Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 782
Delivered on Lord’s-day Morning, NOVEMBER 24, 1867, by, the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington.
“Jesus answered and said unto her, If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that says to you, Give Me to drink; you would have asked of Him, and He would have given you living water.”- John 4:10.
THE matter will turn, this morning, upon those few words, “If you knew the gift of God.” The woman of Samaria, who was met by our Lord at the well, was an object of electing love but she was not yet regenerated. One difficulty alone lay in the way—she was willing to receive the Truth of God, perfectly willing to be obedient to it—but ignorance lay like a stone before the door of her sepulcher. “If you knew the gift of God,” says Christ, “then you would have asked, and I would have given.” There was the one barrier! If that could be removed she would be a saved soul.
The impediment which lay so much in her way was ignorance concerning the Lord Jesus Himself. She was not an un-instructed woman. She was evidently acquainted, at least, with portions of Biblical history. she could speak of “Father Jacob, which gave us the well, and drank there himself, and his children, and his cattle.” She was versed certainly in the peculiarities of her sect—“How is it that You, being a Jew, ask drink of me, which am a woman of Samaria? For the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans.”
She was equally well acquainted with the hopes, which were common to her people and to the Jewish nation—“I know that Messiah comes, which is called Christ. When He is come, He will tell us all things.” She was not, therefore, kept out of the kingdom on account of ignorance. In these matters she was better instructed than, I am afraid, are some of you—for, alas, in this age there are hundreds of people who are educated in everything except their Bibles—who could answer questions upon most sciences, but concerning Christ Crucified they know not even so much as the very elements! But the point which kept this woman, I say, out of the kingdom was this—that she did not know Christ—she knew not “the gift of God,” and who it was that said unto her, “Give Me to drink.”
And this, indeed, is enough to keep any of us out of peace, and life, and joy, for, until we know God in human flesh, we cannot find peace and comfort. The great riddle of, “What must I do to be saved?” remains unsolved till we know Christ and are found in Him. We may go about and we may study this, and that, and the other, but we shall remain fools in the matters of eternal salvation until we come and sit at the feet of the great Teacher, and know Him, and are known of
Him.
I shall attempt, this morning, as God may help me, to speak with you upon spiritual ignorance. And then upon what would follow if that ignorance were removed, hoping that I may be allowed to say a few stirring things to some of you to induce you to get rid of any ignorance which now bars you out of peace, and that others of you who know the Truths of Jesus Christ may be more earnest to tell to the unenlightened what you know yourselves, lest they should perish and their blood should be required at your hands. I shall commence, then, this morning, by some few remarks upon the gift of God and the knowledge of it. And then, secondly, I shall turn to the “if of the text, and what then? And thirdly, I shall take up the “if of the text once more, and show what it has to do with the Believer.
I. First, our text speaks of A GIFT AND OF THE KNOWLEDGE OF IT. The latter half of the verse informs us that the gift of God is no other than the Man who spoke to the woman and said, “Give me to drink.” In fact, Jesus Christ is “God’s unspeakable gift” for whom we should daily and hourly lift up our hearts in gratitude to God. Christ was God’s gift to the fallen seed of man. Long before this world was made, He ordained in the eternal purpose that Christ should be the Covenant Head of His elect, their Surety, and their Redeemer. He gave Christ to us before He spread the starry sky. He was the Father’s goodly gift when the fullness of time was come.
Many promises had heralded the Master’s coming, and at last He appeared a Babe of a span long in His mother’s arms. His holy life and His suffering death were the gifts of God to us, for “He spared not His own Son, but delivered
Him up for us all.” To the whole company of God’s elect, Christ Jesus is the priceless gift which the Father’s love has bestowed upon them. And when you and I receive Jesus Christ into our heart He evermore comes as a gift. The faith by which we receive Him is a gift—the gift of God is faith, but Jesus Christ Himself never comes to a soul that has faith, as a reward. No man ever received Christ by the works of the Law or the deeds of the flesh.
It is not possible, my Brothers and Sisters, that the highest and most perfect obedience should ever deserve such a reward as the gift of the Son of God! Conceive of any virtue and you will not dare to blaspheme so much as to think that it could deserve the death of Christ. No, the price is too great to be a recompense for any of our exertions. It is the spontaneous gift of Heaven given to us, not on the footing of the Law, but on the grounds of the Sovereign Grace of God who gives as He wills to the unworthy sons of men.