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at all in my mind as I read my
Bible that God is interested in individuals. God is interested
in people. And whenever you look at the
Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John, you will discover that
so often the Gospel writers give detailed accounts of the Son
of God coming face to face with individuals, ordinary people. Maybe people that were very religious
or maybe people that were not religious at all. Maybe people
who had glaringly obvious needs in their lives and others perhaps
who could cover up the needs and the emptiness and the guilt
and the loneliness within. And if ever there was an account
in the Bible that illustrates the truth, that our Savior is
interested in individuals, it's this account given here in John's
Gospel chapter 4. It says in verse number 4 that
the Lord must needs go through Samaria. Now that was not a geographical
necessity. That wasn't because the road
that He was traveling passed through Samaria or He had to
get to Samaria in order to get to another city or another village. He needed to go through Samaria
because the Lord knew that in that city there was a woman who
had good, great needs in her life. And so He went out of His
normal route to meet this woman and to meet her at the point
of need. And it's wonderful tonight that
all of these years and generations later, in 2022, in this very
city of Lisbon and in all of the villages and hamlets and
outlying areas and communities that Jesus Christ is still meeting
people at the point of need. Jesus Christ our Lord is still
changing lives, still bringing people to Himself and giving
people a purpose worth living for. And it's our prayer that
tonight in this meeting And God willing, tomorrow night and in
the remainder of this week and then next week, God willing as
well, that God will meet individuals on the road of life and bring
them to Himself. And it may be tonight that you're
such an individual. Can I tell you right at the start
of this service that God loves you. Can I tell you tonight right
now that Jesus Christ cares for you and He's able to meet you
tonight, and I pray that your heart will be opened and that
you will respond to the gospel of redeeming grace. Tonight as
we think for a few moments about this woman of Samaria, I want
you to consider four great things. Four great things about the woman
at the well. The first thing that I think
we can learn about this woman is this. The first great thing
is that this woman had great notoriety. This lady had great
notoriety. Now the word notorious, it means
to be famous, it means to be well-known, perhaps for all of
the wrong reasons. And here's a woman who had got
great notoriety. You say, well, how do you know
that this woman had great notoriety? Well, it says in verse number
four, he must needs go through Samaria. Then in verse number
six, Jacob's well was there. Jesus, therefore, being wearied
with his journey, and that shows us the humanity of our Lord Jesus
Christ, that he's touched with the feelings of our infirmities.
He knows what it is to be tired. He knows what it is to be hungry.
He knows what it is to be weary. He knows what it is to be lonely.
He knows what it is to suffer pain. And being reared with his
journey, he sat down at the well, and the Bible says it was about
the sixth hour. Now, the sixth hour was about
midday, noontime. And nobody ever went to the well
at the sixth hour. Everybody who went to draw water
either went first thing in the morning before the sun had risen
to its height and it was still in the cool of the morning hours
and the dew was on the ground and they congregated there and
they drew their water. Or if they didn't go first thing
in the morning, they might have gone last thing in the evening
to draw their water for the day that was to follow. Their drinking
water, their cooking water, their washing water. But nobody would
have gone to the well at the sixth hour to draw water. It
was too hot. It was too warm. But the Lord
went there at the sixth hour because He knew that every day,
whenever the sun was out at Zenith, that there was a poor woman.
who went to that well every day to draw water, and it's my conviction
that the reason she went at the sixth hour was because she did
not really enjoy facing people. She didn't like to meet her neighbors,
she didn't like to meet the people that lived in her locality, because
everybody knew the type of life that this woman was living. And
it seems that this woman was ashamed of her life, and she
couldn't really look people in the face. She didn't like to
meet people. She just wanted to keep herself
to herself because she had great notoriety. It seems in verse
27 that even the disciples knew something about this woman because
it says in verse 27 that they marveled. They marveled that
he talked with the woman. They couldn't understand why
the Son of God would sit on that well and spend time in conversation
with this woman who had great notoriety. I believe that she
was known to men. People knew who she was and people
knew what she was. In fact, it says in verse number
18 that this woman previously had five husbands. So she had
many in-laws living in that locality. And all of her marriages had
ended in failure and ended in shame. And everybody knew that
this woman had made a real mess, a real mess of her life. She
was known to men. She had great notoriety. And
it may be tonight that in your life you find it difficult to
face people. It may be that in your life you
would rather just stay at home and not go out and not mingle
with people and not meet people. And maybe it's because of loneliness
in your life. Maybe it's because of disappointment.
Maybe it's because of shame. Maybe it's because of guilt.
Maybe it's because of disgrace. And people maybe know you tonight.
Maybe your family have given up on you. Maybe your friends
have let you down, and you find yourself a little bit like this
woman, just wondering, is there anybody that I can really trust?
Is there anybody that really cares about me? Is there anybody
that really thinks about me or wants to know how I'm doing?
This woman was known to man, but you know, more than that,
she was known to Jesus Christ. George Whitefield, the great
evangelist, once said, Jesus Christ, will save the devil's
castaways. And here's a woman who needs
the Lord, and she was known to men, but more importantly, she
was known to the Lord. The Lord knew who she was. The
Lord knew what she was. The Lord knew how she was, and
the Lord knew exactly where she was, and nobody knew this woman
as well as the Savior did. He knew absolutely everything
that there was to know about her, and He knows everything
that there is to know about us. He knows our likes and our dislikes. He knows our joys and our disappointments. He knows our hopes and our dreams
and our aspirations. He knows our struggles. He knows
our trials. He knows the burdens that we
carry. He knows all about the skeletons in the closet, the
things that we have tried to cover up. He knows about the
sleepless nights. He knows about the dissatisfaction
and the lack of peace within our hearts. He knows all about
our past and all about our sin, and yet he loves us. The hymn
writer said, he knew me, and yet he loved me. I wonder tonight how it is with
you. Can I ask you tonight, how are you? How are you really? You know, we live in a culture
and a society where we put a smile on our face and somebody says,
how are you? And we smile and we say we're
fine. But very often, the opposite
is the case. It's like that advertisement,
remember, that used to be on television and the young lad
has been out with his mates in the town and they're sitting
in the back of a taxi. And it's all laughter and smiles,
and he bids them goodnight, and then he goes into his home, and
he opens the door, and he goes up to the bedroom, and then into
the bathroom, and he takes off the mask, and he's miserable,
and there's this loneliness inside. One famous American psychologist,
Carl Jung, said that loneliness is the central neurosis in society. And I believe that this woman,
with all of her failed relationships, was lonely inside. And maybe
tonight you're lonely and you realize that I need something.
I need a Savior. Jesus Christ knows all about
us. This woman had great notoriety. This woman, secondly, had great
needs. The Bible says the Lord must
needs pass through Samaria. And that need was to facilitate
the needs that this particular woman had. You know, we live
in a world that is very needy. The Bible says that we are poor
and needy. And yet the Lord thinketh upon
us. And there are many things that
we need in life. We need bread upon our tables.
We need a roof over our heads. We need family. We need friends.
But man's greatest need is not financial, not social, not physical. Man's greatest need is spiritual,
and this woman had great spiritual needs in her lives. In fact,
the Bible says in Acts 4.12 that we need to be saved. Neither
is there salvation in any other, for there is none other name
under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved. And I trust tonight that you'll
understand some of those fundamental things that are in the gospel,
that you need the Lord. that you need God's salvation
and that Jesus Christ is able to meet you at the point of need.
Now, as I look at this woman, I see some of the great needs
in her life. Verse number seven would indicate
that this woman was hungry or she was thirsty. We might say
that she was longing. There cometh a woman of Samaria
to draw water. Now, she was looking for something.
She was looking for water. But I believe her physical thirst
was illustrative of that hunger and that thirst inside. And we
are all born into this world of ours, this lost and broken
world with a hunger and with a thirst. And some of the famous
rock stars and pop stars over the years have illustrated that
in the songs that they sing. I still haven't found what I'm
looking for. Everybody's got a hungry heart.
I can't get no satisfaction. And all of those things illustrate
that this woman had a longing, a longing in her heart, and the
history of the human race is a history of hunger. of thirst, of looking for something,
man is always trying to discover the next big thing. I remember
reading in the National Geographic years ago, Edmund Hillary relating
how he felt whenever he ascended to be the top man to ascend Mount
Everest. And they said, how did you feel
whenever you were the first man to stand on the roof of the world?
He said, for a few moments there was this amazing feeling of elation
and achievement. He said it lasted for about five
minutes, and then I realized that I would have to come down
again. It didn't meet that longing in his heart. And it may be that
you're here this evening and you would acknowledge that you're
looking for something, you're longing for something, there's
this hunger in your heart, this woman was longing. I would say
as well that this woman was lonely. We have mentioned already that
it was the sixth hour, and it says that the Savior went and
He sat thus in the well. It was the sixth hour, and there
was nobody there, and then this woman came along, and she was
there, and she came along on her own, and she had this awful
sense of loneliness in her heart. Jesus Christ, our Lord, understands
loneliness. The Bible says that He is touched
with the feelings of our infirmities. He was in all points tempted
like as we are, yet without sin, and He knows what it is to be
lonely. You maybe say tonight, nobody understands me. Nobody
knows how I feel. Nobody really cares, or nobody
can identify with me. Nobody understands me, I tell
you tonight, Jesus Christ. He understands us better than
we understand ourselves. He knows all things, but the
Scripture says He was at all points tempted like as we are.
And whenever they took the Son of God and they nailed Him to
that cross 2,000 years ago, the Bible again makes mention of
the sixth hour. And it says from the sixth hour
to the ninth hour for three hours there was darkness over all the
earth. And during the midst of that impenetrable darkness, the
Lord Jesus Christ cried out, My God, my God, why hast thou
forsaken me? He became sin for us upon the
cross. And as the hymn writer said,
how deep the Father's love for us, how vast beyond all measure
that He should give His only Son to make a righteous treasure.
How deep the pain of searing loss. The Father turns His face
away as wounds which mar the chosen one bring many sons to
glory. The Lord knows tonight that you're
longing. The Lord knows tonight that you're
lonely. We could say as well that this
woman was licentious. She had five husbands and now
she was living with a man who was not her husband at all. And
her life was a life of immorality presently. And she was trying
to find satisfaction in horizontal and physical relationships, but
she could never, never find anyone that would be able to satisfy
her. People went with her for all
the wrong reasons, but she knew in her heart that nobody really
loves me, nobody really cares for me. Not only was she longing
and lonely and licentious, but simply she was lost. In verse
22, the Lord said to her, ye worship ye know not what. She
talked a little bitter about her religion, but the Lord says,
you don't know who you're worshiping. She was cut off from God, separated
from God because of sin. And the Bible says we're all
the same. We are all like an unclean thing. And all our righteousness is
not our sins, our righteousness is, the Bible says, are as filthy
rags. And yet the Son of God has come
to seek and to save that which was lost. But you know something? While she was longing, and while
she was lonely, and while she was licentious, and while she
was lost, I tell you something, this woman was loved. She had
never really experienced love before. But the day she met the
Savior, she really began to understand the greatness and the majesty
and the wideness and the length and the breadth and the height
of God's great love. It's lovely to know that somebody
loves you, but I tell you tonight there's no love in all the world
like the love of Jesus Christ. The hymn writer put it well,
the love of God is greater far than tongue or pen could ever
tell. It reaches to the furthest star that stoops to the gates
of hell. Could we with ink the ocean fill?
And were the skies of parchment made, were every stalk on earth
a quill, and every man a scribe by trade to write the love of
God above would drain the ocean dry, nor could the scroll contain
the whole, though stretched from sky to sky, for God so loved
the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever
believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. Some
of the older saints tonight I know in this meeting sat under the
ministry of Pastor Willie Mullen. What a remarkable testimony he
had, born into a home in Newtownards. His mother didn't have very much,
and she had lots of children to look after. And he says, whenever
we went to bed at night, we all slept in the same bed, and it
was all feet and faces as you looked into that little bed.
Face and then feet, and a face and more feet as we were crammed
into that bed like sardines. But he says, mum used to pray
for us every night and she would pray, Lord, save my boys and
save my girls. And Lord, don't forget about
Willie. He was the youngest. Lord, save
him and make him a man of God someday. Whenever Willie Mullen
was in his teens, he went into a public house. He had his first
drink. He'd come out drunk and he was
on the road to becoming an alcoholic. And for a number of years, he
spent his life living in derelict houses around about the county
down in Newtonards area. sleeping outside sometimes under
hedgerows. His life was a mess. He found
himself in the group of some men who were planning robberies
in different homes in the area. And they one day sent them on
a reconnaissance mission to spy out a certain home that they
wanted to burgle. And yet a few weeks before that,
he had sat on a gospel mission just like this. And old Pastor
Tucker from the Temple Moore Hall in Belfast had talked about
the coming again of Jesus Christ and the great day of God's wrath.
Willie Mullen said, I sat at the back of that meeting and
I thought that the old preacher was crazy and he never thought
about it again until walking down the road to plan a robbery.
And all of a sudden this question came into his mind, what about
this great day of God's wrath? And all of a sudden he came under
what Joanne talked about, conviction of sin, I'm lost. And he was
on his own, and he was walking down that road in fear now and
trembling, and he stepped off the road and into a field, and
he took off his tweed cap, and he said, I screwed it into a
rope, and I was thinking about this great day of God's wrath,
and here I am. And if Jesus Christ comes back
again, I'm not ready, living the way that I've lived. And
then all of a sudden, the words of his mother came back to his
ears. Willie, never forget that God loves you. And all of a sudden,
he realized that he didn't need to be lost, and he realized that
the Savior had died upon the cross. And simply in childlike
faith, he prayed in that faith, Lord, if you'll take me now,
I'm coming to you, and I'm going to give you my life. And that
changed everything in a moment of time, because he realized
that there was somebody in heaven, a man in the glory that loved
him. Oh, tonight, your love, this
woman had great notoriety. This woman had great needs. We
might as well say that this woman had great notions. My wife often
says to me, you know, that's just an old stupid notion that
you've took. I tell you, I often, she says,
you know, you live in the past. You're the most nostalgic person
I know. I never threw out old magazines or comics or toys. And mum's heart's broke, the
attic at home, the old home, full of bicycles, BMX bikes. skateboards, Action Man, Star
Wars, all of these old toys because I'm just nostalgic. And sometimes
I say, I'd love to buy a new skateboard or a new... She says,
that's just a notion. You'll get over that soon enough.
You know what a notion is? It's to have a vague or an imperfect
conception or idea of something. A fanciful or a foolish idea. And whenever it comes to the
things of God and religious things, we live in a society where people
have all sorts of notions. And this woman had great notions
about the things of God. She was taken up with all of
these notions about God and about salvation and about heaven and
about worship, and the Lord was going to put her right. I think
the first notion she had was about her ancestry. In verse
12 and in verse 20, she talks about our father, Jacob, and
then she talks again about her fathers. the family religion,
you see. This is the religion that I was
born into. This is what I was brought up
to believe, our Father Jacob, and so it goes on. And many people
in Northern Ireland have a lot of confidence in the family or
the religion that they were born into. It might be Protestant,
it might be Catholic, it might be Orthodox, it might be some
other group. It might be Baptist, Presbyterian,
Methodist, Free Presbyterian, Gospel Hall, Elam. And many people
have the notion, the idea that because I was born into a religious
group, then everything must be well. But the Bible says it's
as many as received Christ, as many as received Him. To them
gave He power to become the sons of God, which were born not of
the flesh nor of the will of man, but born of God. And then
great notions about antiquity. In verse 12, she talks about
this great well that they have. Our father Jacob gave us this
well, and she was really proud of this well. It wasn't a recently
dug well. It was one of the oldest wells
in the locality. And Jacob had given them this
well, and this well for her had become something of a relic.
And again, people have all sorts of notions about relics. They
maybe have a cross hanging around their neck, or a cross stuck
into their ear, or a cross up in their home, or maybe a big
family Bible. I can remember knocking doors
in the short strand area of Belfast a good number of years ago, and
really enjoyed speaking to the people down there. And I met
so many people, and you said, I'm here to talk to you about
the Bible. They say, now we've got a Bible
in the house. And it stays upstairs in a special
box on top of the wardrobe. And we bring it out sometimes,
but we don't let the kids get near it. Don't want it to get
damaged or dirty. And I often ask them, did you
ever read the Bible? Oh, no, no, no. We keep it very
special, but we have it in the house. And for them, it was just
like a good luck charm. Just something that was antiquated. But they never really read it.
And then she was taken up as well with activity. The Lord
speaks about her drawing the water, helping others, which
is a lovely thing. She talks about worship in verse
number 22, and she did worship, and she did work. But the problem
was she didn't know the Lord. She didn't know her sins forgiven. Can I ask you tonight, is that
you? Maybe very religious. taken up with your church, and
taken up with your religion, and taken up with all of the
antiquity that goes along with it, may be very active in your
church as well. I remember speaking at a little
church in Belfast as a Bible college student, and the church
at the time was vacant, and there was this lovely wee lady, and
she attended church twice in the Sunday. She attended the
prayer meetings before the services. She attended the midweek Bible
study. I After the service was over, she'd go around and she
would gather up the hymn books and put them in a bookcase at
the front of the church. And my, she was such an encouragement.
She used to say, thank you for coming. I really enjoyed you.
And all there was, she was such an encouragement. And one day
standing in the church car park, I was convinced that this was
one of the most godly women in the church. And then out of the
blue, she just looked me in the eye and just said, I'm not saved,
you know. And I could hardly believe it, and I said to her,
well, tell me, why are you not saved? And she just began to
cry, and she said, I don't know. I don't know. Well, would you not come to Christ
now? And she put her small hand on
my shoulder, and she said, she just said, thank you, son. And
off she went. And I think that was the last
time he ever saw that wee woman. She would have put many a Christian
to shame with the way that she was living. But she didn't really
know the Lord. Plenty of activity, plenty of
ancestry, plenty of antiquity, but the problem was no authenticity. She didn't have a real authentic
relationship with Jesus Christ. And the woman at the well was
the same. I wonder tonight, do you have an authentic relationship
with the Son of God? Do you know God tonight? I'm
not asking you if you're religious or you go to church on Sunday.
All of those things have their place. But whenever the rubber
hits the road, the most important thing is, do I really know God?
Do I know Christ as my Savior? Are my sins forgiven? Am I right
for heaven? Am I right for home? One last
great thing about the woman at the well. She had great notoriety. She had great needs. She had
great notions. But praise God, she heard great
news. You know the word gospel, it
simply means good news. Whenever the angels appear to
the shepherds at Bethlehem and says, we bring you good tidings
of great joy, the words there, good tidings, are the same words
that are translated gospel in other places in Scripture. And
I want tonight to leave you at the closing moments of this meeting
with some good news. The Lord came to where she was. She didn't go looking for Him,
but the Lord came looking for her. And the Lord knew exactly
where to find her. And maybe tonight you're here
in this meeting, and the Lord has brought you here. The Lord
knows that He'll find you here under the sound of God's Word
with all of your great need. And the Lord can meet you at
the point of need. In verse 26, As the Savior was speaking to
her in verse 25, she spoke about the coming of the Messiah, the
coming of the Christ, and the Lord said unto her, I that speak
unto thee, and he, I'm the Messiah. I'm the Christ, he said. I'm
the one that you're looking for. You've been looking for the Messiah,
the Christ, waiting all these years, and here I am with your
Savior, face to face with the Messiah. Maybe it didn't happen
the way that she expected. Maybe she was expecting the Messiah
to come with pomp and ceremony and a large cavalcade of people
with Him and trumpets blowing before Him, but the Lord just
came in meekness and in humility and came to where she was, and
she realized later on that this truly is the Son of God. And
then she understood something of the freeness of salvation.
Verse number 10, if thou knewest the gift of God, Dear friends,
tonight the Bible says that God's salvation is a gift. The wages
of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life. For God so loved the world that
He gave. I wonder tonight, will you receive
the gift? Will you receive Christ as your Savior and as your Lord? And then something else, great
news that she heard was not just about the identity of the Messiah,
not just about the freeness of the gift of God's salvation,
but also the scope of the invitation. Verse 14, but whosoever drinketh
of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst, whosoever. So many times in the Word of
God we have that word, whosoever. For whosoever shall call upon
the name of the Lord shall be saved. For God so loved the world
that He gave His only begotten Son that that whosoever, it's
broad, it's wide, it's liberal, and it includes you tonight.
You can be part of that whosoever if you come to Christ tonight.
as your Savior. What a wonderful, wonderful Savior. What a wonderful, wonderful gospel. You see the change in this woman's
life in verse 29, she went back into her city and now she can
face people. Now she can talk to people. Now
she's no longer ashamed because her past has been forgiven. She
has found the Savior. She's trusted in the Lord. Her
life has been changed and transformed. And she goes out and she simply
says to others, come. Come and see a man which told
me all that I ever did is not this, the Christ. She wanted
others to come as well. She discovered that the Lord
Jesus Christ is all-wise, all-knowing, full of grace, but He's also
affable. He's kind. He's welcoming. And
she knew that if others come, they can trust in Him as well.
And she simply said, come and see a man. And that's what I'm
asking you to do tonight in this mission, in this first meeting. I'm asking you to come. Jesus
Christ himself invites you to come. He said, come unto me,
all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. You maybe say tonight, well,
how do I come? I can identify with so many things
that this woman experienced in her life, and I want the Savior,
but how do I come? You just come as you are. You
come in simple, childlike faith. You come as a sinner to Jesus.
You come believing. You come trusting. You come confessing. As one old preacher put it, you
just turn and you trust. Turn from your sin and turn from
yourself and turn from any thought of saving yourself and trust,
trust in this wonderful Savior. I trust that you'll come tonight
and experience the wonder and the joy of sins forgiven, and
the Lord will bless you. for doing that. You know, just
up at the gates there, there's a little gatehouse. The back
door of that gatehouse will be open every night. And if you
want to speak to myself or somebody else here, we can have that little
room. It'll be nice and quiet and just
talk together about the things of God. I've got some little
booklets here as well. There's one called, A New Beginning.
And then there's this old one, What Must I Do To Be Saved? If you would like a little booklet,
maybe you're timid, you're shy, you don't want to You don't want
to annoy anybody, you don't want to speak to anybody, but you
would like a little booklet to take home with you. You can ask
me for one, I'll be at the door. And if you want to speak to me,
just take me by the hand. I'll tell you I'm easy to talk
to. And whatever you talk to me about, it'll be in confidence.
But friends, listen, don't leave without the Lord. Four great
things about the woman at the well. Great notoriety, great
needs, great notions, but she heard great news. the Son of
God came to seek her and find her and save her.
Great Things About the Woman at the Well
Series Christ is the Answer
| Sermon ID | 91122112083734 |
| Duration | 32:31 |
| Date | |
| Category | Special Meeting |
| Language | English |
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