Whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall
never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be a
well of water springing up into everlasting life. The woman
saith unto Him, Sir, give me this water.--_John 4, 14. 15._
Our blessed Lord, having provoked by His preaching and by His
miracles the enmity of the Pharisees, they began to plot His
destruction. To escape their persecutions, His hour having not yet
come, He departed for Galilee, between which territory and Judea lay
the province of Samaria, through which, accordingly, as the holy
writer expresses it, He must needs go. The first place at which he
stopped was Sychar, one of the cities of Samaria. In its vicinity
was a well, called Jacob's well, in all probability because the
patriarch Jacob had caused it to be dug. Arriving there about the
sixth hour, or noon, fatigued with the toils of the day, He seated
Himself, while His disciples went into the city to purchase food. He
could easily have relieved His wants by a miracle, but His miracles
He employed only for the relief of others. While thus resting and
alone, there cometh a woman of Samaria to draw water. Our Lord at
once resolved to benefit her. He was one who sowed by all waters,
and with Him one hearer was enough to justify the finest sermon.
He introduced Himself to her by asking a favor, the best way that
could have been selected. It must be spoken to the credit of our
poor humanity that a request for a favor is always regarded as
allowable. There are men and women whom you would not dare speak to
on the street, without expecting to be reproachfully treated, but
whom you may with perfect confidence ask a small favor of, such as
the time of day, a drink of water, or the like. Jesus saith to her:
"Give me to drink." The woman is astonished, for she saw, by His
features and His dress, that He was a Jew. Then saith the woman of
Samaria unto Him: "How is it that thou, being a Jew, askest drink of
me, which am a woman of Samaria?" It was a very natural question.
The Jews regarded contact with a Samaritan disreputable. Their touch
was pollution; to spend the night at the house of one of them was
to reproach a family for generations. A Jew would not speak to a
Samaritan, much less ask a favor of one. But the mind of Jesus knew
nothing of this narrow bigotry, this odious illiberality. His object
was to benefit all, and He, therefore, freely conversed with all.
His answer was: "If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that
saith to thee, Give me to drink; thou wouldest have asked of Him,
and He would have given thee living water." The Savior, as you will
have noted from your Bible reading, often seizes upon incidents and
objects before the eyes of His hearers to shadow forth spiritual
truths. Thus, when He had fed the multitude with bread, He spoke of
Himself as "the bread which cometh from heaven and giveth eternal
life." Being at Jerusalem at the Feast of Tabernacles, when the
people in crowds drew water from the pool of Siloam, He cried with
a loud voice: "If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink."
So here He takes occasion to elevate this woman's thoughts from
the earthly water to the heavenly. Still supposing, however, that
Jesus referred to common water, she objects to Him: "Sir, Thou
hast nothing to draw with, and the well is deep; from whence, then,
hast Thou this living water?" And to suppose that He could find
better water elsewhere would imply that He was greater than Jacob,
who esteemed this the best in all the territory, and so she adds:
"Art Thou greater than our father Jacob, which gave us the well,
and drank thereof himself, and his children and his cattle?" Jesus,
pitying her ignorance, and bearing with her weakness, began more
fully to explain the properties of that water of which He spoke. He
said to her: "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." The woman, still
taking the words in a natural sense, was disposed to turn them into
ridicule, and she begged the Savior by all means to give her some
of that excellent water which would prevent her from ever thirsting
again and would render it unnecessary for her to come so far and
draw water. She says: "Sir, give me this water, that I thirst not,
neither come hither to draw." To check her impatience, Jesus shows
that He was perfectly acquainted with her character. He bids her
call her husband. The woman replied: "I have no husband." Then came
the crushing exposure; Jesus said to 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." She, at
once convinced of Jesus' prophetic character, adroitly changes the
subject. Said she: "Our fathers worshiped in this mountain, and ye
say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship."
This was opening up an interesting topic. When the Jews returned
after the Babylonian captivity, they went to rebuild the temple at
Jerusalem. The Samaritans proposed to bear part of the expense, and
to worship with them, as they accepted some of the Jewish laws and
ceremonies. The Jews rejected their offer, and would have nothing
to do with them. The Samaritans then built a temple of their own
on Mount Gerizim. Hence, the woman wished to be informed by this
prophet which was the right place, Mount Gerizim or Jerusalem. The
reply of Jesus was full of instruction; with great stateliness
and dignity He said: "Woman, believe me, the hour cometh when ye
shall neither in this mountain nor yet at Jerusalem worship the
Father. 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 worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth;
for the Father seeketh such to worship. God is a Spirit; and they
that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth." The
woman, hearing these instructions, without disputing with Jesus, but
also without approving entirely of what He said, refers the entire
decision of the question to the coming of the Messiah. "I know that
Messiah cometh, which is called Christ; when He is come, He will
tell us all things," to which Jesus replies: "I that speak unto thee
am he."
Here the disciples, returning from the city, interrupted the
conversation. The woman went back to the city and told the people
of the wonderful stranger. Full of curiosity, they came out to see
Jesus, and prevailed on Him to stay two days with them, and "many,"
records the sacred writer, "of the Samaritans of that city believed
on Him."
There are a number of important lessons that we may profitably
dwell upon from this interview between Christ and that woman of
Samaria. We shall restrict ourselves to the most outstanding one.
Our Lord teaches us here the nature of salvation; He compares it
to water. It is noteworthy and most suggestive that whatever in
the material world is most useful and highly valuable to man is
also the most common and most abundant. Things which can, without
serious loss and injury to any one, be dispensed with, or which
serve merely or mainly to give pleasure, such as gold, diamonds,
and jewels, exquisite foreign fruit, these alone are rare, the
property of a few. But what all men need, and most largely ministers
to their comfort and enjoyment,--the wholesome food, the pure,
refreshing water, the air, and the light,--these are spread out in
free, unstinted store before rich and poor, young and old, one and
all.--But besides this material world there is another with which we
have to do, an unseen spiritual world, in which our souls are living
and breathing, and there the same law obtains. God has abundantly
supplied us with what we need. Two-thirds of the earth's surface
is covered with water. You find water all over and everywhere, in
oceans, rivers, springs, wells, sufficient to supply all the wants
of man. So, too, there is not a meager quantity, but an abundance
of living water. If all the human beings who have ever lived upon
this earth could come to this heavenly Fountain in a body, there
would be water enough and to spare, and it is everywhere and for
everybody. It is for Americans, for Europeans, for the inhabitants
of Asia, Africa and the islands of the sea. There never will be a
diminution of its vast and boundless supply. Nor will God permit any
barrier to hedge it in.
Like the water in your homes, salvation is being brought to your
doors; it is gushing forth like a stream at your feet now, and it
flows through the very aisles of this church, and filters into every
pew. And like natural water, Christ's water of salvation possesses
like qualities. To mention the particular He dwells upon in this
text, Jesus answered and said to her, "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." The soul has its desires, its yearnings, its appetites,
as well as the body, and it is miserable until that thirst is
satisfied. And how is this done? Certainly not by anything of man's
provision. The various schools of man's wisdom, philosophy, have
tried it, and we have their confession that they failed to find what
they sought. The same may truly be said of this world's pleasures,
possessions, and honors. These things, being earthly, leave the soul
as thirsty as before, yea, even worse, like sailors in distress
who drink the ocean's brine; it will but increase their thirst a
hundredfold. "But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give
him shall never thirst." Christ's water, alone, is able to satisfy
the thirst of the human soul.--The reason is very apparent. Man's
happiness depends, first of all, upon a right relation to his God;
as long as that is severed or strained, satisfaction and peace
of heart are out of the question. And it is only He, that divine
person, who sat upon Jacob's well, that has this supply of living
water. We are made for God, and our hearts remain thirsty and
restless until they find satisfaction and repose in Him.
But, you will note, it says: "Whosoever drinketh of the water that
I give him." Christ gives it, but there is something, accordingly,
for the thirsty soul to do. Water cannot quench the thirst unless
it is taken; not all the water in the river at the foot of our city
can save a man that does not partake of it. Nor can Christ's water
of life assuage the thirst of a soul that declines it. There must
be personal appropriation, or it fails of the blessed effects.
Not as if there is anything meritorious in that, any more than it
is a merit for one to drink a glass of water to allay his physical
thirst. And yet, it is only thus that one becomes partaker of
it; and the only reason why so many fail of its blessed effects
is,--they do not drink it. It is told of a ship that its supply of
fresh water was exhausted. The passengers and crew on board were at
the point of perishing. For several days they had lacked water, and
were almost frenzied. At last a vessel was sighted in the distance.
They raised their cry: "Give us water, water; we are dying for
water!" The reply came back, "Let down your buckets! You are in the
mouth of the Amazon! You have fresh water all around you." They
had been floating three days in fresh water and knew it not. It is
so spiritually. Ignorance is what keeps many from salvation. The
churches, like vast reservoirs and pumping stations, are seeking
to supply the masses with the knowledge of Christ and His Gospel.
They are actually floating like these perishing souls in the midst
of religion, and yet they dip not their buckets to fill. With some
it is because they are too indifferent, and with others, because
of sheer stupidity they care not to give such matters concern. It
is positively surprising to see how many otherwise intelligent and
wide-awake men and women will be found altogether destitute of the
first things, the A B C of Christian teaching and principles. Ask
them to select the real things of man's life, to tell you the true
purpose of existence, touch on matters of eternity, soul and God,
and they are as ignorant of those things as children of the value
of currency, who will tear to pieces a five-dollar bill and cling
to their five-cent picture-book, or who will at any time take in
exchange for a ten-dollar gold piece a large, glittering ball of
Christmas tinsel. They know not, and so they value not, and allow
the treasures of heaven, the gift of God, as our Savior called it,
the blessed water of life, to flow by undrunk and unimproved.
To this first reason, ignorance, may be rightfully added
another,--prejudice. There is a vast amount of that against Christ's
religion. In fact, there is in every material heart a feeling of
aversion against the whole thing, and, strange enough, those who
might be expected to be most favorably inclined toward salvation,
the outwardly good, honest, and honored, are, as a rule, set against
it. Their self-sufficiency is in the way. Take the case before
us. It was a most unpromising one, this woman. The reproof openly
given by a stranger, a Jew at that, would have irritated many a
one. Some would have replied by abusive language. Others would
have denied the charge, especially as it did not appear probable
that this unknown person could uphold them. But the Samaritan had
different sentiments, and bears out the statement of our Lord that
the publicans and sinners were nearer the kingdom of heaven than the
Pharisees, who were so devout in their outward appearances. Some of
the most unpromising characters prove the most promising, and those
whom we should have regarded as giving Christ cordial welcome, the
religionists of His time, were offended at Him.
So to-day, there are numbers of those who regard themselves good
enough or not worse than many others and these very church people,
and so are never seen in a house of Christian worship, except to see
some one married, or buried; who will read anything and everything,
and who are ready to meet with you and talk with you on every topic
except one, and that is religion. Prejudice, my beloved, prejudice,
short-sighted, cruel, unreasonable.
But, to conclude; to us, my dear hearers, as to this woman of
Sychar, has the Savior come. He is sitting not only, as of old, on
Jacob's well, He is sitting aside you in the pew, He is offering you
the same water of life. Why not take and drink it?
People will go far and spend much to drink of earthly springs for
bodily invigoration and health. Here is the life-water, which alone
can give health to the soul, and which springs up into eternal life.
Oh! that some of its life-giving drops may fall upon your hearts in
these moments to soften them into penitence and holy resolve: "Sir,
give me of this water."
I heard the voice of Jesus say,
Behold, I freely give
The living water; thirsty one,
Stoop down, and drink and live.
I came to Jesus and I drank
Of that life-giving stream;
My thirst was quenched, my soul revived,
And now I live in Him.
Amen.