Sermon
Come Meet the Savior of the World
February 10-11, 2001
Pastor Donald Sheley  

I'm going to ask you to take your Bible, and if you'd like you can use the pew Bible. It's page 716 in your pew Bible, and in your own personal Bible we're in John chapter 4. And today and we make our last visit. We've been here at the well of Sychar now for about two months. We've been following this conversation that Jesus had with the woman of Samaria. We've learned a lot. Jesus went out of His way to talk to a lady in a part of the country totally neglected and unliked by the rest of the Jewish people. They were the Samaritans. They were a mixed race, and the Jewish people prided themselves on a purity of race, and thus they had no fellowship with the Samaritans. Jesus takes His pathway, directs it right through Samaria, and stops at the well known as Jacob's Well. He meets a lady. We've learned that it was the culture that no Jewish man as a rabbi as a teacher conversed with a lady publicly. That was against the culture. Jesus, a rabbi teacher as He was looked upon, struck up a conversation which was in total violation to culture and He talked about a subject very close to her. She came for water. He talked to her about living water.

We went through the conversation and finally the lady catches what Jesus is saying. He has something spiritual to offer her that will satisfy the spiritual thirst of her soul. She acknowledges Him and then what happens is while she's in this conversation, the disciples have been away at the village getting food. And they returned the little lady leaves her waterpot and runs off to the village because she wants other people to meet this Man that she's met at the well. She says, come; meet the Savior of the world.

Now, we're in our notes, and if you'd like, in your Bible or in your notes, I've printed for you the text that we're going to talk about today. John 4:39 says, "And many of the Samaritans of that city believed in Him because of the word of the woman who testified, "He told me all that I ever did." A simple testimony, isn't it? So when the Samaritans had come to Him, they urged Him to stay with them; and He stayed there two days. And many more believed because of His own word. Then they said to the woman, "Now we believe, not because of what you said, for we ourselves have heard Him and we know that this is indeed the Christ, the Savior of the world." Just a few paragraphs and then I want to talk to you just from my heart today.

If ever there was a great spiritual climax to a story, that climax is found in the phrase with which John the evangelist ends his account of Christ's conversation with the woman of Samaria. The woman had believed in Jesus and as the result of His conversation with her and had immediately gone off to her own city to tell others about Him. These came and believed. They asked Christ to stay with them, and He did. And while He was there in town for two days others believed also. Now John's account of this miniature revival in Samaria is then rounded off with the concluding testimony of these new believers concerning Jesus. They said, We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that his man really is the Savior of the world. Now here we have the story of a moment in the history of a city never to be forgotten, a moment when the Savior of the world became the centerpiece of a great spiritual awakening. It's hard for us to grasp the excitement that must have come to that little village. This sinner lady had gone to the well to get water. She comes back to the village suddenly transformed. She's a different person than when she left the village. And now she comes back. Her interests no longer are in herself. She wants her neighbors to get acquainted with Jesus Christ. Something dramatically has taken place, and I can imagine the excitement that must have come to that little village as Jesus Christ spends two days. What a guest! And its says that many believed.

Now history has often referred to these spiritual events as revivals. One of the exciting studies in the history of the Church is the times when God moved upon cities, and towns, and nations in bringing many souls into the kingdom. Now my sermon is not complex today, and I'm not here to be deeply theological in an exposition. I have a simple truth to somehow magnify, and that is that God uses very insignificant people to do profound spiritual things in His world. God used this little woman to go back to her community and many became followers of Christ. One of the great first spiritual awakenings recorded that we have in the New Testament. So I thought that it would be interesting for all of us if I took a while this morning to go back with you through the pages of church history and tell you of some of the great awakenings that have touched our world, and even our own land, America. Now you and I consider America has a Christian nation. But in reality it really wasn't a Christian nation up until about the year of 1870, 1877, 1878. The pictures of the old Wild West in reality was the very nature of our America. In fact, historians tell us that prior to the great awakening that took place in the 1870's that only about 18 percent of the American people ever went to church. That means that 80 percent of them were non-Christians. And we often think we've had this great Christian heritage from the very beginning. Now we didn't. We had the Puritans who came and you had pocks, I mean, packs of piety, but you didn't have a nation that was truly Christian.

And so we come to the year of about 1870 and I have pulled from one of the history books, and I'll just give you some very interesting information. It was in the year of 1857 it was, 1857 and there was this man whose name was Jeremiah Lamphier (l-a-m-p-h-i-e-r), Jeremiah. Always remember his name because here's where it started. He was a layman and he would walk the streets of New York, and he was deeply concerned about the spiritual low ebb in his city and in his new nation. Not only was he concerned about the spiritual ebb, but when you go back in the history book there was a steep financial crisis in America in 1850. America was on its knees financially. And maybe it was this financial disaster, this crisis which caused people to turn to God, but something did. And here's old Jeremiah walking the streets of New York in 1857 and he's praying, God, do something for my city. And God laid upon his heart the possibility of having a prayer meeting at 12:00 noon once a week.

So old Jeremiah had some handbills made out, remember, it's July 1857. He hands out these handbills in the street of New York, invites people to come to his noon prayer meeting. He's got the place scheduled and he arrives, and the first meeting takes place on September 23, 1857. That's almost 150 years ago. Very few people come to the first prayer meeting, but he's determined. He knows that what he's doing is right. He's got a hunger for his Sychar, for his New York, so week after week, and finally they changed it to day after day. And the history books tell us that he continued on into the winter months, and by the time the spring of 1858 came the prayer meetings had grown so large as the result of much media attention, the newspapers of New York were writing up about all these people meeting at 12:00 noon to pray. And the history books tell us that in the spring of 1858 there were 20 massive prayer meetings being conducted all over the city of New York. And something else had happened, businesspeople from as far West, in the far, far West in Nebraska, Omaha Nebraska, they had made their way into New York to take care of business; while there they had visited those prayer meetings, those prayer meetings had affected their lives, and they took those prayer meetings back home. One businessman writes as he travels from Omaha Nebraska in the spring of 1858 that the absolute area from all of Nebraska clear through to New York was catacombed with prayer meetings going every place.

Now here's what the books tell us. That it was during those two great years when a man, a layman, got a burden for his city, started a prayer meeting, and they tell us that for the next two years every week there were 50,000 conversions in churches from Nebraska to New York, and 10,000 people were joining the church every week. Now that's a spiritual awakening. And what happened was people over in England, and Switzerland, and South Africa, and the Scandinavian countries heard about it, they came, they went back started their prayer meetings and as a result you have what is marked in the history book -- the first, one of the great awakenings and Moody, and J. Edmond Orr, the great historian, says it's probably the greatest spiritual awakening of all times. And it lasted. It lasted clear up into the early 1900s. And what happened is God was putting history together. Up in a little town called Northfield Massachusetts on December 5th in 1837 was a man by the name of Dwight born to a family called the Moody family. The Moody family had nine children. And when little Dwight was four years of age his daddy died, and his mother had that responsibility during those difficult years to raise nine children. The church there in Massachusetts reached out to the Moody family and the Sunday school teacher took a real love for her little Dwight. And one day as she brought food to their home she led Dwight to Jesus Christ has a little lad.

Now at the age of 17 Dwight wanted to join the church, but he failed because he couldn't answer the theological questions put to him by the elders and so for ten months the elders taught him his faith. And during that time Dwight L. Moody became deeply in love with Jesus Christ. At the age of 18 and 19 he started selling shoes. He was a shoe salesman in Boston, and then he moved to Chicago selling shoes, but his love for Christ was so intense and because his Sunday school teacher had so affected his life, he decided I want to do something for Jesus. So he got a hold of the mayor and he got a building up in the north side of Chicago, and with the help of the mayor of Chicago he opened up a Sunday school. It was only a matter of weeks and 1500 little children jammed into that room, and he had trained 60 teachers, and he had then acquired another room where he put up some old rough benches and there he would preach to mom and dad 200 at a time. And Dwight L. Moody became known as Madman Moody, and the reason why is all he had to talk about was Jesus. And at the age of 22 he had a tremendous ministry going in Chicago. Dwight L. Moody then took tours and he had three tours into Europe, into Great Britain, and God mightily blessed his ministry. And we are told, now this was before mass media, Dwight L. Moody witness to between 20 and 50 million souls. He had a love for Jesus. A shoe salesman. He probably will go down as one of the great evangelists of all time, Billy Graham did much study as to how Dwight L. Moody conducted his services, and he's fashioned his crusades for the last 50 years after Dwight L. Moody.

Well, as I said the revival moved up into Scandinavia and across over into Switzerland, and down into South Africa, and into the island of Great Britain -- Scotland, Great Britain, Wales. We now come to the year of 1904 and the spiritual tide is still flowing. That's what we understand as Americans, that's why we call ourselves a Christian nation. But remember, it started when Jeremiah Lamphier started his prayer meetings. And all historians will tell us that that was the commencement of marking American as a Christian nation. But over in the land of Wales, as you know is out to the west of Great Britain, it's an area where there are many coalmines and they're interesting people. Down in the mines in the year 1904 was a man by the name of Evan Roberts. And Evan had fallen in love with Jesus, and his face was blackened with the soot of coal coming out of those mines, but at the end of the day he came out of his coalmine, gathered people around him in the City Square, and started preaching. And as the result, this smutty faced coal miner started leading thousands to Jesus Christ, and a great spiritual awakening came to the land of Wales, which again, because of its impact, touched many nations of the world.

Now it's said there was something interesting about the Wales revival, the great awakening. It was marked by great singing, a lot of singing and a lot of personal testimony. But it says that Mr. Evan, the old coal miner, made four requisitions when a person came to Christ. The first one was this; you've got to go out and make everything right that you did wrong before you were a Christian -- restitution. I can't imagine that that's what really must have marked that little town of Sychar. Here's a lady, a harlot, she's now coming back to town and she's talking about the Savior of the world. Come meet Him! And she probably did her very, very best to correct some of the problems she had created and some of the sin that she had done. But they said that during those days in the great Welsh revival you had people who were coming to Christ and then they would go back to people that they had wronged a year, or two, or three years ago they had taken funds or stolen something from them or said something bad about them, and they spent time in making restitution. Now that is a powerful witness. Can you imagine, say somebody took you for $500 and you still -- they have run, and run, and run and you've not been able to catch them, and you put the legal squeeze on them. You just still couldn't find them, and finally one day they come knocking at your door and they said you know, Pastor, something's happened in my life and I've got to make right what I did wrong last year. I want to bring that money back to you, but I have met Jesus Christ and He's transformed my life. Now that's powerful. And can you imagine an entire nation where people are making restitution, righting wrongs, and they said such a spirit of God settled across that land that farmers would be out in the fields with their plows and the spirit of God would come so mightily upon them they would just start weeping, and they would fall in the furrows behind the plows and weep their way through to God. That's spiritual awakening.

I want you to watch something though. That all these spiritual awakenings didn't start with preachers. Yeah, I think a lot of people think the preacher's got to do all the soul saving. That's not what history has written for us. History tells us that it was a layman who had a love for Christ walking the streets of New York that started a prayer meeting. It was a shoe salesman in love with Jesus Christ who wanted to start a Sunday school. It was a coal miner with coal all over his face preaching the love of Jesus Christ, and an entire nation comes to Christ. God always used insignificant people to awakening people to their spiritual needs. That is a fascinating thing to me. He takes this little lady of Sychar. She goes back to her community. She says you've got to come and meet this Man, He's the Savior of the world. That's all she said. And notice how simple, I mean, a lot of people think that witnessing is very complex. No, she just said just come and see Him. Just come. That's simple, isn't it? We can all say just come. Just come and meet Him. And when they met Him their lives were transformed.

Now I've got to hurry to a conclusion here. The verses that precede this marvelous awakening: Jesus looks across the fields. If you understand the geography of Palestine, right around Sychar there are beautiful fields. That's a grain area, corn and so forth, it's just a magnificent farmland. And most likely, there was some crop that was being ready to harvest, but Jesus stands there with His disciples and He said, look, lift up your eyes. Here comes the harvest. He turns their attention away from the harvest, the physical harvest, and most theologians believe that what was happening is coming out of the hillside from the little village of Sychar and down the pathway is these hundreds, and hundreds, and hundreds of Samaritans dressed in white. And He looks and says, look, the harvest is already white. It's ready to harvest. What he's saying is most farmers plant and then they sit back and have a time of rest until the harvest of sometimes four or five months. But this is a spiritual harvest and there's an urgency about it! Look at, lift up your eyes. The seed has just been planted and the harvest is already here -- the urgency of the harvest.

Now here's my point. Not only is there the joy of seeing people, a great spiritual harvest, literally thousands of people come to Christ, that's joy, but there's the solemn side of the harvest. And that's our responsibility in the harvest. I've watched as I go home, my 89-year-old mother lives up in Chico and many times I drive up and come back late at night, and there are a lot of fields, a lot of grain fields and rice fields, a lot of farmlands. Usually late in the fall when the storm clouds are gathering when I'm coming home I will see those big harvesters out there in the fields -- sometimes midnight, two, three o'clock in the morning. Why? Because they know there's an urgency. If they don't get that grain in the winter rains will come and destroy it, and they must work. That's the solemn side of the harvest. When it's ripe it's time to take it in. You do not delay, and Jesus was saying to His disciples; listen, I know it's this way in the physical. You can wait between planting and harvesting, but when it comes to the spiritual it's important that you realize that we're right near that time when we've got to take advantage of every person and harvest them into the kingdom as soon as possible -- today is the day of salvation.

Now we come to a passage of Scripture that frightens me, and I want you to turn there with me. You'll never forget it. Go with me clear back in the Old Testament. In your pew Bible it's page 582. When we talk about the urgency and the solemnity of the harvest, this is an area we sometimes, and most of the times, we don't see this aspect as individuals. I'm at Ezekiel chapter 33. Are you there with me? It's page 582. I don't know what this means. I'm being honest with you. All I know it's saying something about human responsibility towards someone else. Look at what he says: Again, the word of the Lord came to me, saying, "Son of man, speak to the children of your people, and say to them: 'When I bring the sword upon a land, and the people of the land take a man from their territory and make him their watchman.' Here's what he saying. He's giving a picture of an old ancient city surrounded by walls, and the city would select a watchman to walk around on those walls, and if they saw an enemy coming, the swords of an enemy coming, they were to blow the trumpet and warn the people in town. They were called the watchman. So he takes that picture and he says: 'When he sees the sword coming, I'm in verse three, upon the land, if he blows the trumpet and warns the people, then whoever hears the sound of the trumpet and does not take warning, if the sword comes and takes him away, his blood shall be on his own head. Now that is an interesting phrase. He saying if a man hears a warning and doesn't act upon it and loses his life, the responsibility is his.

Let's go on. 'He heard the sound of the trumpet, he did not take warning; his blood shall be upon himself. But he who takes warning will save his life. But if the watchman sees the sword coming and does not blow the trumpet, and the people are not warned, and the sword comes and takes any person from among them, he's taken away in his iniquity; but his blood I will require at the watchman's hand.' So you, son of man: I have made you a watchman, notice it isn't capitalized, for the house of Israel. What's the house of Israel? In the New Testament the church is known as the Israel of God. therefore you shall hear a word from My mouth and warn them for Me. "When I say to the wicked, 'O wicked man, you shall surely die!' And you do not speak to warn the wicked from his way, that wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood I will require at your hand. Nevertheless if you warn the wicked to turn from his way, and he does not turn from his way, he shall die in his iniquity; but you have delivered your soul.

I don't know what it means. I just know this; it shows that there is responsibility. When we have truth and don't share it with another, somehow in eternity the weight of that eternal soul is upon us. And I don't know how that's going happen folks. When you and I stand there before God on that eternal day, and just as sure as we're sitting in this church on this Sunday morning every one of us, someday, is going to stand in the presence of God. It's appointed unto man once to die, and after that comes the judgment. Will it be so on that day? And I can only use my imagination. Will we be standing there and our neighbor or a friend or somebody we worked with, or maybe somebody in the family that we never shared our faith with, will they walk by on that eternal day and point their finger and say you didn't tell me? You didn't warn me. You didn't tell me about Jesus.

I had a Sunday school teacher in the 8:00 service. He met me outside when I was preparing for the next service and said, Pastor, I've written a poem for you.

Postcard From Hell
I got a postcard from hell today.
The edges had all burned away.
It smelled of smoke.
The writing was smeared because it was drenched with tears.
It was from Rose who I once knew.
Her hair was brown and her eyes were blue.
She lived next door and we talked every day.
But I was silent when I heard her say,
I know you go to church each week.
When I ask you about it, why won't you speak?
If there's something about Jesus you want to say, I'm listening please tell me today.
Rose stopped asking.
I was relieved.
Too afraid to share what I believed.
And with this friend I met every day
until a drunk driver took her away.
When I read what she wrote it shook me to the core.
I cried until my chest was sore.
So many chances, now she's dead.
This is how the postcard read.

I don't know. I know that God has placed us in a responsible position as Christians. Paul said I'm a steward. I have a treasure. He said the treasure is this, God has revealed Himself to me in the person of Jesus Christ. That's my treasure -- the knowledge of Jesus. And I as a Christian, he said, have the responsibility of sharing that treasure with everybody. I'm a steward. Now come back, and we're done. A little lady goes to her town and a spiritual awakening happens. A shoe salesman opens up a Sunday school and 20 to 50 million people hear the gospel of Jesus Christ. A coal miner in Wales comes out and tells of his love for Christ and an entire nation comes to Jesus. How do spiritual awakenings start? It's when we fall in love with Christ and start sharing our love with others. It's that simple, and that's the lesson I learned from the woman of Samaria. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, thank you for this lesson and for the example that this little lady gives to us that we can affect a great spiritual blessing in the lives of many if we will just share Your love with them. Now all of us sitting here today realize that You have called us, giving us the divine treasure of eternal truth to share. Would You now give us the courage so that we might see a spiritual harvest in our family, and in our community, and in our world. And everybody said, amen. God bless you.