Address—C. Hendricks
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John's Gospel in chapter 4, John 4, verse one.
When therefore the Lord knew how the Pharisees had heard?
That Jesus made and baptized more the disciples than John.
Though Jesus himself baptized not but his disciples.
He left Judea 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 6th 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 the 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?
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, but I thirst not, neither come hit her to draw. Jesus saith unto her, Go call thy husband, and come hit her.
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 hast is not thy husband in that setst 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. The woman saith unto him, I know that Messiahs 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. And upon this came his disciples in marvel, that he talked with the woman, yet no man said, What seekest thou, or why talkest thou with her?
The woman then left her water pot.
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 to Christ? Then they went out of the city, and came unto him. In the meanwhile his disciples prayed him, saying, Master, eat.
But he said unto them, I have meat to eat, that ye know not of. Therefore, said the disciples, one to another, hath any man brought him aught to eat?
Jesus saith unto them, My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work.
Say not she, there are yet four months, and then cometh harvest. Behold, I say unto you, lift up your eyes and look on the fields, for they are white already to harvest.
And he that reapeth receiveth wages, and gathereth fruit unto life eternal, that both he that soweth and he that reapeth may rejoice together. And herein is that saying true. 1 soweth, and another weepeth. I sent you to reap that whereon ye bestowed no labour, other men laboured, and ye are entered into their labours. And many of the Samaritans of that city believed on him for the same of the woman which testified.
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He told me all that ever I did. So when the Samaritans were come unto him, they besought him that he would tarry with them. And he abode there two days, and many more believed because of his own word, and said unto the woman, Now we believe not because of thy saying, for we have heard him ourselves, and know that this is indeed the Christ.
The savior of the world.
The Samaritans were a.
A mixed breed.
They were.
Made-up of.
Marriages between Jews and Gentiles.
And they were looked down upon by the Jews.
They despise them.
And today Samaria lay between Judea, which was in the southern part of the land, and in Samaria, and then there was Galilee in the northern part of the land.
Now usually when a Jew would travel up to Galilee, he would go around Samaria. He would not go through it.
Because of the intense religious feeling.
That existed.
You remember that in the Old Testament?
There was division.
The time of Rehoboam, Solomon's son.
And God took because of the unfaithfulness of Solomon.
In allowing his wives to turn away his heart to other gods.
God took ten of the kingdoms and he told Solomon he was going to do that 10 of the 12 Kingdoms, and he took them away from his son Rehoboam and gave them to Jeroboam.
And Jeroboam became the leader of the 10 tribes.
Which is in the mighty prophets often called Ephraim. Ephraim was the the head tribe of the 10 and then the 2 tribes Judah and Benjamin that were left under Rehoboam's.
They remained at Jerusalem.
And so there were these, there was this division in Israel, the 10 tribes under Jeroboam, the 2 tribes under Rehoboam.
And there was intense feeling, religious feeling.
Between them.
And then later, those of the 10 tribes, they got mixed up with the Gentiles.
And it was a mixture.
And the Jews looked upon them with disdain.
Well, that's a little bit of the background.
The Lord Jesus it says in verse three he left Judea.
And departed again into Galilee. So he leaves the southern part of the land Judean. He goes up to Galilee. He went through Samaria.
It says he must needs go through Samaria. Now I had just said that Jews would would go around it. They take the long way around so that they wouldn't have to go through Samaria. But it says he must needs go through Samaria. He must go through Samaria. Why? Why that must it wasn't a physical need. It wasn't an essential thing that he that he go that way, but it was it was a spiritual need. There was someone there and of course being who he.
Because he knew who he was going to meet there.
And he had to go through Samaria to to meet that one soul.
That one soul whom that you, naturally speaking, would look down upon with disgust.
They wouldn't give a woman of that kind. First of all, she was a Samaritan and then she was an immoral woman of the lowest caste of society.
A woman that had had five husbands and was living with a man that was not her husband living in sin.
That's the kind of a of a woman that the Lord met there in Samaria. A legal mind like the Jew had wouldn't give that kind of a person the time of day.
Wouldn't give any consideration to such.
Would be very pleased if they would perish. You remember Jonah in the Old Testament when God showed mercy to Nineveh. Spared them, did not judge them.
Jonah was unhappy. He was a strict Jew and he wanted to see Nineveh destroyed.
Well, the the heart of man.
There's no hatred like religious hatred. And this is the scene, this is the setting. It says he must needs go through Samaria.
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The Lord Jesus was by nature a Jew, and it says Then cometh ye to a city of Samaria, verse 5.
Which is called psychar.
Near to the parcel of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. So there's Old Testament history connected with this place and this woman.
Refers to that a little bit later in the conversation.
And it says now Jacob's well was there.
Jesus therefore being wearied with his journey.
There you see his true humanity coming out. He was a true man. He traversed the many miles between the northern part of the Kingdom and the southern.
And he was worried with his journey. He sat in that wearied condition on the well.
And it was about the 6th hour. It was the time of day when they don't normally come out to draw water.
And this woman came out because she of her reputation. She didn't want to meet with people she didn't want anyone else to have to deal with.
So there cometh the woman of Samaria had to draw water.
Jesus saith unto her. What a tremendous statement. He says to her, Give me to drink.
He asks. It's something that you would never stoop to. Never. He would never condescend to asking a favor of a despised Samaritan.
Especially one of the character that she was.
But the Lord did.
We we know. We talk so much about grace and we know so little about it.
We know, we see in the Lord Jesus how low it can go.
To reach the very vilest, the most undeserving.
But we have such by nature, we have such high thoughts of ourselves that we are superior and a cut above these, these nothings, these, these despised Samaritans. You remember the heresy. God said, I thank thee, Father, that I'm not like other men. I thank you, O God, that I'm not like other men. Fast twice in the week.
Pay my tithes do this and do that, and the publican would not so much as lift his eyes to heaven, but he smote upon his breast, and said, God, be merciful to me the Sinner, the Samaritan was regarded.
Something like that by the Jew. The Jew hated publicans. They were Jews that were in the service of Rome to gather taxes from the Jewish people for the Roman government.
And the Jews despised them for that. Well, the Samaritans were even lower than that in their estimation. And so the Lord Jesus in his matchless grace.
He asks of this woman, give me to drink. As you read the account, you never read that he got that drink.
Never read that he got that drink of water.
He got another drink, though.
He got another drink. It was a spiritual one.
And he was satisfied.
By the spiritual food that he received when he led that that lost soul to himself.
Give me to Drake.
For his disciples were gone away into the city to buy meat, so it was a very opportune time to to meet with her alone.
When you really want to deal with the soul, you have to get along with them. Very hard to deal with someone in a crowd. Very hard to deal with someone when there are other people around.
The enemy can always use someone else to.
Upset that little, that little time, but when you're all alone, as the Lord was here, he was all alone with this woman and he begins the conversation. I'm sure she wouldn't have dared to have spoken to him first.
You could see he was a Jew.
And the Jews don't talk to the Samaritans. So it startled her no doubt it it arrested her attention immediately when when he says give me to drink for his disciples were gone away to buy.
Meet in the city, and then say it, 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 Samaritan, he initiated this conversation. He he spoke first.
And asked her for a favor, and she says the Jews don't have dealings with the Samaritans. I don't understand this. And the Lord says to again awaken her interest even more.
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To draw out her heart.
For she had, she had to have all those Samaritan prejudices and biases that filled her soul.
She being a Samaritan and he a Jew, there was this, this huge wall that was between them.
And he had to break that down. Jesus answered and said, If thou knewest the gift of God.
Oh, if you only knew God as a giver, not the not the God that the the Jew thought of as the one that was requiring obedience from man based upon the 10 commandments.
But if thou knewest the gift of God, the grace of God, the giving of God.
And who it is that saith to thee? Give me to drink. Oh, if you only knew who you were talking, If you only knew, thou wouldst have asked of him.
And he would have given the living water.
Stillwater in Scripture.
Is figurative of the Word of God.
We're born of water and of the Spirit, the water of the Word.
But living water, flowing water, running water is typical of the Spirit of God.
Who is an internal source of refreshment and blessing in the in the in the soul of the believer. Thou wouldst have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water. All he asked of this woman was a drink of water would have been Stillwater that she brought up. At least I would have given you living water.
And the woman saith unto him, Sir, thou hast nothing to draw.
Which he didn't know what he was talking about. Neither did Nicodemus in the previous chapter when he said except a man be born again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God. And Nicodemus said how can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter the second time into his mother's womb and be born?
He didn't understand the Lord's words. She didn't understand his words either. They were on a spiritual level.
And so he teaches her further.
From whence then hast thou that living water?
The well is deep, you don't have anything to draw with.
I thought greater than our father Jacob, which gave us the well, and drank thereof himself and his children in his cattle. Now she has been talking about a well.
A well where you have to dip down and and draw it up. Draw it up the water from the bottom.
The Lord uses a different word.
Jesus answered and said unto her, Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again.
This water, whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again. That drink I just took does not, will not satisfy me 3 hours from now, just temporary. Whosoever drinketh of this water, water that was in that well shall thirst again. But whosoever drinketh, he says of the water that I shall give him.
So never thirst, never thirst again. A permanent, abiding, internal and eternal source of satisfaction and joy to the soul.
That's what he offers, but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a fountain of water. It's a different word. It's not just a well that you have to.
Dip up from but it springs up a springing fountain.
Springing up into everlasting life.
An internal source of joy and satisfaction to the soul, he says. That's the kind of water I will give. He was referring to the Holy Spirit.
Whom he would give.
To be the source of joy, refreshment and the power of worship for the Christian. Now he has really gotten her attention. She says to him, Sir, give me this water that I thirst not neither come hit her to draw ** *** wanted this water. She wanted to find a a source that would satisfy her forever. She had tried she had had five men, 5 husbands.
They didn't satisfy. She was living with a man.
At that time, that wasn't her husband, and she still was not satisfied. She had tried the broken cisterns of this world. They don't satisfy.
And the Lord says, I'll give you a drink that you'll never have to thirst again. You'll be satisfied.
Well, he awakens her desire after this water.
By his grace.
But the conscience must be reached if the soul is going to be blessed.
And so he asked her this question. Go call thy husband.
And come hit her. He asked her to call her husband.
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And the woman answered and said.
I have no husband.
Technically, she was telling the truth.
But she wasn't really.
And the Lord exposes it all. Jesus said unto her, Thou hast well said, I have no husband, for thou hast had five husbands.
And he whom thou hast is not thy husband. In that sets thou truly so. In just a simple statement, he lays bare the truth of it all. He lets her know I know all about you.
And as she left his company.
A short time later and went into the city.
As a an evangelist.
Come see a man that told me all things that ever I did is not this to Christ. As she went away from him, she could say to herself, he offered me living water and he knew all about me. He knew everything I'd ever done. He knew what a Sinner I was. I am and he offered me living water.
God knows all about you, He knows everything you've ever done, He knows every sin you've ever committed. He knows every thought you've ever had. He knows you're down sitting and you're uprising. You understand your thoughts are far off. There's the darkness and the light are both alike to Him. You can't hide from His presence. You can't get away from Him. The Word of God is sharper than any 2 edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, both of the joints and marrows, and a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.
Knows your very thoughts. You cannot even think of thought, but he knows it all together. And yet.
He offers us living water.
Everyone just as he did to this woman. And the woman saith unto him, verse 19 Sir, I perceive that thou art a prophet. You know all about me. You must be a prophet. And then she turns religious. I used to preach on Skid Row in Chicago for years as a young man.
And it's amazing how religious these Skid Row bums can be.
And and what kind of a background they have. Some of them have even come from Christian homes. Very sad. And they can quote the Bible to you.
One came up to me and he asked me to give him some money.
And I hesitated. He said, come on, you're a Christian and the Bible says you're supposed to give to him that asketh of thee they know.
Some of those things I said, the Bible also says that if you will not work, neither should you eat. Get a job. So she turns religious.
I perceive thou art a prophet. Our fathers worshipped in this mountain, and ye say, ye Jews say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship. She tries to engage him into a controversial religious subject. Then what does the Lord say? He passes over Jerusalem, and he passes over Samaria. And he says, Woman, believe me, the hour cometh when ye shall neither in this mountain Samaria, nor yet at Jerusalem, which the Jews boasted in.
Worship the Father. Nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father.
He worshipped, ye know not what.
So he tells her, first of all, there's an hour coming when neither the Samaritan worship nor the Jerusalem worship would stand.
That would be introduced something altogether brand new. The hour cometh when you shall neither in this mountain nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father.
And there is a new thought. Worship the Father.
Worship the Father. The Jews didn't worship the Father. Certainly the Samaritans didn't worship the Father. Neither of them worship the Father. Oh, he was the Father, but they did not worship him as the Father. They did not know him as the Father. They knew him as Jehovah. They knew him as Elohim.
They knew him as the Almighty.
As the everlasting God.
The I am.
And these various titles that he takes in the Old Testament.
They didn't know him as Father. That's Christian truth, he says. The hour is coming when you won't worship the true God in this place or in this place, Samaria or Jerusalem. But.
You'll worship the Father.
And he doesn't say where that place would be either.
He says ye worship you Samaritans, ye worship you know not what? Just one sentence. And he lets her know God never owned Samaria. He never owned those.
2 tables, those two altars that Jeroboam set up, one at Dan, the northern part of the land, one at Bethel, the southern part of the land. He said God doesn't never own those you worship. You know, not what we know what we worship, we Jews, for salvation is of the Jews. He lets her know that God did recognize Jerusalem, but never Samaria.
But he doesn't engage in an argument over it. And then he goes on to the new thing that he was about to introduce Christianity. The hour cometh.
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And now is.
Now is in the person of the one that was speaking to her. He was the one that was going to introduce it. He was that which was from the beginning. He was the beginning of the new order of things.
When the true worshippers.
Shall worship the Father in spirit.
And in truth.
For the Father seeketh such to worship him.
The Jews didn't worship God in spirit.
They worshipped him by symbols.
And stringed instruments.
They they worshiped him.
By musical instruments.
A musical instrument has no soul. It has no spirit.
It has no feeling, it is an inanimate thing, and it can be played and made to sound so sweetly to our natural ears by an unsafe person too. There's nothing spiritual about it. The same instrument can play the trashiest, profanest kind of music as can play the sweetest hymns. The same instrument and the same.
Musician can do both. That's not the way God is worshipped in this this hour that's coming. He says the way he's going to be worshiped in this hour that's coming is according to his being a spirit. God is a spirit he's got. He must be worshipped in spirit according to his own nature.
He wants worship from redeemed hearts, from those that.
Are human beings men and women, boys and girls? He wants the worship of your heart.
Not how sweet it sounds to a human ear.
Worship in spirit. God is a spirit, and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth.
In spirit is according to his nature, and in truth is according to the revelation that he has been pleased to make of himself, as I mentioned this afternoon, that.
Judaism and Christianity are often combined together in the sweeping statement that judeo-christian tradition.
While the judeo-christian tradition is a misnomer because Christianity is not an improvement.
Not an extension of Judaism. It's something altogether new. Judaism was for the first man.
Christianity is for the second man. Judaism promoted the first man. Christianity promotes the second man.
The first Adam, The second Adam. The last Adam.
The law.
Grace, doing something in order to gain acceptance with God. Believing on a finished work where all has been done and we stand before God. Accepted in the beloved. They are as different as darkness and light.
Night and day.
Judaism and Christianity, and that's what he's talking about in the worship this morning. We worshiped him. You go to and to see how Judaistic Christendom has become.
You go by and you see these signs that say come worship with us. You go inside and you hear instrumental music, chimes and organs and pianos and orchestras.
There's no place in Christianity.
Great music that we will produce.
In heaven.
But not on Earth.
We are a heavenly people on earth now, yes, but a heavenly people that worship in spirit.
And in truth.
It's not entertainment for the flesh.
But it sounds the name of Jesus in God the Father's ear.
And it's according to the truth.
Of the revelation that God has made of himself in Christianity.
And the woman saith unto him.
I know that messiahs cometh.
Which is called Christ.
When he has come, he will tell us all things.
She was, he was talking to her about true worship and she didn't understand it. She didn't understand what he was saying, I'm sure.
But she says, I know that the Messiah is coming, and when he comes he will tell us everything.
And then there's 2 two people in this book Gospel of John that the Lord Jesus reveals himself to. And the one is this woman, he says I that speak unto thee, and he I am he, I am the Messiah. And the other one is in John 9 where the blind man who was born blind.
And he says to him, after he gave him sight, he says, Dost thou believe on the Son of God? And he said, Who is he, Lord, that I might believe on him? And he said, Thou hast both seen him, and he it is that speaketh with thee. And he fell at his feet, and said, Lord, I believe. And he worshipped him.
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He worshipped him.
And here, in this first one, he tells her about worship.
And she becomes an evangelist.
She goes out from his presence and.
She says she went her way, she left her water pot. It doesn't ever say that she gave him that drink he asked for. She left her water pot and run her way into the city and saith to the man. Come see a man which told me all things that ever I did.
Is not this the Christ? I want to ask you, everyone of you that's saved here this evening, you ever done that? Have you ever gone to someone, your friends, your school chums, your workmate, your neighbor and said come see a man that told me all things that ever I did? Have you ever witnessed to them of Christ?
That's why he saved us.
That we might tell others of him.
And his wondrous grace and love.
And she wasn't afraid now. She went with great boldness. Before she was afraid. She'd gone out to that well at an hour when no one else would be there because she was ashamed of her life.
And now she's bold and she goes right into the city who they wouldn't have anything to do with her because of the reputation that she had. A sinful woman.
And she says to these men, come see a man that told me all things that ever I did is not just to Christ.
What a witness.
A man that was a total stranger to her, that knew all about her. It's something like you get in the 1St chapter with Nathaniel. Nathaniel the Lord Jesus said I saw you when you were under the fig tree.
And he said.
That that that was that was Nathaniels prayer room. He was all alone with God under the fig tree. And he said when the Lord told him, he said, I saw you under the fig tree.
Before Philip called me, I saw you under the fig tree.
And Nathaniel said Rabbi.
Thou art the Son of God.
Thou art the king of Israel, he confesses who he is. He was. He was convinced by the fact that he said, I saw you under the fig tree. And here this woman tells these men.
He told me everything I'd ever done.
Did that produce anything? Oh, it certainly did.
Well, in the meanwhile his disciples come to him, and they say, Master, eat. And he said, I have meat to eat that you know not of.
He had just brought a soul to himself.
A soul passed from darkness to light, from death.
To life.
And that that refreshed him.
It was meat to eat that.
Is not the kind of food we had just a moment ago.
Food for the soul to rejoice it.
My meat is to do the will of him that sent me.
And to finish his work, that's what sustained him in this world, to do the will of his father. That was the joy of his heart.
And then he says, and this is a word for all of us, say not ye, there are yet four months, and then cometh harvest.
Behold, I say unto you, lift up your eyes and look on the fields. Look around you, look at your neighbors, look at your school friends. There are thousands out there, there without Christ.
For they are white already to harvest. And he that reapeth receiveth wages, and gathereth fruit unto life eternal. How much fruit have you gathered unto life eternal? How many souls have you won for Christ? How many souls have you spoken to about Christ?
Their need. The world is full of need they're trying to find. They're trying to squelch the the pain and the sorrow and the grief of their soul by entertainment and by all these things. It's just a a smokescreen to cover up where they really are in their souls. They're not happy.
And you've got the only thing that can make them happy. You've got Christ. This woman had found him, and she becomes an evangelist with great boldness.
No hesitation now to speak to these men that might have looked upon her with disdain and contempt.
She arrests their attention. She gets their ear.
And the Lord says.
Look at your eyes. Open your eyes. Lift you up your eyes and look at the fields. They're white.
He that reapeth receiveth wages.
Gathereth fruit unto life eternal.
That both he that soweth and he that reapeth may rejoice together.
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And here in this that saying true 1 soweth and another reapeth.
You know, one of the reasons we're so small.
We don't do any evangelism.
That's one of the reasons we're so small. We like to say, well, we're so small because we hold the truth. A man doesn't like the truth, but we don't witness like we should.
We don't invite souls to come to the meeting.
We're not really energetic.
I remember once when I was a young man and I was on fire, I was really on fire. I had a lot of zeal and I was legal, but I was on fire for the Lord. I remember an evangelist came to our meeting in in Chicago.
And I flew out of that meeting room before it started and I went down there. It was a hot summer day. And I went down the the street and there were some people sitting on the front porch. And I went up to him and I said, in 5 minutes there's a meeting starting at the hall right down the road. Come, come, come. And I walked into that meeting room with people behind me.
People behind me.
They came.
Just a simple invitation, that's all it was.
There must have been something about the the zeal of my soul as a young man.
This man's really.
Serious. And they came.
And they heard the gospel.
We are so lazy.
He says I sent you to reap.
That were on you bestowed no labor. Other men labored, and here entered into their laborers. And then we read many of the Samaritans of that city believed on him for the saying of the woman which testified. He told me all that ever I did so when the Samaritans were come unto him.
They besought him that he would tarry with them, and he abode there 2 days.
A little indication of of a period of time, 2 days. It almost ended.
Two days is almost up.
And then he's going to come.
And many more believed because of his own word, and said unto the woman, Now we believe.
Not because of thy saying, for we have heard him ourselves and know that this is indeed.
The Christ, the Savior of the world.
We have the greatest knowledge of the greatest person in the universe. God wants us to tell others we have that fountain of water.
Springing up.
For our own enjoyment.
Now in the 7th chapter, let's just turn to it for a moment. In the 7th chapter of John.
Before we close.
In verse 37, this is the Feast of Tabernacles which looks on to the Kingdom.
And it's a feast that had eight days to it. 8 days speaks of resurrection. It speaks of a new order.
In the last day, that was that 8th day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying if any man thirst.
Let him come unto me and drink.
He that believeth on me, as the Scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. In In John four it was a fountain of water springing up to eternal life, and that resulted in worship.
In praise.
Thanksgiving to him.
Who is worthy?
Worship comes first. God must have his place first.
And then in this chapter there's the rivers of living water flowing out of our inmost being to others in refreshment, the Spirit of God witnessing to others of Christ. But worship comes first. John 4 comes before John 7. Worship 1St and then.
Testimony following it.
Telling others of him.
He that believeth on me is, the Scripture had said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. What does that speak of? We're not left to conjecture. This spake He of the Spirit which they that believe on Him should receive. For the Holy Ghost was not yet given, because that Jesus was not yet glorified. So again, this teaching, as in John 4, looks on to that coming day which we're in now, after He had died and been raised.
And ascended to heaven, it looks onto that. And then he would send down the Holy Spirit, and he would indwell us as a fountain of living water producing worship, and also as rivers of living water flowing out of our inmost being for blessed souls around us. That's why He set us here. That's why He's left us here, that we might be witnesses.
For him.
And tell of him that we might worship Him first, and then that we might witness for Him.
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And belittle evangelists.
How wonderful just one soul can can be in the the effect that can produce in bringing others into refreshment and blessing if we're if we're vessels of the Spirit of God.
To flow out in blessing to those roundabouts. Wonderful to be saved.
Wonderful to bring a soul to Christ.
Have you ever done that? Have you ever brought anyone to Christ?
Have you ever LED a soul to the foot of the Savior?
There's such a, there's a. There's no joy like it.
It's it's wonderful.
I remember there was a man.
That was a fellow engineer with me.
Had very poor eyes.
When he read, he'd have to read like this. Very near sighted.
I used to watch him turn in a machine shop. I used to watch him where the lathe was turning and he would have his eye about an inch away from that turning lathe as he worked it. So dangerous.
I brought him home to my house for many, many times, read the word to him and prayed with him.
Ministered Christ to him, French preached the truth.
And then he moved away.
He moved to Phoenix.
The first time I came to Phoenix, my company sent me out here. We had a plant here. I knew he was here. I didn't know where he was. I looked him up in the phone book.
And I got him Don Real was his name is his name. He was married. And the first thing he said to me.
When I told him who I was, he said Chuck.
I'm saved. All those hours I spent with him seemed to have produced nothing. First thing he said to me, I'm saved. What a thrill.
What a thrill. I hope to see him while I'm here. I'll look him up and see if I can have another visit with him.