In this sermon, the preacher emphasizes the invitation to "come and see" Jesus. He describes Jesus as the Word made flesh, the fulfillment of God's promises and plans for humanity. The preacher also highlights the orderly guidance of God's Spirit and the unity between himself and his co-minister. He then focuses on the story of a woman in John 4 who encountered Jesus at a well. The preacher emphasizes that Jesus meets people where they are, in ordinary and simple situations, and offers them love and transformation.

One of the great confirmations of the presence of God's Spirit amongst His people is that He teaches and directs and leads us in a way that is orderly. Praise His name, either Mr. North or I talk about what we're going to minister prior to the meetings we come with our heart open for the Lord to direct and order us. And time and time again He unites us in Spirit and causes our hearts to flow along similar lines. Hallelujah. I want to speak of another woman who fell head over heels in love with Jesus this morning. You'll find her spoken of in John's Gospel, Chapter 4. Like the woman with the alabaster box of ointment and the testimony of the woman in John Chapter 8, none of these women again deserved the love of God. It was the greatness of His love that overwhelmed them, that abolished their sin, made them clean, new creations in Christ and brought them into a living relationship with Him that devastated them with love. Hallelujah. You can put yourself in the place of any of these lovely biblical characters. The way in which He handles one soul in principle is the way in which He desires to handle every soul. And He'll always handle you with love. Glory to His name. I only want to read a little part of the wonderful story from verse 27 down to the end of verse 30. And upon this came His disciples and marveled that He had talked with the woman, yet no man said, What speakest thou, or why talkest thou with her? The woman then left her waterpot and went her way into the city and said to the men, Come, see a man which told me all things that I ever did. Is not this the Christ? Then they went out of the city and came unto Him. Amen. She said, Come, see a man. And what a man. Hallelujah. Come, see a man. He was the first man that she'd ever met. Although we read in this record that she had five and was living with the six, but she'd never met a man until she met Jesus. Jesus. Come, see a man. Of course, the man. Hallelujah. Have you met Him? On the basis and grounds in which she met Him, have you fallen in love with Him as she fell in love with Him? Has the realisation of His goodness and grace and love towards you penetrated as deeply as it did in her? Have you come to know Him, love Him, understand Him and appreciate Him as she did then, and I believe increasingly did as the days went by? The love of God, when it's enveloped, you and me never diminishes. Hallelujah. It just gets more wonderful every day. Hallelujah. Come, see a man. John introduces us to that man in the first chapter of this lovely gospel, but we find a similar statement in verse 46 of chapter 1. Nathaniel said unto him, Can there any good thing come out of Nazareth? Philip said, Come and see. Hallelujah. And it was an invitation to come and see Jesus, to come and see the man. I wish I had hours this morning rather than minutes which stole the majesty and wonder and glory of this magnificent person, Jesus. We have a great panoramic display of Him in the first chapter by way of introduction to set the stage, to cause our sights to focus down on Him, to give us an understanding as to who He is and what He is and what He has come to accomplish in the lives of men and women. Hallelujah. In the first verse we're told that He was the Word made flesh, God incarnate, Word of God, the fulfilment of everything that God had ever said, that God had ever intended, that God had ever promised and planned for man. There He was in flesh and blood, the Word made flesh. Amen. Also John tells us He is the light of the world. We'll find that in verse 8. He was not that light, but was sent to bear witness of that light. That is the true light which lighteneth every man that cometh into the world. Without light, beloved, there's no life. Jesus came to be the light of the world. He reiterates that statement and lays hold of that claim again and again. Hallelujah. I am the light of the world. We're told further down in the chapter that He was full of truth and grace. For the footage in the words of the Apostle Paul, He was all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. It pleads the Father that in Him was all fullness, in Him did all fullness dwell. Everything that God was, was in Christ. By the Spirit, the fullness of God through Christ seeks to manifest the love of God to man. He's the Lamb. You'll find that in verse 29. Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world. And again reiterated in verse 36. Behold the Lamb of God. See the Lamb. The most revolutionary statement, beloved, that had ever come from the lips of a man up until that point in time. Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world. They'd never heard the light. They'd heard that their sins could be forgiven. They'd heard that their sins could be covered. But they'd never heard that their sins could be taken away. Behold the Lamb that taketh away the sin of the world. Further down in the chapter, He's introduced to us as the same one that baptizes with the Holy Ghost. The great baptizer was the Spirit, and as the other Gospels record, an angry fire. He was the Messiah. You'll find that in verse 31. He first signed up his own brother Simon, and said unto him, We have found the Messiah which being interpreted is the Christ, the Anointed One. He's spoken of as the Son of God, coming to reveal to you and me all that God is, and all that God uniquely and alone can do. And finally, He's spoken of in this first chapter as the Son of Man, the Word made flesh, the light of the world, all the fullness of the Godhead bodily, the Lamb that taketh away the sin of the world, the baptizer with the Holy Ghost and with fire, the Messiah, the Christ, the Anointed One, the Son of God and the Son of Man. If we were to move on through the chapters, we come to chapter 3, and there He's described as the great Bridegroom of Heaven. Glory to His name. And it's in this role that He comes and meets this woman, in all His roles. He was Word made flesh to her. He was the light of the world to her. He was all the fullness of the Godhead bodily to her. He was the Lamb of God that had come to take away her sin. He came to baptize her in the Holy Ghost. He was the Messiah, the long-awaited One. He was the Son of God that alone could do for her what no other man could do. And He came as the Son of Man to make her understand and give her an appreciation of what she could be because of Him. Come see a man. What a man. Oh, praise God. I can be just reading those phrases out of this first chapter. Friends, my spirit is raptured. Amen. When God illuminates His Word to your heart and fires it all up deep within, beloved, it ceases to be mere words, black print on white paper encased in covers of leather or paper. Hallelujah. But it becomes fire in your heart. The nature of the person begins to unfold in the depths of your being and you suddenly wonder at the glory of the relationship that you've been had with Him. Glory to His name. Come and see a man. Amen. She'd left Him. He'd ministered to her. She'd fell in love with Him. Glory to His name. And He'd done for her what no other man could ever do. And what He did for her, beloved, He can do and will do for you and me. Blessed be His name. I just want to take up two, three, perhaps four according to time, and I'm going to watch my watch very carefully so I'm not falsely accused later. Hallelujah. Amen. I want to take up some lovely things, beloved. I tell you, it's a chapter, it's a book, it's a person for whom time is totally inadequate. Amen. It says in verse six, back in chapter four now, Then cometh he to the city of Samaria, which is called South, and there to a parcel of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. Now Joseph's well was there. Jesus therefore being wearied with his journey sat thus on the well. And it was about the sixth hour. That's the hour of man. And there cometh the woman of Samaria to draw water. And Jesus said unto her, Give me a drink. Amen. And the first thing that I wanted to see this morning, beloved, was that Jesus was prepared to sit down with her. Praise God. And talk to her. Hallelujah. Isn't that wonderful? He'd anticipated her. He was waiting for her. Praise God. And He was sitting down there beside the well. And as she came near, He spoke to her. And I guess she sat down. She may have remained standing, I don't know, it doesn't say. But from that position, beloved, He talked to her. Lovely. God meets us where we are. He'd come to draw water. That's where He met her. If you read through these lovely chapters, you'll find in chapter two, beloved, He met them at a wedding. Praise God. At a party. Doesn't say anything about the service. He met them in a very ordinary, simple situation. Chapter three, meets another person. Sat down with him on the rooftop. Talked with him in the middle of the night. This is an entirely different character. He met him where he was. Here in chapter four, He meets a woman at a well. That's where she'd come. That was the habit of her life. She'd come to draw water. A very common, ordinary situation for her. But that's where He met her. So over into chapter five, beloved, you'll find that He met them in their state and plight of need by the pool of Bethesda. Hallelujah. He met them there. He spoke to them there. He ministered to them there. Move over into chapter six, and He meets them out on the hillside. And He sings to them and ministers to them. And so you can go right through the book and you'll find that Jesus again and again, beloved, meets people where they are. And identify Himself with an ordinary, simple, everyday situation in which He finds them. Glory to His name. I think it was Padgett Wilk, the founder of the Japan evangelistic band, who was met by God in his early life in a restaurant as a result of someone else saying grace. A very simple situation. I was reading the testimony of a man who lived not very far from here. Bridport, I think it was. His name was William Courage. Praise God. Born near Tibbeton. One day he was walking down the road and he passed a man who was sitting on a pile of wood by a mill, bandaging a very badly damaged leg. And he said to the man, James, how are you? He said, I'm very well, thank you. By the mercy and goodness of God, praise His name. And this man, William Courage, turned to him and said, what have you got to praise God for? Went on his way. It was a rebuke. Hadn't gone very far and God spoke to him. He said, why did you talk to that man like that? And he went back and apologised to him. He said that he was sorry for having spoken to him in such a manner. And within a matter of days he was born again of the Spirit of God. God met him through a man sitting on a pile of logs beside the road. I suppose there are many of us in this room whom God has met in the most unusual and yet the most ordinary circumstances of life. Hallelujah. God comes and meets you and me and talks to us in the place where He finds us. Don't need a special meeting like this. Wonderful though that be. Amen. You may be sitting in your tent in the course of these days. You may be sitting on a fence. You may be sitting in the dining hall. I thought that was the meeting room. I said, what's that little tent over here and what's that big tent over there? Praise God. I said, that's where we're going to eat. I want to tell you brother, this is where we're eating. Praise God, this is where God is going to talk to us. But I equally believe, brother, that He will talk to you over there and He will feed you over there and He will minister your need over there. He will meet you where He finds you. A woman once wrote, her name was Florence Althorne, so often we try to take men and women from where they are not to where they don't want to go. Instead of taking them up where they are and leading them graciously and tenderly on to where they need to go. I suppose the most classical example of that is to be found in the eighth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles where Philip engaged in conversation with an Ethiopian eunuch and it says, And beginning at the same scripture, he preached unto him, Jesus. Amen. The eunuch was reading from the book of the prophet Isaiah. He was led as a lamb done before his shearer, so he opened not his mouth in whose humiliation his judgment was taken away, and who shall declare his generation? Philip spoke to him in relationship to the very thing that he was doing and what a matter of moments had led him into an experience of salvation which was followed by baptism that caused the Ethiopian eunuch to go on his way rejoicing. God had met him where he was. Live in the expectation, beloved, that God will come by his Spirit and meet you where you are. We don't have to create abnormal situations. We don't have to make venues for men and women to encounter God. God is looking for you anywhere and everywhere. That's the whole secret and wonder of the incarnation. God came to men where they were. Amen. He's come here, I'm convinced. He's come here in these days and he's going to meet you. He will sit down and talk to you. Have you got an ear here? He'll come here and talk about the basic issues of salvation. Brothers, he will talk to them on different levels, in different veins, but he will talk to you relevantly according to your own personal needs. He'll take you up where you are and he will lead you on. Glory to his name. What a tremendous conversation. Much has transpired between Jesus and the woman. Not every word of it is written. We're told that at the end of this lovely gospel. Hallelujah. But enough is written, beloved, to give you and me revelation concerning this woman's encounter with the man. Amen. Where did you meet him? When did you meet him? What did he say to you? What was the effect of that encounter with you? Or is he still a stranger? Amen. Jesus sat down with her. The second great truth that I want us to notice, beloved, is that Jesus searched her. Verse 18, Thou hast five husbands, and he whom thou now hast is not thy husband. In that saidst thou truly. The woman said unto him, Sir, we perceive that thou art a prophet. Then, in verse 29, she tells us more. She said, Come, see a man which told me all things that I ever did. Is it not this, the Christ? According to the record, beloved, he only told her one thing. According to her testimony, he told her everything that there was to know about her. Hallelujah. We read in Psalm 139, verses 24 and 25, Search me, O God, and know my heart. Amen. He searched her. He knew her. Of course, he knew her before he ever met her. And he didn't need her to tell him one single thing about her. You'll read that truth at the end of the second chapter of this lovely gospel. It says, Jesus did not commit himself unto them because he knew all men, and needed not that any should testify of man, for he knew what was in man. He knew them. He knew her. He knows you. He knows me. Everything that there is to know about you and me is known to him. Blessed be his name. We read in the Hebrew epistle where he's described as the great sword of the spirit, the one who divides between soul and spirit. He discerns the thoughts and intents of the heart and declares that we're all naked and open before him with whom we have to do. That's how you are in the presence of God this morning, beloved. You're naked. You're unclothed. You're exposed. You're seen. You're known. Everything that there is to know about you and me is known by him. There was another man who lived in these parts called George Brearley. He was another godly man, man whom God took up and used mightily to the salvation of many in this county. A very ordinary man, just east of Exeter he lived, and then went up towards Thompson and served the Lord in that area. And it was this particular scripture from the Hebrew epistle that devastated him, that dealt with him in his inward being and caused him to know that there was nothing that he could hide, there was nothing that he could cover up, there was nothing that he could pretend about, there was nothing that he could just under the carpet and say didn't exist. He suddenly realised that he was naked. Read Psalm 139. I wish there was time to read it this morning. It's a declaration of God's knowing of you and me even before we were conceived in our mother's womb. All that there is to know, all that has gone into your makeup, all that has contributed to your life at this present moment, all the influences that have now had an impact upon you, all the things that you have inherited by way of legacy, God's conversed with every one of them and they're no problem to him. Hallelujah. And if we will come to him, the man, he will handle those things, he will deal with those things, he will solve the bondages, he will break the problems that have gripped us and held us for years. Amen. This woman, beloved, who was sold out to immorality, she was the victim of a state and a condition that had ravished her being. No doubt she'd looked, she'd longed, she'd yearned for someone to love her, for someone to understand her, for someone to care for her, for someone to treat her as she knew deep down in her heart she should be treated. And the wicked one had taken advantage of her. Men so cold had spoiled her, they'd spoiled her, they'd marred her life. They filled her with a sense of guilt and shame. All that she wanted to do was hide and run away. That's why she came at the point of day in which she came. Hallelujah. And then she met the man and plumbed the depths of her being and discovered all that there was to discover. And he didn't shout it from the house top, he didn't make an exhibition of her, he didn't talk about her problems to other people. He addressed them to herself and faced her up with her own life. And she knew in the depths of her being, she knew that he knew everything that there was to know about her. And he loved her. Amen. He knows all that there is to know about you. He knows all that you've done. He knows every place to which you've been, every thought that's passed through your mind, every relationship in which you've been involved, every word that has come forth from your lips. He knows it all. He knows you through and through. You're naked. You're open before Him with whom we have to do. We can't cover up. Amen. That's so wonderful. Search me, O Lord, and know my heart. Anyone who comes to Him, beloved, with that disposition within, God will search them and God will reveal them to themselves. Hallelujah. Not under condemnation. Blessed be His name. Even when He has to handle your life and my life like this, even when He has to rebuke us and chastise us and tell us what's wrong within us, beloved, it's not under condemnation, but it's done to total emancipation and freedom. Oh, glorious Lord. He's searched her. Maybe searching you right now. And He's doing it in love because He doesn't want you to live another single minute polluted by sin, tormented by the wicked one, a victim of circumstances and situations, the bondage of generations of legacy wrapped around you that you didn't ask for. The man, the great man, Christ Jesus, has come to set us free. Hallelujah. And to love us perfectly, purely, totally, deeply, profoundly, right down in the depths of our being to a degree and a depth, beloved, that no one else can ever touch. Amen. Someone prayed about superficiality. There's nothing superficial about God's dealings with men and women when they come to Him honestly and when He and His love comes to you. Praise God. That's so wonderful. I'm so glad that He doesn't just skim over the surface. I'm so glad that He doesn't just come to forgive of these sins of which I am consciously aware. I'm glad that He goes right down to the root and calls of it all and there lays the act. Blessed be His name as radically and as lethally as God did to Him at Calvary on your behalf and mine to set us free totally and absolutely. I can't find any excuse in this lovely book, beloved, to say that there's no way of escape for any man or any woman. This book, this woman's testimony alone tells me that the person who's sunk to the depths of degradation can be restored and reinstated back into God's eternal purpose and made the bride of Christ. Is that what it's all about? There never was a more contaminated and spoiled woman, beloved, there never was a person more demonically driven and tempted by her own lust and desire for love. It was perverted by Satan that this woman, and yet Jesus came, glory be His name, and He sat down in His cross with her. That was an amazing thing. In talking to her, He searched her through and through, not to play the fool with her, but to love her, to deliver her and set her free and make her a new creation. She didn't understand it. Hallelujah, if you wait until you understand it, oh beloved, you'll never get anywhere. Most of us only know a fragment of what it's all about. Praise God. I don't have to understand the nature of water, beloved, in order to jump in it and swim. Praise God. Third lovely truth. Verse 13, 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. And the woman said unto Him, Sir, give me this water that I thirst not, neither come hither to draw. Thirdly, beloved, He satisfied her. She'd come to draw water at Jacob's well, and how many times had she been there? More times than she liked to think of. But it never met her need, it never solved her problem, it never changed her life, it never quenched her real thirst. She'd come again and again and again. Jesus said if you drink of this water you will thirst again, and she knew what He was talking about. Hallelujah, she drank and drank and drank of such wells, symbolic, beloved, of external venues of alleviation, but it had never satisfied her deep inward being. Jesus wasn't talking about Jacob's well, He wasn't interested in Jacob's well, beloved, He was talking about a well. In fact, it's not a well, it's a spring of water that will spring up into everlasting life. Of course, He was talking of Himself and His own nature, by the Spirit that He was prepared to plant in the depths of her being. And He said if you drink of this water you will never thirst again. Amen. Have you found the source? Have you discovered the spring? Are you totally and absolutely satisfied with Him? But if you're not, and you say that you believe this Word, then you'll have to come to the conclusion that Jesus was mocking the woman, but He wasn't. He was introducing her into a relationship with Himself that would totally satisfy her and meet her every need in every area of her life. Amen. Now is that your testimony this morning, that you've met one in the person of Jesus Christ, that great living spring of water? And by the Spirit you know that He's living on the inside of you and He's satisfying you through and through. That was the secret of the Apostle Paul. He talks about it in the Philippian Epistle, chapter 1, verse 19, when he talks about the source. Praise God. The source and supply of God's Spirit that no one could take away from Him, that He couldn't be separated from, blessed be His name, that satisfied Him in the most extreme and devastating circumstances, that met His every need, that met His deficiency, day in and day out. Amen. Nothing to do with external circumstances, nothing to do with the ups and downs of natural living, beloved, but a secret, a source, a supply of life deep within your heart. John speaks of it in his first epistle in a different way. I was quoting this just last week to the young people when we were gathered here at Rurah. One of the greatest truths that has ever been written in the book, where John says, greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world. He satisfies, He meets your every need. It will be deprived of every means of grace, so called. Never to have the privilege of breaking bread again, never having the privilege of coming to a conference like this again, never having the privilege of reading this book again, never having the privilege of meeting with God's people again, never having the privilege, beloved, of hearing the word preached ever again. As many blessed men and women of God this morning live in an experience deprived of all the external support, aid and means that so many people depend upon, beloved, to keep them going spiritually, substitute for the reality of the inward life and sufficiency of this great spring of living water, Jesus, that satisfies. How many people really know that and live in the wonder and glory of it? She discovered it, beloved, it sprang up in the depths of her being and satisfied her in a way that nothing else ever had. That's why she was able to return to the men who formerly abused her and misused her and said, come see a man. Oh, praise God. Where are the men and women, beloved, whose lives are a testimony to the reality of the satisfaction and sufficiency of Jesus? Not just in conferences like this where it's so easy, hallelujah, you don't need much encouragement, beloved, to give expression of life to the Lord. Praise God. The conferences aren't life. They're like the cream on the top of the cake. Life out there in the world. Amen. And that's the context and venue in which you will discover whether you've got the real thing, whether you've met the real person. Amen. Whether you have a relationship with the man. She was in love with him. Praise God. He's taken the trouble to sit down in the common context of her ordinary everyday living and talk to her. Amen. That's where he'll meet you, beloved, primarily, where you live, where you work, where you walk, where you least expect him to appear. That's where he will meet you. Amen. And he'll talk to you in terms that are relevant to you, language that you can understand in such sublime simplicity. Glory to his name. Read the gospel record and find how simple it is. And this will allow him, beloved, to search you through and through and bring you to a realization that there's nothing hid from him. He knows all that there is to know about you and yet still loves you. And then if you'll believe him, he'll satisfy you. Through and through. Amen. We won't need all these books for how to manage your temperament, or how to make your marriage work, or how to bring up your children, or how to get on in the world. You won't need them, not really. Hallelujah. You'll suddenly find, beloved, that you've got a force within that's more than adequate to meet all of your needs. Glory to his name. And he and he alone will satisfy you at every level and throughout every area of your life. But if I didn't believe that, I'd have no authority to talk about him. I know him. I love him. By his grace I prove him and find him sufficient. Do you really love him? It's not pie in the sky, it's not the sentiment of the moment, not the inspiration of the hymn, but do you know him? Solidly, profoundly. And the proof of it is that you have a testimony that he satisfies you totally. If he doesn't, beloved, then you need to seek him. Allow him to talk to you and search you. And if you'll believe him, he will satisfy you. Come see a man. His name is Jesus. Amen. We're going to express our love to him this morning and our love to one another as we break bread and fellowship in the Spirit. We can do it if we really love him. The testimony of his constant availability, in terminology so basic, bread and wine, so common. Hallelujah. Interpreting to you and me the most profound, spiritual and eternal reality. Let the common, let the simple, let the ordinary, beloved, lift you into the glory and satisfy you, satisfy you deep within today. And I tell you if you believe him, beloved, it won't deteriorate, it won't dwindle away. Glory to his name that will go on forever and ever. Amen.