FACING THE TRUTH ABOUT OUR SINS

John 4:15-26
 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:
The scene, a well-side conversation between Jesus and a woman from Sychar in Samaria. Jesus has requested a drink of water from the lady and she is astonished that a Jewish Rabbi would even consider the thought of drinking from her unpurified cup! Jews never used eating vessels that had been used by Samaritans.
Jesus immediately directs the conversation away from the cup and the well and speaks to her about LIVING WATER. She doesn't understand but He has said something which really does interest her. He said that this LIVING WATER was so wonderful that if anyone drank it...THEY WOULD NEVER THIRST AGAIN!
Although she did not understand what this LIVING WATER was, we do. Later on this Gospel of John, we find these words: (John 7:37-39)
"On the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, "If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. 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

***Page break***
(Page Two)

HIM WOULD RECEIVE: FOR THE HOLY SPIRIT WAS NOT YET GIVEN, BECAUSE JESUS WAS NOT YET GLORIFIED.
The Living Water which Jesus was speaking to this woman of Samaria about, was none other than the gift of the Holy Spirit which is given to every believer who puts their trust in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.
Ezekiel, the ancient prophet had said: (Eze. 36:27)
"And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws."
John 14:16-17
"And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever;
even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; FOR HE DWELLETH WITH YOU, AND SHALL BE IN YOU."
Romans 8:8-11
"So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God.
But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. NOW IF ANY MAN HAVE NOT THE SPIRIT OF CHRIST, HE IS NONE OF HIS.
And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness.
But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, He that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you."
1 Corinthians 3:16
"Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, AND THAT THE SPIRIT OF GOD DWELLETH IN YOU."
Jesus said: (Luke 11:13)

"If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him."
Now, in our text in verse 15, the woman of Samaria said to this Stranger: "Sir, give me this water, that I thirst not, neither come hither to draw."
Still, more or less, she is in the dark! Her natural mind is occupied with natural things...cups, buckets and a well, but with this comment, her words afford evidence that the patient dealing of Christ with her was not in vain, yea, the light was beginning to illumine her darkened understanding. Note, she now appropriates His word, and says, "Sir, give me to drink." Relief from daily toil was, no doubt, the thought uppermost in her mind; yet, and mark it well, she was now willing to be indebted to a "Jew" for that! There was still much ignorance; but her prejudice was being overcome; her heart was being won!

***Page break***
(Page Three)

What then, is the next step?
Why, her CONSCIENCE must be reached! A sense of need must be created or addressed. And how is this accomplished? By a conviction of sin. The first thought in connection with salvation, the prime meaning of the word itself, is that of deliverance from something. Salvation implies danger, and the sinner will not flee to Christ as a Refuge from the wrath to come until a due sense (not merely of wretchedness, but) of guilt is upon him. There can be no blessing until there is conviction and confession of sin. It is not until we discover our case to be truly desperate that we betake ourselves to Christ--until then, we attempt to prescribe for ourselves. Herein lies the force of the Savior's next word.
The Gospel call to faith presupposes that sinners must repent of their sin and yield to Christ's authority. Thus, Christ immediately, sensing her response to His invitation, confronts the issue of the sin in her life. "Go, call thy husband." A little meditation will surely discern not only the solemnity, but the blessedness, of this word from the Savior, to the woman whose heart was slowly opening to receive Him. Two things the Lord bade her do: the first was solemn and searching; the second gracious and precious. "Go," He said, "call thy husband"--that was a word addressed to her conscience. "And come hither"--that was a word to her heart. The force of what He said was this: if you really want this living water of which I have been telling you, you can obtain it only as a poor, convicted, contrite sinner. But not only did He say, "Go," but He added "Come." She was not only to go and call her husband, but she was to come back to Christ IN HER TRUE CHARACTER. It was a marvelous mingling of "grace" and "truth." Truth for her conscience; grace for her heart. Truth which required her to come out into the light of her proper character, as a self-confessed sinner; grace which invited her to return to the Savior's side. Well may we admire the wonderful ways of Him "in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge."
Salvation is solely by grace through faith (Ephesians 2:8). That truth is the biblical watershed for all we teach. But it means nothing if we begin with a misunderstanding of grace or a faulty definition of faith.
God's grace is not a static attribute whereby He passively accepts hardened, unrepentant sinners. Grace does not change a person's standing before God yet leave his character untouched. Grace does not include, as some teach, "the Christian’s liberty to do precisely as he chooses." True grace, according to Scripture, teaches us "to deny ungodliness and worldly desires and to live sensibly, righteously and godly in the present age." (Titus 2:12)

***Page break***
(Page Four)

Grace is the power of God to fulfill our New Covenant duties (1 Cor. 7:19), however inconsistently we obey at times. Clearly, grace does not grant permission to live in the flesh; it supplies power to live in the Spirit.
Faith, like grace, is not static. Saving faith is more than just understanding the facts and mentally acquiescing. It is inseparable from repentance, surrender, and a supernatural eagerness to obey. The biblical concept of saving faith includes all those elements. None of them can be classified exclusively as a human work, any more than believing itself is solely a human effort.
As to this woman of Samaria, even though she did ask Jesus for a drink of the water He was talking about, Jesus was not looking for a cheap pseudo- conversion. He knew she was not yet ready for living water. There were two issues that needed to be addressed first: Her sin and His true identity.
Jesus never sanctioned any form of cheap grace. He was not offering eternal life as an add-on to a life cluttered with unconfessed sin. It is inconceivable that He would pour someone a drink of living water without challenging and altering that individual's sinful life-style. He came to save His people FROM their sin, not to confer immortality on people in bondage to wickedness.
The Lord went right to the heart of the issue, by letting her know she could not cloak her sin. "Go, call your husband, and come here." It was a loaded remark. G. Campbell Morgan, commenting on this passage, writes: "How did He reply? Go, call thy husband. Why that? If she was to have that well of water springing up in her, there must first be moral investigation and correction.
WILLINGNESS TO CONFESS THE REALITY AND ODIOUSNESS OF ONE'S SIN IS AN ESSENTIAL MANIFESTATION OF GENUINE SPIRITUAL THIRST. But the web of this woman's adulteries was so complex and her sin so great that she did not even try to explain. "I have no husband," was all she replied. He knew the full truth anyway: "You have well said, I have no husband; for you have had five husbands, and the one whom you have now is not your husband, this you have said truly." Imagine her shame when she realized he knew all about her sin! Certainly she would have preferred to keep it hidden. She had not lied by saying she had no husband, but she hadn't told the whole truth, either. It is as if Jesus said, "All right, if you're not going to confess your sin, I'm going to confront you by telling you what it is."
John MacArthur, in one of his books, writes: "One of the most malignant by-products of the debacle in contemporary preaching is a gospel that fails to confront individuals with the reality of their sin. Even the most conservative churches are teaming with people who, claiming to be born again, live like pagans.
He continues: Contemporary Christians have been conditioned never to

***Page break***
(Page Five)

question anyone's salvation. If a person declares he has trusted Christ as Savior, no one challenges his testimony, regardless of how inconsistent his life-style may be with God's Word."
The contemporary church has the idea that salvation is only the granting of eternal life, not necessarily the liberation of a sinner from the bondage of his iniquity. We tell them that God loves them and has a wonderful plan for their lives, but that is only half the truth. GOD ALSO HATES SIN AND WILL PUNISH UNREPENTANT SINNERS WITH ETERNAL TORMENT.
No gospel presentation is complete if it avoids or conceals those facts. Any message that fails to define and confront the severity of personal sin is a deficient gospel. And any "salvation" that does not alter a life-style of sin and transform the heart of the sinner is not a genuine salvation.
SIN IS NO PERIPHERAL ISSUE AS FAR AS SALVATION IS CONCERNED: IT IS THE ISSUE. In fact, the distinctive element of the Christian message is the power of Jesus Christ to forgive and conquer our sin. Of all the realities of the gospel, none is more wonderful than the news that the enslaving grasp of sin has been broken. No message that excludes it can purport to represent the gospel according to Jesus!
It is impossible to suggest that a person can encounter the holy God of Scripture and be saved without also coming to grips with the heinousness of his own sin and consequently longing to turn from it. In the Bible, those who met God were invariably confronted with an overwhelming sense of their own sinfulness. Peter, seeing Jesus for who he was, said, "Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord!" (Luke 5:8). In 1 Timothy 1:15, Paul wrote, "It is a trustworthy statement, deserving full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, among whom I am foremost of all." In the Old Testament, Job, whom God Himself identified as a righteous man (Job 1:1,8), said after seeing God face to face, "I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes" (Job 42:6). Isaiah, seeing God, gasped, "Woe is me, for I am ruined! Because I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts " (Isaiah 6:5).
Matthew 9:9-13 describes an incident, along with the exchange of controversy that ensued. In one of the most important statements ever recorded in the Bible, the Lord says, "I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners" (v. 13). This statement contains a full perspective on Jesus’ ministry, a summary of the message of Christianity, a close-up of the nucleus of the gospel, and the basic rationale behind the incarnation.
Why did Jesus come into the world? To call sinners--those who know they have a terminal disease, those who are hopeless, those who are

***Page break***
(Page Six)

hurting, those who are hungry, those who are thirsty, those who are weak, those who are weary, those who are broken, those whose lives are shattered, those who are desperate--sinners who know they are unworthy yet long to be forgiven!
Thus Jesus came to expose us all as sinners! That is why His message was so penetrating, so forceful...and this little lady from Samaria knew she was face to face with a prophet! Here was TRUTH!
In Matthew 19, we have the story of Christ's encounter with the rich young ruler. If ever there was a place to look for a straightforward presentation of the gospel according to Jesus, we would expected here...and what we find is a startling discourse.
"And behold, one came to Him and said, "Teacher, what good thing shall I do that I may obtain eternal life? And He said to him, "Why are you asking Me about what is good? There is only One who is good; but if you wish to enter into life, keep the commandments."
He said to Him, "Which ones?" And Jesus said, "You shall not commit murder; You shall not commit adultery; You shall not steal; You shall not bear false witness; Honor your father and mother; and You shall love your neighbor as yourself."
The young man said to Him, "All these things I have kept; what am I lacking?"
Jesus said to him, "If you wish to be complete, go and sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you shall have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me."
But when the young man heard this statement, he went away grieved; for he was one who owned much property." (vv. 16-22)
Our Lord gave this young man a test. He had to choose between his possessions and Jesus Christ. He failed the test! No matter what he believed, since he was unwilling to forsake all, he could not be a disciple of Christ. SALVATION IS FOR THOSE WHO ARE WILLING TO FORSAKE EVERYTHING, and for the woman of Samaria, it was her life-style of adultery.
Go call your husband...or...let's face this issue of SIN!
REPENTANCE IS NOT INCIDENTAL TO THE GOSPEL.
What is the gospel, after all, but a call to repentance. In other words, it demands that sinners make a change--stop going one way and turn around to go the other. Paul's evangelistic invitations always demanded repentance: "God is now declaring to men that all everywhere should repent" (Acts 17:30)
Here's how Paul described his own ministry and message: "I did not prove disobedient to the heavenly vision, but kept declaring both to those of Damascus first, and also at Jerusalem and then throughout all the region of Judea, and even to the Gentiles, THAT THEY SHOULD REPENT AND TURN TO GOD, PERFORMING DEEDS APPROPRIATE TO REPENTANCE. (Acts 26:19-20)

***Page break***
(Page Seven)

REPENTANCE IS WHAT LEADS TO LIFE. And, faith presupposes repentance. How can those who are mortal enemies of God sincerely believe in His Son without repentance? "For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son...."
How can anyone truly comprehend the truth of salvation from sin and its consequences, unless that person also genuinely understands and hates what sin is? THE WHOLE SENSE OF FAITH IS THAT WE TRUST CHRIST TO LIBERATE US FROM THE POWER OF SIN. Therefore sinners cannot come to sincere faith apart from a complete change of heart, a turn-around of the mind and affections of the will. THAT IS REPENTANCE!
Nowhere does Scripture issue an evangelistic appeal that does not at least imply the necessity of REPENTANCE. Our Lord offers nothing to impenitence sinners. Repentance is not pre-salvation self-improvement. It is not a question of accounting for sin or making restitution before turning to Christ in faith. IT IS AN INWARD TURNING FROM SIN TO CHRIST. Though it is not itself a "work" the sinner performs, genuine repentance will certainly produce good works as its inevitable fruit.
Remember, the theme of both John the Baptist and Christ's preaching was...REPENT! Listen to John:
"Now John himself was clothed in camel's hair, with a leather belt around his waist; and his food was locusts and wild honey.
Then Jerusalem, all Judea, and all the region around the Jordan went out to see him and were baptized by him in the Jordan, confessing their sins.
But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them, "Brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?
THEREFORE BEAR FRUITS WORTHY OF REPENTANCE." (Matt. 3:4-8)
One of the great Bible teachers of the past, J. Gresham Machen, wrote these words:
"Faith is the acceptance of a gift at the hands of Christ. It is a very wonderful thing; it involves a change of the whole nature of man; it involves a new hatred of sin and a new hunger and thirst after righteousness. Such a wonderful change is not the work of man; faith itself is given us by the Spirit of God. Christians never make themselves Christians; but they are made Christians by God!"
He continues:
"It is quite inconceivable that a man should be given this faith in Christ, that he should accept this gift which Christ offers, and still go on contentedly in sin. For the very thing which Christ offers us is salvation from sin-- not only salvation from the guilt of sin, but also salvation from the power of sin. The very first thing that the Christian does, therefore, is to keep the law of God:

***Page break***
(Page Eight)

he keeps it no longer as a way of earning his salvation--for salvation has been given him freely by God--but he keeps it joyously as a central part of salvation itself."
SAVING FAITH IS THE WHOLE OF MY BEING EMBRACING ALL OF CHRIST. Faith cannot be divorced from commitment.
To me, the heart of this story of the Samaritan lady, is the result of the conversation she had with Christ...and that result caused her to face her sin, resulting in a glorious conversion. Notice verse 19: "The woman saith unto Him, Sir, I perceive that thou art a prophet." This poor soul now recognized the voice of God! He had spoken more deeply than any man to her soul. The Divine arrow of conviction had pierced her conscience, and the effect is striking. "I PERCEIVE." Her eyes were beginning to open; she sees something...for she discovers herself to be in the presence of some mysterious personage whom she owns as God's spokesman. It was through her conscience the light began to enter!
"Go, call your husband" was His arrow for this woman by the well. The question of sin and righteousness must be settled in the presence of God.
GO, CALL YOUR HUSBAND...OR...LET'S FACE THIS MATTER OF SIN! As I have noted earlier in our lesson, there is a preachment that is very common in religion today...even in some evangelical churches. And it has to do with this whole matter of confronting sin right up front! Some churches take the position...Let us not talk about sin or judgment, let's get them into the church and then worry about the sin in their lives. Let's not offend the sinner...let's be searcher-sensitive! Christ would totally disagree! GO CALL YOUR HUSBAND...or Let's face this issue of sin...THIS WAS THE WAY THAT CHRIST DEALT WITH THOSE SEEKING FOR GOD.
Dr. D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, a great preacher of London of recent years, wrote these words:
"You cannot receive Christ as your justification only, and then, later, decide to refuse or to accept Him as your sanctification. He is one and indivisible, and if you receive Him at all, at once He is made unto you "wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption." You cannot receive Him as your Saviour only, and later decide to accept or refuse Him as your Lord; for the Saviour is the Lord who by His death has [bought] us and therefore owns us. Sanctification is nowhere taught or offered in the New Testament as some additional experience possible to the believer. It is represented rather as something which is already within the believer, something which he must realize more and more and in which we must grow increasingly." TO THE LADY OF SAMARIA JESUS SAID...I know you have expressed your desire FOR LIVING WATER, but to receive it, you must repent from your sin!

© Copyright 2000 Church of the Highlands