The Conscience and the Heart: John 4

John 4:16‑19  •  2 min. read  •  grade level: 5
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OH 4{How the Lord shows in John 4, that conscience is the inlet to intelligence in divine things and thus the heart becomes engaged. Rejected and driven out from Judea, He sat weary on the well of Sychar. A woman lonely (it was not the hour when women go forth to draw water) and weary with sin, evidently a strong and ardent nature that had sought happiness with eager pursuit, and sunk through it into sin, and had not found rest to her spirit (how many such there are in the world!) dragged on a life of toil, and in the midst of it, thought sometimes on Gerizim and Jerusalem, and knew there was a Messiah to come. There might be happiness and rest somewhere; she had none. Toil and weariness she had, and the last, evidently in spirit as well as body. Jesus had toil and weariness too, but through love, not through sin, save the sin of others, and this could not weary love, and He knew where rest was-He was it. The Son of God, the judge of all, had, humanly speaking, put Himself in a position where He was debtor to this woman for a drink of cold water. But He soon draws her out; He speaks of the gift of God, of a well of water springing up into everlasting life. All was dark in the Samaritan woman's mind. She moved in the circle of her own weariness; thus she felt the fruit of her sin and toil after happiness, and with all the moving within that predominated and filled her mind; for in fact, what had she else? What does the Lord do? "Go call thy husband and come hither." "I have no husband." "Thou hast well said," replied the Lord, "I have no husband; thou hast had five husbands; and he whom thou now hast is not thy husband: in that speakest thou truly."
Now, a ray of light breaks in, “Sir, I perceive that thou art a prophet." The word of God by the Lord had divine authority in her heart, because it has reached her conscience. She has found a man who has told her all that ever she did. Who knew that? The prophet's words had divine authority. Yet she does not yet get to wells of water. The divine communications made to her were quite unintelligible; but much was done. He who knew all her life, all her sin, had been sitting in grace by her, willing to be helped by her. Grace was there as well as truth. She had found the Christ, and leaves her water-pot and her care with it, and becomes a messenger of that which is good news for all. Gerizim and Jerusalem are all alike, and alike nothing. The Father is seeking worshippers in spirit and in truth.-( Extracted.)