Testing? Okay, thank you. Not very technological. I don't carry a cell phone. One of the great things when I left medicine, beepers in cell phones went away. It's great. Nobody can get me now except for the Lord. It's wonderful. My testimony. Right? I was lost like anyone else, a sinner. You know, you don't know you're lost most of the time. And I had gone to a university, and university, the purpose of the educational system, it's either the American educational system is either the greatest success in the history of the world or it's the greatest failure in the history of the world. It depends on who's looking at it. If the devil's looking at it, it's the greatest success in the history of the world. If the God's looking at it, it's the greatest failure in the history of the world. Because Apostle Paul says, the world by wisdom knew not God. So the entire educational system is geared to every year you're in it to make you know not God and to drive you further from God than you'll ever be. And if you go to Africa, and I'll be going this next month, and you talk to the people in the bush country, they know there's a God because they haven't encountered European-American education. It's education that drives you. But unfortunately, I did. So I went to pre-med and to medical school, and I didn't believe there was a God. All we were was physical materialists. We didn't understand the soul. The spirit didn't believe in it. We just knew when the heart stopped beating, we were in trouble, and we needed to do some work, try and get it to start beating again. So I didn't believe in God. But my wife got saved and started going to church in 1992. And so I followed her a few times and snuck into the church in the back and kind of listened, and then would sneak out before the service was ended. And finally, a couple months later, coming home from a midnight, one o'clock in the morning surgery, I just stopped in the very parking lot of the church where she had been going, and it was 1.30 in the morning, and I looked up and it was cold in January, February, and I said, do you really exist? Are you really up there? That's just what I asked, and God said, that's curious. Kid wants to know. And so the next thing I knew, my wife asked me if we could start a Bible study in our home for the church. They were looking for a home group and places to be. And I said, sure, fine with me. And they started the Bible study at our home on Tuesday nights, and I would listen every so often, and I would listen, and they were doing the Gospel of John. And as I listened, I came to the conclusion that No man ever spake like that man. And he must be the son of God. And I got saved. So there we go. That's easy. But it didn't end there because the church she was at was an NIV church. It was a in the mold of Rick Warren. And of course, we didn't know anything about anything. And she had an NIV Bible, and the Pews had an NIV Bible, so I went and bought my own NIV Bible. And I was just kind of reading along innocently. And after a few months, it became apparent it was a young church. The pastor was 34, 35. The associate pastor was 27. They were young. And I was 40. And it was apparent to them that I had a high intellect, not that that's important. Relationship with God is not based on the intellect or the mind. It's based on the heart. Okay. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Knowledge may puff you up, but charity is a work of the heart and charity edifies. I'll show you something in a minute. We're gonna do some teaching tonight. But anyways, remind me on the word charity so I can teach that. So what they began to observe is, I was an intellectual. I don't know how they know that, but it happened. And so the pastor said, you know, we have classes starting in September, maybe you should teach. this makes no sense to me, but they do need teachers in a growing Rick Warren type of church for different classes. And you know, in the morning they got all these classes and they needed a Sunday school teacher who was an adult. And I was equal intellect to any adult there. So they thought I should teach. So I said, okay, uh, what do you want me to teach? And that was the book of Genesis. Okay. And so I said to my wife, they want me to teach a book of Genesis. I said, um, you know what I better do? I don't know much, but I know this, everybody's got a different Bible. And I'm not going to be able to reach them unless I get all those different Bibles. So I went out and bought six more different Bibles, and I prepared my lessons as I would prepare to teach a medical school class. And so I would get home from work on Monday, and I would spend about 20 hours a week in preparation for the one hour that I was going to teach. And I would lay all those Bibles before me and start going through and asking questions and answering questions and laying my notes out so I could anticipate. They never did ask the questions I asked anyways, but nonetheless, I did my teaching. But I noticed this one thing happen every week. Every week about Thursday, I'd get stumbled on my lesson and I couldn't break through and I'd get nervous and tell her, I'm not gonna be ready, I'm not gonna be ready. And she would say, just pray and hang in there and I did. And then every week, the lesson came together only in the King James Bible. And the words only lined up in the King James Bible. Now, I don't know anything about this issue, and I'll tell you about that, tell me about the two legs in a second, I gotta teach him that. And so, I just finally, one week I came out to her on a Thursday, and I said, I found the answer again, it's in the King James Bible, and I said, you've been saved longer than I have, why is it that it's always in the King James Bible? And she says to me, well, maybe those translators were more spirit-filled than the other translators. Well, it sounds reasonable to a young Christian. And as I walked back to my room, the Lord kind of impressed upon me, of course, because I filled one group of translators with my spirit to do it, and everyone else is not doing it with my spirit. When do I need to repeat my work? I do things perfectly the first time. I mean, there isn't a second Calvary. I mean, there isn't a second Mount Zion. There isn't a second Mount Sinai. I mean, God does stuff right the first time. We're the ones that mess it up. And so then I learned God had showed me that the King James Bible was the word of God. And so I came home from on call. We used to do these calls. They got better. When I first started, they were 36-hour straight calls, and then they got down to nice, just 24-hour calls, which isn't so bad. So you go in the morning at 7, you work all through the night and help with the ER and deliver babies and whatever, and then you go home at 7 in the morning. And I came home, and I didn't sleep after call. I had big adrenal glands. And so I would stay awake all day. And I said to my wife, you know, I need to tell the pastor about this King James thing, because he's always running around saying, we are beggars who found bread, which is true if you get saved. So I just wanted to let him know I found the unleavened bread. I thought he'd be happy. So I went to tell him, and I have the letters. Eventually they threw me out of that church. They didn't want me around anymore, which I didn't understand, but the Lord had to teach me a number of things. And so that's it. And so I learned the two most important things. And by the way, go to 1 Timothy chapter four. And I just want to show you something practical as a Christian, very practical. Paul is teaching the young man, Timothy, who is going to go into the ministry, and he teaches many lessons that are, let's say, for the minister, but he also teaches things that are applicable to a Christian. And he says in the first Timothy, make it chapter two, and we'll go back to the second chapter. And he says in the second chapter, verse three, for this is good and acceptable in the sight of God, our savior. Now, lots of times the Bible will use It'll introduce a term, and then another term, and he's running an A, B, sometimes A, B, C, and then the next verse he fills in the corresponding one. So this is A, good, and B, acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who will A, have all men to be saved, and B, to come unto the knowledge of the truth. And back in Romans, Paul says, you know, you're looking for the good and acceptable and perfect will of God. Well, you just found the good and acceptable will right there. The goodwill of God is salvation. The goodwill of man is some old shoes and an old pair of pants and a shirt. That's what goodwill is. You know, here, the goodwill. The goodwill of God is salvation because in Luke chapter two, when Jesus was born, the annunciation given to the angels is that glory to God in the highest and on earth peace, goodwill toward men. Because what was goodwill? This day is born in the city of David, a savior, which is Christ the Lord. The goodwill of God is manifested in salvation. And if you're gonna worship God, you must worship him in spirit and you must be born of the spirit and that means salvation in receiving the Savior Jesus Christ. But that's only A. B, the next thing is the acceptable will of God, which is to come unto a knowledge of the truth. The words which are written were upright and acceptable These are acceptable words that God accepts. Someday when we go to stand before the Lord at the judgment seat of Christ, what is going to be accepted, what was done according to the words he gave. So I worship God in spirit, the goodwill, Jesus is the Christ, the Savior, and in truth, the acceptable word coming onto a knowledge of the truth. Now, the great battle the devil has won since 1881 is separating the Christian from the truth. Now, they still get the goodwill, so they still get the free package of salvation. And by the way, that's a big deal. That's a huge, that's an enormous, that's the big enchilada, I call it. You get that, you're set. I mean, I'm gonna say something you're not gonna like, but you know what? You're like James Bond, you have a license to sin. And I'm sorry, but that's the truth. That's doctrine. You can go do what you want. It's not going to affect your soul. God will affect your flesh with it. That's all he can affect at this point. But not your soul. You're saved. Now you want to get acceptable and start getting sanctified, you need to get this book. And the devil understands that. And I'm walking around. You're supposed to walk in the spirit. You know what it takes to walk? Two legs. One leg is the good will, the other is the acceptable will. And the devil knows if I can cut off one of their legs, this is a Christian standing on an NIV, or a new Bible. You can push him over just like that, and he's on the ground. Any country would love to fight a war against one-legged soldiers. And that's what he's achieved. And if you have not encountered Christians, who believe no book. Everything is the Word of God. Nothing is the Word of God. I mean, they're abiblical or panbiblical. Pan means all. All Bibles are gods or none of them is gods. And it doesn't really matter as long as we have the message. I was at the Christian bookstore one day and the kid said to me, he was looking at the message. And he says, what do you think of the message? Is it a good Bible? And I said, yeah, here's what it is. It's the mess for this age. You know, God fixed the English language. There's a lot of things you only get in English. You won't get in other languages, which is why I was going to show you the word charity. But that's another thing that's in English. You won't get this in Hebrew or Greek. And I'll show you in a minute. But here's my point. It's good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior to have all men to be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth. You, Christian, going to a Bible believer's church, have a dual ministry in front of you. When you meet a lost man, he needs to know Jesus is the Christ. And pretty much just about every man you meet is pretty much lost. I mean, it's a good bet from a proportionality standpoint that 90 plus percent of the people, adults you meet are going to be lost. And so your initial ministry to them is, I want to find a way to get the truth of my savior to them. Let them know what a great savior is. And this is what your ministry is letting your light shine, testifying, doing anything you can to help them. to know that you have a relationship with the God of the Bible, and they too can have it, and you want to bring them to the point that Jesus is the Christ and believing they'll have life in his name. That's your first ministry. But your second ministry is if you meet a Christian, odds are, just as a lost man doesn't know Jesus is the Christ, that Christian doesn't know that King James is the Bible. Have you met Christians? Did you ever meet them? They're few and far between. Most of them are undercover. They usually are undercover. But eventually, if you can get them to come out and play peekaboo for a little bit, then one thing you'll find out about them is they don't know which Bible is God's. Now because of that, they're on one leg. That's one of the reasons they don't come out from undercover. I mean, you want to come out for a fight hopping on one leg? So they just stay home on their one leg. They can't stand. They need the book. And so you have a dual ministry. Number one, to the lost man, Jesus is Christ. Number two, to the saved man, the King James is the Bible. Look, and I reason with them, tell them, obviously there's only one God of the Bible, and they'll agree with that. Well, there's only one Bible of God. And so you want to get them to that. You want to get them into the acceptable will of God. And then the perfect will of God is found in 2 Timothy, if you want to know it. If you just want to know the good, acceptable, and perfect will of God. And here's the perfect will, it's in 2 Timothy chapter 3, verse 15. And that from a child thou hast known thee, okay, definite article, one and only, thee, holy scriptures. which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. Amen. So now you've got the goodwill. And then he goes on, all scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness that the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works. I'll do a couple of teachings. The first one is because every so often you're going to meet a Christian that goes off the deep end on the word perfect. And they'll always look at you, you're not perfect. You know, got to be perfect, got to be perfect. And to him, it's a Funk and Wagnalls definition. Every time God uses the word perfect in the Bible, he explains what he's meaning by it. And in the passage would be your perfect as your father in heaven is perfect. It was just talking in the whole context about being merciful and being forgiving toward people. Perfect means, what he said right here, throughly furnished unto all good works. It doesn't mean like you're perfect in the sense that you're perfect, but you're now perfectly fitted for the work God would have you to do. You're furnished for that work. And how are you when you have all of scripture? Now, here's the way it goes. This is good. Jesus is the Christ. Acceptable, you come to a knowledge, this is God's book. But sadly, there are people that know that King James is the Bible, but they don't get into the perfect will of going through all scripture, all scripture, not some of scripture, all of scripture. By the way, just a little thing. I always look for a little hidden things in the Bible about our Bible, the King James Bible, the 1611. And we are in plan B. Do you understand what's been going on since the garden is plan B? What God really wanted was a face-to-face relationship with us back like he had in the garden. And because of the rejection and the casting out and the walking away, eventually God had to deal with us from a distance. And one of the ways he did was committing a Bible. B, Bible, B, plan B. You don't want plan B. What God really likes is plan A when he speaks to us. You know where he did that, for example, once? Mount Sinai. And you know, a mountain looks like an A with a snow cap on it, doesn't it? And God speaks from the mount. And that's one of the things I was gonna teach you, because he mentioned it this morning about the law of God. And I'll show you the difference between the 10 commandments and the other two parts of the law, which are done away with, and the 10 commandments. But we'll get back to that. But God wants to speak from the mountain to us like an A, but we're on plan B. So look at that verse right there real quickly. And if you have a pencil in your hand, you'll really get blessed. It says, all scripture is given by inspiration of God. At this point, the plan A is gone, so if you just put a pencil over the A, you know what you see? You see the verse number 16 and two L's. 1611 scripture is given by God. It's just a little hidden thing that he put there because, do it, take a look, you'll see it. 1611 scripture is in, can you see it? With your own Bible you can see it. I don't know how to write it. Verse 16, and it says, all scripture is given by inspiration of God. You cover up the mountain, you got 1611. There it is, 1611 scripture as given by God. I don't know, I'm crazy. I know there's other ones like that too. But this is the book and the perfect will of God is for you to get in all the scripture. And so here's what I'll do for you. I'll help you devise a reading plan. If you haven't read through the Bible once, you don't know how to do it. You can go from Genesis to Revelation, but there are better ways to do it. You need to, on your own, develop a Bible reading plan and purpose in your heart you're going to read the Bible, whether you understand it or not. That's just obedience. And yes, you're going to read all the names in Chronicles. I've done it 62, 63 times. And you read them all. Why? I don't know. It's some kind of nutrients God put there. And you read them. and you go through all scripture, so the spirit of God can connect with you. This is not about intellectualism, it's about spiritual filling, and God fills as you go through the scriptures, and he equips you for the work he wants you to do, and you become, in his eyes, perfect, even if you're not in other people's eyes. And just a couple things, since we're just having fun, and if you've got questions, start raising your hand, but charity is better than the word love. in English, because charity is the love of Christ, C-H-R-I-S-T. It shares all those letters with Christ. It's the love of Christ in his church, and got a few of the letters of church in there too. And I know God so loved the world, and I know God is love, but you and I both know there's a day coming when the lake of fire hits, a whole bunch of people are out of the love of God, but charity never faileth. The love of Christ and his church will go on forever and ever and ever. It's a higher level of love than just regular love, the charity, and that's what God wants to build in us, and intellectualism builds knowledge, but spiritual feeding from God builds a heart of charity, which is really what he wants to equip you for the works. Now, in this morning's session, I'll just teach this one thing quickly, and then if you want me to... preach at you, and I'm not much of a preacher, but if you want, I'll do one of my messages there. And if you have questions, I'll take those too. This morning he talked about the law, if any of you were here, and he was talking about the fact that, he says, you know, the law really isn't bad, the law is good, and et cetera, et cetera, and acting like, you know, the law is just something God kinda has for us now to show us we're sinners. But actually, the 10 commandments in Exodus chapter 20 are not just historical, and they're not just practical, they're a prophecy and they're doctrinal. So go to Exodus 20 and I'll show you. Exodus chapter 20. And in Exodus chapter 20, God spake all these words, saying, I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt have no other gods before me. You're going to hear a lot of these thou shalts in here. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image or any likeness of anything in heaven above, or that is in earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them. For I, the Lord thy God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, unto the third and fourth generations of them that hate me. and showing mercy unto thousands of them that love me and keep my commandments. Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain. Remember the Sabbath day, keep it holy, six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God. In it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that's within thy gates. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day, Wherefore, the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it. Honor thy father and thy mother, that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee. Thou shalt not kill. Thou shalt not commit adultery. Thou shalt not steal. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife, nor his manservant, nor maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor anything that is thy neighbor's. Now, the Lord He gives this to the people. And what happens is this is actually written with the finger of God. It tells us later, I think it's the 32nd chapter, that God actually wrote this with his own fingers, Exodus 32, 16, and the tables were the work of God and the writing was the writing of God graven upon the tables. This is God writing. And we look at this and we go, that's the law. And it is, it's one third of the law. But if you follow through the rest of the book of Exodus, and then through the book of Leviticus, and then through the book of Deuteronomy, you observe that he gives additional laws too. And it ends up being in threes, because God does so many things in threes. So he gives the moral or the spiritual law, he writes it himself. And then he tells Moses, write these other ones down. And Moses writes down the civil law, and then the ceremonial law. And so you've got the moral law, you've got the civil law for the elders of the land and the ceremonial law for all the priests. Now what happened is at the cross of Calvary, what Jesus did was he nailed the handwriting of ordinances to the tree. And I got to find that passage for you. With three nails, was it? Okay. Amen. But here it is. It's in Colossians chapter two. And when the Lord Jesus Christ was offered on that cross, end of verse 13, and He forgave you all trespasses, verse 14, He was blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to His cross. And what he's referring to is the handwritten ordinances by Moses. He's referring to the ceremonial law and the civil law. Because all those things that God said, thou shalt not do, which you say, I can't do them now, I still break them, I'm having trouble with. He's going to perfect you to the point where you do obey them, that's a prophecy. There's a day coming when you live in the new Jerusalem, when thou shalt not covet, thou shalt not steal, everyone will be worked in their heart, in their mind, in their body, in their life, in their will, in their being to the point we're going to have an entire city up there, the New Jerusalem, where nobody breaks any one of those Ten Commandments. And no one's keeping the handwritings of Moses either. Now, the reason you're not gonna be keeping the handwritings of Moses anymore is because the handwriting of Moses included killing animals, but we know when the New Jerusalem is built, death is destroyed. No more killing of animals. The handwriting of Moses had civil ordinances that if somebody did this wrong, you put them to death, but no one's being put to death anymore. That's all done with. So the ceremonial and the civil law be put away in the kingdom of God, and the kingdom of God will reign with the moral law. Now I understand we struggle keeping it now, but this is God's intent to build a place where everybody's keeping his moral and spiritual law. And he's going to work that in you. He's going to perfect it in you. Does that make sense? Do you understand? All right. Ceremonial and civil law, I do know that they're going to, if you will, resurrect that for the kingdom of heaven, which is the thousand year millennium and what he's doing with the Jews. is doing a couple of things. One, he's giving the Jews a second chance because they never became the priests to the nations. So when he sets the millennial kingdom up, he's going to give the Jews a second chance to be priests to the nation. And it's not just going to be Levites. They're all going to get a chance to be priests. And they're going to minister to all the nations on planet earth. And they're going to be ministering the truth And the second thing he's going to do in the resurrecting of giving them a second chance, they're going to have to redo the ordinances that they didn't quite do right during the times of Saul and the times of Jeroboam and all those times where they messed up. God likes to give a second chance and they're going to get an opportunity just like Jonah. Go preach at Nineveh. I'm not going to do it. Okay. You kill Jonah. Three days later, by the way, Jonah was dead in the whale's belly. And then when he comes up three days later, Okay, what am I going to do? The exact same thing I told you to do when you were alive the first time. And so the Jews that didn't minister properly get back up and minister like you're supposed to. Kill a bull, kill a goat, kill a lamb, do all that, teach this to the nations, and the Kingdom of Heaven, the Jews are going to be doing these sacrifices again in the Kingdom of Heaven. The ceremonial and civil law will apply, like Jesus said. He's not going to blot one jot or tittle out while he's ruling. down here for a thousand years, but once that's done, folds up this old universe, death is done away with, there's going to be no more killing of animals, no more killing of people, everyone that goes into New Jerusalem is born of the Spirit, the new heaven and the new earth has righteousness in and throughout it, nobody's got double-minded in that thing, and there everyone's going to thou shalt and thou shalt not, and it's going to be exactly what he said. Amen, amen, we're all part of it. Anything else? Questions? You want me to teach? You want me to preach a message? I've got two messages, pick the one you want. I have one on soul winning, it's John chapter 4, and one on revival, it's Isaiah chapter 6. Soul winning, alright, you got it. Open to John chapter 4. In John chapter three, we saw the Lord as the divine teacher. and he taught a master of Israel, a religious person, a man who was familiar with scripture and religion. He was a Jew. He was a favored status person because the oracles of God were given to the Jews. He was a ruler. He was a very moral, upright person. He came to Jesus. by night, and Jesus taught him the most important thing you need to do is be born again because your religion will not be sufficient. Your religion is your relationship with men, taking care of orphans and widows and all that stuff, but what you need is salvation, a relationship with God, you must be born again. In chapter 4, what happens is now, verse 3, he leaves Judea And he departs into Galilee, and he's heading northward, and Israel was like divided into three sections. It had Judea in the south, and it had Galilee in the north, and it had Samaria in the middle. And often what they would do, the Jews from Judea wouldn't even go through Samaria. They'd cross the Jordan River, track up the Jordan River, then recross the Jordan River and go into Galilee. But he must needs go through Samaria and he breaks with the custom as he begins going through Samaria. There was a battle between the Jews and the Samaritans because of what happened back in first Kings. when that evil king Shemar put all those Assyrian people in there and started intermingling and the Jews are very particular about their genealogies. You read about it in Ezra, they became adversaries of the Jews. You read about it in Nehemiah where they wanted to be part of the register and they couldn't find their names in the genealogies and they were put out. Jews are very big on genealogy, very physically pure, if you will. Which, by the way, God wanted them to be physically pure. They were a physical people giving a physical land with physical promises and physical ordinances. New Testament. We're a spiritual people. We don't have a physical land, we got a spiritual land, you know, spiritual places, spiritual promises, and He'd like us at least to be spiritually pure and spiritually separated. So a lot of the stuff that you're going to read, the popular novels, you can't really read them. They're not spiritually pure. Words are spirit. Some of the things you might want to watch on the television, and things like that are gonna pollute your spirit, you wanna purify from them. You don't wanna be a Samaritan Christian. But anyways, so these Samaritans physically, they were mingled, and the Jews were real pure, and they didn't want anything to do with them. But Jesus breaks the custom, he goes right through for a purpose. Verse five, he cometh to a city of Samaria, which is called Sychar, near to the parcel of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. and in the division of the land, you go back to when they're settling the land in the book of Joshua, and the two southern tribes, Judah and Simeon had the southern region, and God gave them double portion to Joseph's boys. There's Ephraim's got a large portion here, and Manasseh, and they really controlled about 70% of the northern region. And so that was their area, Joseph's area, and he gave, he got a well there. Jacob's well was there and now Jesus comes verse 6 and and he's wearied with his journey and sat thus on the well and it was about the sixth hour and John is using Jewish timing so the sixth hour from the morning 6 a.m. about 12 noon and you know it's hot the middle of the day you've been walking he's been on foot He didn't have a golf cart or anything, and he's tired, and he sits. And there cometh the woman of Samaria to draw water, and Jesus saith unto her, Give me to drink. And he said this for his disciples were gone away unto the city to buy meat. They ordinarily would have drawn the water for him. They would have been his water boy, but they were gone. Then said 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. She knew about the centuries-long conflict. 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. And the woman saith unto him, 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?" 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. And 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 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 worshipers 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. The woman saith unto him, I know that Messiah's cometh, which is called Christ. When he has come, he will tell us all things. Jesus saith unto her, I that speak unto thee am he. Now in this chapter here, instead of meeting a person of high rank who's a Jew, we meet a person who's a servant of low rank who isn't even given a name. She's not a Jew, she's a Samaritan. Instead of being moral, we find out that she's had five husbands. She's immoral. It's kind of a portrait, the contrast, it's kind of the Nicodemus is the exception and the Samaritan is the rule. And when you and I are out there on the streets, I don't know how often we run into Nicodemuses. How often do you really come across an Anglican priest or a Catholic priest or a bishop or something? Very rare. Most of the time we're coming across these common folks. And what Jesus is showing here is that the way to do soul winning is first you have to go. If you're gonna win souls, you gotta go out to them. It's gonna be the exception when a religious person comes to you like Nicodemus. Not many people really are going to come to you. Now, I'll say this. What God really wants you to do, you get your salvation and you begin to Love the Lord. That's what he'd like above all things. And that's manifested by praying, by reading Bible, by being interested in the Lord and the people of God and the things of God. And it begins to change your priorities. Before I got saved, I mean, yeah, I worked at the hospital. I did all that stuff. But I had one thing I really liked outside the hospital, professional football. I enjoyed professional football. And that was my recreation, going to see professional football games. And so, you know, I would buy us the best season tickets on the front row of the club level section, and I would go to all the games armed with all the gear. I brought a little television set. This is in the 80s and 90s, before they had all those screens. And I would go to the games and I would root. There's a Super Bowl, you know, take a trip and do that. And I spent my money and my time, my spare time going after football. I got saved. It was in September of 93 and the tickets were gone before you knew it. I couldn't care. And the bills were in the Super Bowl that year. I didn't care. It didn't matter to me anymore. It changed my family. What's the matter with this guy? He used to love football on Sundays and all of a sudden he's at church on Sunday. It's been a change. My light was shining in a most simple way, but it's apparent. Okay, now when it comes to family members, as long as your light is shining, and consistently shining, you're not turning it off every so often, you're shining it in your love for the Lord, and they know your love for the Lord, and they know your consistency, you don't need to read the Romans wrote to them, you just need to let your light shine, and they probably will come to you at some time when there's a problem in their life. Because they'll know, there's one person seems to know God in our family. And the fact is you can't talk him into salvation before that. But when you have a stranger like this, this was a stranger that Jesus encountered. When it came to the stranger, first thing when it comes to strangers, you gotta go. You have to go. The strangers aren't gonna come to you unless perhaps they make cold calls on the telephone, which is their way to coming to you. Do you ever get cold calls on the telephone? By the way, use that as an opportunity. My wife is really good at cold calls on the phone. She'll listen to them. Most people hang up on them instantly. You know, it's cold call, click, not interested. Not my wife. She'll listen to the whole spiel, let them go through everything. She's swift to hear. Go on and on and on, on and on and on. They pitch for a long time. They read through their entire script. And then when they're done, she'll say something. Well, thank you very much for calling. I'm glad you called today. I'm glad we got a chance to speak one with another. And although at this time we may not be able to buy this product, I'd like to give you something for free." And then she begins to turn it around and give the gospel witness over the phone to this person. But not many strangers are going to be coming to you. But when they do, take the advantage of it. Cold calls is a great way to talk people into the Lord. If you don't know what to say, have a tract nearby you. Read off your own script. They got theirs, you got yours. I'm not good at it. I have some scriptures nearby. The Ford Porter track. Anybody have that one? Have you ever seen that track? That's one of the greatest tracks ever written in 1937 during the Depression by Ford Porter. Carol, we got a couple in the car. You got a couple in your purse? Please show them to the folks. That's like a little script you can read off the whole thing. My wife used to start with that, just reading the Ford Porter track to them. But for the most part, strangers aren't gonna be coming to you, except on Halloween night. And if they do that, then that's another opportunity. They came, you give them the gospel. On Halloween, you give out candy and tracts, and you do that type of thing. You talk to anyone you can. But Jesus shows you, you need to go. Now, the next thing he does when he goes, verse six, is he opens the conversation. The woman was there drawing the water. She wasn't speaking to him. He opened his mouth. You have to go and you have to tell. And he says to her, give me to drink. In other words, he begins using the topic at hand. There was a well, we're talking about water, so we start talking about water. Because the Bible is likened to so many things. It's agriculture, and seed, and bread, and milk, and water, and then it's likened to the heavens, and there's all these things. So what God's given you is many different connecting points that you can get into a conversation right away. I don't know how to break the ice. God's broken it for you by giving you so many types, and metaphors, and similes. You just grab on all God uses and begin working with it with the conversation at hand. It's wonderful. And so he works with that right away. He goes and he speaks. Now look at, this woman knew he was a Jew. Verse nine, how is it that thou being a Jew askest drink of me? Now here's the thing. What God is showing you here is lifestyle evangelism doesn't work with strangers. Because here, he was a Jew. He was a moral Jew and a committed, clean Jew, so much so she could tell right by his lifestyle. As a matter of fact, I'm willing to bet Jesus' lifestyle is better than yours. Okay, some of you. Because I can see the way you're looking. Okay, some of you got a better lifestyle. But the point is, Jesus had a pretty good lifestyle. And yet the lifestyle wasn't going to get the conversation going. He needed to speak. It's not lifestyle evangelism. It's lifestyle plus evangelism. And so he had the lifestyle, but he realized, I got to evangelize. I got to talk to this woman. I've got to break the ice and get going. And since we're dealing with water, let's talk about water. And so he gets the conversation going. Now, when he gets that conversation going, notice how he starts the conversation. Verse 10, you're a wretched, dirty sinner with a rotten religion. You don't know what you're doing. No, that's, excuse me, I must have read verse 10 wrong. If thou knewest the gift of God, the first thing he leads with is the gift of God. Now, I know that we tend to think that we need to preach the sin to the people. But later on, Jesus will tell the men in the upper room in the Gospel of John, chapter 16, that when the Holy Spirit has come, and as far as I can tell, he's come, he will reprove the world of sin. And then he says in verse 9, the sin is because they believe not on me. Jesus is the gift of God. The problem with lost people is not that they sin, because we all sin. One day when they stand at the white throne judgment, I hope they don't, but they will, and when they do, they're going to find out I'm not going to the lake of fire for what I committed, I'm going to the lake of fire for what I omitted, not receiving the gift of God. It's the sin of omission that's going to hurt them any more than any sin of commission, because all those things are paid for if they would just receive the gift of God. It's called the gospel. It's the good news. We have the gospel of Christ. It's the good news of Jesus Christ. When I preach on the streets, I preach the gospel. I mean, my typical street preaching is I get there on the streets and people are looking at me and I go, folks, I'm here in a world full of bad news. If you turn on the radio today or the TV or read the newspaper, it's all bad, but I got some good news for you today. Okay? I'm holding in my hand a book. It's the good book. And the book is good because the one that wrote it is good. He's God and in it, he's got good news called the gospel, the gospel of Jesus Christ. And I begin preaching the gospel of Christ. I preach the gift of God to them. Oh, they're not interested. Well, then they're not interested. What can I do? You think I can wrestle them into interest? You think I can twist their arm behind their back spiritually and make them say, uncle? I mean, you can't do that. I told you the story about the guy at the Erie County Fair and what they did to him. And as a lost man at the Erie County Fair, then I knew he eventually got saved. But these guys tried to wrestle him into salvation. They wouldn't let him go for 40 minutes. And finally, he was so frustrated. What do you want me to say? Say this prayer. He said the prayer and walked away. And then they were all jumping for joy. And he said, those idiots, I couldn't get rid of them until I said the prayer. You can't wrestle someone into salvation. So what you're doing is you're preaching the gift of God. You're saying, these are the riches of God that are found in Jesus Christ. If the person doesn't have any spiritual interest in them, all you can do is as they go their way, you can say, Lord, visit them again and work with them and begin to turn up the fallow ground in their life. So someday in the future, they will get it, but you keep going. Now, thankfully he had a ripe one here. and every so often God will give you a ripe one ready to be plucked and that's what happened here and it's an example for us and we'll see this a little bit later when we get further in the chapter. But the point is you've got to go, you've got to speak and you speak with grace. You speak about the gift of God. Now, when they begin to show interest in the gift as this woman did in verse 15, Sir, give me the that I thirst not." Now she's interested. Now there is one stumbling block for her, the recognition that the gift, the good news comes, the head of the coin is attached to the tail, and the tail is the good news is only offered to sinners. Christ came to call sinners to repentance, not righteous people. So he had to make her aware of her sin. Now here's an area where if they talk to you, then you have an opportunity perhaps to show them in the book. Now Jesus, because he can read the hearts of men, knew exactly what her sin was. When I talk to someone on the streets, I don't know what their sin is, but you know what usually happens? They'll begin to confess it. You know, I've been struggling with such, I've been having trouble with such and such a thing like that. And what's happening then is they're softening their heart and they're turning to the point. And at that place, just like Jesus says, thou hast well said, you don't have to tell me any about it, I'm not a priest. But just the fact that they're beginning to soften their heart and recognize it, now I can bring them back to the Savior who can deal with that problem. Because I'm not the priest, he's the priest. He's the high priest. But this woman, when she's encountered with her sin, unfortunately in verse 19, starts to do the religious dance. Oh, I perceive thou art a prophet. I can tell you went to Bible college. I can see you read the book. I can tell you're religious. and she's trying to dance away from it. But the Lord, and she starts talking about her religion, our fathers worshiped in this mountain. And perhaps in this encounter where you're dealing with the person, they begin to say, well, our religion says you have to be baptized. Or our religion says you have to make a confirmation. Or our religion says you have to make a pilgrimage. And then they begin to explain why they maybe think they're okay, even though they got the problem with this one issue in their life, they're trying to deal with it with their religion. And then you have to explain to them lovingly, look, the Father must be worshipped in spirit and truth. And whether or not you know enough about their religion, you may be able to show them where their religion errs. And sometimes you can't. And if you can't do that, but they've got an interest, then you bring them to someone who can. And anyone with an interest is going to want to follow up. People, not that this is salesmanship, but years ago someone wanted me to join Amway. It's a multi-level marketing thing. And so, it was a member of the family, so out of goodness of my heart, I went a number of times, plus I also figured I could pass some tracks out. And so, I went and I brought the tracks. But I sat through the lessons and listened to them and the lectures and whatever. And one of the top guys basically said this. He said, you know, I've presented this to hundreds of people over the years. And he said, you know, the thing is, if the person wants to do it, I can't say anything to stumble him out of it. And if the person doesn't want to do it, I can't say anything to talk him into it. Well, it's like that with salvation. And when a person is beginning to get the drawing inside of them and God's working, they're going to follow up. And in the follow-up, you can bring them to people that can answer some of their religious questions. I'm sure your pastor has some books back there. I happen to have the entire dogmatic canons and decrees of the Roman Catholic Church. I have the works of the Mormon, the works of the JW, so I can sit down and I can show them, and I say, now, here is what your book says, and now look what the Bible says, and I'd like you now to decide, because they say contrary things, and you think about it. and you put it back because ultimately the choice has to be theirs. And you show them, and Jesus was showing them, you know, your religion doesn't really know truth. Religion comes from the Jews. The oracles of God are from the Jews. Salvation is of the Jews. Jesus Christ is a Jew. These are things I could say to anyone that's searching. Well, I'm trusting in Anglicanism. Well, Anglicanism is from England, started by King Henry VIII in 1534, and he started it for political reasons. It had nothing to do with doctrine. And I can show them and say, but this is the Jewish writings of the apostles here. And you can show them these things so they can learn truth. So you go, you tell, you begin with grace, you bring truth into it, and then finally you close again with Jesus is the Christ. Verse 26, I that speak unto thee am he. And so the pattern is a very simple, go, speak, speak with grace first, follow up with truth, finish up with Christ. Grace, Christ, in the middle, truth, like a beautiful sandwich. The truth is sometimes difficult to digest, but the bread is good, it's a pumpernickel swirl or something, I don't know what it is, and you package it in there, and that's what you do, and that's the way you do it. Now, in this thing, You see what begins to happen to him. The woman is excited, and she goes to tell everyone in the city, and of course the disciples come back, and they're a bit perplexed as to what's happening. And verse 33, Therefore said the disciples one to another, Hath any man brought him this to eat? He seems to be satisfied. And Jesus said, My meat is to do the will, verse 34, of him that sent me, and to finish his work. And what he's saying is, my interest is more in spiritual sustenance than physical. Jesus is man, and he's God. You are man, and you're born of the Spirit. And what he wants, God wants your spirit to dominate over your flesh, to put your body under. So the greater satisfaction in your life now is the ministry of the Word of God rather than ministry at a country buffet or something like that. And boy, they make a lot of money on me. You know, because I go in, I eat just this much and I leave. because I don't eat much. But if they were feeding spiritual food, they'd lose money on me because I love to eat and I like to study the book. And that's what God wants you to do is get to the point where this is what your meat is. It's serving God. And he goes on. So the point he's telling you is there's a blessing in this. It is God's will. It will actually be your meat. You'll actually get enjoyment from doing it. There's a blessing of going out and telling people about your savior. It's a great blessing in it. And I think part of the reason Christians today are so frustrated and struggle with so many emotional and psychological issues is because they don't soul-win and they're afraid to even attempt soul-winning because they don't realize the simplicity of it. It's the simplicity. It's not difficult. You don't need to be a doctoral thesis candidate. All you need to do is tell them that you have found the bread that's satisfied, that that's the gift of God, He gave it to you, that it comes by grace, that if you'll recognize the truth that salvation is by Jesus Christ and you'll come to Him. It's very simple. It's a simple thing. And there's a blessing in it. Now the wisdom of it, is in verse 36. Well, let me end verse 35 with you. Say ye not there are yet four months, and then cometh the harvest. That's just a time thing he threw in, because it's a time of Pentecost right now while he's speaking to this woman at the well, and in four months will be tabernacles and harvest. There's a little reference in there. Behold, I say unto you, lift up your eyes here, and look on the fields, for they are white already to harvest. Now he moves from the the physical, and in the physical, the truth is he's saying, look man, it's four months to a physical harvest. I mean, there's times and seasons for physical harvest, but when it comes to the spiritual harvest, in, out of season, now is the time, now is the accepted time. I can always bring someone to salvation if I'm operating right now. Why is that? Here's gonna tell you why, verse 36. He that reapeth, receiveth wages. and gathereth fruit unto life eternal, that both he that soweth and he that reapeth may rejoice together. Herein is that a saying true. One soweth and another reapeth. I sent you to reap that whereon ye bestowed no labor. Other men labored, and you entered into their labors. The soul winning, not only is there a blessing to it, And there's an urgency to it because anytime someone can be harvested, there's a wisdom to it and that God has sent this thing up better than an Amway plan. He's got a multi-level scheme going on here with people working all the time that we're not even aware of. And you're coming forward meeting someone and you may think you're sowing and actually you're going to reap today. And there may be days you think you're going to reap, and actually all you're doing is sowing today. And maybe days you think you're sowing, and all you're doing is watering that day. And he's got this thing set up. So here's the beauty. The pressure is off you. It's not like it's my job to sow and water and reap, and oh my goodness, I didn't win him to the Lord. No, you're just to get in the game. And God knows where you are in the game. You don't really know. But get in the game. Be part of the game. And here's another interesting thing, not only the wisdom, there's a reward to it. You receive wages one day. Wages that are your fruit and that are life eternal. It feeds your eternal life, and it'll carry on not only for you into eternity, but for that person you worked with into eternity. And one other thing that's almost like a smack in the face. Let me see. Verse 38, I sent you to reap that whereon you bestowed no labor. Other men labored, and you are entered into their labors. And here's what he says. He's rough. You're rough, Lord. He's rough. But I love him anyways. But here's what he's saying. You know, there was this one college that when I first got saved, I thought I would go to. And they said, you're never going to make it there. You're never going to make it to that college. And I said, why? You know, it does not compute. I'm not gonna make it out of college. You're kidding, right? I mean, I know what I did. But there's things, not intellectually you can't make it out of college. They got this program at that particular Bible college where you're supposed to win so many souls a week. And you go out on visitation and you gotta come back and have so many souls. And you gotta keep a count and you gotta get them baptized. And I was thinking, that doesn't compute. But to them it's a big deal. But you know what God just said there? Look at that verse again. I sent you whereon ye bestowed no labor. Reaping is no labor. The labor is in the sowing and the watering. And I'll just show you this. I'll give my testimony and perhaps yours too in your life. It'll resound with your testimony. You know, when you're first saved and you're excited and you tell some people, You don't know what you're saying. But then about a year or two comes and you're really beginning to learn how to go about doing this. And you're really purposed to go out and do it. And then you say, I'm going to go out now. I'm really going to break the ice with strangers. I mean, I've tried with my family. You first could say you've tried with family, tried with a few friends. And then you figure, boy, it didn't work with family and friends. I can't talk to a stranger. I couldn't even get my family and friends to listen. but then you learn a few things and you learn from a good pastor like Pastor Mike and you say okay I can do this I can talk to a stranger and you go out and do that and the Lord he watches you and he says you know let me throw him a few plums that are ripe And the first time I started like really going door to door, so winning and doing stuff like that, I was winning souls. And I thought, wow, man, this is easy. He was just being, he was being kind to me. He said, I want to encourage that young one. I don't want to discourage him. But then as time went on, I wasn't winning him much anymore. I wasn't reaping. No, because now he said, I let you run with the ball across the goal line a few times. Now it's time to block. and to push, and to do stuff for others. And it's not, now I understood the big picture more. The reaping in any labor, but man, the plowing, and the telling, and the praying, and the not giving up, and the, there's the labor. There's the labor, and he's laying it out for you in the chapter. Now, one other thing that's very interesting here is I was just showing the contrast between the two chapters where you got the ruler of the Jews, Nicodemus, in chapter 3, a very amoral man. He's moral. And then you got this immoral commoner down here with no name. And you see this. In chapter 4, there's no miracles. Chapter 3, Nicodemus came to him and talked about all the miracles. We know the miracles thou doest. We know the miracles thou doest. Chapter 4, there's no miracles. Why was that? Nicodemus was a Jew. The Jews require a sign. We're in a time, we don't need miracles. Miracles aren't going to produce faith. If anything, a miracle would only test a person to see how's he going to respond to the word of God. The question is, what's it going to do with the Word of God? And so our ministry is the Word of God. You know, it's interesting. Go back in that one verse. This is something only in a King James Bible. He says in verse 7, when the woman of Samaria come to draw water, Jesus saith unto her, this is what I think he said, but not what he said. Read it carefully. Give me a drink. He didn't say that. Look what he said. Give me to drink. What the heck? Now look, I understand what he's trying to say. I understand the connotation of what he's saying. You know, give me a drink. But the actual denotation of what was written down there is only in a King James Bible. You know what he's telling her? Give me. to drink. When you leave here, you're going to be giving me to drink because I'm the water of life. Only in a King James Bible, perfect wording. He's literally prophesying into her, give me to drink. That's exactly what she did. When she left, she went to that city and she gave him to drink. That's what she was handing out. She was no longer handing out water that was physical. She was handing out spiritual water. Only in a King James Bible, beautifully written. You know, go to Ephesians chapter 4 real quick. I'll show you something. Ephesians chapter 4. And, you know, we see that when the Lord Jesus Christ gave gifts unto men in verse 8, that the gifts he gave, verse 11, are some apostles and some prophets and some evangelists and some pastors and teachers. and then verse 12, for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ. Verse 11 lines up with John chapter 3. Verse 12 lines up with John chapter 4. You see, any one of the saints can go out and witness to any one of the Samaritans, because they're commoners dealing with commoners. But every so often you are going to get a real steeped in religion person who spent 20 or 30 years that you're going to have to pass off to one of your pastors or teachers or evangelists to deal with them. But that's the exception. That's not the rule. The simplicity is most of the folks out there are simple. They're just sheep. And so God sends us out to help and guide them to the right shepherd. All right. That's it.