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It's been my privilege to be the Lord's vehicle to feed his sheep, and only to the degree that the Spirit of God has created love in my heart for the Son of God, to that degree has he been blessing you. Will you turn with me again to the fourth chapter of John? John chapter four, beginning with verse thirty five, Or let us, uh, look at verse thirty four. Jesus saith unto them, My me is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his word.
Say not ye, there are yet four months, and then cometh harvest. Aren't you saying that? But behold, I say unto you, lift up your eyes and look on the fields, for they are white already to harvest. And he that reapeth receiveth wages, and gathereth fruit unto eternal life, that both he that soweth and he that reapeth may rejoice together. And herein is that saying true, one soweth and another reapeth. I sent you to reap that whereon ye bestowed no labor.
Other men labored, and ye are entered into their labors. And many of the Samaritans of that city believed on him, for the saying of the woman which testified, he told me all that ever I did. So when the Samaritans were come unto him, they besought him that he would tarry with them, and he abode there two days. And many more believed because of his own words, and said unto the woman, Now we believe, not because of thy sayings, for we have heard him ourselves, and know that this is indeed the Christ, the Savior of the world.
Now after two days he departed thence and went into Galilee. For Jesus himself testified that a prophet hath no honor 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 at the feast. For they also went on. So Jesus came again into Cana of Galilee, where he had made the water wine, and there was a certain nobleman whose son was sick at Capernaum.
Shall we pray? What a privilege it is to be thy people. And again, as often repeated, it bears repeating, especially in a thankless world, we have reason to be thankful. We praise thee for the blessed hope and the soon appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ. And our Father, what manner of men ought we to be, seeing that these things are very near? May we live in the light of eternity.
Then eternal values will mean something to us, over against that which is very tempting, subtle, and finally destructive. And so, Father, there are some this morning who have come, they are have pain in their body, or they have problems in their, uh, thoughts, but nevertheless they have come because they believe in the sacrifice of praise. It means something to them to be able to praise thee in spite of the impediment.
Bless for their sake, and especially for thy name's sake, and protect and push aside the human instrument that what he has prayed for will surely come to pass. We ask it in thy dear son's name, who has endeared himself to our hearts, and he is precious. In Jesus' name, amen. We have been, uh, going through John's various cameos of truth, and now we notice in verse thirty six— but before we come to verse thirty six, I want you to notice a verse in the Beatitudes.
Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled. And here in the account of our Lord breaking in upon the Samaritan woman, the culmination of the encounter ends with that she did not drink of the water she came for, and when his disciples brought back the meat, he didn't eat of the meat that they gave him. Why didn't she drink? Why didn't he eat? Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness.
And when righteousness was fulfilled by the one who gave it and the one who received it, they were so filled, they were so refreshed that she didn't need the water and he didn't need the meat. And that is why for forty days and forty nights, there Moses was on a- on the top of Sinai. He was so taken up with Jehovah that he was sustained thereby, as well as our Lord, neither water nor food in the wilderness, because the focal point was the Lord God himself, so that the matter of righteousness was uppermost in the heart and the mind.
And in this case, will you notice, as we read in verse thirty four, Jesus saith unto them, My meat is to do the will of him that sent me and to finish his work. She left her water pot, didn't drink, he didn't eat of the food. Of course, later on they ate and they drank, but they were so absorbed in that which was, uh, significant, meaningful, that they were refreshed and didn't need food. Would to God that I and you can be so taken up with him that we forget to eat, we forget to drink, and that is what I believe real fasting is.
I don't believe personally that fasting is a state of disposition, that if I do not eat, if I do not drink, then certain things will come to pass that are good. I personally don't believe that. That's more ritualistic than, uh, the Lord desires of it. But I do believe when either in prayer or witnessing or whatever we are doing for his name's sake, if we are so absorbed with our objective, he being such, then when we forget to eat, then when we forget to drink, that is real fasting.
Now, of course, each of us has his own conviction, but I want you to notice at verse thirty six: and he that reapeth receiveth wages and gathereth brood unto life eternal, that both he that soweth and he that reapeth may rejoice together. A material reaper receives wages, and the spiritual reaper also receives wages. What are the wages for the spiritual reaper? They are the fruit pertaining to eternal life.
That is what he reaps. It is not the gospel preacher alone. It is not the Bible teacher alone who sows and reaps, not at all, not necessarily. It's the joint efforts of many of God's people who have sown and sown and sown. All of a sudden, the fruit becomes ripe of that which has been sown, and they are behind the scenes. They are not before people. They are not in the limelight. Along comes some art instrument, be he Bible teacher, be he evangelist, what a gospel preacher, and what happens?
The ripened fruit is permitted to fall in his lap. And what do we do? What a marvelous preacher. What a marvelous teacher. But might I bring this to your attention? If the preacher and the teacher present, wherever it might be, have been a blessing to you, you must not forget about the sowers down through the history of your Christian life. And these sowers are not there to receive the adulation.
They are forgotten. They are so many that they become diffused in our thinking, and all of a sudden, Deichmann comes along, or Brother Star comes along, some other brother comes along, and things begin to happen. There is no such things that as happenstance. The Christian life is a process leading to an event, and so the nurturing of that life is a process of sowers, and then someone comes along and the fruit falls right into their lap.
There are here quiet, consistent, diligent sowers, of which I know nothing about, and the one sitting next to you may know nothing about. And then when the evangelist, the gospel preacher gets up, or the Bible teacher gets up, and things began to happen, it's not because God necessarily favors this particular person or that particular person who handles the word of God. I personally believe they were the sowers, the sowers, the sowers. And so we notice along that line that the reapers may witness the ingathering, but it's the joint efforts of the sowers with the reapers that will rejoice throughout all eternity.
Verses thirty seven and thirty eight. And herein is that saying true, one sower and another reaper. I sent you to reap that whereon ye bestowed no labor. Other men labor, and ye are entered into their labors. And there's a warning here, and the warning conveys the fact to reap is not everything. To sow is equally important. And the Spirit of God has put into the gospel account these words of our Lord, that jealousy and that they comparing themselves among themselves might be done away with.
Reaping is not everything. To sow is equally important. The result in Sychar, with this Samaritan woman and the other Samaritans who came out to him, was the result of a sower. Who was the sower? They are those in the New Old Testament who are faithful in witnessing unto the Lord. For when you notice verse twenty five of chapter four, the woman saith unto him, I know that Messiah is coming, which is called Christ.
Now we ask ourselves, how did she know? She knew because of earlier sowers. And God never forgets the earlier sower. You know, I'm not at all flattered when I go here and there and I see stirrings of the Spirit of God in the heart here and there. I am not flattered. I am humbled to think of these blessed sowers who have invested their life in Christ, and being unseen, they sowed faithfully in these lives.
And then the event comes to pass where the eye of the understanding is opened, the heart is enlarged, and the Lord Jesus Christ blessed. So you see, to reap is not so important. It is, but that is not the important thing. What is being shown here, that they were sent to reap because someone else has already sown. And we notice God never, never forgets the earlier sowers.
Along that line, hold your place here and turn with me to First Corinthians, the fifteenth chapter. And in First Corinthians chapter fifteen, there is something very significant in verse fifty eight. And we read here, therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the sowing in the work of the Lord, for as much as you know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.
Yea, they may forget those years of sowing. They mo- may forget because of impediments that entered their Christian life. They may forget because getting along in years, they forget the years when they did sow somewhere. Yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget. How precious is our God. He does not, uh, deal in generalities. He deals with specifics, and in the specifics, no detail is lost. And a cup of cold water in his name is not forgotten, for it is a link in the chain of events that finally brings forth the fruitage.
As I've said to others, and I say it over and over again, I would rather be a mere link than a great kink. And so it is here. I am trying, by God's enablement, to make you see that that which is seems insignificant in your Christian life is of the utmost important, and thereby be a stimuli for you to go forth, even a word, even a tear, because you cannot do anything for the one whose heart is broken. That helps, and when that heavy heart sees that suspended tear on the eyelid, wondering whether it will go down the cheek or whether it will be held back, at least when they see the tear, they know that someone cares.
But who put that care in the heart? None other than the Spirit of God. It's very meaningful to him, child of God. You are very important. The weakest part in the body is very important because there, in the weakest part, we are to not only put in more labor, but to consider one better than the other, so that we realize only God comm- commends on the basis of what has been done, even the sowers who are behind the scene.
Then I want you to notice in verse thirty eight toward the end. It says here, I sent you to reap that whereon ye bestowed no labor. Other men labored, and ye are entered into their labor. That word, here where you have not toiled, the Lord says, others have toiled. And that word means they toiled to the point of exhaustion. They toiled till they almost, so to speak, dropped with the burden of the toil.
And because of that, a crop came forth, and that is why they said, you are able to reap because others have toiled even to the point of exhaustion. Then I want you to notice something else. He goes back to Galilee. We notice that the Samaritan account is contrasted with a, with Jerusalem and Galilee. In Jerusalem, he did many miracles, but the people, as I said last night, were too sophisticated. The people were, uh, uh, prejudiced to own him as the Messiah.
And the Galileans, what did they want him for? He lived there for years, and they never made a to do about him. But all of a sudden they heard, and some of them had seen the miracles in Jerusalem, and they were ready to receive not the prophet, but the miracle worker. The miracle worker. And I wonder if that is not a principle that is true in our own Christian lives. We own the Lord as being Lord of our lives, when, so to speak, as a miracle worker who, uh, gives blessings, who makes our circumstances, uh, pleasant for us.
And I wonder if we receive him on that basis, or whether he will bless or not bless is no, makes no difference to us because he lives, and we reckon on the fact because he lives, we also live. Whether we take him for himself, whether the circumstance be pleasant or not pleasant. So in Jerusalem, they didn't want him. They did not want him. On the other hand, in Galilee, they now did want him.
But wouldn't you, uh, remember this, that Jeremiah was ready to be killed in the very, uh, sphere, uh, or location in which he lived. And so they were ready also on another occasion to kill him. They would not receive him as a prophet. They only would receive him as a miracle worker, but the Lord Jesus Christ was not deceived. He was not deceived by them.
Look at verse forty eight. Then said Jesus unto him, except ye see signs and wonders, ye will not believe. There is such a thing where the Lord takes a child of his, blesses him materially, the circumstances are pleasant, then for his own reason, he removes it. And why he removes it may be due to a testing time to see if that individual was resting in the blessings or resting in himself.
That is why our faith must always be tested. For we will never know ourselves and what's lying within us except on the basis of a test. Then the nitty-gritty comes to the fore. And so we notice, he said here, then said Jesus unto him, except ye see signs and wonders, ye will not believe in me. And he reiterated that in a specific, uh, uh, circumstance where, uh, the, uh, Thomas said, when his senses were gratified, he said, my Lord and my God, and the Lord said unto him, Thomas, because you have seen, because your senses are gratified, you believe in me.
Blessed are they that, uh, uh, uh, have not. How does the scripture go? Blessed they who have not seen and yet believe. The highest form of faith, where all the stops are pulled out, where all the angelic host is praising God, is when a man who feels that God is unseemingly or seemingly unrighteous does his will. For he believes that the Lord God can justify his seeming unrighteousness.
When that principle begins to operate in your life and in my life, then the joy of the angelic host in seeing the joy on the face of the Savior whom they worship, their joy is escalated for the joy that he receives because there are is one of his children who will justify his seeming unrighteousness by putting him in such a circumstance contrary to reason. He cannot not understand why, and yet he does God's will. You know what I'm asking for?
Before I leave tomorrow, that you might pray, no matter what the cost to me, what the pain involved in it might be, that God will sustain me when I am put in such circumstance. For then, and only then, am I really glorifying him. It's not, beloved, as far as I know, the humility of the flesh, but it's really a desire of the Spirit of God that as I go, grow older and I see time down here is running out, I want one flame, so to speak, of the fire of God, like Elijah said, where is the God that answers by fire?
I want the flame to take hold of that sacrifice and consume it for himself. Otherwise, my living down here and the process of my Christian life, if it cannot culminate in that respect, then there has been something very faulty in me. May the Lord help each of us along that line. Now I want you to notice the accounts of his miracles in Jerusalem found their way in the royal household of Herod Antipas. And there was a man who heard of this healer, and he quickly went and says, come down ere my son dies.
And the Lord refused to come down. Then, on the other hand, there is another account in the eighth chapter, verses five through seven, where a centurion had a slave. He did not ask the Lord to come down, but when the Lord heard about it, he was going to go down. Why, we ask ourselves, did he not go down for the nobleman's son and yet was ready to go down for the centurion? By the way, both were Gentiles. Why not for one and yet for the other?
For the one where he refused to go down, he said, except ye see signs and miracles, ye will not believe. And the Lord wanted to give that father more than a healed son. He wanted to give the father something for himself. Therefore, beloved, if it seems unfair that under the circumstances of you coming to the Lord with your petition and another coming to the Lord with his petition, and you feel that you've been faithful even as this one has been faithful, he doesn't do for you, but he does for the other one.
Why? It seems an inequality in the Lord's makeup, but that is not so. For all his attributes are protected by his perfection. Why didn't he come down for the father, come down ere my son die? And when the Lord spoke to him, he couldn't think of anything but his healed son, and the Lord refused to come down. But you know what happened? He healed him from a distance, and as the father in this account, and will you notice, let us read it. Verse fifty, and Jesus saith unto him, go thy way, thy son liveth.
And the man believed what? The word that Jesus had spoken unto him, and he went his way. Was he in a hurry to rush back to see if the miracle took place? No, he wasn't. He was not in a hurry. He believed in the word. Wh- how do I know, how do we know he was not in a hurry? Look at verse fifty one. And as he was now going down, his servants met him and told him, saying, Thy son liveth. Then he inquired of them the hour when he began to amend, and they said unto him, When?
Yesterday. Get it? He was gone a whole day. He believed the word that Jesus had spoken, and it took place, the miracle took place at the self same time that Jesus said, thy son liveth. So he didn't go back. For what reason? I don't know. But it says here, he inquired of them when he began to amend, they said unto him, yesterday at the seventh hour the fever left him. So the father not merely believed the word, but now it became experiential in his life.
So the father knew experiential knowledge. There's the knowledge of the mind, and then there's the experiential knowledge, and this is the word. So the father knew that it was at the same hour in the which Jesus said unto him, Thy son liveth, and himself believed, and his whole household. So we notice that sometimes the Lord's de- uh, the Lord's not answering does not mean that he has denied us, but the rather he wants through this process of waiting and wondering, he wants within our hearts a germinating of something for our souls toward him, rather than for the physical healing or whatever the petition that we yearn for so, uh, seriously and hopefully.
He wants to give us always more than what we ask for, and I found that here and there true in my own experience. I am soon to leave you. I thank the Lord for every privilege of ministering to his saints, no matter where. But as I leave you, I trust that the Spirit of God has been infilling into your life this simple concept, Jesus only. And that's it. Then I want you to notice something else there.
When it comes to the centurion, the centurion heard that he was coming, and the centurion sent forth servants and said, no, I am not worthy for you to come into my house. I say unto one servant, do this, and he does it. I say to another servant, do that, and he does that. Why? Because these servants believe that the power of the emperor lodges in me. So he obeys me. Therefore, he's saying with so many words, I believe that sin and sickness will obey thee, for God dwells in you.
Only say the word, and sickness and life and death, or whatever the devastating experience might be, it will go because God lodges in you. And the Lord was amazed that here a Gentile, a goy, a heathen should reason as he did, and he said, I have not found so great faith in Israel. What was the difference between the two? The nobleman had a weak faith that needs strengthening. The centurion had a great faith that was crowned, and that was the difference between them.
Another thing that touched the heart of the Lord was this: many, many people came to him, and as they came to him, they came to him for one reason or another. But I want you to notice, one came for a mother in the gospel account, another came for a son, another came for a daughter, and the Lord rebuked her, and he said, what, shall I give the meat that belongs unto the children to dogs? He wanted to give her more than a healed daughter. He wanted to give her life for herself, besides a healed daughter, and that's why it seems that he was gruff and unfeeling.
And finally, she took the position and said, yes, even the dogs eat of the crumbs. And she was brought to the place of admitting the place that she had in the race structure, in that she was not Jewish, but a Gentile. The Lord gave her a healed daughter. He gave her life for herself. So the nobleman came for his son, the mother came for a daughter, then a father came for someone else. They all came. But with this man, the centurion, this touched the heart of the Lord.
When a centurion had a slave who was sick and who was of no use, he would discard him, as centurions did. He was of no worth, put him out of commission. But here was the first instance where a centurion was concerned for a slave, and that was very unusual. And being that it was that unusual, Matthew eight tells us the master personally, personally came down. That kind of faith that the, the Lord delights in.
It is a faith that does not require miracles immediately, but rests on the authority of him who is able to do exceeding abundantly. So I want you to notice, that is why in Samaria he worked a work. Why? For the reason that they did not look for miracles, they merely believed his word. Because in verse forty two, and said unto the woman, now we believe not because of thy saying, for we have heard him ourselves, and we know that this is indeed the Christ, the Savior of the world.
And as I brought out last night, they, the Samaritans believed on his word. Philip goes down in Acts eight, a revival takes place, and right after he gives the word that they believe, then miracles began to manifest themselves. With regard to the slave, I can't get over it. We find it in Luke the seventh chapter and verse two. He was concerned, and the first account and the only account in the gospel account where a centurion was concerned for a slave. So we see it in 7:2, and in John the second chapter, when we, uh, studied that, we noticed the reason, I believe, and I try to bring out the reason for it, that he performed the miracle of turning the water into wine for the servants, those helpless ones, the ones in the lowest rung of society, and they knew.
They knew, it says, because they were at the source of side. Then when we come to Exodus, the twenty first chapter, we notice verses three and six. We notice that be- that after giving the law, in the executing of that law, especially the social law that he gave within the confines of the Jewish people and their treating one another, the first one that he mentioned was the slave, the servant. He was concerned for the slave. Seeing that, I want you to notice, we can have a better understanding of what Paul meant when he said that he was a servant, and what else?
A bond slave of Jesus Christ. For if God is so concerned for slaves, I am his bond slave. And you know, it thrilled my heart to recognize this truth as I was studying this portion. He said, I'm a bond slave of Jesus Christ, and that is beautiful indeed. Then I want you to notice, we go on into the fifth chapter, and I only have five minutes, so I won't start it, but tonight we will have a culmination of our meditations in John.
And I pray that you who have come, I may not see it, I may not hear about it, but as the Spirit of God did his quiet work in your heart, and it brings unto him that for which this week has been purposed, I will rejoice in that day. Pray for an increase of the Spirit of God's work in my heart of more love to thee, O Christ. Lovest thou me, and when the response was weak, feed mere lambs.
Lovest thou me? When it became more meaningful, feed my sheep. But lovest thou me? Lord, thou knowest all things. Thou knowest that I love thee. Feed my sheep. Only to the degree that the Spirit of God provokes love in our hearts, talk to him, can we feed the flock of God. I'll pray for you, and pray for me, that in the apex of the prayers going up, the apex will go back, the point will go back to him, that he might see the praises of his people for having fed on him.
Shall we pray? Our Heavenly Father, we thank thee, we praise thee that thou art. And we praise thee for that scripture we read in First Corinthians fifteen fifty eight: Be not weary in well-doing. And that is the gist of it, that nothing is forgotten. The smallest thing for thy namesake is sowing, and may there be a great reaping. Here in this, uh, complex, not only world, but even in the complexity of, uh, this area of this town, so that each life that lives here might be a ray of light going out to them and to one another toward thyself.
Bless the work here. Bless the efforts, and as has been prayed, may the Spirit of God truly give the mind to thy people here in the executing of the purpose that is being brought to pass. Bless thy people and uphold thy servants to be a blessing to thy people. In Jesus' name, amen.