"Behold, a king will reign in righteousness,
And princes will rule with justice.
A man will be as a hiding place from the wind,
And a cover from the tempest,
As rivers of water in a dry place,
As the shadow of a great rock in a weary land."
Isaiah 32:1-2
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Good day! Let's begin our time with prayer........
Heavenly Father, I praise Your holy name because You are that rock that we can stand on. You are the rivers of water in a dry place. You are that hiding place where we are safe from the winds. Thank You for being that King of Righteousness.
I come before You now to seek forgiveness of my sins. Forgive my selfishness and self righteousness. I pray that You will seek out the hidden sins within me and purge me of my iniquities. Please renew me and fill me with Your Holy Spirit this day.
I pray for each lady here reading this study. I pray for her heart to be softened by the reading of Your word. I pray You will speak new and wonderful things to her heart this day. Encourage her, bless her with every spiritual blessing, renew her, and give her wings like eagles.
In Jesus' name......amen."
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The Messiah
The passage in Isaiah printed above is about the Messiah to be revealed. Here in our study, we are reading about how the Lord is preparing the Samaritan woman for His revelation.
By awakening her conscience to her sinfullness, Jesus is readying her soul to receive His wonderful grace as He prepared your soul as well.
Please read:
Rom 10:17
How does faith come?
Rom 10: 20-21
Did she seek the Lord or did He seek her out?
And why did He go to a Gentile woman?
Rom 10:19
John 10: 15-16
He is the Good Shepherd:
Ez 34: 11
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John 4:17-18
"The woman answered, 'I have no husband.' Jesus said to her, 'You have well said, 'I have no husband,' for you have had five husbands, and the one whom you now have is not your husband; in that you spoke truly.''
Jesus' words must have cut her deeply. That is how the conviction of sin works: it awakens our conscience to our depraved state, then it prepares our hearts to receive the grace of the Lord...finally, the soul is made weary and heavy laden to receive the new yoke. The yoke of Christ is easy (Matthew Henry commentary, 1960).
Jesus, as the Good Shepherd, will then lead her to the rest of His yoke...of His pastures of tender grass....of His waters of rest.
"I have no husband....."
This admition of the woman was humiliating to her as women in the 1st century were to be married. If they had no husband, it was because they were too young to marry or widowed. For her to be of this age and without a husband could have caused her to draw water from the well at such an odd hour of the day. She would be perceived as a harlot.
Spiritually, she was without a husband as well.
Ez 16: 31-34
Like the Lord's people who lived before her, she was in adultery.
Ez 16:51
Yet the Lord is about to show her His grace.
"For you have had five husbands and the one whom you now have is not your husband...."
Ouch!
Heb 4:12-13
The word of God cuts deeply.
2 Tim 3:16
But the words of Jesus are profitable to this woman. Her reproof is for her own good. Yet Jesus spoke to her mildly in His reproof.
Rev 3:19
He is calling her to repentance.
But he praises her for telling her the truth. She could have lied, but because her conscience is being prepared....she is drawn to tell the truth to this stranger who speaks of the Living Water.
Jesus came to her with the gift of Liberty that is in Him (Chambers, My Utmost for His Glory, 1935, May 6) because He knows that is the best thing for her: His Liberty.
Gal 5:1
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Life Application
Think back to the time when the Lord first spoke to you. What stage of life were you? Were you a child, as I was, or were you a young adult? With what sins did Jesus confront you?
How did He prepare you to receive His grace? Was it a pastor's sermon or a youth group activity that began to draw you to Him?
The Samaritan woman heard Jesus' words because they were written on her heart:
Please read:
Romans 2:12-16
She knew some things of the Hebrew God to the point of fearing Him, but not to the point of giving up her sinful ways. She knew enough about the Lord to venerate Jacob and what he did for God's people, yet she did not know enough to worship the God of Jacob.
She was being drawn to the Living Water for many years before she met Jesus at the well.
Is 65:1
Rom 9:30
When we witness to the lost, we must take all this into account. Our hearts must remember that their salvation has nothing to do with us or with the words we say.....but it has everything to do with the Lord and how He uses every opportunity to prepare sinners to receive His grace.
If you were "introduced" to Christ by someone or through a sermon, you must remember that it was many years before that moment that the Lord was seeking you out because you would never seek Him out. He knew that.
Ez 34:12
As we will soon read, Jesus reconciled the Samaritan woman to Himself just as He did to you:
Col 1:19-20
It pleased God to see His son suffer and die then conquer death once and for all so He would be reconciled to His sheep once again.
Because of our sins, the Lord had to die:
Jer 2:13
Like the Samaritan woman, we had forsaken the fountains of Living Water to make for ourselves our own wells of water. But we are broken earthen vessels that hold no water.
So Jesus not only became the perfect earthen vessel, but He also became that fountain of Living Water springing up into everlasting life:
John 4:13-14
If you are a believer and have that fountain of Living Water flowing up and out of you unto everlasting life, then you have been led to those waters of rest:
Heb 4:1-3
Heb 3:8-10
Now our works are transferred to Christ who has completed every good work. He is finished.
Rev 14:13
Now that we have that rest, we must remain in it:
Heb 4:11
So we do not fall back into disobedience.
Praise God indeed, for He is good and His mercies endure forever...........
Lam 3:22-23
Lam 3:32
Ps 89:1
Amen!
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Until next time.........
"The Lord will not share His glory with anyone. When we seek to take the glory for ourselves- saying, in effect, "Look at what I have accomplished! Look at me! Look at who I am!"- we deny that anything we accomplish comes about because God both enables and empowers us to accomplish it. Any good in us is by His design and redemption. Anything noteworthy that we become, we become because He wills it so. We have no goodness apart from God's goodness imparted to us."
-Charles Stanley
(Advancing Through Adversity, 1996, p. 44)
Blessings,
Ruth
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