...................................................................................................................
(from
John 4)
Dr.
Elmer Towns
I learned
that the Pharisees were told that I was winning and baptizing more followers
than John the Baptizer.
Although
I didn’t actually baptize, My disciples did it, so I left Judea to go home.
When I
left Jerusalem, I surprisingly went home through Samaria, because the Jews have
no dealings with the Samaritans.
When I
came near Sychar, I sat on Jacob’s well because I was worn out from the hot
journey, and it was noon.
A Samaritan woman came to draw water from the well. I was
sitting there and said, “Give Me a drink.”
The
disciples had gone into the town to get food.
She was
surprised that a Jew would ask because the Jews despised the Samaritans.
She said, “Why would You, a Jew, ask water from me, a
Samaritan?”
I said, “If you only knew God’s gift and who it is that
offers you water, you would have asked Me for a drink, and I would have given
you living water.”
The woman replied, “You don’t have a bucket; how could You
get water from this deep well?”
She continued, “Are You greater than Jacob who drank from it
with his?”
I answered, “Whoever drinks this water will get thirsty
again, but those who drink of the water that I give will never be thirsty
again. The water I give will be an artesian well inside them that gushes up
into eternal life.”
The woman said, “Give me some of that water so I will never
get thirsty again, and have to come to this well for water.”
I
abruptly said, “Go call your husband!”
She
answered, “I have no husband.”
I replied, “You have correctly answered because you have had
five husbands, and now you’re not married to the one you’re living with.”
She exclaimed, “You must be a prophet to know this.”
Then she argued, “Our fathers worshiped here. The Jews say
Jerusalem is the place to worship.”
I interrupted to say, “The hour is coming when no one will
worship on this mountain or in Jerusalem. You don’t know whom you worship, but
the Jews know whom they worship. In fact, the hour is already here when true
worshipers will worship My Father in Spirit and truth. God is Spirit, and those
who worship Him must worship in their hearts and truthfully.”
The woman said, “I know that Messiah is coming; He will tell
us everything when He comes.”
I
answered, “I am He.”
Then My disciples came and saw that I talked with a woman. “Why
are You talking with her?”
The woman left her water pot and hurried off to tell the men in
the village, “Come see a man who told me everything I’ve ever done.”
She asked, “Could this man be the Messiah?” They left the
town to meet Me.
Meanwhile, the disciples told Me to eat, but I said, “I have
food to eat that you don’t know about.”
The
disciples thought someone else had brought Me food.
I said, “My food is doing the will of My Father and
completing His work. People say, ‘Harvest comes four months after planting,’
But I say, ‘Look around at the fields, they are already ripe for harvest.’
Everything is ready for the reaper to go to work to bring in the ‘grain’ of
eternal life; then the sower and reaper will rejoice together.”
Then I explained, “One sows, and another reaps. I send you to
reap where you didn’t sow, and you get rewards for their effort.”
Many Samaritans believed in Me because the woman said, “Come
see a man who told me everything I’ve ever done.”
The
Samaritans begged Me to stay with them, and I stayed two days, and many got
saved.
The Samaritan men told the woman, “Now we believe because of
what we have heard for ourselves, not just because of what you said.”
Dr.
Elmer Towns,
vice president of Liberty University, college and seminary professor, dean of
the School of Religion, is also the author of numerous popular and scholarly
works. He is the recipient of the coveted Gold Medallion Award awarded by the
Evangelical Christian Publishers Association for the Book of the Year, The
Names of the Holy Spirit. He and Ruth, his wife of 56 years, have three
children and ten grandchildren.
Destiny
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