How Faith Comes

How Faith Comes

(No. 2623)

INTENDED FOR READING ON LORD'S-DAY, MAY 21, 1899.

DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON THURSDAY EVENING,
FEBRUARY 2, 1882.

"And many ofthe Samaritans of that city believed on Him for the saying
of the woman who testified, He told me all that I ever did. So when the
Samaritans were come unto Him, they sought Him that He would tarry with
them: and He abode there two days. And many more believed because of
His own word; and said unto the woman, Now we believe not because of
your saying: for we have heard Him ourselves, and know that this is,
indeed, the Christ, the Savior of the world." John 4:39-42.

WHEREVER faith exists, it is the gift of God. It is a plant that never
sprang up spontaneously from the soil of corrupt human nature. Whether
it is little faith or great faith, it is equally of Divine origin, and
wherever it is found– whether in the child of pious parents who was
brought up with the utmost care, or in one who has lived all the former
part of his life in the vilest sin–it is equally and alike the fruit
of the Spirit and the effect of God's Grace. From this fact I gather
great encouragement because, if it needs Divine power to implant faith
in the heart that looks more favorable, it needs no more to implant and
preserve it in the soul that appears most unprepared to receive it.
Casting our eyes over the whole map of Palestine, we might have said
that Samaria was probably as unlikely a place as any in the entire
country in which we might expect to find followers of the Lord Jesus,
for, at the very threshold of Christ's announcing Himself, there would
be found this prejudice, that the Samaritans would not believe in a
Jew.

They would not even listen to a Jew, for, while the Jews had no
dealings with the Samaritans, the Samaritans reciprocated the feeling
and had no dealings with the Jews. Yet it was among the Samaritans, the
members of the mongrel faith into which Judaism had deteriorated, that
Christ was to find a large number of His followers! My Brothers, you
will be wise to go, first, to those places where there seems to be
least likelihood of conversions. You will often find that God judges
not as man judges–"Man looks on the outward appearance"–but God, who
reads the hearts of men, can see a certain readiness where we reckon
that there is the most unreadiness! The Lord knows that the soil where
the Seed of the Kingdom is sown may be in the best condition for
fruitfulness even when we fancy that it cannot possibly yield us any
return for our labor. If faith is the work of God–a supernatural
thing–as it certainly is, what have you and I to do with judging
according to natural appearances?

You may go and speak, my Brother, feeble as you feel yourself to be,
for the Seed owes very little, indeed, to the hand that sows it. And
you may go, my Brother or my Sister, and scatter this precious Seed
upon what you may regard as waste soil, but the Seed owes very little,
after all, to the soil! God can make it spring up like a root out of a
dry ground and, as of old He brought water out of the rock, and oil out
of the flinty rock, so can He bring a harvest to His Glory where
everything seems utterly barren. If it is God's work, let us have no
doubts, much lese any despondencies, concerning it, but let us continue
to put ourselves into His hands that He may use us anywhere that He
pleases, for we know not where He will most glorify His name through
our feeble instrumentality.

I am going to talk about faith–faith as it came to these Samaritans.
And we shall notice, first, faith's annunciation–"Now we believe."
Secondly, faith's nativity–where it is born. Thirdly, faith's
upbringing–faith's Nazareth– for, according to the text, it grows and
takes higher ground as it develops. "Now we believe, not because of
your saying: for we have heard Him ourselves." I give these names to my
three divisions in order to assist your memories.

I. First, then, I call your attention to FAITH'S ANNUNCIATION. Here we
have it, in the 42nd verse–"we believe."

Genuine faith may, through timidity, be hidden for a little while, or,
possibly, the love of carnal ease may lead some to conceal their faith
in Christ. But it is of the very nature of faith that it should make
its appearance known and felt. As Christ had what our Church of England
friends call His Epiphany, when He was manifested to men, so faith,
though it may, for a while, be swaddled and laid in a manger, and kept
in a stable, must have its coming out–it must have its manifestation
and men must see it! Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea managed, for
three years or so, to conceal their faith to a great degree. Every now
and then the light would burn a hole through the bushel, for they could
not quite hide the fire that was within them, but when Jesus died, then
the thoughts of many hearts were revealed and both these men stood out
in the clear light of day as His avowed disciples. They could not help
it! The occasion had come when their faith must be manifested and they
must, by their actions, say, "Now we believe." Our Lord has always put,
side by side with the faith that saves, the duty of confession of that
faith. His own words are, "He that believes and is baptized shall be
saved." And Paul, guided by the Holy Spirit, wrote, "If you shall
confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus, and shall believe in your heart
that God has raised Him from the dead, you shall be saved. For with the
heart man believes unto righteousness and with the mouth confession is
made unto salvation." Christ loves not a tongue-tied faith–He would
not have Faith dumb, but would have her speak to the glorifying of her
Lord on whom she depends! So these Samaritans, when they had come to
believe in Jesus, must confess their faith and they did so by saying,
"Now we believe."

Possibly, dear Friends, they felt some little difficulty–I suppose
that it was but little in their case–in saying, "Now we believe,"
because they had previously undergone a period of doubt Evidently these
people did not receive the woman's testimony, although others had done
so. They listened to it and were sufficiently moved by it to go out and
see the Teacher of whom she spoke, but they were not brought to faith
by it. Perhaps they even battled with her and raised questions–I will
not say quibbles–but, at last, to her great joy, they said to her,
"'Now we believe.' We have got out of all the muddle and confusion in
which we were. We have left the darkness, the doubt and the difficulty.
And 'now we believe.'"

Are there any of you, dear Friends, who have been amusing yourselves
for years with the notion that you were infidels? Have you tried to
make up, in your own minds, a sort of belief that you were "agnostics"?
I think that is the favorite word for those who are proud of being know
as nothings or ignoramuses. Have you tried to bolster up in your mind
the idea that you were something very amazing in the form of a
skeptical person–all the while, I doubt not, believing a great deal
more than you liked to admit–believing and trembling at the same time?
But have you played that foolish game out and have you now truly
trusted in the Lord Jesus Christ as your own Savior? If so, then do not
be ashamed to say, "Now I believe." You may have to eat your own
words–well, then, eat them! You may have to be very humble when you
meet your old friends–well, then, be humble–there will be no harm to
you in that! And, perhaps, they will bring against you some of your own
arguments. Well, it will serve you right if they do and, besides, it
will give you the pleasure of breaking those arguments in pieces and,
perhaps, of winning your friends for Christ, for you have seen those
fallacies broken in your own case and you may be the means, in the hand
of God, of breaking the bow and cutting the spear in sunder in the case
of those who have been your fellow doubters!

Do not be ashamed of confessing your past folly. I think a man who
says, "I was wrong," really says, in effect, "I am a little wiser,
today, than I was yesterday." But he who never admits that he has made
a mistake and who claims that he has always been in the right, has
evidently never made much growth in knowledge of himself. So, do not be
ashamed to say, "Now I believe," though that confession may have been
preceded by many a doubt.

And do not hesitate to say it to the person who has, up to now, been
baffled by you. I expect the tears were in that poor woman's eyes when
she said to the men, "You remember what sort of person I used to be,
and you see the change that has been worked in me. You know that I
always spoke straight out what I believed, and this blessed Man, who
read my very soul, is the Christ! I know He is. Then, why do you not
believe what I say about Him?" I should not wonder if she pleaded very
hard with them, and prayed, and entreated them to believe her
testimony. And now, at last, when they did believe, it was due to her
that they should cheer her heart by saying, "Now we believe." And, even
though they had to add, "not because of your saying," that
qualification would not grieve her. "Oh," she would say, "so long as
you believe, I do not mind how you came into that happy condition! I
would have been glad if God had used my saying to bring you to faith,
but, inasmuch as He blessed the saying of the great Preacher, the Lord
and Master, Himself, I am the more glad on that account, for He will
have all the glory of it and, so long as you do but believe, you give
gladness to my heart."

There are some of you, dear Friends, to whom I have preached in vain
for a long while and God knows that when I have been laid aside, I have
often felt a holy joy in my heart at the thought that the man who has
been preaching for me will be blessed by God to some who have never
been converted under my ministry. Sometimes, when I have longed to be
fishing for souls, but could not even stand and, therefore, had to lie
at home in pain, it has been my hope that some other fisherman would
throw the fly better than I might have done, and that you would take
the bait from him, though you have often refused it from me. And when
you come forward to join the Church, and say to me, as many have done,
"Sir, we believe, but it was through Fullerton and Smith's mission,"
or, "it was through the teaching in the Sunday school," or, "it was
through the agency of someone who spoke to us in the aisle," I am sure
that I have been just as glad and happy as if you had told me that it
was by my own personal testimony that you had found the Lord. Glad,
indeed, am I to be the instrument of saving souls, but still, if you
are saved, the instrumentality by which that blessed result is reached
is, after all, a very small matter! But, when you do really believe in
our Lord Jesus Christ, take care that you tell us, for we have wept
over you and prayed for you. And when you are converted, it seems but a
fair and honest recompense that you should say to the individual whom
God has honored to be your spiritual parent, "Now we believe." By doing
so, you will strengthen and encourage him to go on with his work more
earnestly than before! Perhaps you will even stave off a heartbreak and
make the Christian sower fill his hands the fuller and scatter the seed
more deftly because he knows that he has not labored in vain, nor spent
his strength for nothing!

In this annunciation of faith, I want you to observe, also, that it was
very speedy. The Lord Jesus Christ was only in that place for two days,
so that those who said, "Now we believe," must have testified very
speedily after they believed. I do not think that it is the duty of
people to wait several months before they come forward and confess
Christ–it may sometimes be the wisdom of the officers and members of
the Church to say to some persons, "We would like to see a little of
your life, that we may judge by your fruit, before we receive you into
fellowship." It may even be their dutyto say that, and to keep them
waiting outside the Church for a while to test their genuineness, but
it is not the duty of the candidate, himself. His business is, as
speedily as may be convenient after he has believed in Jesus, to
confess his faith and to seek to be baptized and added to the Church.
You do not find Paul waiting several months, after he was converted,
before he was baptized. You see, in Scripture, no trace of what our old
people in the country used to practice, namely, "summering and
wintering" converts, to see what they were like before they permitted
them to make a confession of their faith in Jesus. No, no–if you have
believed in Him, come along with you!

The next step is to say so, and to say it as quickly as you can, "Now
we believe." If tonight you are brought to faith in Jesus Christ, I
would say to you, find some Christian Brother and tell him at once that
you have believed in Jesus. When this precious child of the Spirit of
God, namely, Faith, is born, let it be known to the King's house that
it has come! In Heaven they make such blessed tidings known for, "there
is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that
repents." Though it is but the initial stage of faith, hold not the
glad news back from the Church of God, but let it be speedily
proclaimed, "Now we believe." What a joyous moment it is when any can
say, "Now we believe!" It is the end of suspense–it is the end of the
kingdom of darkness, it is the end of fear, it is the end of
despair–it is the dawn of hope, it is the dawn of Heaven! Oh, what a
world of meaning there is in those three words! What glory is opened up
to the poor tearful eye by faith! What sights are visible when we can
say, "Now we believe!"

O my dear Hearers, can you all say, "Now we believe"? If you can do so,
truthfully, you can say a greater thing than Cicero or Demosthenes,
with all their eloquence, ever uttered! Have you been seekers for
months and years? Have you been tempest-tossed and driven up and down
upon the sea of doubt? May you now cast your anchor overboard into the
depths of Jehovah's love and when you find that it holds, may you cry
out, with ecstasy, "Now we believe!" There, then, is the annunciation
of faith.

II. Now, very briefly, I want you to look, in the second place, on
FAITH'S NATIVITY. How does faith come into men's hearts?

According to the plain teaching of Scripture, "Faith comes by hearing,
and hearing by the Word of God." But faith is not always created in the
human heart by the same form of instrumentality. It is always the fruit
of the Spirit of God but it comes in different ways. Some of these
Samaritans believed because of the saying of the woman and, I suppose
that in the Christian Church, a very large number derive their faith
through the power of God's Spirit, from the personal witness of others
who have been converted. Now look, dear Friends, all of you, at this
woman, and be encouraged to use your personal testimony for Christ! She
was the spiritual mother of many a Samaritan believer, yet she was a
woman of bad character. An ill savor was about her name–everybody in
Sychar must have looked upon her as a dangerous person of fickle love
and of foul ways–and yet, after she had found Christ, she did not
hesitate to tell her neighbors about Him–and God did not refuse to
bless her testimony! I believe that there are thousands of persons whom
no man would ordain, but who are ordained of God, for all that–and
there are many whom we would say that the Church could not employ, whom
the great Head of the Church employs, and employs grandly, too! What if
you have been converted from great sin? Be careful and watchful that
you sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto you, but let not shame
with regard to the past make you ashamed to confess the Christ of the
present, and to acknowledge that He has worked a great work upon you!
Here was a poor fallen woman and yet, after her conversion, she became
a missionary of Christ to the city of Sychar! She was, altogether,
quite an unofficial person. She does not appear to have been called a
sister of mercy, or to have put on any peculiar garb, but she ran
straightway to the people with whom she had lived and, perhaps, to the
very men with whom she had sinned! She went to tell the story that
Christ had come to her and had given to her that Living Water, of
which, if a man shall drink, he shall never thirst again! Well,
Believer, if no man sends you, go all the same, for Godsends you!
Perhaps no man has laid his hands upon you, but of what use is the
laying on of hands? Full often I fear it is only empty hands laid on
empty heads–so, if no man has laid his hands on you, go without the
laying on of hands, in the name of Him who has laid His pierced hands
upon you and said to you, "Fear not, for I am with you: be not
dismayed, for I am your God: I will strengthen you, yes, I will help
you, yes, I will uphold you with the right hand of My righteousness."

If you ask, "What shall my message be?" let your message be your own
personal testimony–what you have, yourself, seen, heard, tasted,
handled and felt of the good Word of God. I do not suppose that this
woman arranged her discourse under three heads, or that she had an
introduction and a conclusion and all that, but she just went to the
men of the city and said, "Come see a Man who told me all things that I
ever did–is not this the Christ?" That was her little sermon and as
often as she repeated it over and over again, she spoke out and bore
her personal testimony–and so she brought the men of Sychar to Christ.
"Go home," said Christ to one whom He had healed, "go home to your
friends and tell them how great things the Lord has done for you, and
has had compassion on you." It is amazing how attractive a personal
narrative is! If you begin to explain to some people the doctrines of
the Gospel, your audience will diminish one by one. But tell them your
own experience of the power of Christ and they will listen as listened
the wedding guest when "the ancient mariner" laid his hand upon him,
detained him and told him that strange legend of the sea! You will have
attentive hearers when you speak about your own dealings with Christ,
the wonders that Christ has worked in you and for you, and of which you
can testify because they are your own experience! That is, in many a
case, the nativity of faith. The mother tells her child, the husband
tells his wife, the brother tells his sister and, more often, still,
the sister tells her brother. One man communicates it to his
co-workers–a gentleman speaks of it in the drawing room to those of
his own class–and so faith is born in other hearts as the result of
the personal testimony of Believers!

But, dear Friends, there are some persons who do not seem as if they
would ever be converted by that means. Personal testimony evidently
fails with them as it did with some of these Samaritans. What, then,
remains? Why, it will suffice if personal testimony leads the way and
excites attention to the subject! Then, if the man is wise, he asks for
time and thought–and our Lord Jesus is always ready to attend to those
who are anxious about spiritual matters, but are not quick to believe.
Two days did He remain in Sychar and those unbelievers who were candid
sat at His feet and heard Him through the two days. Now, what did Jesus
preach during those two days? Turn to your New Testaments and find the
sermon. Even though you look very carefully, you will not discover it,
for it is not there! And it is a very curious thing that when the woman
preached, we have notes of her sermon, but when Christ preached, we are
not told what He said. Very remarkable is it that, frequently, we have
those discourses of Christ which did not convert anybody and we have
not those discourses which didconvert people! Why is that? I suppose
that the Holy Spirit gives us the discourses which were rejected in
order to let us see that there was no fault in the sermon, but that the
fault was in the people. But as for those that were received, He simply
tells us the result and does not state the particular form of the
discourse. I would infinitely rather preach sermons that win souls and
are then forgotten, than go on preaching and having my discourses
printed from week to week, and hear of no results! Happily, I have not
to choose either alternative, but these people who were not persuaded
to believe by the witness of the woman, were converted through hearing
Christ, Himself.

"Well," says one, "but we cannot personally come to Christ right now."
No, I know that you cannot, but you can do what is very much like it. I
recommend every man who finds faith to be a difficult thing, to
carefully read through the four Gospels, asking the Holy Spirit to
enable him to believe what is recorded and revealed there. I usually
find that the greatest doubters are the people who do not read the
Bible. Holy Scripture has within itself a mighty convincing power–and
when men lie soaking in it, it soon penetrates into their very souls! A
man says, "I cannot believe," and yet he does not read or hear about
the very thing that is to be believed! He keeps out of the way of it
and yet says, "I cannot believe it." If there is something in the
newspaper today, about which you felt compelled to say, "Other people
seem to believe it, but, somehow, I am unable to do so–I would be very
glad to believe it, but I cannot"–what would you do? You would read
the statement again! You would refer to any other account that would be
likely to confirm it. You would candidly examine the whole affair to
see whether it was true or not. Yet how few–how very, very few have
thus come to Holy Scripture, itself, and virtually listened to Jesus,
Himself, and then have gone away and still said, "We do not believe."
Unless they are really given up to hardness of heart, the result, in
every case, seems to be that when they search the Scriptures, and seek
to know what Christ did and said, they are soon subdued by His sweet
power and are found sitting at His feet, believing in His name! If
anybody has not done this and yet remains an unbeliever, I charge his
unbelief upon himself as his own fault and sin. If I will not examine
the evidence, I am to blame if I do not believe the

Truth of God!

Do you ask, "What evidence shall I examine?" I say again, examine the
documents themselves! Let Christ speak for Himself. "Had I not better
read a, 'Life of Christ'?" Listen, there is no, "Life of Christ,"
extant but the one written by the four Evangelists. All the attempts
that have been made at lives of Christ, whatever value they may have,
are not biographies of Christ! They are somebody's idea of what He may
have been. We need no other, "Life of Christ," than the fourfold one
given to us in the Gospels! Those Inspired Evangelists have told us all
we ought to wish to know. And if you read those Books–not men's books
which have been written upon those Books–I believe that through the
blessing of God the Holy Spirit, you will yet be able to say, with
these Samaritans, "Now we believe." God grant that it may be so! It is
in this way that faith is often born. Holy Scripture is the Bethlehem
of faith! There is this blessed Child brought forth and happy are they
who take it, and nurse it, that it may grow.

III. This is our last point, FAITH'S UPBRINGING, or, as I called it,
"faith's Nazareth."

It is possible that there were some of the Samaritans who believed and
who, when they said to the woman, "Now we believe, not because of your
saying, for we have heard Him ourselves," meant that they did, at
first, believe because of the woman's saying, but, after a while, they
outgrew that first stage of faith and they came to believe in Jesus
still more strongly because they had heard Him themselves.

This was a higher form of faith. The beginnings of faith are as a
spider's web. It would be difficult to say how little a thing faith may
be at first. I doubt not that many believe the Bible because they were
always taught by their parents that it is the Word of God–although
they have never thoroughly examined that question for themselves. Some
have believed the Truth of God, at first, because their minister
preached it. Well, I would not discourage even that form of faith, for
it may be like a very tiny thread which may be fastened to a
string–and the string may be tied to a rope and the rope be attached
to a cable–and, at last, the shipwrecked mariner may thus be saved
from drowning! Anything that links men to Christ may, nevertheless, be
overruled of God to their salvation. When that woman said, concerning
our Lord, "If I may but touch His clothes, I shall be made whole," I
fear that there was some superstition in the notion, but, nevertheless,
Christ overlooked that and, seeing the real faith that lay hidden
underneath, took care that it should live. Do not discourage anything
that tends towards faith in Christ, but it is a grand thing when men
grow, by God's Grace, till they can say, "Now I do not believe simply
because of what my dear mother taught me. I do not believe merely
because of what my minister preached. I do not believe because of any
human being at all, but I believe because I have heard Christ for
myself, I have had personal dealings with Him and, now, 'I know whom I
have believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I
have committed unto Him against that day.'"

The faith that sprang from Christ's own testimony would also be much
more vivid faith. The other day there was a meeting held to protest
against the barbarities indicted on our Jewish brethren. All the
speakers spoke very strongly, but if any one of you had seen what has
been done and had come fresh from the deeds of blood, I guarantee that
you would have spoken very intensely, indeed. Your indignation would
have flamed fiercely if you had seen the homes of the people burned
down and men murdered and women ravished, for the sight of the
cruelties and abominations would have affected you far more than merely
hearing about them! So, when Faith gets to deal with Christ for
herself–when she sees sin forgiven–when she feels the weight taken
from her troubles–when she realizes the great possessions of joy which
Christ has given to her–to her, herself–then she becomes much more
vivid and truly living than the faith that rests simply upon the
testimony of others!

And, Beloved, as our faith becomes more vivid, so, also, it becomes
more independent. We need more independent Christian people in the
present day! I hope that we are growing a race of them, here, and I
pray that we may grow far more of them. I have seen young people and,
for all that matter, old people, too, behave excellently and seem to be
admirable Christians while they have lived here in the midst of other
warm-hearted Believers. But they have gone down into the country to
live and it has been very grievous to see how cold-hearted they have
become–how some of them have even, at last, forsaken the assemblies of
God's House and, if they have not utterly turned aside, yet they have
been very different from their former selves! Beloved, if you have seen
Christ and are truly one with Him, you will live with Him when all
Christian association is withdrawn! Look at many of the houses in our
London streets. If a giant were to pull one of them out of the middle
of the row, they would all come tumbling down! They only stand because
they lean on one another. But Christians should be detached houses–no,
semi-detached–for they must be attached to Christ–but they ought to
stand alone, apart from men, because of their living faith in Him!

This kind of faith has grown beyond that which was at first exercised
and it has become broader. If you will kindly look at the chapter, you
will notice that all the woman could tell the men was this, "Come, see
a Man who told me all things that I ever did–is not this the Christ?"
But these men had learned more than that, for they had listened to
Jesus Himself! They wondered, at first, that He, being a Jew, should
care for them. But, by-and-by, it darted into their mind that He had
not come to be the Savior of Jews, alone, so they said, "We have heard
Him, ourselves, and know that this is, indeed, the Christ, the Savior
of the world." Oh, that was grand, broad faith, when they saw that this
Christ was not the Jews' Christ alone, but the Christ of the
Samaritans–the Christ of the Gentiles, too–the Savior of sinners all
over the world! May your faith and mine, dear Friends, grow broad! May
we believe for others! May we hope for others! May we expect to see
God's salvation extending even unto the ends of the earth and, moved by
this faith, may we be stirred up to go out and find the lost sheep,
that we may bring them to the Great Shepherd, that He may fold them in
safety by His tender care! Let us be so much with Christ that we may
catch His spirit, and that our faith may grow exceedingly, and our love
to all the saints be increased!

The Lord give His blessing, for Jesus' sake! Amen.

EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: JOHN4:1-42.

Verses 1-6. When, therefore, the Lord knew how the Pharisees had heard
that Jesus made and baptized more disciples than John, (though Jesus
Himself baptized not, but His disciples), He left Judea and departed
again into Galilee. And He must needs go through Samaria. Then came He
to a city of Samaria which is called Sychar, near to the parcel of
ground that Jacob gave to his son, Joseph. Now Jacob's well was there.
Jesus, therefore, being wearied with His journey, sat thus on the well:
and it was about the sixth hour Do not be surprised, dear Brothers and
Sisters, if you sometimes grow weary in the Lord's work. I trust that,
even then, you will not be weary of it, but that you will believe that
your blessed Master can still use even His tired servants and bless
their labors. The Lord Jesus Christ worked great marvels even when He
sat wearily on the brink of Jacob's well–and you, perhaps, are at this
moment as fatigued and worn as you well can be–yet, will you not
awaken all the energies of your soul if you should see an opportunity
of doing good, even if it should be to some poor fallen woman, as in
the case here mentioned? It is a blessed thing never to be too tired to
pray and to never be too tired to speak to an anxious enquirer!

7. There came a woman of Samaria to draw water Providence was at work
so that when Christ reached the well, this woman was on her way there.
It was very late in the day for anyone to go to draw water, but,
probably, the other women, who went to the well early in the morning,
were not willing to associate with her, so she had to go by herself.
Late as she was, however, she was all in good time, for she reached the
spot just when Christ was waiting to bless her!

7, 8. Jesus said unto her, Give Me to drink (For His disciples were
gone away unto the city to buy meat). Or else they might have drawn
water from the well to refresh Him.

9, 10. Then said the woman of Samaria to Him, How is it that You, being
a Jew, asks drink of me, which am a woman of Samaria? For the Jews have
no dealings with the Samaritans. Jesus answered and said unto her, If
you knew the gift of God, and Who it is that says to you, Give Me to
drink; you would have asked of Him, and He would have given you living
water. See the deadly mischief of ignorance concerning spiritual
things? If she had known, she would have asked, and Christ would have
given! But the first link was missing and, therefore, the rest of the
chain was not drawn on. Sometimes all that people need is a little wise
instruction and they will then trust the Savior. God grant that we may
always be ready to give it! Alas, there are some who need much more
than that, but Christ could truly say to this Samaritan woman, "If you
had known, you would have asked, and I would have given." O dear
Hearers, do not perish through ignorance! You have your Bibles–then,
search them! You have a Gospel ministry among you–take care that you
give diligent heed to what you hear from the servants of the Lord!

11. The woman said unto Him, Sir, You have nothing to draw with, and
the well is deep: from where, then, have You that living water?Christ
told the woman that He could give her living water, but it puzzled her
to know how He could get at it. The well where they had met was deep
and He had nothing to draw the water out of it–how, then, could He go
still deeper to get the living water of which He had spoken? She could
not understand His simile and, to this day, it is the same with many of
our Hearers. The simplest language of God's ministers goes right over
the heads of the people. They take our words literally when they ought
to see that they are spiritual and, on the other hand, I have known
them spirit them away when they ought to be accepted literally. Such is
the perversity of man's mind that, often, he will not understand the
Truth of God.

12-14. Are You greater than our father, Jacob, who gave us the well,
and drank thereof himself and his children, and his cattle? Jesus
answered and said unto her, Whoever drinks of this water shall thirst
again: but whoever drinks 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. These words set forth
the wonderful nature of Divine Grace! They greatly err who suppose that
we can receive it and yet, after all, be left to perish without it! No,
but when it is once imparted to us, it continues to spring up within us
like a well that never runs dry! It is the living and incorruptible
seed, "which lives and abides forever." It is of the very nature and
essence of the Grace of God that it is indestructible–it cannot be
taken away from the heart in which it has been implanted by the Holy
Spirit!

15, The woman said unto Him, Sir, give me this water, that I thirst
not, neither come here to draw. This was an ignorant prayer on the part
of the woman, but it is one which I would commend to every enlightened
soul–"Sir, give me this water." Do you want a form of prayer? Here is
one for you! "Sir," Lord–"give me this water." The Lord is ready to
hear that petition and to give this precious living water even now.

16, 17. Jesus said unto her, Go, call your husband and come here. The
woman answered and said, I have no husband. The Lord Jesus knew all
about her character and here He touched the weakest point in it. His
plainest teaching had so far missed the mark, for He had not reached
her conscience–but He was about to do so.

17, 18. Jesus said unto her, You have weel said, Ihave no husband: for
you have had five husbands; and he whom you now have is not your
husband: in that said you truly. You can imagine her astonishment–her
blank amazement as the secret story of her life was thus repeated to
her!

19. The woman said unto Him, Sir, I perceive that You are a Prophet I t
would have been a sign of better things if she had said, "Lord, I
perceive that I am a sinner," but that confession had to be made a
little farther on. How apt people are rather to think about the
preacher than about themselves! If half the criticisms which are passed
upon ministers of Christ were bestowed upon the hearers, themselves,
how much sooner they might receive the blessing they need! The woman
then asked our Lord a question about religion which was strangely out
of place from such a woman as she. Yet, often, those who have least
morality will have the most ceremonialism and concern about the
externalsof worship!

20. Our fathers worshipped in this mountain. This Mount Gerizim–

20. And You say that in Jerusalem is theplace where men ought to
worship. This she thought was a very important matter.

21. Jesus said unto her, Woman, believe Me, the hour comes when you
shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the
Father ' 'There shall be an abolition of all specially-holy shrines,
for all places shall be, alike, holy. There shall be a putting an end
to all your traditions and your forms of worship, for God shall be
worshipped after another fashion than that which is merely formal and
superficial."

22-26. You worship what you do not know: we know what we worship, for
salvation is of the Jews. But the hour comes and now is, when the true
worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the
Father seeks such to worship Him. God is a Spirit: and they that
worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth. The woman said
unto Him, I know that Messiah comes, who is called Christ: when He is
come, He will tell us all things. Jesus said unto her, I that speak
unto you am He. That majestic word of Christ carried conviction with
it–the woman believed it then and there!

27, 28. And upon this came His disciples, and marveled that He talked
with the woman: yet no man said, What do You seek? or, Why do You talk
with her? The woman then left her water pot She was too glad, too happy
to recollect so poor a thing as a water pot! It was much to her before,
but very little now. As one who finds a precious pearl forgets some
trifle that he carried in his hands, so she "left her water pot."

28, 29. And went her way into the city, and said to the men, Come, see
a Man, who told me all things that I ever did–is not this the
Christ?Her notion was that when Christ came, He would tell all things.
Here was a Man who revealed her innermost secrets–was not He the
Christ?

30-32. Then they went out of the city and came unto Him. In the
meantime, His disciples urged Him, saying, Master, eat But He said unto
them, I have meat to eat that you know not of O Beloved, there is a
wonderful fascination about the blessed work of soul-seeking! When one
is really anxious to bring a sinner to the Savior, eating and drinking
are often forgotten! As the hunter of the chamois, in the heat of the
chase leaps from crag to crag, and is oblivious of danger, and forgets
all about the time for his meals, so he that hunts after a precious
soul, to win it for Christ, forgets everything else! He is altogether
absorbed in this holy pursuit–the Master was more absorbed in it than
any of us are ever likely to be.

33-35. Therefore said the disciples, one to another, Has any man
brought Him anything to eat? Jesus said unto them, My meat is to do the
will of Him that sent Me, and to finish His work Say not you, There are
yet four months, and then comes harvest? Behold, I say unto you, Lift
up your eyes and look on the fields for they are white, already, to
harvest. That was probably an old Oriental proverb, used by lazy men
who never thought it time to get to work, but Jesus said, "Do not use
the idler's language any longer. Now, at once, there is work for you to
do."

36-42. And he that reaps receives wages, andgathers fruit unto life
eternal: that both he that sows andhe that reaps may rejoice together
And herein is that saying true, One sows, and another reaps. I sent you
to reap that whereon you bestowed no labor: other men labored and you
are entered into their labors. And many of the Samaritans of that city
believed on Him for the saying of the woman, which testified, He told
me all that I ever did. So when the Samaritans were come unto Him, they
besought Him that He would tarry with them: and He abode there two
days. And many more believed because of His own word and said unto the
woman, Now we believe, not because of your saying: for we have heard
Him, ourselves, and know that this is, indeed, the Christ, the Savior
of the world. The Lord bring us all to trust in Him for His dear name's
sake! Amen.