A LIFE CHANGING ENCOUNTER

John 4:9-26
 "Then the woman of Samaria said to Him, "How is it that You, being a Jew, ask a drink from me, a Samaritan woman?" For the Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.
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."
The woman said to Him, "Sir, You have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep. Where then do You get that living water?
"Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well, and drank from it himself, as well as his sons and his livestock?"
Jesus answered and said to her, "Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again,
but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life."
The woman said to Him, "Sir, give me this water, that I may not thirst, nor come here to draw."
Jesus 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 well said, I have no husband."
For you have had five husbands, and the one whom you now have is not your husband; in that you spoke truly.
The woman said to Him, "Sir, I perceive that You are a prophet.
Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, and you Jews say that in Jerusalem is the place where one ought to worship."
Jesus said to her, "Woman, believe Me, the hour is coming when you will neither on this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, worship the Father.
You worship what you do not know; we know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews.
"But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him.
God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship Him in spirit and truth."
The woman said to Him, "I know that Messiah is coming" (who is called Christ). When He comes, He will tell us all things.
Jesus said to her, "I who speak to you am He."
Message:
What a picture!
Here was the Son of God, tired, weary and thirsty. Here was the holiest of men listening with understanding to a sorry story.

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Here was Jesus breaking through the barriers of nationality and orthodox Jewish custom. Here is the beginning of the universality of the gospel: here is God so loving the world, not in theory, but in action!
In our previous lesson, we observed that for many centuries, Jews had little to no fellowship with Samaritans. This was due to their rejection centuries before...a rejection that came about when they had offered their help in rebuilding the temple in Jerusalem under Ezra and because of the mixed nationality the Jews refused their help. The feud had lasted over four hundred years and the bitterness between them was still great.
In the verses just before our text, Jesus had come to this well near Sychar in Samaria and was resting while his disciples had gone into the village to buy some food. A lady from Samaria had come to draw water and Jesus did the unthinkable...He asked the Samaritan woman for drink. A Jew asking a Samaritan for a drink...when for centuries, Jews would not drink from a cup that had been used by a Samaritan!
FOR THE JEWS HAVE NO DEALINGS WITH SAMARITANS. Let's take just a moment to get acquainted with Samaritans.
The Samaritans were formally composed of a few of the ten tribes and a mixture of foreigners. When the ten tribes were carried away into captivity to Babylon, the King of Assyria sent people from Cutha, Ava, Hamath, and Sepharvaim to inhabit their country. (2 Kings 17:24 and Ezra 4:2-11). These people at first worshiped the idols of their nations; but, being troubled with lions, which had increased greatly while the country remained uninhabited, they supposed it was because they had not honored the God of that country. A Jewish priest was therefore sent to them from Babylon to instruct them in the Jewish religion. They were instructed partially from the books of Moses, but still retained many of their old rites and idolatrous customs, and embraced a religion made up of Judaism and idolatry. (2 Kings 17:26-28).
About the controversy between the Samaritans and the Jews, Barnes writes these words in his commentary:
The Jews, after their return from Babylon, set about rebuilding their temple. The Samaritans offered to aid them. The Jews, however, perceiving that it was not from a love of true religion, but that they might obtain a part of the favors granted to the Jews by Cyrus, rejected their offer. The consequence was, that a state of long and bitter animosity arose between them and the Jews.
While Nehemiah was engaged in building the walls of Jerusalem, the Samaritans used every art to thwart him in his undertaking.

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Barnes continues: "The Samaritans at length obtained leave of the Persian monarch to build a temple for themselves. This was erected on Mount Gerizim, and they strenuously contended that that was the place designated by Moses as the place where the nation should worship. Sanballat, the leader of the Samaritans, constituted his son-in-law, Manasses, high priest. The religion of the Samaritans thus became perpetuated, and an irreconcilable hatred arose between them and the Jews.
Barnes concludes: Afterward Samaria became a place of resort for all the outlaws of Judea. They received willingly all the Jewish criminals and refugees from justice. The violators of the Jewish laws and those who had been excommunicated, betook themselves for safety to Samaria, and greatly increased their numbers and the hatred which subsisted between the two nations. The Samaritans received only the five books of Moses, and rejected the writings of the prophets and all the Jewish traditions. From these causes arose an irreconcilable difference between them, so that Jews regarded them as the worst of the human race and had no dealings with them."
NOW YOU CAN SEE WHY THIS SAMARITAN LADY WAS SO SHOCKED THAT A JEW WOULD ASK A DRINK FROM HER!
Here at the well, Jesus strikes up His conversation with the Samaritan woman.
As you read through the New Testament, you will note that Jesus follows exactly the same pattern in His conversations with people. Jesus makes a statement. The statement is misunderstood and taken in a wrong sense. Jesus makes the statement in an even more vivid way. It is still misunderstood and then Jesus compels the person with whom He is speaking to discover and to face the truth for himself or herself. That was Jesus’ usual way of teaching. There are certain truths which a man or woman cannot accept; he or she must discover them for themselves.
Jesus makes the issue...LIVING WATER! Her desire was just to get her water jug filled and get back home.
Some commentators suggest that the woman could have gotten water at a well located closer to her village, but she selected this well and an unusual time of the day to avoid meeting other women. Remember, she had a very bad reputation in the village! Five husbands...and living with another! In those days, this was unforgivable!
LIVING WATER. The Jews used the expression LIVING WATER to denote springs, fountains, or running streams, in opposition to dead and stagnant water. In the Old Testament, many verses speak of thirsting after God, and thus the whole subject of thirst referenced a man's inner desire for satisfaction and fulfillment.

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In promising to bring LIVING WATER that could forever quench a person's thirst for God, Jesus was claiming to be the Messiah. Only the Messiah could give this gift that satisfies the soul’s desire.
Psalm 36:8-9
"They feast on the abundance of your house, you give them drink from your river of delights. For with you is the fountain of life; in your light we see light."
Isaiah 55:1
"Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the water, and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost."
Jeremiah 2:13
"My people have committed two sins; they have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water."
When Jesus offered LIVING WATER, this woman knew He was making an unusual claim! She did not yet understand what the claim was, but she knew He was getting at something. In the Old Testament living water is sometimes associated with Jehovah. He is called the fountain of living water as we have noted in the above verse in Jeremiah. She had listened to Jesus say: "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." SHE STILL DID NOT KNOW THE "WHO" SHE WAS TALKING TO, and she did not understand his whole matter about the gift, but she did make one observation..."Sir, you have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep. Where then do you get that living water?"
She noticed He had no leather pouch with which to draw water, so she asked two significant questions...From where did you get this water?...and "Was He greater than Jacob? As a matter of fact, the Samaritans claimed Jacob as their father, a claim that would have been strenuously denied by the Jews. But it was part of the Samaritan claim that they were descended from Joseph, the son of Jacob, by way of Ephraim and Manasseh.
The woman is in effect saying to Jesus: "This is blasphemous talk. Jacob, our great ancestor, when he came here, had to dig this well to gain water for his family and his cattle. Are you claiming to be able to get fresh, running stream water? If you are, you are claiming to be wiser and more powerful than Jacob. That is a claim that no one has any right to make!"
And the reason why she asked...FROM WHERE DID YOU GET THIS WATER...She knew that the well was deep (100 feet) and Jesus did not have the equipment to fetch the water from the well. In those days, when people were on a journey they usually carried with them a

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bucket made from the skin of some beast so that they could draw water from any well at which they may find water. No doubt Jesus’ band had such a bucket; and no doubt the disciples had taken it into town with them. The woman saw that Jesus did not possess such a traveler's leathern bucket, and so again she says in effect: You need not talk about drawing water and giving it to me. I can see for myself that you have not a bucket with which to draw water."
"Sir, thou hast nothing to draw with, and the well is deep; from whence then hast thou that living water? Four things are brought out by this statement. First, her continued blindness to the glory of Him who addressed her. Second, her occupation with material things. Third, her concentration on the means rather than the end. Fourth, her ignorance of the Source of the "living water."
It is true that she had never before met the Lord Jesus, but this did not excuse her. It was because she was blind that she saw in Him no beauty that she should desire Him. But now that Christ had revealed Himself as the One who dispense the "gift" of God, the Samaritan woman only answered, "Sir, Thou has nothing to draw with!" Poor woman, how little she knew as yet the Divine dignity of that One who had come to seek and to save that which was lost. How complete was her blindness. And how accurately does she picture our state by nature. Exactly the same was our condition when God, in infinite mercy, began His dealings with us--our eyes were closed to the perfections of His beloved Son, and "we hid as were our faces from Him."
"Like the blind we grope along the wall, feeling our way like men without eyes. At midday we stumble as if it were twilight; among the strong, we are like the dead." (Isaiah 59:10).
"But their minds were made dull, for to this day the same veil remains when the old covenant is read. It has not been removed, because only in Christ is it taken away." (2 Cor. 3:14) "The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God." (2 Cor. 4:4) "They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to the hardening of their hearts." (Ephesians 4:18) "Sir, thou has nothing to draw with." How this shows the trend of her thoughts. Her mind was centered upon wells and buckets! Her mind was occupied with the things of this world. And thus it is with all who are of the world: they are kept away from the things of Christ by the things of time and sense. The Devil uses just such things to keep the soul from the Savior.

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"Let it be what it may, let it be only a waterpot, he cares not, so long as it occupies the mind to the exclusion of the knowledge of Christ. He cares not for the instrument, so long as he gains his own ends, to draw the mind away from the apprehension of spiritual things. It may be pleasure, it may be amusement, gain, reputation, family, duties, lawful employments, so that it keeps the soul from fixing on Christ. This is all he wants!"
SATAN IS VERY SUBTLE IN THE MEANS THE EMPLOYS TO BLIND THE MIND!
In the parable of The Seed and the Sower, notice what Jesus said: "The one who received the seed that fell among the thorns is the man who hears the word, but the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth choke it, making it unfruitful." (Matt. 13:22)
James warns:
"Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in Him. For everything in the world--the cravings of sinful man, the lust of the eyes and the boasting of what he has and does--comes not from the Father but from the world. The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever" (1 John 2:15-17) 
In our text, Jesus brings the subject back to the issue of living water. The Lord Jesus was not to be put or distracted.
Verse 13 "Jesus answered and said to her, "Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again."
Jesus was determined to reveal Himself to this sin-sick soul! The seat of the "thirst" within man lies too deep for the waters of this earth to quench. The "thirst" of man's soul is a spiritual one, and that is why material things are unable to slake it. Earth's deepest well may be fathomed and drained, and the needy soul remain thirsty after all. Men and women may take their fill of pleasure, yet it will fail to satisfy. They may surround themselves with every comfort and luxury that wealth can provide, and the heart still empty. They may court the honors of the world, and climb to the highest pinnacle of human fame, but the plaudits of men will leave an aching void behind them. They may explore the whole realm of philosophy and science, until they become as wise as Solomon, but like Israel's king of old, they will discover that all under the sun is only "vanity and vexation of spirit." Over all the wells of the world's providing must be written, WHOEVER DRINKETH OF THIS WATER SHALL THIRST AGAIN.
Listen to Solomon as he witnesses to the empty wells from which he drank:
"I said in my heart, "Come now, I will test you with mirth; therefore enjoy pleasure"; but surely, this also was vanity.
I said of laughter--"Madness!"; and of mirth, "What does it accomplish?

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"I searched in my heart how to gratify my flesh with wine, while guiding my heart with wisdom, and how to lay hold on folly, till I might see what was good for the sons of men to do under heaven all the days of their lives.
I made my works great, I built myself houses, and planted myself vineyards.
I made myself gardens and orchards, and I planted all kinds of fruit trees in them.
I made myself water pools from which to water the growing trees of the growth.
I acquired male and female servants, and had servants born in my house. Yes, I had greater possessions of herds and flocks and all who were in Jerusalem before me.
I also gathered for myself silver and gold and the special treasures of kings and of the provinces. I acquired male and female singers, the delights of the sons of men, and musical instruments of all kinds.
So I became great and excelled more than all who had word before me in Jerusalem. Also my wisdom remained with me.
Whatever my eyes desired, I did not keep from them. I did not withhold my heart from any pleasure, for my heart rejoiced in all my labor; and this was my reward from all my labor. Then I looked on all the works that my hands had done and on the labor in which I had toiled; and indeed all was vanity and grasping for the wind. There is no profit under the sun." (Ecclesiastes 2:1-11) AND JESUS SAID...
"Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again!" What an awful illustration of this is furnished in Luke 16. There the Savior sets before us a man clothed in purple and fine linen, who fared sumptuously every day. He drank deeply of the wells of this passing world; but he thirsted again. O see him, as the Son of God lifts the veil which hides the unseen; see him lifting up his eyes in hell-torments, craving, but craving in vain, a single drop of water to cool his parched tongue. There is not as much as a drop of water in hell! There he thirsts, and the unspeakably dreadful thing is that he will thirst forever and ever and ever!
BUT JESUS ADDED...
"BUT WHOEVER DRINKS OF THE WATER THAT I SHALL GIVE HIM WILL NEVER THIRST. BUT THE WATER THAT I SHALL GIVE HIM WILL BECOME IN HIM A FOUNTAIN OF WATER, SPRINGING UP INTO EVERLASTING LIFE."
Here is satisfaction to the soul!
Please note these important truths about living water.
(1) It comes from Christ...He and He alone is its source. "In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried saying, "If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink" (John 7:37)

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We should add two additional verses to the above reference: "
"He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water."
But this He spoke concerning the Spirit, whom those believing in Him would receive; for the Holy Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified." (John 7:38-39) 
Jesus here refers to the Scriptures, which of course, would be the Old Testament. In Isaiah 58:11 we read: And the Lord shall guide thee continually, and satisfy the soul and drought, and make fat thy bones; and thou shalt be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters fail not."
Revelation 7:15-17
"Therefore they are before the throne of God, and serve Him day and night in His temple. And He who sits on the throne will dwell among them.
They shall neither hunger anymore nor thirst anymore; the sun shall not strike them, nor any heat;
for the Lamb who is in the midst of the throne will shepherd them and lead them to living fountains of water. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes."
So, the second lesson we learn about all LIVING WATER is that the person who drinks will never, never thirst again, for that inner thirst is forever satisfied in Christ.
And the third lesson is that this LIVING WATER spring up into everlasting life!
We understand the source of the water is the Holy Spirit, and the Scripture tells us that when Jesus Christ is received as Lord and Savior, His Holy Spirit comes to live within the believer.
Romans 8:9 tells us that "Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His." And Paul goes on to say in this passage that "For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God.
For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, Abba, Father.
The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs--heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together." (Romans 8:14-17) When Christ speaks of the water which he desires to give which becomes a water springing up into everlasting life, he is speaking of the presence of the Holy Spirit indwelling bringing joy, life, happiness and peace.

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