September 15, 2002
The depression took the fun out of 1932. It was no time to go into business. But Ted and Dorothy Husted bought the little drug store in their town. Grasshoppers had eaten all the crops in the region. This, in turn was followed by a dust bowl, a long drought, temperatures for ten days at a time of over 100 degrees. So the drugstore seemed about to fold.
Ted and Dorothy asked themselves: How can we get people into the drugstore?" They decided on the billboard marketing strategy...so, they went 25 miles in each direction and put up signs that read,
FREE ICE WATER AT THE WALL DRUG STORE, Wall, S.D.
They put up signs at 10 miles; and at 5 miles the sign read:
HOLD ON! IT’S ONLY 5 MILES TO THE WALL DRUG STORE AND FREE ICE WATER.
Now there are signs all over the country telling you just how far it is to free ice water at the Wall, S.D. drugstore. Today more than 15,000 people crowd the drugstore on a busy day in a town of 800 people. It remains the most spectacularly, successful drugstore in the entire industry. Druggists had been handing out free ice water for generations. But Ted & Dorothy were the first people who ever thought of advertising it.
Actually, somebody else came up with an advertisement for free water -- living water! The first 19 verses of John 4 describe the encounter of Jesus with the woman of Samaria, at a well dug in ancient times by Jacob. Jacob was even buried nearby.
The Samaritans and Jews had a centuries-old feud that centered on religious judgment. 700 years before Jesus, Jewish Samaria had been conquered by the Assyrians. Most of the people had been carried off in captivity. Those who remained in the land committed (in the opinion of the Jews) the unforgivable act of inter-marrying with the foreigners who moved in. This made the Samaritan descendants half-breed Jews -- totally unacceptable to the racially pure Jews of Galilee.
It was this half-breed race that Jesus encountered at the well. They met from two different worlds -- They shared a moment of conversation. It led to a drink of living water for the woman and a lesson for us about how to minister to people in need in 2002.
Notice the transition of this woman at the well, as her spiritual condition goes from death to life, because Jesus met her need...
WHEN JESUS MET HER -- DARKNESS
THE LOSTNESS OF SEPARATION FROM GOD
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 Judaea, and departed again into Galilee. And he must needs go through Samaria.
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. 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.
There cometh a woman of Samaria to draw water: Jesus saith unto her, Give me to drink. (For his disciples were gone away unto the city to buy meat.) Then saith the woman of Samaria unto him, 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. Jesus answered and said unto her, If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink; thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water. The woman saith unto him, Sir, thou hast nothing to draw with, and the well is deep: from whence then hast thou that living water? Art thou greater than our father Jacob, which gave us the well, and drank thereof himself, and his children, and his cattle? John 4.1-12
If there is a phrase to describe our age, it is spiritual darkness. How odd, in an age of The Dawning of Aquarius, supposedly the spiritually enlightened time of harmony and understanding, that there is so little of either. Spiritual darkness covers our land.
A little boy from a poverty-stricken home once heard his Sunday School teacher say Jesus was the light of the world. He took her remark quite literally. After class, the boy said to his teacher, If Jesus really is the light of the world, I wish He’d come hang out in my alley. It’s awful dark where I live.
To live in spiritual darkness is to be alienated from God. This Samaritan woman was blinded from being able to see that she was in darkness. That has been my experience when talking to lost people -- rich, poor, old, young, and all colors -- When people are away from God, they are in such darkness they don’t even suspect how far away from Him they are!
One church in which I served as pastor we tried something daring once. For the Children’s Time in the service I handed out an empty potato sack. I would ask the child to bring it back the next week for the object lesson. The daring part was I never knew what was in the sack until the children were in place and it was handed to me. We called it “The Sermon in the Sack”.
One week a child brought a small porcelain woman at the well. Shortly before the service she had a mishap -- and the poor dear’s head was liberated from her body. It made the lesson! You see – what better picture than a broken woman. That was who Jesus met. And how many broken people are in our community?
Drugs break people;
Divorce rips families apart;
Murder, rape, racism, poverty -- the list is endless.
The darkness is pervasive in our society. Yes, even in Thomasville!
The significant thing is not that Jesus healed or helped everyone in the world at that moment. The point is He did not shrink back from the one, outcast, low-morals, racially-despised woman who was in front of Him at that moment. When Jesus saw darkness, he carried His light into the situation. That’s what we are to do! One author put it this way:
God needs our light where the world is the darkest. The blacker the night, the greater the need for a light bulb. If the bulb does not shine, it’s not because of the darkness. Darkness cannot put out a light. If the darkness increases until it is black as a cave, it is still not dark enough to extinguish a light. No one has yet smothered a light by increasing the darkness. Darkness gets darker because the light fails. When we fail to reflect Christ’s light, we let the darkness win. (1)
The problem with spiritual darkness is it dulls you to truth. The Bible declares that before we come to Christ we are in spiritual darkness -- and that spiritual darkness is what we cling to -- until The Light, Jesus shows us the way.
When Jesus met the woman at the well, she was in darkness, and that darkness separated, or alienated her from God. That is what it means to be lost. And, knowing that, Jesus did the loving thing -- He confronted the woman with her darkness...
WHEN JESUS CONFRONTED HER -- DAWNING
A SEEKER’S SPIRITUAL AWAKENING TO GOD
Jesus answered and said unto her, Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again: But whosoever drinketh 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. The woman saith unto him, Sir, give me this water, that I thirst not, neither come hither to draw. 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. The woman saith unto him, Sir, I perceive that thou art a prophet. Our fathers worshipped in this mountain; and ye say, that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship.
Jesus saith unto her, Woman, believe me, the hour cometh, when ye shall neither in this mountain,
nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father. Ye worship ye know not what: we know what we worship: for salvation is of the Jews. But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him. God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.
John 4:13-24 (KJV)
The manner in which this spiritual awakening takes place is important. It teaches us believers how to minister to a modern day well-woman.
Spiritual Truth Was Proclaimed
Jesus took the everyday conversation (May I have a drink, please, and the woman’s reply, You talkin to me?), and then He cut cross-country to spiritual truth.
After finishing some visits in a hospital I stepped into the elevator. I noticed there were two medical technicians, and one (who was near the floor buttons) asked,
"Are you going all the way to ground level?"
I replied that I was, and added, "Isn’t that where we’re all going eventually?"
The young lady replied, "Oh, yeah, I guess so...but I hope it’s later than sooner. But then, she continued, if you’re in this place, you’re flirting with it anyway."
I replied, "Well, the ground isn’t the real worry -- it’s what happens after they cover you up that’s tricky!"
The medical tech looked at me with a puzzled expression. Then recognition came over her face as she realized I was talking about judgment.
She said, "Oh, yeah..."
With that she turned to the other tech. She was not about to get into that discussion. You can expect all kinds of responses when you deliver spiritual truth.
The Woman became a Seeker v.15
The woman at the well became curious about this living water, and asked for more. Contrary to some bleak views that teach that nobody wants to know about Jesus, I believe people are generally ready to hear. You have just got to find a way to speak their language.
People today are skeptical because they see so many inconsistencies in the lives of professing Christians. But they are not closed to a genuine presentation of the Gospel from a person who is genuinely possessed by the Lord of that Gospel. If they see it in operation in you, they’ll naturally want it as well. Maybe the problem isn’t with the lost in our world -- maybe we in the church have to get our own lives in order first!
A Trans-World Radio report told about a Russian psychologist who was waiting to immigrate to the United States from the Soviet Union. His testimony:
Six weeks ago when I came from the Soviet Union was the first time that I heard something positive about God and about faith in God. There are many people like me who are atheists, not because we chose to be atheists, but because we were victims of circumstances. We knew nothing else. And this atheistic teaching was forced upon us. We accepted it because we had nothing else to hear and nothing else to believe. Now, for the first time, I hear something of a positive nature about the Bible, about God, and about faith in God. To tell you the truth, what you believers are saying makes a lot more sense than what the atheistic teachers taught us all those years in the Soviet Union. After six weeks of hearing things about God and about faith, I am now at the place where my heart is crying out to say `I believe,’ but my head says `you can’t believe; you don’t understand enough.’ Please have patience with people like me.(2)
America’s atheistic culture is filled with people like that Russian psychologist. God is kept out of everything. We are no different than the Communists were.
People genuinely want to be right with God. Sparky Anderson, was the manager of the Big Red Machine (the Cincinnati Reds) back in the mid 70’s, and the manager of the Detroit Tigers the year that the Tigers won the World Series. He made this open admission in a major Detroit newspaper back in 1984,
...I’m not lying when I say that this (religion) is so important to me. If I had one great wish, it would be that I could honestly say that I was one of His (God’s) people. That’s the one emptiness I have. I’d give up all the pennants and all the honors just to know that I was doing right by Him. (3)
There are a lot of seekers. People want the Lord -- they just want to make certain they are getting the real God, and not some fruitcake’s religion!
The woman was lost in her darkness when Jesus met her...had a dawn of awakening when Jesus confronted her, and...
WHEN JESUS TOUCHED HER -- DELIVERANCE
THE LEAP OF FAITH TO SALVATION BY GOD
The woman saith unto him, I know that Messias cometh, which is called Christ: when he is come, he will tell us all things. Jesus saith unto her, I that speak unto thee am he. And upon this came his disciples, and marvelled that he talked with the woman: yet no man said, What seekest thou? or, Why talkest thou with her? The woman then left her waterpot, and went her way into the city, and saith to the men, Come, see a man, which told me all things that ever I did: is not this the Christ? Then they went out of the city, and came unto him. John 4:25-30
The leap of faith took place after the dawn of spiritual awakening. There is a moment when the questions, the doubts, and the hesitation ends. A seeker surrenders -- and in the twinkling of an eye, salvation happens. How do we know this happened to the woman? She forgot everything. She left her water pot -- the very reason she’d come to the well -- and ran to tell everybody about the real water! This lady got her priority in order in a hurry.
This, my friends is the true mark of a believer. We may disagree on how our faith is to be shared -- however, there can be no debate on the fact that we are to share our faith! If your way to share your faith is to hand someone a Gospel tract -- fine! If your way is door-to-door -- great! If your method is telephone, telegraph or tell-a-neighbor -- wonderful! Just don’t ever tell me that’s just not my thing. If you do, you make a liar of Jesus, Who said,
And ye shall be my witnesses.
and
Go ye into all the world...
A man once said, Every Christian occupies some kind of a pulpit and preaches some kind of a sermon every day.(4)
Almost everyone has heard of Mr. Heinz and his 57 varieties of pickles. One day after an evangelistic service the speaker turned to him and said, You are a believer, but with all your energy why aren’t you up and at it for the Lord? Heinz went home in anger.
That night he couldn’t sleep, however, and at 4 o’clock in the morning he prayed that God would use him to lead others to the Savior. A day or so later at a meeting of bank presidents, he turned to the man next to him and told him of his joy in knowing Jesus. His friend looked at him in surprise and said, I knew you were a Christian, I’ve wondered many times why you never spoke to me about salvation. That gentleman became the first of 267 converts -- people of different varieties, from all walks of life -- that Mr. Heinz eventually won to Christ!
Why do so many Christians neglect this terribly important task of the Christian life? A story:
In his novel The Fall, Albert Camus tells of a man who spends his life sitting in a bar at the center of Amsterdam, commenting on life as he observes it around him. His comments reveal much about his own nature, but also speak beyond himself:
I never cross a bridge at night....Suppose, after all, that someone should jump in the water. One of two things -- either you do likewise to fish him out, and in cold weather, you run a great risk! Or you forsake him there and suppressed drives sometimes leave one strangely aching.
Camus’ character has a problem: He is afraid. And just what is he afraid of? Does he fear crossing bridges? Diving into cold water? Not really. His comments reveal that his real fear is of getting involved, even by chance, in any situation where he might have to make a choice, where he might have to become personally involved in risk taking -- particularly a situation implied by the condition of night.
Believers -- the night is winning today. We have the light. We are charged with the responsibility of finding ways to carry the light into our dark society. We must light up even the dark, murky corners where creepy crawly things gather. But, as Vance Havner used to say, When you turn on the light, the creepy crawly things got to scatter!
Friends, will you be involved? If you’re afraid, consider this -- You can never walk in the dark if you are covered with light. Somewhere in the dark of lostness, or the dawning of spiritual awakening, there is somebody in your world -- right here in Davidson County -- who will probably respond to no person more than you. Will you go? It’s not my question, it’s the Lord’s.
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FOOTNOTES
(1) Haddon Robinson, What Jesus Said About Successful Living, Discovery House Publishers, p. 101
(2) Kate DeSmet, Clubhouse Prayers Inspire Tiger Players, Detroit News article, Summer 1984.
(3) Croft M. Pentz, The Complete Book of Zingers (Wheaton: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., 1990).
(4) Arlene M. Parker, Bridges To Life, in Bread Afresh, Wine Anew: Sermons by Disciples Women, ed. Joan Campbell and David Polk (St. Louis, Mo., Chalice Press, 1991), 137
