As many of you know, John is not included in the synoptic gospels. WHY? The Lord’s earthly ministry was around 3 1/2 years.
• The synoptic gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke deal with the last year of His ministry. They dealt with a lot of things in His ministry, but not in much detail.
• The gospel of John deals with the other 2 1/2 years.
Also John is different in the way he presents the Gospel. John covers things in greater depth and at greater length than the other three. A single story like ours today can cover a chapter or more.
Let’s look at this intriguing conversation between the Samaritan woman and the Lord Jesus.
I. THE PLACE
As we look at THE PLACE where the Lord had this conversation with the Samaritan woman, it is important that we look at the previous chapter and see a contrast between the life of NICODEMUS, and the life of this SAMARITAN WOMAN. As we do this we can see a contrast in several ways, such as:
A. WE SEE A CONTRAST IN TIME
In the previous chapter, John 3, we have the account of the conversation between Nicodemus and Christ.
Look at John 3:2, we read, “The same came to Jesus by NIGHT, and said unto him, Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God: for no man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with him.”
• John makes the point to let us know in chapter 3 that Nicodemus came to the Lord at NIGHT.
• But in chapter 4, the Samaritan woman came to the Lord at HIGH NOON.
Look at John 4:6, “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.”
• Notice, John tells us that she approached the Lord during the daylight hours when she could be seen talking to Him.
• Nicodemus came to the Lord secretively at night, when no one could see him
He not only contrasts the TIME in which She and Nicodemus came to Christ, but also we can see a contrast-
B. IN THEIR LIFESTYLE
He makes the point that she is not like Nicodemus, she is:
• An outsider (foreigner)
• She is a half-breed
• She is not high on the social agenda
Socially she did not have anything in common with Nicodemus, but did you know the Lord loved her (an outsider) as much as he loved Nicodemus who was a Jew like Himself?
IS THIS SIGNIFICANT? Yes! One of the things we Christians have to deal with when we give our hearts to the Lord is that we have to come to recognize we all came from different backgrounds, which means that some came from backgrounds where we were taught to be prejudiced against people:
• Socially
• Racially
But anytime we are prejudiced against people for SOCIAL or RACIAL reasons, we are not being Christ-like, because the Lord loves the least among us as much as the greatest.
Sometimes preachers, when we are talking about Israel, give the impression that God loves the Jews more than other races. But that is not true!
Illus: The Lord is not like some parents, He loves us all with an equal love.
He does not love the sinners sins, but HE LOVES THE SINNER!
Some might be saying, “Preacher, if the Lord loves sinners, how can He send them to hell on the Judgment day?”
He does not send sinners to hell, THEY SEND THEMSELVES. He died on the cross for “Whosoever” will call upon Him for Salvation.
Every sinner that has ever lived had a choice in this life where they want to spend eternity, in heaven or hell. He made us all free moral agents with the ability to choose. And if a lost person chooses SATAN over CHRIST, HELL over HEAVEN then he is not going to force them to spend eternity with Him in heaven.
In this conversation with the Samaritan woman at the well, the Bible reveals He loved this socially outcast woman. He loved her as much as He loved Nicodemus, who was a Jew like Himself.
We have looked at THE PLACE, now let us look at something else-
II. THE WELL
The scene takes place near the town of Sychar, at the well Jacob had willed to his son Joseph, hundreds of years before.
Look at verse 5, we read, “Then cometh he to a city of Samaria, which is called Sychar, near to the parcel of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph.”
When the Lord traveled to this town He was weary and tired. Look at John 4:6, “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.”
The Lord was made flesh and dwelt among us. He knows everything we experience in these mortal bodies. We can see the human side of Christ in this passage of Scripture, as we look at verse 6, in which we read, “…being wearied with his journey, sat thus on the well: and it was about the sixth hour.”
In those days they did not have restaurants where people could come and rest and refresh themselves like we can today. But this town had a well, where people could come and sit down and draw themselves a nice cup of cold water to refresh themselves and quench their thirst.
That well is still there today, and is still being used. So you know if it has lasted these centuries and is still good today, it was certainly a good well then. During these thousands of years, millions have gone to that well for a drink of water, but no one has ever visited that well as great as the Son of God that visited it that day.
It was high noon and already sweltering hot, the kind of heat you can see in vibrating waves. Along came a woman to draw water.
The Lord said something to her that literally shocked her, look at verse 7, we read, “There cometh a woman of Samaria to draw water: Jesus saith unto her, Give me to drink.”
WHY WAS SHE SHOCKED? Because of these reasons:
(1) HE WAS A JEW TALKING TO HER, A SAMARITAN
To understand why she was shocked, you have to study the history of the Samaritan people.
WHAT IS THE ORGIN OF THE SAMARITAN PEOPLE? The Samaritans were mongrels or half-breeds.
HOW THIS HAPPENED WAS DUE TO TWO THINGS!
About 720 years (720 B.C) before this conversation, the King of Assyria had captured the ten tribes of Israel. When he did this, he did two things:
• He deported a large number of these Jews to the Median Empire. (2 Kings 17:6-41)
• He then transplanted people from all over the Assyrian empire to be deported to the Median Empire.
These Jews and these Assyrians began to intermarry and produced the race known as the Samaritans. (Half-breeds)
The Jews are very proud people, and to this day they are looked down upon if they marry outside of their race. Some Jewish families disown members of their family who marry out of their race. Because these Jews had married out of their race, they were looked down upon for creating this half-breed race known as the Samaritans.
Illus: Some of the historians tell us that their hate for these Samaritans was so great that if they walked by a Jew while he was eating, and his shadow fell across his food, he would throw the food away.
And when the Lord asked her for a cup of water, it shocked her that He, being a Jew, would do such a thing.
Look at verse 9, we read, “…How is it that thou, being a Jew, askest drink of me, which am a woman of Samaria? for the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans.”
She was shocked that He, being a Jew, would talk with her, but she was shocked for another reason.
(2) HE WAS IN SAMARIA
If you can recall the geographical location, you will remember:
• Galilee was in the North
• Judea was in the South
• Samaria was between the two of them
It was only natural that when they were going from Gaililee to Judea, they would go through Samaria. But the Jews despised the Samaritans so much, they would go around Samaria by crossing over Jordan to the east, travel northward, then cross back over Jordan westward into Galiliee.
They went many miles out of their way because they did not want to defile themselves with these despicable people by even entering their country.
And in John 4, we find the Lord Jesus, being a Jew, right on the edge of this town, talking to a Samaritan.
The Bible tells us in verse 4, “And he must needs go through Samaria.”
WHY DID THE LORD NEED TO GO TO SAMARIA? Because He knew there was a prostitute in Samaria that needed to be saved.
She was shocked the Lord was THERE and the Lord was TALKING to her. But she was shocked for a third reason-
(3) HE WAS TALKING TO A WOMAN
Illus: Barbara Brown Taylor suggests the Samaritan woman at the well was a four time looser.
• She was a Samaritan
• She was a non-Jew
• She was a half-breed
• She was a woman with a "bad reputation"
While we might expect the conversation to take place between Jesus and the socially acceptable Nicodemus, it is amazing that the conversation between Jesus and this woman even took place at all.
She not only had to contend with a RACIAL problem, she also had to contend with a SOCIAL problem. For example, Rabbis forbade Rabbis to greet any woman in public, even a wife or a sister. There were, in those days, Pharisees who shut their eyes when they saw any woman on the street.
Illus: Someone said this about them, “With their eyes shut, they walked into so many walls and tripped over so many cracks in the street that they were called the "bruised and bleeding Pharisees."
They were the same ones who prayed:
Blessed art Thou,
O Lord our God,
King of the universe,
who hast not made me a woman.
Illus: It was a shock to the world when we as a nation, after September 11, 2001, began to fight the terrorists and we invaded Afghanistan, and saw how horribly the women are treated even this day by the Taliban.
She was a woman, but not only that she was a PROSTITUTE! (Social outcast) She was the lowest of the lowest! And we find the Lord is now at the well talking to her in broad daylight.
HOW DID THIS HAPPEN? Bringing water from the well was a woman’s chore during this time. But respectable woman made their trips to the well in the morning, before it became sweltering hot. They greeted one another at the well, and conversed about any news, as well as getting water.
But notice, this Samaritan women did not socialize with the respectable women that met at the well in the morning. She waited for all of them to come and get their water, and at high noon she came when the Lord was there.
Most likely, from what the Scriptures state, Christ arrived a few minutes before she arrived. He was sitting on the well, and when she arrived he said, “Give me to drink.”
But notice this, it was now high noon, and all the other women had left. It was now OK for this women to come for water. She had been shunned so often due to her reputation, that the respectable people would not be caught talking to her in broad day light.
But the Lord did what they were not willing to do.
We looked at THE PLACE, and THE WELL, now let us look at one more thing-
III. THE CONVERSATION
Look at John 4:7-30, the conversation is long. But the Lord started the conversation by asking for a cup of water.
After being shunned by almost everyone in town, she now found a man in broad day light, a Jew, willing to talk to her. Wow!
But John would have us see in this conversation that Jesus wants us to face the situations in our life head on. There are a lot of folks who have never got the help they needed from the Lord, because they have never been willing to face up to their problems.
They place the blame on everyone but themselves, and God cannot help them until they are willing to deal with the right person.
Illus: A man went into a drug store and asked the pharmacist if he could give him something for the hiccups. The pharmacist promptly reached across the counter and slapped the man’s face. The man said, "What in the world did you do that for?” The pharmacist said, "See, you don’t have the hiccups anymore!" And the man replied, "No, but my wife in the car still does!"
We have seen people go to church for years and never receive the spiritual help they needed, and it is because they have spent so much of their life trying to find fault in others, they never could see the faults in their own life.
The Lord saw this crowd in His day and He cut into them deeply. Look at Matthew 23:24 “Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!…Ye blind guides, which strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel.”
WHAT IS THE LORD SAYING? He is saying they will find something in someone’s life that is as small as a gnat, and they literally pick it to pieces, but in their own life they have these major things that are as big as a camel, and they are willing to overlook them. The Lord referred to these Pharisees as hypocrites.
He also addresses this same problem in Matthew 7:3, we read, “And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?”
You would think that the way people walk around finding fault in the life of others, that they are perfect. But that is not the case. The situation is that they are not willing to deal with their SINS, but they certainly do not mind dealing with the sins and shortcomings in the life of others.
But there are people in Churches all over the world that are not getting any help from the Lord, because they are not willing to admit they DESPERATELY NEED HELP THEMSELVES, and they are not willing to face up to what needs to be done in their own lives.
The Lord confronted her in John 5:16-18, we read, “Jesus saith unto her, Go, call thy husband, and come hither. The woman answered and said, I have no husband. Jesus said unto her, Thou hast well said, I have no husband: For thou hast had five husbands; and he whom thou now hast is not thy husband: in that saidst thou truly.”
Notice, the Lord told her to go get her husband for a reason. She said, “I have no husband”. But then the Lord lowered the boom on her and said in verse 18, “For thou hast had five husbands; and he whom thou now hast is not thy husband: in that saidst thou truly.”
She had five different husbands in the past, and the one she was shacking up with at the present time, she had not even married.
As Jesus already figured out, she had been married almost as many times as Zsa Zsa Gabor, and was living with someone without benefit of marriage, even then.
In this conversation the Lord is trying to get this Samaritan woman to the place that she will admit she personally needs some help. The Lord is not trying to be unkind to her, but it is important that she come to terms with the problems in her life, to get the help she needs.
It is only when we see how gross our sins are, that we can really appreciate the grace of God that saves us from our sins.
Illus: Larry King, on March 1, 2002, had Monica Lewinski on his television show. He closed the interview by saying something like this, “Are you glad you now are part of history”.
She tried to act like she was humble, but with the smile on her face, you could tell she was so proud of what she had done.
If Larry King had any decency and courage, he should have looked at her and said, “Monica, are you ashamed that you will go down in history as one of the biggest whores that ever lived on this earth?” And then let her answer that!
Today, we have made sin to be entertainment. We no longer see it as something evil and bad.
Conclusion:
The Samaritan woman had one thing in common with Nicodemus in chapter 3.
• In chapter 3, Nicodemus, in his conversation with the Lord, was confused about PHYSICAL BIRTH and SPIRITUAL BIRTH.
• In chapter 4, the Samaritan woman, in her conversation with the Lord, was confused about PHYSICAL WATER and SPIRITUAL WATER.
The Lord explained there is a difference. She can drink the PHYSICAL WATER and she will be thirsty again, but if she drank the water He wanted to give her, she would never thirst again.
The world offers us momentarily pleasures, but only the Lord Jesus can truly satisfy.
I. THE PLACE
II. THE WELL
III. THE CONVERSATION
