Here the disciples, returning from the city, interrupted the conversation. The woman went back to the city and told the people of the wonderful stranger. Full of curiosity, they came out to see Jesus, and prevailed on Him to stay two days with them, and "many," records the sacred writer, "of the Samaritans of that city believed on Him."
There are a number of important lessons that we may profitably dwell upon from this interview between Christ and that woman of Samaria. We shall restrict ourselves to the most outstanding one. Our Lord teaches us here the nature of salvation; He compares it to water. It is noteworthy and most suggestive that whatever in the material world is most useful and highly valuable to man is also the most common and most abundant. Things which can, without serious loss and injury to any one, be dispensed with, or which serve merely or mainly to give pleasure, such as gold, diamonds, and jewels, exquisite foreign fruit, these alone are rare, the property of a few. But what all men need, and most largely ministers to their comfort and enjoyment,—the wholesome food, the pure, refreshing water, the air, and the light,—these are spread out in free, unstinted store before rich and poor, young and old, one and all.—But besides this material world there is another with which we have to do, an unseen spiritual world, in which our souls are living and breathing, and there the same law obtains. God has abundantly supplied us with what we need. Two-thirds of the earth's surface is covered with water. You find water all over and everywhere, in oceans, rivers, springs, wells, sufficient to supply all the wants of man. So, too, there is not a meager quantity, but an abundance of living water. If all the human beings who have ever lived upon this earth could come to this heavenly Fountain in a body, there would be water enough and to spare, and it is everywhere and for everybody. It is for Americans, for Europeans, for the inhabitants of Asia, Africa and the islands of the sea. There never will be a diminution of its vast and boundless supply. Nor will God permit any barrier to hedge it in.
Like the water in your homes, salvation is being brought to your doors; it is gushing forth like a stream at your feet now, and it flows through the very aisles of this church, and filters into every pew. And like natural water, Christ's water of salvation possesses like qualities. To mention the particular He dwells upon in this text, Jesus answered and said to 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." The soul has its desires, its yearnings, its appetites, as well as the body, and it is miserable until that thirst is satisfied. And how is this done? Certainly not by anything of man's provision. The various schools of man's wisdom, philosophy, have tried it, and we have their confession that they failed to find what they sought. The same may truly be said of this world's pleasures, possessions, and honors. These things, being earthly, leave the soul as thirsty as before, yea, even worse, like sailors in distress who drink the ocean's brine; it will but increase their thirst a hundredfold. "But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst." Christ's water, alone, is able to satisfy the thirst of the human soul.—The reason is very apparent. Man's happiness depends, first of all, upon a right relation to his God; as long as that is severed or strained, satisfaction and peace of heart are out of the question. And it is only He, that divine person, who sat upon Jacob's well, that has this supply of living water. We are made for God, and our hearts remain thirsty and restless until they find satisfaction and repose in Him.
But, you will note, it says: "Whosoever drinketh of the water that I give him." Christ gives it, but there is something, accordingly, for the thirsty soul to do. Water cannot quench the thirst unless it is taken; not all the water in the river at the foot of our city can save a man that does not partake of it. Nor can Christ's water of life assuage the thirst of a soul that declines it. There must be personal appropriation, or it fails of the blessed effects. Not as if there is anything meritorious in that, any more than it is a merit for one to drink a glass of water to allay his physical thirst. And yet, it is only thus that one becomes partaker of it; and the only reason why so many fail of its blessed effects is,—they do not drink it. It is told of a ship that its supply of fresh water was exhausted. The passengers and crew on board were at the point of perishing. For several days they had lacked water, and were almost frenzied. At last a vessel was sighted in the distance. They raised their cry: "Give us water, water; we are dying for water!" The reply came back, "Let down your buckets! You are in the mouth of the Amazon! You have fresh water all around you." They had been floating three days in fresh water and knew it not. It is so spiritually. Ignorance is what keeps many from salvation. The churches, like vast reservoirs and pumping stations, are seeking to supply the masses with the knowledge of Christ and His Gospel. They are actually floating like these perishing souls in the midst of religion, and yet they dip not their buckets to fill. With some it is because they are too indifferent, and with others, because of sheer stupidity they care not to give such matters concern. It is positively surprising to see how many otherwise intelligent and wide-awake men and women will be found altogether destitute of the first things, the A B C of Christian teaching and principles. Ask them to select the real things of man's life, to tell you the true purpose of existence, touch on matters of eternity, soul and God, and they are as ignorant of those things as children of the value of currency, who will tear to pieces a five-dollar bill and cling to their five-cent picture-book, or who will at any time take in exchange for a ten-dollar gold piece a large, glittering ball of Christmas tinsel. They know not, and so they value not, and allow the treasures of heaven, the gift of God, as our Savior called it, the blessed water of life, to flow by undrunk and unimproved.
To this first reason, ignorance, may be rightfully added another,—prejudice. There is a vast amount of that against Christ's religion. In fact, there is in every material heart a feeling of aversion against the whole thing, and, strange enough, those who might be expected to be most favorably inclined toward salvation, the outwardly good, honest, and honored, are, as a rule, set against it. Their self-sufficiency is in the way. Take the case before us. It was a most unpromising one, this woman. The reproof openly given by a stranger, a Jew at that, would have irritated many a one. Some would have replied by abusive language. Others would have denied the charge, especially as it did not appear probable that this unknown person could uphold them. But the Samaritan had different sentiments, and bears out the statement of our Lord that the publicans and sinners were nearer the kingdom of heaven than the Pharisees, who were so devout in their outward appearances. Some of the most unpromising characters prove the most promising, and those whom we should have regarded as giving Christ cordial welcome, the religionists of His time, were offended at Him.
So to-day, there are numbers of those who regard themselves good enough or not worse than many others and these very church people, and so are never seen in a house of Christian worship, except to see some one married, or buried; who will read anything and everything, and who are ready to meet with you and talk with you on every topic except one, and that is religion. Prejudice, my beloved, prejudice, short-sighted, cruel, unreasonable.
But, to conclude; to us, my dear hearers, as to this woman of Sychar, has the Savior come. He is sitting not only, as of old, on Jacob's well, He is sitting aside you in the pew, He is offering you the same water of life. Why not take and drink it?
People will go far and spend much to drink of earthly springs for bodily invigoration and health. Here is the life-water, which alone can give health to the soul, and which springs up into eternal life. Oh! that some of its life-giving drops may fall upon your hearts in these moments to soften them into penitence and holy resolve: "Sir, give me of this water."
I heard the voice of Jesus say,
Behold, I freely give
The living water; thirsty one,
Stoop down, and drink and live.
I came to Jesus and I drank
Of that life-giving stream;
My thirst was quenched, my soul revived,
And now I live in Him.
Amen.