OK, so as we go through this chronologically, we're going to continue in John. Got a kind of interesting circumstance that's been created here. Jesus, of course, has gone into Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover. He's been baptizing people. He's been getting a little bit of a reputation. And now we see him in a situation where some of the Apostles or I should say they weren't apostles then just disciples some of the disciples of Jesus and some of the disciples of John Are trying to figure out well, who's who what are they, you know, because this is all kind of new to them You know, they don't know who the you know, they don't really know what's going on at the end of the day. I mean, this is just getting started. This guy has just sort of shown up on the scene. John the Baptist has been around a while. He's been doing his thing and so forth. And so now, when we get to John chapter 3, of course, the last time we were together, we looked at how this has kind of gotten the attention of the elders. And so the elders send Nicodemus to have a conversation with Jesus. And we talked about that conversation the last time we were together. And as we saw, This was an invite by the Sanhedrin to Nicodemus to go search out Jesus, so he does that. There's been some criticism over the years about, you know, why does he do it at night and so forth. I don't think there was anything malicious about that. I think he just wanted a private conversation with him, and so that would have been the most logical time. to do that. So now, we're going to look at this testimony that comes in here. Now, again, John does some things that vary, a lot of detail, a lot of conversations, a lot of things in his book that are not covered in the Synoptic Gospel, so they're not covered in Matthew and Mark and Luke. That could be for a variety of reasons, but I've always been of the opinion that the reason that is is because Johns was the last one that was written, and so he added detail that otherwise wouldn't have been in the in the books, and you can kind of see that if you kind of look at it. Mark has the least amount of detail, then Matthew has a bit more and develops a lot of things that Mark had actually brought out, and then Luke actually develops both of them. So most people that teach have kind of come to the conclusion that Mark was probably the first gospel, no guarantee on any of this, by the way, Then Matthew, and then Luke, and then finally John. And so when we look at this circumstance here, where we're going to talk about John the Baptist, John makes it very clear that it is now time for him to kind of step back and allow Jesus to step up. And that's what's going on here at the end of the third chapter. So he says, after these things, this is in verse 22 of John 3, He says, after these things, Jesus and his disciples came to the land of Judea, and there he was spending time with them and baptizing. Now, this is another interesting little thing. Most scholars believe that not only was Jesus doing the baptizing, but also his disciples were doing the baptizing. So again, Just a little nice little interesting detail. And it says that John also was baptizing in Anon. That, by the way, is not a place, that's a time. That's the springtime. Anon is the spring in Hebrew. And so John also was baptizing in the spring near Salim, which is actually an Arabic word for shalom or peace. And so we see this place, Salim. And so, because there was much water there, where they were baptizing before, we talked about this, this is the place where the stones were set up, where Joshua had crossed over the Jordan. And that was an interesting place because in the wintertime, it got very full with water. But then by the springtime, it started to go down rather dramatically. By the summer, it was a dry bed. And then that cycle would happen all over again, you know, come the late fall and into the winter again. So it was a place where they could baptize during the wintertime, but in the springtime they had to find a place with more water. So they moved down the river a bit and so to this place Salim. And so it says, for John had not yet been thrown into prison. So we see kind of a timing here. This is a situation where All the other Gospels, when they talk about Jesus leaving Galilee, they all basically say the same thing, and I gave you those references in the email yesterday, that in Matthew chapter 4, I think it is, and Mark chapter 1, we see them saying, you know, John had been thrown into prison and Jesus left Galilee. It's kind of what it says. And so, here it's saying, this is what happened before he was thrown into prison. And so, there arose, therefore, a discussion on the part of John's disciples with, and it's interesting, it says, with a Jew, and what they're talking about there is an elder. So what they're talking about is a Jewish leader. So almost always in John's gospel where he says, when he just uses the word Jew, he's talking about leadership. Remember that. That's important for you to understand. So here he's saying, so there's an elder, and so he's talking with an elder about, and in my Bible it says purification. The Greek word there is actually kathiresmos, which is the word that we get catheter from. It means to clear out. You know, like that's what a catheter does. It goes in, it clears out a vein in surgeries and so on. And so the idea here is that about purification, well, what are they talking about? Well, they're talking about mikveh. So what we have is in Judaism, they had this baptism. It was called mikveh, which is a symbolic way that you cleanse yourself and purify yourself. We talked about this when we did the Passover Seder a week or so ago. And it's a time where you actually symbolically wash yourself. And this is a really interesting section because The Jews were the only people that actually bathed. I'm trying to think of an easier way to say that. They were the only people that actually was part of their culture to bathe. That was not part of the culture of most people in that time. They didn't bathe. That's why the word, you hear about this, he had a ruddy complexion. That's kind of what they're talking about. And so that was just not something that people did. And the reason that they didn't do it is because water was very limited. There wasn't a whole lot of places to do this. It wasn't like we had, you know, a shower we could just go into. There wasn't a lot of running water. And we're going to look at that when we get into the next chapter where she talks about, where Jesus talks about living water. Remember, he talks about living water. What he's talking about is running water. And so there's the water that's in the wells, and then there's waters from the springs, and that was living water. So that was another little thing that was done. So this catheterization process, or this purification process, was done through Mikva. Well, now, what they were doing is, the discussion was, well, why are we baptizing people just arbitrarily in the river? And then we're also doing these ritual purification rites. What is that all about? And so they came to John and they said to him, Rabbi, he who was with you beyond the Jordan to whom you have borne witness, behold, he is now baptizing and all are coming to him. What we have is a situation where people are now kind of going to Jesus for these baptisms and this idea of ritual cleansing and so forth. And John answered and says, a man can receive nothing unless it has been given him from heaven. This is a really incredible statement. Because the only thing that lasts are things which are eternal. Paul talks about this in 2nd Corinthians chapter 4, he says, we seek not those things which are seen, but those things which are unseen, because the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are unseen are eternal. And so we have a really just a verse that I think you should kind of highlight in your Bibles and so on, because A man, and by the way, man there is just a person, a person can receive nothing unless it has been given to him from heaven. That's the only thing that lasts. You can be the richest person on the planet, you can have all of the glory and the toys and so forth. When you die, those things get passed on to somebody else. They're not yours. You're only utilizing them. And so, we need to understand that. So, you yourselves bear me witness, but I said, I am not the Messiah, but I have been sent before him. He who has the bride is the bridegroom, but the friend of the bridegroom. and who stands and hears him rejoices greatly because of the bridegroom's voice. And so this joy of mine has been made full. I must increase, I'm sorry, he must increase, but I must decrease. He who comes from above is above all and he who is on the earth is from the earth and speaks of the earth. he who comes from heaven is above all this word above all he uses this a lot in just in this one little section here that's the word it's the Greek word epono and he uses that word about five times throughout this little section of chapter 3 which so he's always talking about Jesus being from above or from heaven or or from the special place is really what Eponino actually indicates. So, what he has seen and heard of that he bears witness and no man receives his witness. He who has received his witness has set his seal to this, that God is true. For he whom God has sent speaks the words of God, for he gives the spirit without measure. And the father loves his son and has given all things into his hand. He who believes in the son has eternal life, but he who does not obey the son or believe the son does not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him. So we see John here really giving a prophetic vision of what this was all about, that now it's time for him to move on. You know, I'm just the best man, he said. I'm not the groom. I'm not the one who is going to take the bride, which is the body, this body that's going to be created by Jesus and then carried on by the rest of the apostles thereafter. I'm not that person, so I need to decrease. I need to go down. And what he was doing, I believe, was he was prophetically saying that he understood that he's not going to be around much longer. yeah i think he knows that i think he knows that his his days are now short i think he recognizes that it's not going to be a very long period of time before uh... he's now i don't know that he knows he's going to get arrested beheaded i don't think he realizes that's the way things are going to go but i think he realizes that It's, you know, he's not going to be around for very long. So just a couple of points that are from here. He who comes from above is above all. He has seen and has heard and he bears witness of the truth. Men don't receive that witness. And this is something that continues even to this day. I find it fascinating. I find it absolutely fascinating that people swear using the name of Jesus. Have you ever heard anybody swear using the name of Buddha? Like, oh, Buddha. It just doesn't happen. I mean, this is one of those really kind of fascinating things. If Jesus is not who he says he is, well, then why do we curse in his name? I don't know. It's just one of those things that I find fascinating. Yes, sir. Well, not only that, but what he's saying there is that you don't get pieces of the Holy Spirit. You either have the whole thing or you got nothing. That's really what he's saying there. He doesn't give it by measure. He doesn't say, well, you get 10% of the Holy Spirit, and this guy gets 20% of the Holy Spirit, and this guy, the guy over here, he gets 40% of the Holy Spirit. No, no, no. You either got it or you don't have it. Jesus had it, and that's what he was basically trying to say, that he was totally one with the Spirit of God. But the spirit is acting in a different way then, too, right? The spirit is the same yesterday, today, and forever. The only difference is that the spirit was not dwelling within people at that point. That's what I meant. Yeah. But the spirit wasn't different. He's referring to Jesus here. And he's referring to Jesus here. Yeah. So the truth is, once Jesus was baptized, the spirit of God came down upon him. I've always thought it was interesting that God had him come down in the form of a dove, which is a sacrificial animal. are the most minor of all sacrificial animals by the way which is There's a picture there. I really believe there's something for us to grasp from that. But the verse that's always gotten my attention is verse 36. One of the first verses I ever memorized was 36. He who believes in the Son has eternal life. He who does not believe in the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God shall abide on him. That's a pretty heavy statement. And, yes ma'am. Yeah, the word is pistos actually in Greek there. And pistos means to have faith. That's what the word pistos means. So, and you'll see a lot of different versions that will, especially later versions, some of the newer versions will use the word for pistos instead of saying it really should be either believe in or have faith in. This is really what's talking about there. But yeah, so it's just one of those interesting little things that you see and so forth. But again, he does not obey the sign. I actually like obey the sign better. But doesn't this one obey further in the verse? I'm sorry? Yeah, later in the verse. In the end, that's what she's saying. Yeah. Oh, no, no, no, I said believe, actually. Because that's what the word really should be. Yeah, but again, that's just active pistos. Yeah, same word. Yeah, if you have a strong concordance, it's going to be that 4100 number. That's the number. So if you go in and you do your BLB and so forth, you'll see. There's various versions of pistos. There's a variety of different ways that it's used, just like any other word. It's got suffixes. prefixes you can put to it and so forth. But that's active belief is the idea behind that word that's used there. It's this idea that I think that's why some of them use obey. It's just the idea of active belief. OK, so now Jesus is going to. So we see John coming through. I've got a decrease. He's going to increase. But something happened. Something clearly happened that that Jesus was like, I got to get out of here. and I need to leave Jerusalem. If I stick around, this is not going to end the way we need it to end because it's not yet my time. He says that quite a bit throughout all of the Gospels and so on. So we see this really important time where Jesus says, I'm going to leave. And so in chapter four, verse one, it says, when therefore the Lord knew that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John, although Jesus himself was not baptizing, but his disciples were, he left, by the way, that's the only place in scripture where we see that. where it says that Jesus was not actually baptizing people, it was his disciples that were doing it. He left Judea and departed again into Galilee. Now, the word that he uses there, and you see it actually in the King James. Who's got a King James? Anybody got a King James here? Yeah, in the King James it says he must leave. I think it says, actually, must needs believe, I think is the way it's actually written in the King James. The idea here is that Jesus was in a situation where he must leave Samaria. And the question I ask is why? Or not Samaria, excuse me, Judea. And why does he have to leave Judea? You know, was he being forced out? I just think that Jesus saw that he was now becoming popular, and it was too soon for that to happen. and he needed to go and he needed to do something else. So it says Jesus had to leave and so he leaves and it says he left Judea and departed again into Galilee. And it says, and he had to or he must needs pass through Samaria. Now I have been in this region. I know where Jacob's well is. It's a place we call Shechem today. It is high up on a cliff. It's hard to get to. It's not direct in any way, shape, or form from Jerusalem to Galilee, which is further northeast. It's not a direct route to go through Samaria, or to Shechem in particular. I mean, there's routes to get there, and there's a way to get there. But it's the most difficult way to get there. You've got to go up this huge mountain and go up to the top. And the reason that they were living up there has a real interesting historical attribute. And so I'm not going to really get into all that. They're up there because that was a place where these people needed to be protected when they were being invaded by the Assyrians. And so the Assyrians actually drove them up into this mountain area and that's where they ended up living. Suffice to say, Jacob actually built a well there. And this is property he had given to Joseph and it was just outside of Jerusalem, probably Oh, 15, 20 miles outside of Jerusalem and Judea. And so that area was the area that Jacob had given to Joseph. And it was split between Ephraim and Manasseh. So we have this place that Jesus says he has to go to, which is completely out of the way. It's going to take him up a mountain. It's going to take him around. It's not going to keep him on the path. It's going to get him directly to Galilee. There's no reason why walking you couldn't get from Judea or Jerusalem up to Galilee in about two days. It's not even that hard to visualize that happening. But he decided not to do that. He decided to go up the mountain. So, and he says he has to do this, and he says, and so he came to a city in Samaria, which is called Sychar, which is Shechem, near the parcel of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph, and Jacob's well was there, and Jesus, therefore, being wearied from his journey, yeah, I guess so, he just climbed a mountain, So he, weary from his journey, was sitting thus by the well. Now, Jacob's well, historically, is fed by a spring that is in that part of the mountain and so it is pretty fresh water it's it's very good water and it's high up and it was one of the reasons why when the Assyrians ran these people out of Dodge they went up into this area because of that well that was why people went where they went back in those days was water was one of the driving reasons why people lived where they lived hard to live in the desert just saying you don't have water you're probably not going to live very long if you don't have fresh water you're probably going to get sick because there's all sorts of contaminants and so forth in the more stagnant water that's kind of sitting around in ponds and so on. So to have a spring that's being fed or that is feeding a well is a very important element. So Jacob's well was a very important well, and it was a well that maintained itself for many, many years after his death, obviously. This is close to 2,000 years after he died. And to this day, that's right, to this day, it's still there. So it's still being fed. So it's a fascinating, to me, it's a fascinating little section. But Jesus, I believe, had a motive. And I also believe that because this was not discussed anywhere in any of the other Gospels, that John had some exclusive knowledge here. We know that John wasn't there because he tells us in verse 8 that he wasn't there. So he's not giving this as first-hand knowledge. It's obviously coming to him, either Jesus told him, kind of word for word, what happened, or the woman at the well told him, word for word, what happened. I'm, by the way, of the belief that it probably was the latter or maybe a combination. I don't think Jesus would discuss this, but the woman certainly would. She would be telling everybody, as she basically has been telling everybody, as you're going to see here as we get into this. But he wanted to meet this woman. Now, just days before he had met Nicodemus. And if you wanted to juxtapose two people as complete opposites, these two people would have to be as opposite as two people could possibly be. I mean, Nicodemus is this rich, influential, he was called the teacher of Israel, he was a rabbi, he was very important, he was rich, he was powerful, he was influential, he was moral, He was a person that everybody looked up to. Nobody would ever not take a meet with Nicodemus. He was that kind of a guy. Some people claim that he was probably the third, fourth, fifth richest guy in all of Judea at that point. Certainly of the line of Gamaliel, which is the most important teacher of that time. He has a meet with him. Now he wants to meet with this lady. Well, first of all, it's not a man, it's a woman. That doesn't seem like much in today's day and age, but in that day, that was a big deal. When the disciples actually come back, one of the first questions they ask is, why are you talking to a woman? I mean, that's how much they regarded women at that time, which is really kind of sad. So women from Samaria, she was not only immoral, but probably amoral. We're going to see here that she was married five different times, and the guy she was living with now was not her husband. I think probably because she had basically given up after five tries at this point. What's the point? She was poor. She was powerless. She was not influential. She was not anything. She was nothing as to what she was not religious, clearly. Or if she was religious in what's very meager, kind of minor way. You kind of see it in some of the things that she says in this conversation. But she was also an outcast. Because what's interesting here is that Jesus is at the well at noon. Now, you say, well, because it says the sixth hour. In Judaism, the first hour is when the sun comes up, and then the 12 hours from the time the sun goes down, and they divide the day up. So it's pretty much midday if you're at the sixth hour. And so, she's at the well at midday. Now, okay, what's the big deal? No one goes to a well midday. It is hotter than you can possibly imagine. It's difficult. First of all, it's difficult because they have to take and carry these things in vessels. And if you ever have seen women walking with the vessels on their heads and so forth, it was the same way at that time. And so it was very hard work, not something you would do necessarily in the middle of the day. You're going to do this in the first part of the day, maybe in the latter part of the day, but you're certainly not going to do it midday. That's when she got the opportunity to go. Why? Well, she was an outcast. Everybody knew her reputation. Everybody knew who she was. And it doesn't say that she was a harlot or anything like that. It was just that she was a person of ill repute. Let's put it that way. And Jesus says, I got to go. Well, the only thing he did when he was in Samaria was meet with her. So obviously that was the reason he went. He said, hey, I got to meet with this person. In fact, the picture here is that he is going to meet with somebody that no one else wants to meet with. And I think that that shows a very important thing that Paul later talks about with Timothy and the advice that he gives to Timothy to never show partiality. James says the same thing, never show partiality. Partiality, the word partiality in Greek is the same word that is the root of the word prejudice. And prejudice means to prejudge. That's all it means. That's the word. If you look at the word, it's even spelled that way in English. It means to prejudge. It means to judge before you know what you're talking about. And that's what prejudice is. Prejudice is where people, it's interesting, I have a whole series that I think you really ought to listen to that is in a previous study. I should send it out to everybody. But I talk about prejudice and how big a deal this really is in society. But prejudice is so misunderstood because people don't think they're prejudiced. They just don't. You ask the average person, are you prejudiced? And they will say, almost to the person, no, I'm not prejudiced. No, I'm completely, you know, you know, almost a prejudicial, which is almost ridiculous, by the way, okay? Everybody has prejudice. Everybody makes judgments, and most of the time we make those judgments without any knowledge. That's what prejudice is. That's what partiality is. And everybody has prejudice. Now, you should be working towards not having as much prejudice as you think you have, but the truth is we all struggle in this area. I don't care who you are. I don't care what your culture is. I don't care what your background is. Everybody struggles with prejudice. If you want to see a good example of prejudice, all you have to do is look at church on a Sunday morning, because the average church Well, we have black churches, and we have white churches, and we have Korean churches, and we have some other sect of church. It's like everybody's got their... We have a Spanish church right here. It's crazy. I mean, if you think about this, we can't all just join together because, well, everybody's got certain cultural things that they want to see in their worship, and they want to do, and so forth. So we have these times. And to me, the greatest example of segregation is church on a Sunday morning. We are trying hard to break that prejudice in our congregation, but it still exists. The fact of the matter is, is that most of the people that come to this church are white. Now, the fact that we now have a black pastor, I think is awesome. But the truth is, is that most people that come here are still of that particular ilk. They're of that culture. And so it's fascinating to me. But the Bible tells us clearly we should have no prejudice of any kind. And Jesus is, I think, trying to illustrate that by meeting with this woman and by sharing with this woman. Now, I have a little different take, I think, than what Orlando did last week. I did not hear the message, but he and I have spoken enough about this to know that my take and his take are a bit different, not a lot. But at the end of the day, I really see this as a story about prejudice. And that's really what this is all about. We have a woman here who is, by all accounts, an outcast. No one wants to have anything to do with her. They don't even know this person. They don't really know her. They don't know what she's all about. But they still don't like her, especially the women. And it was the women that basically drew the water, and that's why she decided to go there at noon, because like, you know what, I don't need to deal with this anymore. It's fascinating that after she meets with Jesus and she comes to a point where she realizes He's the Messiah, she doesn't go and tell women. She goes and tells men. which I find another really fascinating element of this whole entire story. But she starts the conversation out, or he starts the conversation out, by saying to her something very simple. He says, give me a drink. Now, that statement is, on the face of it, kind of bland, doesn't mean a whole lot, and so forth. But it was not an order. Some people have said that that was an order. It's not an order. All he's asking is, for example, if you were in a restaurant and you sat down at the restaurant and you say, hey, could you bring me some water? Would that be considered an order? Would you think of that as being out of line? You wouldn't. That's just normal. And that would be the same thing here. It's just a normal statement that anybody would make. But not a normal statement that someone ever made to her. Because no one wanted her to touch anything because she was amoral. She was not one of the people. She was not one of the insiders. She was not part of the group. And so he says to her, Give me something, would you get me something to drink, is basically what she's saying. And then it says that the disciples had gone away, verse eight, it says the disciples had gone away to the city to buy food. And the Samaritan woman says to him, how is it that you, being a Jew, And again, she saw him as a leader because she said she used that same word that would be used for elders of the Jewish people. So she's saying for you being an elder of the Jewish people would ask me for a drink since I am a Samaritan woman. Not just a Samaritan, but a Samaritan woman. Now, what's the big deal? Well, Samaritans were the kind of the Palestinians of that time. They were the people that no one wanted anything to do with. No one liked the Samaritans, by the way. The Arabs didn't like the Samaritans. The Samaritans were a culture that was created by the Assyrians, actually, and where they ran up these Jewish people into there, and then they brought people in to live with them that were prisoners, and they brought these, kind of like Australia. And they ran all the prisoners up into this area, and then they all intermarried and so forth, because that's what happens in life. And they became a kind of a culture unto themselves. And they had kind of a mishmash of Judaism and some of the old thoughts of the time and so forth. Because back in those days, everybody had a religion. Religions were all pretty much territorial. uh... the edit territorial god for this one a territorial god for that one very few people were atheists in fact that would be kind of crazy no one thought there is no god just we just don't know what he is and so everybody had their own kind of version of it so the mishmash of of the citizens samaritans as they had kind of a of view of of judaism plus plus plus plus plus plus plus and so That's what you got. And so she asked this question because it says, for the Jews, that would be the Jewish leadership, have no dealings with the Samaritans. Now, I want you to understand something. Real people, other than leadership, people that had to do trade, they always dealt with, they dealt with anybody. So the Samaritans were not an outcast if they had enough money to buy the goods of a person that was selling them. But as far as the Jewish leadership was concerned, they had nothing to do with the Samaritans. That's what he's saying there. Okay, so Jesus answers and says to her, if you knew the gift of God, Now remember, that's the same thing that he said to Nicodemus. This is for God so loved the world that he gave, that he gave his son. That was the gift of God. So this idea, if you knew the grace of God, if you knew the gift of God, and if you also knew who it was that was asking you, give me a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water. Now, what's interesting was she was already getting living water. She was already getting spring water. She wasn't getting fallow water. She was getting the kind of water that he was saying, but he was taking it to a different idea here. He was saying that, I'll give you water that gives you life. It's not just water that's clean and pure and fit for drinking, but I'm going to give you water that will give you life. And he's going to go on, he's going to say, eternal life. And then she said to him, and then it's interesting, the word in my Bible is sir. You'll see that every time she addresses him, she addresses him as sir. The word there is kurios. Kurios means my Lord. So she's saying to him, she's addressing him in a very respectful manner. She's not calling him God, by the way. That's not what she was doing. What she was doing was she was being very respectful to him. And so she said, she says, Sir, my Lord, you have nothing to draw with in the well as deep. Where then do you get that living water? Again, she's just looking at this from a practical standpoint. And the wells, you should also know something about the wells. Because just like the rivers go up and down with the seasons, so do the wells. The springs are more forceful in the winter than they are in the spring. And then into the summer, they're basically non-existent. So this well would dry up actually at a point in time. in the summer oftentimes. It wasn't that there was no water completely. It was just that it got to a point where it was just kind of hard to take it because it was just dripping into the well from the spring. And that spring would start to activate after snow melts and so forth. So now we have this picture. And she's saying, it's deep. How are you going to get down to that flowing water? And then he says, you are not greater than our father Jacob, are you? Who gave us the well and drank of it himself and his sons, or his children actually, and his cattle. So this was a very important well, everybody knew it. And what she's saying is, you're not better than Jacob, are you? And Jesus said to her, everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again. So he changes the context. He's going to change it from drinking to thirsting. Yes, sir? Why would she call Jacob her father or their father? Oh, because again, Jacob was the father of Joseph. This land was part of Joseph's land. She has that as a culture. The fact that there are other people that intermarried within that, that's still... Because she's not Jewish. Well, she's Samaritan, which is part Jewish. Okay. Yes, so she's going to be part Jewish, no question about it. Samaritan would be someone who is part Jewish and part something else. that by definition is what they are. So that's why they were outcast by the leadership because they had gone outside of the legal kind of marrying rights and so forth that they expected for people. So again, she comes through and she calls him Lord. Are you greater than Jacob? And then, like I said, Jesus moves from drinking to thirst. What's fascinating about this particular wordage that's in here, he says, everyone who drinks this water will thirst again, but whoever drinks of this water that I give him shall never thirst. When you look at this in the English, you don't really appreciate what he's talking about here. But when you get into Greek, you really can actually see it because what he's saying there is everyone who drinks continually of this water will thirst again. And you have to drink continually because you get thirsty. And so you have to drink again. You have to drink again. You have to drink again. You have to drink again. And then he gets down. He says, but whoever drinks different word, and that is a once and for all drink. That's a final drink, actually. So the idea is that it's a singular drink. So he who drinks of this water that I give him, in other words, once and for all, drinks it once and doesn't have to do it ever again. That had to blow her mind when she, when he said that. Well, wait a minute, you know, obviously I got to drink over and over and over. But what he's saying here is no, once, once you drink of this, you don't ever have to drink again because you're never going to thirst again. You know, within every single person, I believe there is a, there's a vacuum, a waiting, a willingness, a desire to have a relationship with God. And that vacuum has to be filled. And that's the thirst he's talking about here. And so people have been thirsting, and that's why people do some of the crazy things that they do, and they're searching, and they're looking for God. But he's saying, look, once you come to this place, once you believe this one who drinks or that gives you this drink, you don't have to thirst ever again. Look at what he says. He says, but whoever drinks of the water, once and for all, for that I give him shall never thirst again. But the water that I shall give him shall be in him, in him. It doesn't go away. And a well, or a fountain, actually, is the word there, a fountain of water springing up to eternal life. In other words, I'm going to give you something which is much more appealing. Sure, living water is great, but I'm going to give you water that gives you life, and not only life for a time, but forever. And so the woman says to him, again, sir, Give me this water, so I will not be thirsty, nor will I have to come here to draw." So in other words, she's like, you know, this is great. Give me this water. I don't ever have to do this again. Because she doesn't like doing this. Obviously, she doesn't like doing it at noon because she doesn't want to have to deal with all these other crazy women that are there. But she doesn't want to have to do this anymore. She obviously wasn't quite getting it, but she gets it. Eventually, she gets it. Jesus changed the subject again. First he changes it to thirst, now he's going to change it to morals. And look what he says. He says to her, go call your husband and come here. Like, what? What's that got to do with what we're talking about? It has nothing to do with what we're talking about, by the way. It's Jesus' way of getting her attention. And look at what she said. This is Jesus' way of showing her that he knows her even though she doesn't know him. And look at what he says. He says, the woman answered and said, I have no husband. Jesus says to her, you have said, well, I have no husband, for you have had five husbands, and the one that you are now with is not your husband, and this you have said in truth. Oh, there's an interesting comment. Jesus says to her, or excuse me, the woman says to her, sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. Yeah, like no one told this guy that, you know, talk about specifics. He doesn't say you've had many husbands. I've often thought about that. I mean, why did he just say you have many husbands? No, no, no, he was very specific. You have five husbands. And this is why I believe that the woman is the one who basically retorted this back to everybody and told everybody what was going on. Because I don't know that Jesus may have even given that kind of, you know, I don't know, who knows. But at any rate, five husbands, not just one, not just many. And the woman said to him, sir, I perceive you're a prophet. He says, our fathers are worshiped in this mountain. And you say that in Jerusalem, that is the place where men ought to worship. That's a very controversial context that I really don't have time to get into. But there was a whole period of time where the Samaritans were such outcasts, they built a temple in Shechem. and so that they could actually worship God. And they actually brought in priests that were Samaritan priests, that were part of the Levitical line, but had been kind of bastardized by the intermarriage and so forth. And they had those people doing that. And so they created their own place of worship there. And Jesus said to her, and again, in most Bibles it says woman, and again, it comes across as being you know, kind of like, you know, maybe rude. It's not. That's actually the most polite way you could address a lady is the word jirne, which is the same way that Jesus actually talked to his mother at the Canaan feast and so forth, so when he turned water into wine. Jesus says to her, says, Jernane, woman, believe me, an hour is coming when neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem shall you worship the Father. You shall worship, you worship that which you do not know. We worship that which we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth. For such people the Father seeks to be His worshippers. For God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth. So what Jesus is doing is he's breaking down this whole ritualistic thing and saying, God is not about ritual. God is not about where you do something. God is not about sacrifice. God is about having a relationship with him in the spirit and in truth. Those are the two things that, and we're going to see this as we go through the gospels, this constant referring back to the fact that God is spirit and he wants us to worship him as spirit and truth. We're going to see that as we go through the Gospels over and over and over again. Jesus has revealed to her what she is. He has told her that her worship is not to be one of symbolism and so forth, but it's to be done in spirit. We all have the same way to do it. And I think this is also interesting that he says that salvation is from the Jews. And so the way to God is in Judaism. That's basically what he's saying there. But It's not done through ritual. It's done through this relationship that we have with God. True worshipers worship in spirit and truth. And then something really remarkable happens. The woman says to him, I know that the Messiah is coming. And he is also called Christos or Christ. When that one comes, he will declare all things to us. Now, why does she go there? Is it because she's perceiving that maybe he is this person? Is she kind of like, wow, this is too incredible? Well, there's a lot of things that are going on. First and foremost, the teaching of the Jews at that time was that the Messiah would come at about 400 years after Malachi closed his book. They had actually done the math through the book of Daniel and the 70 weeks and so forth and so on. And so that was there. And so there was this understanding, people were looking for the Messiah at that time. It was something that was very, very real. And so now we have this woman coming and saying, you know, I think that, you know, I've heard the Messiah is coming. And when he comes, he's going to declare all things. He's going to make all these things real to us. He's going to bring together certain things. Look at what he says. Jesus says to her, I who speak to you, am he. And the expression that he used there, where he actually declares himself to be the Messiah, is not something he does on a regular basis. He doesn't do this very often. He does it about five times in the Gospel of John, and that's recorded. It's not something that we see Jesus doing. Jesus didn't just go to everybody and say, hey, you know, I am the Messiah, believe me. you know, just the contrary, actually. But in John chapter 8, we see him saying that, and of course, when he did, the Jewish leadership at that time tried to stone him to death for saying that. But Jesus said, I am he. And the disciples now come back, And when they come back, and we're not going to read all this because I think it's unnecessary to really read. I really suggest that you do take some time and read through it. But what we see here is the disciples coming back, and the disciples are confused, because the very first thing they say is, at this point, since the disciples came and marveled, and they said, I'm sorry, marveled that he was speaking with a woman and yet no one said, I think this is interesting, no one said, what do you seek or why do you speak to her? In other words, they weren't inquisitive. They were just like blown away that he'd be talking to a woman, period. They didn't know anything about this woman. They didn't know if she was a good woman. They didn't know if she was a bad woman. They didn't know if she was a friendly woman. They didn't know if she was an evil woman. They didn't know anything about this person. All they knew was she wore a skirt and they didn't. That's basically, and you don't talk to women. And there's all sorts of prohibitions against that. But he didn't ask, what did you say to her? Or why did you speak to her? Didn't ask any of those questions. But the woman at this point perceives she's got to get out of here, but more importantly, she has gotten it. She got the message. I have spoken to the Messiah. I have found him, who Moses and the prophets have written about. I got it. And so the woman goes back, and here's what's really interesting. She leaves her water pot. I think there's some real cool symbolism there. She left her water pot. She said, I don't need this, this, this, this. natural water anymore. I'm going to have this spiritual water. I'm never going to thirst again. So she left her water pot. She didn't even take it with her. And she goes running down to the men. And now the men come back and they're starting to walk back. And that's when Jesus says, guys, you know, you think about all the things that you want to do, but I'm telling you right now that the field is white under harvest. And as these people are coming to him, as these people in mass are coming up because they want to hear the message. That's what the field is. That's what we're doing. That's what we're going to be doing for the next four years. This is what we're going to be doing. We're going to see people come to us and we're going to reap a harvest. We're going to reap a harvest that is beyond anything that you've ever done. And the Samaritans come up. And it says in verse 39, and from that city, many of the Samaritans believed in him. That's again, pistos, that same word that was before, because of the word of the woman who testified. We talked about this on Friday a couple weeks ago, the importance of testimony, that your testimony is really what people need to hear. That is what God expects out of every single one of us. Have a testimony, have something to say. This woman had something to say. She had just had an encounter with the Messiah. She couldn't talk about it enough. These guys came, they listened to her, and they go, hmm, maybe we should check it out. And so when the Samaritans came to him, they were asking him to stay with them, and he stayed there for two days, and many more believed because of his word. And they were saying to the woman, it is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard it for ourselves and know this one is indeed the Messiah, the Savior of the world. Do you think it was hard for the disciples to stay? I think it was brutally hard. I think it was almost like pulling their fingernails out. I mean, it was challenging. I can't imagine what they were going through. But again, this was, you know, the roots of prejudice that had to be dealt with, that had to be addressed. Jesus went out of his way at the very beginning of his ministry to show to these folks that we are not going to be partial. We are going to bring this message to the entire world. We are not bringing this message just to one sect of people. We are reaching out to everyone. And it is our job to do that. And, you know, to me, this is one of those sections of scripture that you just sit there. There's so many ways you can take this scripture and you can run with this particular section. I mean, there's no question about it. I've just kind of given you a glint of it. You know, Orlando gave you a little glint of it last week as well. I mean, and I'm sure that what I'm talking about right now is not anything he spoke about. Would that be a true statement or no? No? Anybody here? Anybody? Oh, where is he? Oh, he's there. I didn't see you. I didn't know you were there, my brother. Well, that's cool. Going through this, I see so many parallels to this story that relate to us sharing the gospel today, and the objections that people come up with, and the dealing with things, and they'd say, well, religiosity, and the conflicts of religions, and on and on and on. And Christ didn't allow that to happen. He pointed her back to Yeah, and it's fascinating because Jesus was never afraid to not answer a question, which is another thing that I thought was pretty cool. Well, true. It goes to one of the things that I learned a long time ago, and that's the person that's asking the question is in control of the conversation. And so that's what Jesus was doing. He led the conversation by asking questions of her, and then having her respond, and then respond to her response, and then ask another question. The person that's asking the question is actually doing that. And so often when we're sharing with people and we're testifying with people, we don't ask them enough questions. We don't actually, we go and we start telling this story and we kind of ramble and ramble and ramble, but we don't ask enough questions and people want to be heard. So that's what Jesus did here, which I think is really a great picture of this. But the other thing that's kind of an interesting piece in the land on this, the disciples wanted Jesus to eat, which Again, it was just one of those things. I mean, obviously, they probably hadn't eaten for a while. He had sent them to go get food, and now they came back, and they had food, and they were like, hey, we got food. Let's eat, you know? And Jesus' answer to them was, my food is to do the will of the Father. That's what my sustenance really is. That's what it's all about. And then he goes with, the fields are white unto harvest. After two days, he left. He didn't stick around forever, he left. He had done what he needed to do, and he moved on, and now he's gonna go into Galilee, and when he gets into Galilee, there's gonna be a whole lot of happenings, but now it's out of the limelight a bit. Galilee was not a place that people went to on a regular basis. It was kind of the boondocks. And so he was out there, and we're gonna see next time we get together how he saves this nobleman's son and does some good things. It's gonna be great. But we're gonna get back into some of the other synoptic gospels starting next week. So really, really excited to do that. So be aware of your prejudice. Be aware of it. Take and think about when you're with people, am I making a judgment against this person before I really know what they're all about? Don't do that. Just catch yourself. Everybody does it. I'm not suggesting it's not done. I'm just suggesting don't do it. There's a difference. Just because things are done doesn't mean they're right. But at the end of the day, we need to recognize that we all suffer from this. It's really interesting. The more you pay attention to this, the less prejudice you become. It's a fact. The more you pay attention to the fact that I want to spend as much time as I can getting to know people, just being good to them, it's fascinating how people respond to that. It's unbelievable how they respond to that. So take advantage of that and allow the spirit of God to work. Because remember, we only worship God in spirit and truth. We don't worship God with rules. We don't worship God with mountains and symbols. No, we worship God in spirit and in truth. And so that's what we need to be focused on. So let's get out of here and we'll save this next section for next week as we thank you, Father, for all that you do for us. We bless your name. God, just watch over our time. Give us great service today. We can just praise you in Jesus' name. Amen.