Jesus Unmasked: The Truth Will Shock You (7 page)

Chapter Eight — Jesus Is the Living Water

Not only was Jesus the rock who stood in our place to take the punishment we deserve, He is also the life-giving water that flowed from the rock.

There came a woman of Samaria to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give Me a drink.”
For His disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.
Therefore the Samaritan woman said to Him, “How is it that You, being a Jew, ask me for a drink since I am a Samaritan woman?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.)

Jesus answered and said to her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you
living water
.”

She said to Him, “Sir, You have nothing to draw with and the well is deep; where then do You get that
living water
?
You are not greater than our father Jacob, are You, who gave us the well, and drank of it himself and his sons and his cattle?”

Jesus answered and said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again;
but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall
never thirst
; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life” (John 4:7–14).

What Is He Talking About?

Jesus was doing two things here; first, He was calling Himself the
living
water. Physical water requires constant consumption for physical life. Jesus is the spiritual water that if consumed one time offers eternal life.

Second, Jesus was alluding to the prophet Jeremiah, who spoke for God over 600 years earlier.

For My people have committed two evils:

They have forsaken Me,

The fountain of
living waters
,

To hew for themselves cisterns,

Broken cisterns

That can hold no water (Jer. 2:13).

By alluding to God’s words in Jeremiah, not only was Jesus equating Himself with God, the living water, but He was also teaching that His offer of spiritual life is a free gift. Cisterns were man-made reservoirs to catch and store rainwater. Cisterns are deficient for three reasons:

1. They leak.

2. The water that is captured and stored is often dirty and lukewarm.

3. They contain a limited amount of water.

On the other hand, an underground well (living water) provides fresh water: cool, clean, refreshing, limitless.

What was Jesus saying? “Stop trying to quench your spiritual thirst with your broken, man-made efforts that cannot satisfy. Instead, come to Me for free, living water and you will never thirst. You will never die.”

Staggering Symbolism

Jesus made the same offer of life-giving water to everyone when He preached at the Old Testament Festival of Booths in Jerusalem. The fall Festival of Booths was a major celebration. All Jews were required to attend this festival to give thanks for seven days and remember God’s deliverance of His people. Jerusalem was packed.

On the seventh day of the feast, the temple priests would march to the pool of Siloam and walk around the temple seven times and quote the prophet Isaiah.

Then you will say
on that day
,

“I will give thanks to You, O
Lord
;

For although You were angry with me,

Your anger is turned away
,

And You comfort me.

“Behold, God is
my salvation
,

I will trust and not be afraid;

For the
Lord God
is my strength and song,

And He has become
my salvation
.”

Therefore you will joyously draw
water

From the
springs of salvation
(Isa. 12:1–3).

Hundreds of thousands of people shouted for joy while the priests carried water around the temple while thanking God for deliverance. It is at that moment when Jesus lifted up His voice and shouted, “If anyone is thirsty, let him
come to Me
and drink!” (John 7:37).

One wonders if anyone understood exactly what Jesus was saying. One wonders if anyone remembered the next three verses of Isaiah chapter 12.

And
in that day
you will say,
“Give thanks to the
Lord
, call on His name.
Make known His deeds among the peoples;
Make them remember that His name is exalted.”
Praise the
Lord
in song, for He has done excellent things;
Let this be known throughout the earth.
Cry aloud and
shout for joy
, O inhabitant of [Jerusalem],
For
great in your midst is the Holy One of Israel
(Isa. 12:4–6).

The people shouted for joy, and yet His own did not recognize Him as their source of joy (John 1:10). God’s people did not realize that in that moment, the promise of Isaiah was being fulfilled. Jesus, the Holy One of Israel, was in their midst.

Another Old Testament Allusion

Jesus regularly made references to the Old Testament when He preached and spoke. When He shouted to the people to quench their spiritual thirst in Him, Jesus was no doubt alluding to Isaiah chapter 55, where God spoke to the Jews through His prophet Isaiah.

Ho! Every one who thirsts,
come to the waters
;

And you who have
no money
come, buy and eat.

Come, buy wine and milk

Without money and
without cost
.

Why do you spend money for what is not bread,

And your wages for what does not satisfy? (Isa. 55:1–2).

Jesus offered Himself as the free living water who grants everlasting life. No cost. No charge. Free.

What Will You Do with His Offer?

Are you still trying to please God with your own works? Isaiah makes it clear, your efforts cannot purchase what you need. You need living water. You need Jesus.

What should you do if you now desire God’s free gift of everlasting life purchased by the Living Water, Jesus Christ? You should do the same thing that Isaiah told the work-righteous Jews to do in Isaiah 55.

Seek the
Lord
while He may be found;

Call upon Him
while He is near.

Let the wicked
forsake
his way

And the unrighteous man his thoughts;

And let him
return
to the
Lord
,

And He will have compassion on him,

And to our God,

For He will
abundantly pardon
(Isa. 55:6–7).

What must you do to inherit eternal life? Repent and place your faith in the Living Water, the Lord Jesus Christ.

Chapter 9 — Jesus Is the Bread

The grass is always greener on the other side, isn’t it? That cliché isn’t true just for horses, it is true for us.

>
The weather was better yesterday.

>
I like our old house better.

>
If I get that job, then I’ll be happy.

>
My mother’s cooking was better than your cooking (a sentence, if uttered, you will wish you could take back).

Grumbling Again

In between the two water episodes at Masah (Exodus 15) and Meribah (Exodus 17), the Jews were busy complaining. Again.

Then they set out from Elim, and all the congregation of the sons of Israel came to the wilderness of Sin, which is between Elim and Sinai, on the fifteenth day of the second month after their departure from the land of Egypt.
The whole congregation of the sons of Israel
grumbled
against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness.
The sons of Israel said to them, “Would that we had died by the
Lord
’s hand in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the pots of meat, when we ate bread to the full; for you have brought us out into this wilderness to
kill
this whole assembly with
hunger
” (Exod. 16:1–3).

Just like us, the wandering Jews thought the grass was greener back in Egypt. Fascinating. They were slaves in Egypt, but they preferred the bondage of Egypt to the freedom of the wilderness because they missed meat. Was slavery in Egypt with meat better than freedom in the wilderness without meat? Of course not, but that is the way it is when we are not content; everything else seems better.

In Egypt, the Jews were slaves without a union representative. They worked long days for nothing, but received all the lashes they wanted. Or didn’t want. Long days making bricks is not a glamour gig. Slave labor is hardly something to long for, but the Jews believed their stomachs were more important than their backs. The Jews complained about Wilderness food versus Slave food.

Why Is Complaining Bad?

God is the sovereign provider of everything that we have (Ps. 145:15). When we complain, we are basically saying:

>
You are doing a lousy job, God.

>
You don’t know what You are doing, God.

>
You should do more for me, God.

>
I could provide better than You, God.

It is shocking that God doesn’t zap complainers on the spot.

What Would You Have Done?

God sent ten plagues to force Pharaoh to release His children. God parted a Red Sea on their behalf. God produced pure water from a rock. And yet, they grumbled. How would you have treated the malcontents? We can only imagine how we would have responded to their grumbling.

What God Did

Then the
Lord
said to Moses, “Behold, I will rain
bread
from heaven for you” (Exod. 16:4
).

You and I would have clobbered the complainers; God showed them kindness. You and I would have acted like an angry dictator; God acted like a caterer.

God Is Way Patient

It is not uncommon for unbelievers to think God was “mean” in the Old Testament. The atheist will cite God’s slaughter of the Caananites who lived in the Promised Land that God gave to the Jews. Atheists complain that God should not have killed all of the Caananites just for living in the wrong place at the wrong time. That is hardly an accurate picture of what happened.

God promised Abraham a land, nation, and seed. God waited four hundred years before He executed judgment on the pagan Caananites and allowed the Jews to move into the Promised Land flowing with milk and honey.

Do you remember what was going on in the Promised Land during those four centuries? The pagans were acting like pagans. Worshipers of Molech placed their own babies onto the scalding hot arms of their man-made idol. Imagine that — cruel, painful, torturous baby sacrifices, and yet, God was patient for four hundred years before He wiped them out. He is hardly capricious.

God is never mean. In fact, God is exceedingly long-suffering and amazingly kind. The murmuring Jews whined about God’s provision for them, but instead of giving them wrath, God gave them bread.

Fast-forward 1,500 Years

Jesus had just performed another miracle. He graciously fed five thousand men, plus women and children, near the Sea of Galilee. Were the people satisfied with the bread He provided?

So they said to Him, “What then do You do for a sign, so that we may see, and believe You?
What work
do You perform?
Our fathers ate the
manna
in the wilderness; as it is written, ‘He gave them bread out of heaven to eat’ â€ť
(John 6:30–31).

Say what? Jesus provided a free lunch of bread and fish for over 10,000 people, and how did the freeloaders respond? They asked Jesus for a miracle. If this were a cartoon, an anvil would have fallen on their collective noggins.

The next time an unbeliever tells you they would believe in God “if He would just do a miracle,” you will know that is not true. Miracles do not convert people, God converts people.

Whoomp, There It Is!

The manna/bread that God graciously provided for the complaining Jews in the wilderness was actually a picture of Jesus, the Bread of Life.

Jesus then said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, it is not Moses who has given you the
bread out of heaven
, but it is My Father who gives you the true bread out of heaven.
For the bread of God is that which comes down out of heaven, and gives life to the world.”

Then they said to Him, “Lord, always give us this bread.”

Jesus said to them,
“I
am the bread of life
; he who comes to Me will
not hunger
, and he who believes in Me will
never thirst
(John 6:32–35).

The bread that God provided the Jews in the wilderness was actual bread, but it was also a picture of a better bread — Jesus, the Bread of Life.

Talk about amazing grace! The wandering Jews complained and God gave them manna. We complain and He provides us with spiritual Bread, His own beloved Son.

Jesus Christ, the Bread of Life, is offered freely to complainers who deserve an eternity of hunger pains. Jesus offers Himself as a Living Bread so that we will never hunger in hell.

Are You a Complainer?

Who of us doesn’t complain?

> I NEED a new car.

> I NEED new clothes.

> I HATE this house.

> I HATE this food.

Just like the grumbling Jews in the wilderness, you and I complain. Constantly.

> I don’t like this.

> I don’t like that.

> I don’t want to go here.

> I don’t want to go there.

> I can’t stand this.

> I can’t stand that.

How God Responds to Our Complaining

Our complaining insults God and He offers us the Bread from Heaven.

Our murmuring offends God and He gives us His Son.

Our whining is an affront to God and He provides the food that forever satisfies.

You Have Eaten This Bread

If you have tasted the goodness of God and believed on His Son, then you know that nothing satisfies like He does. You know that the Bread of Life is better than any physical provision.

You have been pardoned and purchased by the King. Despite your grumbling, complaining, and whining, God loved you by providing for your vast spiritual need. What a God!

You Have Not Eaten This Bread

You have not partaken of the Bread of Life and now you realize that you are starving. What should you do? You should do what Jesus instructed the ungrateful beneficiaries of His free fish lunch to do.

Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes has
eternal life
.
I am the
bread of life
. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and
they died
.
This is the bread which comes down out of heaven, so that one may eat of it and
not die
.
I am the
living bread
that came down out of heaven; if anyone eats of this bread, he will
live forever
(John 6:47–51).

What are you waiting for? Why would you starve to death?

O
taste
and see that the
Lord
is good;
How blessed is the man who takes refuge
in Him!
(Ps. 34:8).