THIRSTING AND SATISFACTION

John 4:4-30, 39-42; 7:37-39; 19:28-30, 32-35;

Revelation 22:17 (from “And let him that is athirst ...”)

I was thinking of the wonderful way in which the Lord Jesus, in grace, met this woman at the well of Sychar. What a journey the Lord Jesus had taken to be there, waiting for her. Where had that journey begun? We would understand from the scriptures that precede it that the Lord had been in Judea which was in the south of Palestine while Samaria was more towards the centre. Galilee was towards the north of Palestine. Having been in Judea, we read in verse 3 of chapter 4 that the Lord was going into Galilee which meant He had to pass through Samaria. That was when the Lord came and “sat just as he was at the fountain. It was about the sixth hour”. The Lord had walked a long way to await this woman when she came to draw water.

What did that journey involve? The roads would have been dusty, no doubt. I do not know how long the journey took. We do not know exactly where the Lord had come from within Judea, but it says that His disciples had baptised and that the Lord was with them. If the baptising was in the Jordan – we are not actually told it was – but if it was in the Jordan, the nearest point to the Jordan from Sychar would have been some twenty miles. It could have been more than that. You think of the distance that the Lord had covered on foot, just to be there for this one woman.

Where had the journey really begun? Had it begun with the Lord walking from Judea? We sang in our hymn, ‘Once from glory’s height descending’ (Hymn 414). The Lord had come not from a place on the earth; He had come from above. He came from Godhead’s fullest glory, and stooped down into this world, into this scene, to meet each one of us. This woman is an example person. We should not think that the gospel is only spoken about others or to others; it is to speak to the hearts of each one of us. What a distance the Lord has covered so that He might draw near to you and to me! He has covered that distance.

What did it mean to the Lord of glory, “the Creator of the ends of the earth” (Isa 40:28), to stoop down into this scene that His hands had made, and be found here as a Babe in Bethlehem’s manger? Then He trod that path of devotion to the will of His God and Father in a sinless, perfect life. He lived amongst men who were tainted by sin and tainted by every failing there could be; everything that stood out against mankind surrounded Him as the Lord entered this scene in His holy perfection. He was found in figure as a man, and Scripture goes on to speak of how He “humbled himself, becoming obedient even unto death, and that the death of the cross”, Phil.2:8. This was the journey that the Lord Jesus was on, a journey that had already taken Him from the heights of glory, to stoop down into this scene and to move amongst men, to draw near to precious souls. The Lord’s journey was taking him on to the cross of Calvary to pay the full price at all cost to Himself, in all suffering, extending to the shedding of His precious blood. The Lord Jesus was on that way; and He stopped here where “he must needs pass through Samaria.”

We read here that the Lord said, “salvation is of the Jews”. The Lord had come to call His own, the especially favoured nation of Israel to whom the blessings had been given and the promises had been made. Yet He was the true Joseph, whose “branches shoot over the wall”, Gen.49:22. He was not confined to Israel. The Lord was available to this Samaritan woman and He sat down to wait for her. It says that He “sat just as he was at the fountain”. He was tired: in the reality and perfection of His manhood here He felt everything. You say, ‘He is God’. Think of what this Person had done for the children of Israel on their journey out of Egypt, how the rock was smitten and the water flowed (Num.20:11). At a word, at a command, the Lord could have created fountains of waters, streams of waters; but He sat just as He was in perfect, dependent manhood feeling the condition of thirst so that He could draw near to this woman who also thirsted. She thirsted for more than the waters which this well could offer. The Lord knew that, and He had come to seek her. How do we know He came to seek her? Not only because of the way He came to meet her, but also when the disciples come to Him in verse 27, no one said “What seekest thou?”. The Lord was seeking and He knew this woman was seeking. He had come to meet her need.

The Lord speaks to her in wondrous grace. The woman could not understand why He, being a Jew, was speaking to her, a Samaritan. There was a barrier between the two peoples, and yet there was no barrier when the Lord drew near to her. He was ready to speak to her, just as He was and just as she was. He knew her condition. He knows our condition better than we know it ourselves. He was there waiting for her. And then He says, “Give me to drink”. You think of the Lord having thirst, in his manhood. You can hardly comprehend that the One who had created everything for life – food and water, all that is necessary – could yet himself experience hunger. We read in the temptations that He hungered (Luke 4:2). Now the Lord thirsted, and we read again so touchingly that on the cross, in the hour of His great need, He thirsted. We marvel that the Lord proved what it was to hunger and to thirst. He knew, too, what was needed for each soul to be satisfied.

The woman could not understand what the Lord was speaking of, and she comments that He had nothing to draw with. She said, “the well is deep”. Then the Lord speaks to her of the water that He could give her that did not come from any well here. It did not come from anything that had been humanly dug, but it came from Himself, the living Source of life, from the One who is from above. He is the Son of man who is in heaven. That is where the Lord drew all His resources from, and He was making them available to the soul in need. He makes these resources available to us in just the same way. His speaking produces in this woman the desire to have something that would satisfy her in her soul, and she desires it of Him. She says, “give me this water, that I may not thirst nor come here to draw”. I am sure most people, if not everyone, would appreciate how wonderful it would be to be really satisfied – to be deeply, inwardly satisfied, not to want any more in one sense but to have something that is inward and brings life and satisfaction. Many people seek this in different ways – pleasures and hobbies and many, many other things, but they do not really provide satisfaction deep down. They may satisfy a superficial need, but God has created our hearts and our souls so that only He can satisfy them. And He will pour in His blessing to every one who turns to the Lord Jesus and seeks from Him what He alone is able to give.

But this woman had a history that had to be met, as there is with each one of us, and our histories are different. God knows them perfectly; He knows all that has entered into our lives. He knows our present situation, present sorrows, things that we can think back on that we have done and wished we had not, things that we have said that should not have been said. All of us are identified in that way as having “come short of the glory of God” (Rom.3:23): we have come far short of it. We are all in the same category. You might say some are at the top of the bracket, some are at the bottom of the bracket, but we all come short, we are all found to be guilty before God as having histories that have offended God. Yet the Lord just touches the matter so graciously. He does not speak about it in the way of holding this woman’s history against her. He does not hold it out as an obstacle for her blessing – He does not say ‘Because you have done this, you are outside of the scope of what I can give’. No, everyone is fully within the scope of what the Lord would delight to give. But He does raise the question by saying to this woman, “Go, call thy husband”. And her whole history comes out. That is really what happens in the gospel: our whole history before God comes out. He knows it all. We do not have to speak in detail about it to one another. Everything is apparent to God. It is “laid bare to His eyes, with whom we have to do”, Heb.4:13.

We sometimes sing in the hymn that speaks of the leper, ‘No frown is on His brow’ (Hymn 363). Even though He already knows our history, all that has come into our lives, He draws it out so that it can be met, and met forever. The Lord says to her “Thou hast well said”. Her whole history comes out before Him, and she perceives that He is someone who can tell her all that she had ever done. She begins to realise that Someone far greater than an ordinary person is here. She evidently knew of the coming of the Messias; she may have been looking for it, because she says that One is coming who “will tell us all things”. He says, “I who speak to thee am he”. It comes home to her soul that this One who has spoken to her is indeed the Christ. She is obviously convicted of it because she goes into the city and says “Come, see a man who told me all things I had ever done: is not he the Christ?”.

In this passage you can look at individual verses, or parts of verses, and they convey the gospel message. “Come, see a man”. What a man! A different man altogether, in divine life here and yet able in tender grace and mercy to draw near to each one of us. As a result of her speaking, the men of the city go out and come to Him. That is the appeal in the glad tidings, to come personally to the Lord Jesus. The result is wonderful because many believed on Him, but no longer on account of her word. It is wonderful for the preacher to be able to point to the Saviour, but then it is for each soul to trust Him for themselves. May it not be on account of anything that the preacher says, but may the words be a pointer to the Lord Jesus, the One who is able to meet every need. The men of the city say to the woman, “It is no longer on account of thy saying that we believe, for we have heard him ourselves, and we know that this is indeed the Saviour of the world”. He remains that. The Lord Jesus remains the Saviour of the world, One who is able to save to the uttermost no matter what our condition or history has been. It is in wondrous grace that the Lord would address our condition with us. But the Lord was going on to meet that sinful condition at the cross.

      In chapter 7 the Lord speaks again about the precious gift of living water. It says, “In the last, the great day of the feast”. As we understand from the Old Testament the feast was the feast of tabernacles. It says that the feast of the Jews was near (v.2). This was the last, the great day of the feast, when everything should have been at its best. Yet there remained immense thirst among those present, and the Lord stands up and cries out saying, “If any one thirst, let him come to me and drink”. So that the Lord Jesus Himself becomes the source of the living water and He spoke “concerning the Spirit, which they that believed on him were about to receive”. How God loves to bestow upon us the richest gifts, the most precious things that there are – the gift of Christ Himself and His mighty accomplished work, and the gift of the Holy Spirit that we might have life according to God.

Even when we put our faith and trust in the Lord Jesus, we find that we have no more strength in ourselves the moment after we are converted than the moment before. We have no power to do what is right, and we have to recognise that. The apostle Paul himself came to it. He says, “in me, that is, in my flesh, good does not dwell”, Rom.7:18. It is no good looking for improvement in ourselves. Our sinful condition was completely met and set aside at the cross. The Lord Jesus gives the Holy Spirit, the gift is poured out, so we should have the living water and that it should flow out like rivers. How richly the Holy Spirit is given to those that believe, so that we should walk and be sustained “in newness of life”, Rom.6:4. We read that the Spirit was not yet because Jesus had not yet been glorified. But before the Lord Jesus could be glorified, He was crucified. What a pathway He was on!

We read in John 19 of the closing scenes of anguish in the Lord’s life here, as we sometimes sing (hymn 298). What that meant for the Lord Jesus, when all “left him and fled” (Matt.26:56), when “I looked for sympathy, but there was none; and for comforters, but I found none”, Ps.69:20. The Lord Jesus was alone on the cross in His hour of greatest need. Why was He there? Because of you and because of me; because of the woman that He had spoken to at Sychar. The Lord Jesus was there on the cross to take the place of everyone who believes. He was there vicariously – not on His account but on our account. Everyone who believes looks to Him. The serpent of old was lifted up in the wilderness; everyone who looked on it, lived (Num.21:8). The Lord Jesus was lifted up, lifted up to die (John 3:14). He bore the shame, the scorn, the spitting, the mockery, the hatred of men: everything that could possibly be brought against the holy Son of God was brought against Him. It says of the Lord in that hour, “knowing that all things were now finished, that the scripture might be fulfilled, says, I thirst”. There is a touching reference in Psalm 69, “in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink” (v.21). Think of the Lord thirsting, but going the way of suffering that we might not thirst, and that we might have the living water. He desires that we might never thirst in our souls for ever, but our souls be eternally satisfied with Himself and what He has done.

And then, “When therefore Jesus had received the vinegar, he said, It is finished; and having bowed his head, he delivered up his spirit”. The whole mighty work of redemption was being worked out; the One who had the right of redemption had exercised it fully and paid the full price. We go on to read what it involved. Not only the sacrifice of Himself, but we read of the shedding of His precious blood. One of the soldiers came and pierced His side with a spear and immediately there came out blood and water. As we are often reminded, the blood is for God. It shows that the full price of redemption was paid to God’s complete satisfaction. The shedding of that precious blood was the only price that could secure redemption, and then the water was there for our cleansing. John adds his own affirmation to this: it is as though John puts his own seal to it. He says, “he who saw it bears witness”. He was an eyewitness of the precious blood of the Lord Jesus being shed and he says, “and his witness is true, and he knows that he says true that ye also may believe”. The word comes to us tonight that we also may believe, “and that believing ye might have life in his name”, John 20:31.

When we come to Revelation 22, at the very end of the Bible, the appeal is still being made. The Lord Jesus was glorified, the Holy Spirit had been given, and it says where we read, “And let him that is athirst come”. There are no conditions and no barrier. The Lord Jesus has covered the distance and removed it, so that every one can come freely: “he that will, let him take the water of life freely”. How wonderful it is. That gift is there ready to be received now by believers. The Lord Jesus has met the whole question of our moral state; He has paid the price that we could never pay; He has paid that price in the giving of Himself, the shedding of His blood. He is the only source of true satisfaction. Simple faith in Him secures it for time and eternity.

May the Lord bless the word, for His name’s sake.

 

Preaching of the gospel, Colchester

16 July 2023

James Farrow

 

 

 

 

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