jesus travels through Samaria. Now, if you recall ancient Jewish Old Testament history, Israel was divided into the northern and southern kingdoms after the death of Solomon, roughly 950 years before the time of Christ. Samaria was the capital of the northern kingdom, and the name Samaria, which was the city, Samaria, became synonymous with the northern kingdom as a whole, which consisted of ten of Israel's twelve tribes. If you go back and read 1 and 2 Kings and the book of 2 Chronicles, you will find that the Northern Kingdom never had a godly king, but instead was ruled by kings devoted to idolatry to one extent or another. The southern kingdom consisted of Judah and Benjamin, with its capital in Jerusalem. In 722 BC, Samaria fell to the Assyrian Empire. Whenever the Assyrians conquered a nation, they would transfer some of its citizens to dwell in other conquered lands, and this meant that many foreigners were brought into Samaria, bringing their false gods and pagan cultures with them. Inevitably, the Samaritans who remained in the land intermarried with these foreigners and embraced their pagan ways. Thus the Jews in the Southern Kingdom considered Samaritans unclean, political rebels, and religiously compromised. Now, without going into all the details, the Samaritans held that only the Pentateuch was sacred and rejected the rest of the Old Testament. The way they interpreted certain passages in the Pentateuch, Mount Gerizim, not Mount Zion, was to be the Temple Mount. So about 400 years before Christ, the Samaritans constructed a temple on Mount Gerizim. Around 108 BC, the Jewish Hasmonean leader John Hyrcanus destroyed the Samaritan temple, which of course intensified bitterness between the two factions. In short, the Jews and Samaritans did not associate. Except under limited conditions, Jews would not eat their food, drink from their vessels, or eged, talk with their women, whom the Jews considered particularly unclean. At least some Jews felt that way. Now I used to think that Jesus traveling through Samaria went against standard practice. I had heard that normally Jews would travel to Galilee by way of the east side of the Jordan River and bypass Samaria altogether so as not to become ritually unclean. However, according to Josephus, the first century Jewish historian, Jews preferred the route through Samaria because it was shorter. Still, the Jewish animosity toward the Samaritans was very, very real. Now let's look at verses five and six. So he came to a city of Samaria called Sikar, near the parcel of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph, and Jacob's well was there. So Jesus, being wearied from his journey, was sitting thus by the well. It was about the sixth hour. The geographical details on a map put this location about halfway between the Dead Sea to the south on the way to the Sea of Galilee to the north, and about a third of the way west from the Jordan River towards the Mediterranean Sea. The parcel of ground given to Joseph by Jacob is referenced in Genesis chapter 48. So about noon, the sixth hour, Jesus sits at Jacob's well, a location that has been verified with a fair amount of certainty. Be all that as it may, at about noon Jesus sits by the well, tired from his journey. Now, by the way, as an aside, this detail of Jesus' being weary reminds us that Jesus is fully human as well as fully God. As a man, Jesus got tired, Jesus got thirsty, Jesus ate and slept, and so on, just like any other man. At any rate, having set the stage, what do we see in this passage? Well, first of all, I want you to note that Jesus brings a life-giving message. Jesus brings a life-giving message. Years ago I read a book on the Studebaker Corporation called More Than They Promised, outlining their history from the five Studebaker brothers making horse-drawn wagons in the 1840s all the way through to Studebaker's bankruptcy and closure in the early 1960s. Now, if I may say so, they made some of the coolest cars, particularly in the 1950s. They made some awesome-looking automobiles. At any rate, they went bankrupt and they uh closed their doors, I believe, about 1965. At any rate, in their early years, at least, Studebaker's motto was give more than you promised. That's the name of the book. More than they promised. Go the extra mile, provide a little more value, always go beyond customer expectations to provide goodwill. Our world is like that with a twist. Studebaker gave more than they promised. Our world promises more than it gives. Worse yet, the world takes, it ruins and destroys with its sirens songs of happiness and prosperity and pleasure. But Jesus gives us true life. He gives us peace and joy beyond our wildest dreams. Look at verses seven and eight again. There came a woman of Samaria to draw water. Jesus said to her, Give me a drink, for his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food. Since Jesus was a rabbi, his disciples would probably have been expected to serve him, but they are gone to buy food. This again shows that not all Jews were so alienated from the Samaritans as to hold them in complete contempt. Of course, being with Jesus, the disciples would have done what he required, so regardless of what they thought about going into the city to buy food, they operate according to his instructions. Regardless with the disciples absent, Jesus asks the Samaritan woman for a drink. Normally women drew water in the cool of the day, accompanied by other women, but perhaps her character has brought a stigma upon her, which we will see here in just a few moments. Now let's look at verse 9. Therefore the Samaritan woman said to him, How is it that you, being a Jew, ask me for a drink since I am a Samaritan woman? For Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans. The last phrase of this verse, for the Jews have no dealings with Samaritans, is probably a parenthetical aside made by John. Interesting, the phrase have no dealings with Samaritans is probably better translated, do not use dishes used by the Samaritans. In other words, the Jews normally balked at using dishes the Samaritans used out of fear of becoming ceremonially unclean. Regardless, since the woman wonders why a Jew would ask her for a drink, it's understood that she is wary of this stranger. She's quite aware of the animosity Jews have towards the Samaritans. With no love lost between Jews and Samaritans, she will harbor a certain amount of mistrust towards Jesus. Verse 10. Jesus answered and said to her, If you knew the gift of God and who it is who says to you, Give me a drink, you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water. Now for the third time in John's Gospel so far, water is a focus of Jesus' activity. In chapter 2, he turned the water to wine, showing that the ceremonial system in Jewish theology was no longer in force. In chapter 3, Jesus tells Nicodemus that he must be born of water and the Spirit, referring to the new life that comes by way of the Holy Spirit from Ezekiel chapter 36. And now in a similar fashion, Jesus uses water as a figure as he offers her new spiritual life. Be that as it may, Jesus takes the woman's question from verse 9 in a different direction. You asked me why I, a Jew, would ask you for a drink. If you really understood who I am, you'd have asked a different question, and I would give you more than you could ever hope for. What this Samaritan woman needs is far more important than Jesus getting a drink of water. Now the term living water is a double entendre. On one level, living water is flowing water like in a spring or a brook, which would be fresh as opposed to well water or cistern water that would go stale or stagnant. But on another level, Jesus is referring to the life that God gives, his gracious gift of life in its fullness and its richness and its permanence. Now, as we saw in John 3 with Nicodemus, Jesus likes to allude to Old Testament scripture showing how he brings to fruition imagery that is found there. For example, in Jeremiah chapter 2, verses 12 and 13, the prophet Jeremiah says, Be appalled, O heavens, at this, and shudder, be very desolate, declares the Lord. For my people have committed two evils. They have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, to hew for themselves cisterns, broken cisterns that can hold no water. Jeremiah 17, 13 says this, O Lord, the hope of Israel, all who forsake you will be will be put to shame. Those who turn away on earth will be written down, because they have forsaken the fountain of living waters, even the Lord. Besides these two passages from Jeremiah that refer to living water, we can add this beautiful passage from Psalm 36, verses 7 through 9. How precious is your loving kindness, O God, and the children of men take refuge in the shadow of your wings. They drink their fill of the abundance of your house, and you give them to drink of the river of your delights. For with you is the fountain of life, in your light we see light. Notice in all of these passages the idea of water refers to the refreshing life-giving activity of God, the grace of God. And there are other Old Testament passages that we could mention as well, where water is a reference to the full, joyful life that God gives. But this is enough to show that in offering living water, Jesus offers the Samaritan woman the life, salvation, fulfillment, peace, and joy of our ever gracious God. Verses 11 and 12. She said to him, Sir, you have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep. Where then do you get that living water? You are not greater than our Father Jacob, are you, who gave us the well and drank of it himself and his sons and his cattle? Clearly the Samaritan woman is thinking in terms of literal water, and literal drawing from the well. Yes, the well was supplied by a spring of living water, but seeing that this well was deep, then certainly she is incredulous regarding Jesus' ability to get the living, flowing, fresh spring water. Jesus has no bucket with which to draw, so in her mind he must think he's a big man if he can plumb the depths of this well, something not even the great patriarch Jacob could do. Like Nicodemus, she doesn't understand. Nicodemus failed to recognize the significance of Ezekiel 36 and 37 regarding spiritual birth. And similarly, she doesn't understand the prophet's reference to living water. However, she may be excused since the Samaritans rejected every book of the Old Testament after the book of Deuteronomy, she would not have been aware of the reference to Psalm 36 or Jeremiah 2 or any other prophetic passage to which Jesus alluded. Verses 13 and 14. Jesus answered and said to her, Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again. But whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst, but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life. Jesus tells this Samaritan woman that the water in this well gives temporary satisfaction, but the water he gives supplies eternal satisfaction, eternal joy, eternal life. Jesus may very well be touching more specifically on the giving of life by the life-giving Holy Spirit, as we will note later when we get to chapter 7, where Jesus proclaims, If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. He who believes in me, as the scripture said, from his innermost being will flow rivers of living water. And as we see in that text, when we get there, as we will see, Jesus is talking about the giving of the Holy Spirit. The point is, Jesus gives life, renewal, satisfaction, salvation, and eternal joy. Jesus fulfills what we read in Isaiah chapter 12, verses 1 through 3. Then you will say in that day, I will give thanks to you, O Lord, for although you were angry with me, your anger is turned away, and you comfort me. Behold, God is my salvation. I will trust and not be afraid, for the Lord God is my strength and song, and he has become my salvation. Therefore you will joyously draw water from the springs of salvation. Or again in Isaiah chapter 55, verses 1 and 2. Ho, every one who thirsts, come to the waters, and you who have no money, come, buy and eat. Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost. Why do you spend money for that which is not bread, and your wages for what does not satisfy? Listen carefully to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourself in abundance. That passage in Isaiah 55, 1 and 2 is saying, Come, receive the salvation that God gives free of charge, not something that you earn, not something that you merit, but is given to us by His great grace. As sinful human beings who are alienate, alienated from God, we are always looking for something other than God to give us meaning and purpose, to give us joy and fulfillment. But pursuit of anything outside of Jesus Christ will always Always leave us empty. Like the woman drinking from Jacob's well, the world satisfies for a moment, but ultimately the satisfaction does not last. We thirst again and again and again. To use another metaphor, what the world gives is like smoke that dissipates in the wind. Do you remember when you were a kid getting a hold of a dollar and then blowing it on some cheap junk that doesn't last but a few moments? Or buying candy that is quickly consumed and then you have nothing left? But even if what we buy lasts a while, what then? I remember when I was a little boy, about ten or eleven years old, I once saved my money for a football. I got it at E. H. Tepe Company on Lusher Avenue in Elkart, Indiana. It cost me $9 and was a thing of value to a ten year old boy who used his own money. But where is that football now? And so it is with all our earthly possessions and pursuits. What junkyard is that favorite car in now? Those clothes you had to have, where are they now? And not just with material goods, but also with recognition and popularity, that silly stunt or that goofy meme that you put on Facebook to get you 15 minutes of fame, how long is it until everyone forgets all about that? Who cares that you were the prom queen in 1975? Who cares that you scored the winning basket in a sectional basketball game forty years ago? The things of this world, whether they are material goods or social recognition, bring temporal and temporary satisfaction. And when they are lost or stolen or forgotten or broken or worn out, or when greed and envy demands that we discard the old just to fulfill our idolatrous materialism, we buy the updated or flashier version to give us our possession fix. Or when our 15 minutes of fame are over, we try some other stunt to fill our popularity fix, but all for naught. Earthly goods don't last. Popularity doesn't last, and even if they last a lifetime, we leave them all behind at death. Friends, the world will always leave you thirsty. The world never comes through with the joy it promises. But Jesus Christ gives eternal life and eternal satisfaction. He quenches our thirst far beyond any transient material possession, far beyond any fleeting popularity, far beyond any 15 minutes of fame. So it's a sucker's transaction to reject Jesus, the fountain of living waters, in exchange for that which will never bring fulfillment. Well, what is the second point we can note about this passage? I want you to note that Jesus brings a universal message. I've always enjoyed meeting people from different countries and cultures. I've had the opportunity to travel to England and to Germany and to Togo, West Africa, and other places as well. But right here in the United States, it's easy to run across people from different cultures and learn from them and hear their perspective on culture and life in general. But if we are honest, there are strangers we wouldn't want to meet that bring about a yuck reaction on our part. And they don't even have to be from different cultures. We might have a yuck reaction to someone who has what we consider very odd clothes or an unkempt appearance. We might say yuck when we meet someone with multiple tattoos or some other quality that causes some level of revulsion on our part. But Jesus never reacted to anyone with a yuck. Though to many Jews in Jesus' day, this woman at the well would have received a resounding yuck. To many Jews in Jesus' day, this woman would have been contemptible and dirty. But that's not how Jesus reacts to this woman. He's already ignored the taboos against associating with the Samaritan and continues to befriend her despite her particularly immoral past, which we're going to see here in just a moment. Verse 15 The woman said to him, Sir, give me this water so I will not be thirsty, nor come all the way here to draw. Still thinking in terms of literal literal water and literal drawing from the well, she is happy to hear about an opportunity to relieve herself of the everyday chore of drawing water from the well. She's thinking, anything that will enable me to avoid this laborious task, I'm all in. Verse 16. He said to her, Go, call your husband and come here. In a fashion similar to the way Jesus interacted with Nicodemus in chapter 3, verses 1 through 3, Jesus changes the subject immediately and cuts to the chase. Rather than explain the meaning of his offer of living water, he addresses her real need. Her need is not physical, it's moral and spiritual. Since she doesn't get it, Jesus addresses her marital state and forces her to face her sin and thus to understand the spiritual water that he offers. Verses 17 and 18. The woman answered and said, I have no husband. Jesus said to her, You have correctly said, I have no husband, for you have had five husbands, and the one whom you now have is not your husband. This you have said truly. The Samaritan woman tells the truth, but does so in a way that clouds her past, manifesting his supernatural knowledge like he did with Nathaniel in chapter 1, verses 47 and 48. Jesus fills in the details of her life story. She's had five husbands. We don't know all of the circumstances. Some of the husbands may have died, some may have involved divorce. But since she is now cohabitating in a culture that did not recognize common law marriage, she's clearly an unsavory character as far as the culture was concerned. So let's look at her from top to bottom. From the Jewish perspective, she's a despised Samaritan. Worse than that, she's a Samaritan woman. So many Jews would have considered her in a state of perpetual uncleanness. Add to that, she is also an adulteress and a fornicator. In the eyes of many Jews, the only thing that could have made her more yucky is if she'd been eating a pork chop. But rather than be repulsed by her, Jesus takes time to befriend her, speak with her, minister to her, and offer her God's gift of life. Why? Because he preaches a universal message that all people need to hear, a message of salvation. On several occasions we see Jesus doing this in the Gospels. In Matthew chapter 8, he honored the request of a Roman centurion, a Gentile, to heal his servant. And when he healed the centurion's servant, he praised the centurion for his great faith and promised that he would have a place in the kingdom. In Matthew chapter 15, Jesus healed the demon-possessed daughter of the Syrophenician woman, another Gentile, and as with the centurion, he commended her for her faith. Jesus so loved the sinners and the outcasts of this world that his enemies ridiculed him for being the friend of tax collectors and sinners. In light of Jesus' ministry, we must ask ourselves, Am I the friend of sinners? Suppose you were chatting with someone in church just before the service started, and a man walked through the doors wearing a dress. Suppose two women with green mohawks walked through your church doors holding hands. What if a person walked into your church with fifty piercings in his face? Though your first reaction might be yuck, we all need to overcome that reaction and make such people feel welcome. You should shake their hands, introduce yourself and share your pew with them. You should learn their name immediately and introduce them to other people in the flock. But let's go outside of the church context. Would you allow someone like that to borrow your lawn more or help him landscape his lawn? Would you chat with him over the fence post? Would you invite such a person as that over for a backyard barbecue? Or give him a plate of holiday goodies for Christmas? You see, friends, no matter how yucky someone might be on an earthly plane, from a human perspective, that person has a soul, is made in the image of God, and has eternal value. If Jesus ministered to such people, then we must also and seek their salvation just as he did. If Jesus is the friend of sinners, then we should also be the friend of sinners. But let's look at that from another angle. Do you think you are too yucky for Jesus? That you are not good enough for him? Or perhaps you see Christians as good people and you don't measure up to their moral superiority? Well, first of all, no one is good enough for Jesus. And if we were good enough for Jesus, we wouldn't need him to save us. The question is not, am I good enough for Jesus? But does Jesus love sinners? And the answer to that question is yes. And those who turn to him in faith and repentance, he never turns them away. And that is the beauty of God's salvation. Though we are sinners and fall short of God's righteous standards, by his grace, that is to say, his unmerited favor, something we do not earn, he saves those who call upon him, no matter what they've done, because Jesus is the friend of sinners. Second, if you think you're not good enough for Christian people, you could not be more wrong. The church is full of people just like you who have sordid pasts, who often fail, who still struggle with sin and undergo pain and failure, and we need Jesus just as much as you. Christians are not angels who sit around polishing their halos, but are people who struggle with sin, suffer under various hardships, and otherwise lead imperfect and messy lives. So no matter what you think of yourself in comparison to Christians, you would fit right in as a sinner among sinners, who need God's grace every day. Now, having said that, we need to note how Jesus not only brought a life-giving message to this woman, and how he was not repulsed by her, we also need to note Jesus was honest with her. Jesus preached a life-giving message, he preached a universal message for all regardless of their sinfulness, and finally, Jesus preached a confrontational message. When I go to the doctor, I want the doctor to tell me the truth no matter what my condition. If I had cancer or heart disease or kidney failure or some other malady, I want the truth even if it's bad news. Why? Because healing can't start until the condition is honestly assessed. We may not like to hear the truth from the doctor, because sometimes it hurts, but without the truth, there is no remedy. In verses 16 through 18 that we just noted, Jesus tells this woman the truth. In Jeremiah chapter 1, God commissions Jeremiah to be a prophet to the nations. Part of his commission is stated in verse 10 of that chapter. See, I have appointed you this day over the nations and over the kingdoms to pluck up and break down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant. We can see in this verse that Jeremiah's mission was twofold. The message was first of all a negative one, in that he was to pluck up and to break down, he was to destroy, he was to confront Judah with her sins, to point out her hypocrisy, to denounce her self-righteousness and to rebuke her idolatry. But he was also sent with a message of encouragement and salvation. He was to build and to plant, bringing Judah assurance of God's love and saving power. I once heard a story about Billy Graham where he was asked, Is it hard to get people saved? He answered, No. It's easy to get people saved, it's hard to get them lost. His point, of course, was that too often people think they're good enough for God. They rely on their own self-righteousness, their own good works, or misconstrue God's character, claiming that since God is the God of love, he would never judge people or cast them into hell. This is sort of the opposite of what we just said a few moments ago. Sometimes people think that they're not good enough for God. There are some people who think that they're just right for God, and God is very pleased with them. The challenge then is to convince those people that they are guilty and under God's judgment and need to turn to Jesus Christ in faith and repentance for forgiveness. That being the case, one must be faced with his sin or he can't be saved. If one doesn't think he's lost, he'll never think he needs rescued. The fact is we don't do anyone any favors by not rebuking sin. Jesus brought this woman's adultery to the surface that he might offer her the salvation she desperately needed. But you don't have to point out specific sins like Jesus did to make the point. Hey there, so and so, I know all about your pornographic magazines, I know how you juggle the books and steal from your company, I know how you lied to your wife about where you were last weekend and a lot of other things too. So you better turn to Jesus or you're going to hell. You don't have to be that director specific. All we have to do is point out that lust and stealing and murder and anger and lying and gossip and adultery and drunkenness and idolatry and pride and fornicating and homosexuality and hatred and sloth and gluttony and sowing discord and a host of other sins will bring judgment upon the unrepentant, and in doing so you will strike a nerve whether or not you know the person's specific sins. People will connect the dots between what God's word says about sin and the sin that they harbor in their own hearts. I shudder to think what it must have been like to undergo surgery in the days before anesthesia. Can you imagine what it would have been like to have your appendix taken out or have a wound sewn up or have a bullet or an arrow removed on the frontier before there were painkillers? But which is worse, undergoing painful surgery without anesthesia or dying of septic shock or blood loss. The surgery might cause excruciating pain, but it was necessary for healing to occur for life to be saved. Figuratively speaking, friends, we are in that situation when we proclaim the gospel. We tell people that sin brings everlasting punishment. That might cause them pain. The person might get angry, the person might rebel against the notion of sin, the person might mock, the person might uh reject you completely and insult you. The person's conscience might be activated to cause them intense worry over their sinful state. But without that message of sin, the person cannot be saved. Without that message of sin, there is no salvation. So we do the painful work preaching a message of sin that the sinner might be healed. Well, that just about sums it up for today here at Crosstown. I know this is sort of an odd place to stop, but we will pick things up next week with verse 19. Again, thank you for being with me today, and I hope you will be back next week as we continue studying this meeting between Jesus and the Samaritan woman. Please don't forget to tell others about Crosstown, and also don't forget to send me a fan mail from the link connected to this podcast. Or again, you can send me an email at Crosstown MHT. That's crosstownmh at gmail.com. I would love to hear from you. May God's richest blessings be yours today and always. I am David Spa, and I hope you'll be with us again next week here at Crosstown Solomon. Used by permission, all rights reserved, www.lockman.org.