THE OLD STATE AND THE NEW STATE
[p. 338] THE OLD STATE AND THE NEW STATE
1 Kings 17: 8 - 24; John 4: 7 - 15
I desire to bring before you this evening the greatness of the blessing vouchsafed to the believer in Christ on the earth; the greatness of the gift of God, I do not say from the earth, but on the earth. It is not merely that all that which was against you has been removed in the cross, that Christ “hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God”, but it is the blessing you receive on coming to God. If it were better known, or rather enjoyed, there would be a wonderful testimony to the grace, even apart from preaching; great would be the testimony of the one who really knew the gift of God - his present portion on the earth, not one which he is expecting, but one which he is enjoying; as our Lord said to the woman of Samaria, “If thou knewest the gift of God”, or God as a giver. I read about the widow of Sarepta, because the Lord alludes to this case in Luke 4: when He was rejected by the Jews, He refers to the gentile widow and to the gentile leper. The tale told us here is very interesting. There was a great famine in the land, and Elijah was sent by the Lord to be sustained by a widow in Sarepta. When he came to the city, he saw a woman gathering sticks, and he asked her for a little water. As she was going to fetch it, he asked her to bring him a morsel of bread, and she said she had not any, she had only a little oil in a cruse and a little meal in a barrel, and she was gathering a couple of sticks, that she might bake a cake, eat it, and die. Can you conceive anything more deplorable? It is a true picture of the natural man; he is looking for present enjoyment, but beyond the present he knows nothing. She is deliberately bent on enjoying her last meal; after that, death - she had no more.
[p. 339] Is there any one here who is bent on some present enjoyment? Supposing you get it, what next? It may be your last, and then death. Now Elijah announces to her, “The barrel of meal shall not waste, neither shall the cruse of oil fail, until the day that the LORD sendeth rain upon the earth. And she went and did according to the saying of Elijah: and she, and he, and her house did eat many days”; in the margin of your Bible it is “a full year”. A full year figuratively embraces all the circumstances of every period of your life. At the end of it her son dies - there is death in the house; and the widow said to Elijah, who had been in her house for a full year, “Art thou come unto me to call my sin to remembrance, and to slay my son? And he said unto her, Give me thy son. And he took him out of her bosom, and carried him up into a loft, where he abode, and laid him upon his own bed.... And he stretched himself upon the child three times” - he identified himself with death (typifying how Christ entered into our death), and the child revived. “And Elijah took the child, and brought him down out of the chamber into the house, and delivered him unto his mother: and Elijah said, See, thy son liveth. And the woman said to Elijah, Now by this I know that thou art a man of God, and that the word of the LORD in thy mouth is truth”. She sees that death has been overcome, for the prophet had identified himself with it.
In the opening of John’s gospel you find that Christ was to effect two great works: one, “the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world”; and the other, “he it is who baptises with the Holy Spirit”. It is important to connect them together. In the one He removes all that is contrary to God, and in the other He fits us for all that is according to God. On previous evenings I have dwelt on how He removes all that is contrary to God; I desire now to dwell on the greatness of His gift. It is of the last importance that [p. 340] you should understand that all that was against you has been removed in the cross - all in the believer contrary to God has been carried into the land of forgetfulness: “their sins and iniquities will I remember no more”. But great as this grace is, yet there is more. He has done the greatest work for you, and He has given you the greatest gift. In John 4 the Lord is opening out the gift of grace. I do not confine it to chapter 4 it extends to chapter 7. Here in chapter 4 this woman of Samaria comes to the well at an hour of the day when the others would not be there. She sought isolation, she had no reputation, she was desolate. The Lord is sitting on the well, and when she comes He accosts her, and is ready to receive a service from her. “Jesus saith unto her, Give me to drink”. The one who gives is greater than the receiver, but He in His grace puts Himself in the position of a receiver.
The woman of Samaria cannot understand His grace, but says, “How is it that thou, being a Jew, askest drink of me, which am a woman of Samaria? for the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans. Jesus answered and said unto her, If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink; thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water”. His asking her for a drink might have inspired her with confidence to ask Him. If you ask me to do anything for you, you embolden me to ask you to do something for me. If she had asked of Him, He would have given her living water.
I believe the true way for a sinner to begin is to say, I have offended God, and I want to know how the offence can be removed. By the grace of God it is removed. Christ has died, the just for the unjust; He has glorified God in bearing the judgment on man, so that God can be “just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus”. As I have already stated, He is “the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world”. All contrary to God has been removed from His side in the death of Christ, to His infinite satisfaction and glory. Man does not know the nature of his offence, the grievousness of sin in the sight of God. We know sin is very grievous, but we do not know God’s estimate of it. No one but His own Son knew the measure of our distance, and He has removed it. Now the Lord is showing in this chapter the greatness of His grace; it is the gift He is setting forth, and this woman is a sample case. Here is a woman, He knows all about her, and before she acknowledges Him, or believes on Him, He tells her of the wonderful new condition in which He can set her up in Samaria at that moment.
In verse 14 the Lord tells her, “Whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst” (the word for “never” is the strongest word that can be used; it means, neither here nor hereafter); “but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life”. That is, death has been removed, and you are brought into life in the Spirit of God. The widow of Sarepta saw death overcome; but the believer has a divine fountain within him springing up into eternal life. The woman was attracted by this great gift; she could not be otherwise. I would say to any one much attracted by the things of the world, I can tell you of a present benefit, far superior to the brightest gain in this world. If you could acquire the brightest and greatest benefit here, you must part with it some day, and however great it was you would like to add to it, you could not be satisfied. But here you are told that the gift of grace is so great that you shall never have a sense of deficiency; you will be in the region of satisfied desire, because it shall be in you; it is not from anything outside of you: “the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life”. I believe the more you read and the more you [p. 342] meditate on this passage, the more its greatness will open out to you. I am sure every believer here would own how little he lives up to his privileges. But if you do not start here, you have not started at the beginning of the gift of grace. The woman is attracted, and I think nothing would attract a person more than to hear that you could put him in the way of being in that state of satisfied desire while here on the earth, so that he did not want an addition. I know you may say that it is impossible to be so in our natural state. I am not speaking of our natural state. I admit that the most intelligent man on the face of the earth would say, ‘The offer is splendid, but it is impossible, because it is contrary to all human experience’. But I ask myself, and I ask you, Do you believe it? Then if you have received this gift, live in it, seek the good of it.
If you look for natural additions, you are carried away with them; you do not know the greatness of God’s gift, for it is inexhaustible, it could not be otherwise; and in fact, the more you know of it the greater you find it to be. You shall never thirst. You must first accept the word of God. You may not understand it, yet you are bound to accept it. Hence the woman was right when she said, “From whence then hast thou that living water?” She was conscious that it would suit her. There is no one who would not own its greatness.
This chapter is the contrast to John 2. There the Lord goes to a marriage feast, the happiest human circle, where man concentrates all his ability to make it a brilliant time; what happens? The wine ran out! Man’s brightest day comes to an end. Every one knows that the brightest day ends, and very often in sorrow and disappointment. This is man in his natural state. Moreover the most valued favour on this earth, whatever it be, is overcast with the fear that you might lose it. A philosopher has described a mother dropping a tear on her babe as she gazed on it, fearing she might [p. 343] lose it. And it is a well-known fact that men who possess earthly advantages to the greatest extent are unhappy because of the fear of death, when all would be lost.
It is the natural man who is before us in chapter 2, both in relation to man and in relation to God, but the contrast is here; the new state is declared. The Lord is setting forth the grace of God, the greatness of His gift. If He had spoken to the woman of the law, she would have been familiar with the subject. Here the Lord speaks of God giving, the very opposite of demanding. God is come out in a new way. Law is a righteous demand; grace comes to give to the undeserving. “If thou knewest the gift of God”. No one could have apprehended the greatness of the gift, that it should be in him, not like the wine, outside of himself; and that instead of running out, it should be “in him a fountain of water, springing up into eternal life”.
Next, let us look at the nature of the gift; it is the Spirit of God. The Spirit of God is given to every believer in Christ, “In whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise”. Therefore the apostle says to the Corinthians, “Do ye not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit which is in you, which ye have of God; and ye are not your own?” We do not dwell sufficiently on the simple fact that we have received the Holy Spirit. If you have not received the Holy Spirit, you have not believed on Christ personally. In that sense you have not come to Him. I do not say you have not faith in His work; but as in the case of the ten lepers (Luke 17) all were cleansed, but nine of them went to ritualism to find approach to God. Many converted are here. Only one of the lepers came direct to Christ; he had now a living link with Him; this in pattern is sealing by the Holy Spirit. Not only has Christ saved you, but you are of Him. “If any man have not the [p. 344] Spirit of Christ, he is none of his”. I press on you that it is His gift. “Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?” The great point for you is, do you believe in the greatness of God’s grace? His word is that you are to be set up, not in some future day, but now where you are, in the best and greatest way; “a fountain of water, springing up into eternal life”. As to this woman, she had sought happiness in the world, and now she is degraded. The Lord reveals Himself to her in her desolation, and proposes to her not merely that she should be clear of all her offences - that is true - but that she should be set up in an inconceivably blessed way in the place of her degradation. No language can convey the greatness of this grace. If our faith were more abiding, we should understand it better. I would press on you how infinitely greater the grace here is than that vouchsafed to the widow of Sarepta. She rejoiced greatly to see death overcome, and in Luke 4, she is referred to as a type of those who will receive Christ when rejected by the Jew; the gentile widow would be glad to receive Him. But inconceivably greater is the grace that there is in you a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life. As you read in John 1, “he it is who baptises with the Holy Spirit”.
Now I add a word to those who have tasted this gift of God. The only way to increase your enjoyment of Him is to be in continued deference to Him. If you live in the Spirit, walk in the Spirit. If there was a room in your house where you would have untold joys, but because of your business you could not be always in that room, yet whenever you had a spare moment, I am sure you would go there. Well, how much more should you walk in the Spirit, so that you should never thirst, for there is in you a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life. You may have business and many duties, but the more thoroughly you do your [p. 345] duty, like a horse in a mill, the more constantly you will be revived and invigorated by the Spirit in you who fills your cup. You have not to go outside yourself. You sometimes hear it said, Such an one is not a man of resources. A christian is a man of resources; he “shall never thirst”; he is in a region of satisfied desire.
I could not exaggerate this grace. It is surely marvellous that God has not only effected the greatest work, the work of our salvation, but He has given you the greatest gift which you are to enjoy now on earth. If we were more cast upon the Lord as indispensable to us, we should receive more. You should ever be able to say, “Thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over”. We are very often counting up our mercies, the different ways God deals with us, and we say, Well, we are happy. There is a great deal more for us. “Thou hast put gladness in my heart, more than in the time that their corn and their wine increased”.
The Lord grant in His infinite goodness that every heart may be impressed with the sense of His wonderful grace, so that in this poor world a man may know that he possesses divine resources in himself, and therefore be able practically to say, Never less alone than when alone. I do not want any one to be a recluse or an ascetic, but I want you to apprehend the immensity of the gift which you have received, as well as to know the greatness of the work of salvation. In fact the order in John’s gospel is, first the gift of grace, and then, from chapter 8, the work of grace. When we think of ourselves, we begin with the work; but when we look at God, He presents first the greatness of His gift. Have you resources? They are not outside of you, but you have to appreciate them, you have to draw from them; if you have a fountain of water you have to drink of it; and it is as you drink of the water that you shall never thirst. The Spirit assures you [p. 346] that you are outside of all the ruin and the misery here, and that your resources are in the Lord Himself; as has been said, it is like water which rises to its own level, it comes from Christ and rises to Him. The Lord grant that each of you may be more acquainted - great is your gain as you are acquainted - with the gift of God, for His name’s sake.