In this sermon, the preacher discusses the significance of water and its symbolism in the Bible. He mentions various references to water, such as John the Baptist baptizing people in water and Jesus turning water into wine. The preacher emphasizes the importance of understanding the true meaning behind these symbols and the need for spiritual transformation. He also highlights the concept of receiving the Holy Spirit as a gift from God and the importance of being true worshippers.

Alright then, in John chapter 4, so then we've come to the point, the spiritual point, the factual thing as it happened in Samaria. I'm not really concerned about history, geography and all that. The spirituality. The woman comes to store water from her well, which was Joseph's well, which was Jacob's well. Alright, when she comes, she discovers that Jesus has made it his well, and asks her to give him a drink from the well. Her well, as she thought. Here we go then. He didn't, there's a, you see the parenthesis in verse 8, I hope it's noted for you. Normally he would have expected his disciples, or it would have been expected of his disciples, that they would have given him water. For, that's how verse 8 starts, for his disciples, he asked the woman, because their disciples had gone away, into the city to buy meat. Now I don't know anything about any kind of discussions, directions, or anything that might have taken place on the common sense level between the Lord Jesus and his disciples. Whether, as he says at the end of his discourse to them, I sent you to reap that, they came back with bread. But he didn't send them, you say, well no, they would have said, well we need some bread. Alright, stay in that which is merely human, you'll finish out able to lecture in the humanities. You've got to get away from humanism, which dogs so much preaching. Not only dogs it, eats it up I think. He spoke to the woman, he made her understand that she had to give him water, if I may say that. I mean, he could have used commandeers to do it, and she would have had to have done it, like he commanded devils to come out of people. But that was not the point. We need to be taught of God. Alright, the woman of Samaria said, 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, I want to read it, but I'm not careful I stop on nearly every word. If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink, thou wouldst have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water. And what a compliment he paid her, he didn't start off by offending her. He said, If you only knew, you would have it. How about you, you're all sitting there, you know, have you got it, have you had it? She would have asked of him if he knew. Now you do know, or you know about it. That's why it's in the book, so that you should know about it. You would have asked and paid her a wonderful compliment. If only she'd known. There must be millions in the earth, if only they knew. If only they knew. They would have been perhaps four times as good a Christian, if I may put it in this sense, than you or I, if they'd only known. But they don't now. They haven't heard. Jesse Porter Head's great plane comes to mind. I've Many of whom profess thy name, no burden begin to share. That's what she said. Wrote a lovely hymn about it, and you know it, don't you? You don't? Let me burn out for thee, dear Lord. Jesse Porter Head. A woman who wrote enough to shame nearly every man in the world. Here, she didn't do it with that intention, here then is the truth. You would have asked if you knew. And who, may I ask you, you are familiar with this story, I take it, was the gift of God. Now it's for you to notice that the gift of God, Jesus Christ our Lord, spoke of another gift, who was the Holy Ghost. That's what this story is about. So I want to ask you, make it very personal, have you asked the Lord Jesus Christ, given to you for this purpose? Or given to the world for this purpose? Have you asked him to give you the drink? And have you received it? And are you filled with it? That's what the story is about. The details, you can say, you know, Jesus gave her water, that was not in the world. That is an assumption. There's nothing in the story to tell you that that happened. So we're bringing our kids up in Sunday school on a wrong basis. Jesus did not, and there's no telling that she ever received. Ah, you can make up your conclusion, but don't write dogmatically phrased choruses or hymns about it. Here is the thing. A woman says, 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. For the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water, springing up into everlasting life. Now, beloved, that leaves you without excuse. Utterly without excuse. Don't you make excuses about yourself or anyone else? Or anything else? Where's your well? Where's the well? You ask me for a drink, I'll give you a well. What is this that's fountaining out of God? Rather like the river that flowed through Eden, I should think, if I want a basis for my thinking, a beginning of it. That's what it's about. The Bible is one, at least the idea, the truth behind both covenants is the same. It's one. And before there was a covenant made, except between the Father and the Son in heaven, when time was not, you and I have to see, beloved, you being invited into eternal things and eternal mysteries and things about which, well, if you're anything like I am, are only sort of babbling babies. You and I have got to know the immensity of things beyond knowledge, beyond thought, need not be beyond your experience. Wonderful. You, my friend, are immeasurable. You understand that? Let no man think he knows his brother or his sister, he doesn't. Even if, like I said to my wife one day, I said, I'm very fortunate, I've married my wife, but also married my sister. I said, you are my sister. And that's the thought behind the Song of Solomon. My sister, my spouse, he uses the word. How marvellous, then, is the truth. Oh, she's heckling me, this water, sir. Neither come hither to draw. She was completely blind, of course, but then we all start there. Jesus saith unto her, go, call thy husband, and come hither. The woman answered and said, I have no husband. Jesus said unto her, thou hast well said. You told me the truth. Now that's the ground to start on with Jesus. You tell him the truth. You tell him all the truth. Then he shall never get all that God has for you. Call thy husband, come hither. Thou hast well said, I have no husband. For thou said five husbands, and he whom thou now hast is not thy husband. In that saidst thou truly, he was immensely sorry for her. Don't read it with an imperious voice. Learn to know Jesus so you know how to read what he says properly. That's the tone of your voice if you're wont to read scripture in public. I perceive thou art a prophet, he said. And immediately, like the lying spirit that dwells in us all till Jesus deals with it. It's lying, though we don't know it's saying. It says this, I go to church, I worship. Our fathers, in the tradition they worshipped in this mountain. You say that Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship. He said unto a woman, she had not said a word about Jerusalem. He had spoken to her about religion, or what would be called the home of religion. Not a word. He was the new covenant. He wasn't trying to gather her into the old. She hadn't got a clue, you see. Jesus said unto a woman, believe me. Do you know all our troubles come to us because we don't believe Jesus. So we do. When he talks belief he means total commitment. That's the only belief he knows. Preachers will say, oh you've got half-truths, you're just beginning to believe. We've got magical phrases that we use. But Jesus didn't talk like that. Somebody's like, she's an He said, woman, believe me. In great sympathy. Five husbands, however did she live. Five husbands, my wife had a job with one. You have to see this, beloved. Do you understand? Don't you understand? This is what God's crying out for. You don't read the Bible with understanding hearts and seeing eyes. Here's the trouble. Dear cometh, when you shall neither in this mountain nor at Jerusalem worship the father you worship, you know not why. We know that what we worship for salvation is of the Jews. Now let me ask you a question. Do you think John's made a mistake in writing that verse? Do you think you've read it right when you've read it? You'll have to start piling in all these years you've lost in Bible reading. You'll have to give yourself to it. We know what we worship? It's got a what? Neither feminine nor masculine gender about it. What we worship? Am I worshiping something? Yes, I am. Don't you worship Jesus? Well, if you think I don't, you must think I don't. But here's the truth. Yeah, I'll tell you what I'm worshipping. I'm worshipping perfect love. I'm worshipping absolute grace. I'm worshipping absolute righteousness. I'm worshipping that. I'm only describing God in another way. Yeah, we know what we worship. I'm worshipping perfect love. Now don't think I'm worshipping words or teaching or something. God is the sum total of it all. That's what you've got to know. You may be worshipping your ambition to be a teacher, preacher or what not. You beloveds know this, that you've got to be in God's hands as Adam was and didn't know he was in God's hands first of all as a lump of clay. Paul reminds us of this, hasn't the pot of power to make of the same lump? You know the rest of it. Vessel unto this, vessel for that. You've got to come into the what as well as the who. And I'll see what you worship if I know you. I'll see how you react. I'll listen to the tone of your voice. I will see it, not as your judge. But God he gave me mind, he gave me sight, he gave me ears, he gave me sensitivity. He made me like that so that I shouldn't be led astray by men and women that claim to be Christians and their lives show they're not. I know what I worship, I'm worshipping excellence, I'm worshipping perfection. Oh not nearly as that. Don't misinterpret what I'm meaning. Wonderful. They didn't know what they were worshipping. Didn't even know. Is God your who? I am what I am. Notice what he says. Not who I am. I look at you and I know what you are. Say well you don't know me. I mean, I'll explain myself in a moment. You're a speck of dust and that's what you'll go back in. So I know what you are, fine flesh and all that. I know why God is spirit, the spirit, the eternal one, the first one, in the end the only one, except those who by grace he has elected to live with him. Do you see what it's about? All you specks of dust, me as well, do you see it? He said we know what we worship. You don't know what you worship. We're not worshipping sin to give ourselves over to sin. We're not worshipping the television to give ourselves over to the television. We're not worshipping money to give ourselves over to money and being ruined by it. Do you see? I'm worshipping the infinite. You say that's God. Alright, call God the infinite. You're moving from one realm to another, yes, purposely. That's why you are students, to learn how to do it. Learn what the Bible is about and see what it is. But I know God. Glory to God you know him. He knows us. David says he remembers our frame. He knows we are but dust and we can always go there when we want to start making excuses. Jesus came and he put the standard right up there. Do you remember old Isaiah? He said raise up a standard for the people. Lift you up above your belly, whether you're a man or a woman. Lift you up, raise up a standard. You should be as far as possible an incarnation of God. Not from your mother or your father but by the work of Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost in you for God's sake, the Father's sake. You understand? That is the revelation of the Bible. Whether it's being preached as it should be, not for me to judge. Oh well you can't give babies solid meat. Why not? They've even got a way of getting the goodness and all the solid meat ground down into finest things that they can put it in their mouths. Meat! We want to make excuses on some things but we can't make excuses on others. I remember once going to India to preach at the Indian station of course and I took a session like, in translation obviously, interpretation and then the man who was my interpreter whom I could trust, a dear man of God, you don't always get someone you can trust by the way, but I, when I had finished and sat down, he went on for another ten minutes to a quarter of an hour, speaking in Malayalee, if you've ever heard Malayalee, it sounds like something's rattling marbles in their mouth. You've heard Malayalee have you? And their writing is all rounded, lovely, artistic. Here's the thing, anyway, he went on for ten minutes, he came back and he says, that was solid meat. I ground it down. He gave him the meat in a spoon. Don't you understand, when you come to John you come to a man who's mastered spiritual truth and understand what it's about. You know I'm commenting on John, he's my favourite writer anyway, but there you are. Here is the glorious truth. Let's get down to basic water, not cups of coffee. Jesus is sitting at your well and it's full of what's in it. You are a container, whether it be for a string, for a spoon I mean, to make a well, or whether it be for washing somebody's feet, water pot. That's what it's about. Notice John's still on water, John Baptist in chapter one, wine jars full of water and then wine. Okay, are you thinking, this great background, Jesus said, I don't deal in water. Alright, we didn't put, that's my words. He didn't give her the drink, she wasn't ready for it, but he had to utter what formerly had been almost a forbidden unutterable truth, simply because I spoke to a baby this morning, I'll illustrate it. A little baby, I don't know how old he was, his niece. Alright, I talked to it and I knew it wasn't understanding me. It just looked at me, eyes wide open, lovely big fat bouncy baby. Never said a word. Didn't understand what I was talking about. Couldn't speak. What are you like? Who am I talking to here? What am I talking to here? That's the thing, he will give you a well. Do you know exactly what was in his human frame? A well. That's the thing. There cometh and now is, verse 23, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth. Beloved, if you are a true worshipper, stay in truth, will you? Stay in truth. Don't pick up a bright idea from somebody. Stay in the truth. Only that will set you free. Free in your mind to think as God thinks, to think his thoughts after him. For he thought them first and he put them into you, that you should be nothing else but a continuing flowing river. That's the loveliness of it. God is spirit, 24. They that worship him must worship in spirit and in truth. Don't say in the spirit, though it will be that. In spirit. So when you go together, say Sunday, to worship, you make sure you worship him in spirit. Put your spirit into it, man and woman. He wants your spirit as well as the Holy Spirit. He hasn't got you unless he's got your spirit and your heart. A true worship. So I couldn't worship this morning, I haven't got anything out of the morning service, that's your fault. Now you might have had an office, a preaker and all that, I know. But here's the thing about it, what it's about. Let's go on, shall we? The woman says, I know that Messiah will come, which is called Christ. When he has come, he will tell us all things she wasn't really believing yet. She was listening. Now listen to this, Jesus said unto her, I that speak unto thee, am he. Then when she went back, this is what she said in verse 29, come see a man, which told me all things that ever I did, is not this the Christ? He's not this. She wasn't sure. You've got to be a bit careful who you believe, of course. Amen. I love this story, but I'm only half way through the chapter. See if we can storm along to the end of it. Here it is. Upon this, interrupting of course, upon this came his disciples, and marveled that he talked with a woman, yet no man said, what thinkest thou, or why talkest thou with her? They didn't say, but beloved, things you don't say, I shall see. I won't hear you say a word, but I shall know. An attitude, a look, you are known. You can be read like the daily newspaper. So don't try to cover anything up, put on a mask, or, don't try friend, don't try. You be yourself. If you're bad, then be bad. It's alright. I don't want to get arrested for trying to incite mutiny or something like that. But this is the thing, don't you try and cover anything up. She didn't know. She didn't know. But she saw a vast difference between those men called apostles and Jesus. You know, I should hate it if Christ, who knoweth all things, wants to speak to me and sits on my will and has to get rid of his disciples so that he can, they would bitch. I love that. I love this. Glory to God. Here we go. You come, she went, said to the men, come see Christ. Then went they out of the streets. In the meanwhile, his disciples prayed him, saying, Master, eat. But he said unto them, I have meat to eat, you know not. Nothing of. Do not know anything about this. But they were his apostles. Judas was one of them. The whole truth, beloved, is this great mystery of love and of God, manifest in the flesh. Very gently dealing with the precious woman. You know, a man who comes to know God in the end as dear John, they always put in lovely things about women. Did you know that? There's one, in the eighth chapter, there's a woman taken in adultery. How sweetly he deals with it all. Very tender, very lovely. I'll get rid of all these men. Oh, there they are. I'll get rid of these men. He knew she was going to come. It was her will. You all have to come to it at times. How wonderful then. And then you know what happened. But let's read it through. They looked at one another. And any man brought him what to eat, Jesus said unto him, my meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work. Now you know what Jesus lived on. Finishing the work. Doing the will. You can say, oh, that's strong meat. Strong meat? There's hardly any in the Bible. It's all minced up meat, if it is meat. Don't you see, when he wrote to the Corinthians, he had founded the church, he had been there, ministered to them, they had everything. They came behind him, no gift, full of that. And this is what he said. Hitherto I fed you with milk. You're not able to take meat, and neither are you now. So the whole of 1 Corinthians is just milk. That's all it is. You say, that's a tremendous epistle. That's right. So you see how strong milk is. You read it, you've got your eyes, you can read it, in the first of Corinthians, first chapter. Second chapter. You're not able to take it. So he never gave them any strong meat. They were babies. So it works out then, if you can function in all the gifts of the spirit, you can still be a baby. Thistles without life making sound. You must read it. See whether you like your milk this morning, or would you like a pint of milk, or a gallon of milk. Read 1 Corinthians, that's all it is. You're not able to take meat now. He touched on the stronger meat a bit in the second epistle, you should read that. Lovely. God wants us to see all these things. So I turn you back. What is it you worship? Are you a Samaritan really? What is it that you are worshipping? We know what we worship. It's marvellous isn't it? To see this great thing. My mate, he said in verse 34, is to do the will of heaven certainly, to finish his work. Say not ye there yet four months and then cometh harvest. Behold I say unto you lift up your eyes and look on the fields. That means now, for they are white already to harvest. And he that reapeth receiveth wages, and gathereth fruit unto life eternal. And he that reapeth may rejoice together. And here is that saying true. One soweth, another reapeth. But don't ever misuse that verse to say, oh well I sowed. Have you ever reaped a sow for Christ? Oh well I'm not the other one that reaps, I sow. Beloved, it seems we're all sowers, no reapers. Beloved, do you know what made me aware of the fact that I hadn't got the Holy Ghost? I preached more engagements pretty well than I could fill, and I never reaped a sow. That first, in my blindness, alerted me to the fact that I wasn't full of the Holy Ghost. Take stock of your own life. But you work with people. You meet people. The Lord opened all our hearts. I sent you to reap. Now I didn't send you to sow. Notice what he said. You apostles, you my followers, you my true disciples, I don't want you to be sowers. What did they say? Two pennyworth of bread please. That's why they went. They went to buy food. He sent them to reap. Other people have sowed. Of course they were only supposed to reap the result of old covenant and truth. The new covenant had not been established yet. Here then is the thing. Perhaps now you wouldn't have liked to have been one of the chosen followers of Christ on earth. Not when you think it out. Not like me. I was brought up to think, or to quote, I think, when I read that sweet story of old, when Jesus was here among men, how he gathered the sheep and lambs into the fold. I would have liked to have been with him there. I wish that his hands had been placed on me and my head, his arms had been thrown around me, that I might have seen his kind look when he said, suffer the children to come to me. That's how I was brought up. You might not have had such, shall I say, good fortune or good parents, I don't know. You see, but when I face the reality of true discipleship, I don't want to be as a baby and get all soft and cuddly. I would have liked him to have done this, I would have liked him to have done that, and lay my head on the pillow called sentimentality at night. I realise I might not have wanted it so much. Great to have been born of the Holy Ghost. Great. You become a baby then. You won't be a man perhaps for a long time after you are born again, but be a good spiritual baby, won't you? And then you have the likelihood of becoming a man in Christ. And you had better read Paul's Timothy. He called him, O man of God. And you can get some idea of what manhood, what God calls manhood, is. Isn't that Bible a wonderful book? It's all here. You can't excuse yourself at all. We believe, verse 42, they said of the woman, now we believe, this is the man, not because of thy saying, for we have heard him ourselves and know this is indeed the Christ, the Saviour of the world. And did you know that it was the Samaritans who got that revelation before any Jew did? They might have been told, but they now knew. These despised, these outcasts from the Jewish position, and it was to them that he granted the first revelation of his Saviourhood. Isn't that wonderful? Don't you think it's wonderful? Marvellous. Marvellous. But then I want to finish the chapter. Let's go on. After two days he departed then. They were so privy. Fancy having two precious days. Got Jesus holy to himself. Had to go on normally. But oh God, I would have liked to have sat at his feet. Oh, it's worse than the Samaritan inside. But he departed after two days. Jesus himself testified that a prophet has no honour in his own country. Then, when he was come into Galilee, the Galileans received him, having seen all the things that he did at Jerusalem and also at the feast, for they also went unto the feast. Now, scripture says, chapter one, as many as received him, to them gave he the authority to become the sons of God. Don't think that that means the same kind of reception. They received him back home. They saw the miracles. That's what they wanted. It was the thing that moved one of the foremost of their nation, named Nicodemus. You must be a prophet, come from God. Nobody can do the miracles that you do, except God be with him when he was miles off course. Of course God was with him. Our trouble is, beloved, he was so apt to do it, is to notch onto the things that don't matter very much. So he'd do miracles. They hadn't received him. They'd received his gifts and thought they'd received him. Really, they were under the paper that the parcel was wrapped up in. Gifts, healings, wonderful. Don't misunderstand me, but you and I have got to see down into the centre, what am I worshipping? What? And see whether your soul is only greedy for heaven instead of him. That's the thing. Get into it. Let it get into you. Let it eat you up. You have it for breakfast and dinner and tea. I mean Jesus wrote that. In thy word doth he meditate day and night. You know what that's in, don't you? First Psalm. And in other connections. What a marvellous thing then. And it says that when he was come out of Judea into Galilee, went to heal his son, this man came, come and heal my son. Jesus said unto him, except ye see signs and wonders, you won't believe. And the woman said unto him, Sir, come down, ere my child die. Jesus said unto him, Go thy way, thy son liveth. And the man believed the word that Jesus had spoken unto him and he went his way. And as he was now going down, his servant met him and told him, saying, Thy son liveth. Then inquired he of them the hour when he began to amend. And they said unto him, Yesterday at the seventh hour the fever left him. So the father knew that it was at the same hour in which Jesus said unto him, Thy son liveth. And he himself believed that his whole house. This is again the second miracle that Jesus did when he was come out of Judea into Galilee. Would you believe if you didn't see signs and wonders? Would you believe though you have not seen nor ever have any likelihood of seeing one sign, one miracle? I assure you, beloved, that Jesus is accepted in heaven because of his signs. He said anyway, it's not me doing the works, it's my father doing them. Do you understand, beloved, what it's all about? So I'll finish the chapter this morning saying, Do you know what you worship? If we're not careful, we make conditions for believing. You got that? We make the conditions. We don't write them down on paper and say, I'm making this condition, I'm making that condition, I'm making that condition. God says to you, son, daughter, please don't think you can make the conditions. You can't make any conditions, beloved. You are a slave of sin. You are hell-bent and hell-bound until God rescues you from him. If you're not very careful, you will make your conditions worse. God wants us to collapse into his arms. And just, beloved, I don't care what you do, daughter, I don't care what you want, I don't care. I want you. Do you want me? Don't you try and make a condition. You're dead. How can a dead person make conditions? Terrible effrontery. You and I have to know that we've been saved by grace alone, not because God fulfills your conditions. Amen. Now how wonderful this is. I'm going to pat myself on the back, because if I don't do it here, I will get home. I got through a whole chapter. It'll be the talk of the house where I'm living. But you and I, beloved, we're privileged now. How about this? Well, look back. What does spring up in you? Temper? Wrong imaginations? Thoughts? Schemes? What does spring up into you? Well, a lot of sin. Unless they're coming from the Holy Ghost. If you knew the gift of God, and you'd have asked of him, he will give you the other gift of God, the Holy Ghost. It's all gift. Gratuitous. Marvelous. Wonderful. Have you received the Holy Ghost since you've believed? That's the first thing for you to attend to. Now let's pray. Father, Father, thank you for this precious book with this wonderful, wonderful, direct teaching of Christ himself, so that none need go astray, none live in their imagination, none live in unreality. We thank thee, Lord, for this. Hallelujah. Amen.