Living Water for the Woman at the Well — Alan Redpath

Thank you, Peter. Good evening, everybody. Thank you very much. It's always polite to answer when you're spoken to, and I'm glad we're on speaking terms once again. It's thrilling to be back in Adelaide after about three years, I think.

Yes, three years. I remember it for so many things. I think perhaps my visit to the Adelaide area was the outstanding week of my visit to this continent. It was, as you remember, down in the town, city, where we met in the showgrounds for that great Christian Endeavour convention.

And I remember that thrilling week we had. The warmth of your welcome, almost a hilarious welcome, and I know how hot this place can be, because I remember it. I think I saw a dog chasing a cat, and they were both walking.

And I've been feeling like that a bit just lately. So it's a welcome, cool evening for me. I do hope, by the way, nobody gets influenza or chills with having the windows open. At least I hope they are open.

But I'd like to feel a bit of a breeze around. And I remember, too, the wonderful singing of the choir, which was tremendous. I have a record of that, and we played it at home. We play them in England often.

I've kept in touch with Peter Fopp and heard of the progress and blessing through the choir's ministry. It's wonderful to have at least a portion of them here tonight and to share this ministry with them.

Oh yes, there's lots of things. I thank the Lord that I had the privilege of being in Australia. I think it's pretty good of me, you know, really, to come from Sydney today. Yeah, I know. Pretty tough.

Pretty rough stuff. But, well, I hope you will be in church tomorrow. I will. And I'll... England lose every battle except the last one. And we shall look forward to seeing how things have gone by the time Wednesday comes.

Forgive this terribly hilarious start, and even for letting you know that I'm interested in such things. Actually, I have a great friend, not a great friend, I don't claim that, but a friend in Colin Cowdery.

And he's a great disappointment in this particular tour. He's a Christian fellow. He gave a wonderful testimony in the Billy Graham crusade recently at the Earl's Court in London. And he's a great chap.

And I know he's very disappointed that he's so completely off home. It'll probably be his last tour to Australia. And so will this probably be mine, too. Because time is catching up with me. Well, now, it's wonderful to see you all.

I hoped we'd have some meetings of this kind. And I'm very happy and thoroughly at home here. I just love being with you. And it's just great. Thank you very much for the welcome and that given to my wife.

She's with me this time, so I have to behave myself. And let you know, what I told you before, thank God for our wives, who halve our sorrows, double our joys, and treble our expenses. That's why they're all so dear to us.

Reading John 4: Jesus and the Samaritan Woman

Excuse me. Well, now, look. At least, listen. I thought I'd like to read a little portion from the New Testament. A portion I'm quite sure that most of you know, pretty familiar with. But maybe not with the paraphrase from which I'm reading it.

Living Letters paraphrase. I rather like it, actually. Not a literal translation, but very good. You get into the insight of the meaning of the story sometimes much more easily. So, if you'd like to follow with me in a few verses from John's Gospel, the fourth chapter, I'll just read this story, at least excerpts from it.

John 4 and verse 1. OK? You found the place. This is the fourth book in the New Testament, if you're not quite sure where to find it. John chapter 4, radio. When the Lord knew that the Pharisees had heard about the greater crowds coming to him than to John to be baptised and become his disciples, though Jesus himself didn't baptise, but his disciples did, he left Judea and returned to the province of Galilee.

He had to go through Samaria on the way. And around noon, as he approached the village of Sychar, he came to Jacob's well, located on the parcel of ground Jacob gave to his son Joseph. Jesus was tired from the long walk in the hot sun and sat wearily beside the well.

Soon, a Samaritan woman came to draw water and Jesus asked her for a drink. He was alone at the time, as his disciples had gone into the village to buy some food. The woman was surprised that a Jew would ask a despised Samaritan for anything.

Usually, they wouldn't even speak to them. And she remarked about this to Christ. He replied, If only you knew what a wonderful gift God has for you and who I am, you would ask me for some living water.

But you don't have a rope or a bucket, she said, and this is a very deep well. From where would you get this living water? And besides, are you greater than our ancestor Jacob? How can you offer better water than this, which he and his sons and cattle enjoyed?

Jesus replied that people soon become thirsty again after drinking this water, but the water that I give them, he said, becomes a perpetual spring within them, watering them forever with eternal life.

Please, sir, the woman said, give me some of that water, then I'll never be thirsty again and won't have to make this long trip out here every day. Go and get your husband, Jesus told her. But I'm not married, the woman replied.

All too true, Jesus said, for you have had five husbands and you aren't even married to the man you're living with now. You couldn't have spoken a truer word. Sir, the woman said, you must be a prophet.

But say, tell me, why is it that you Jews insist that Jerusalem is the only place of worship while we Samaritans claim it is here at Mount Gerizim, where our ancestors worshipped? Jesus replied, the time is coming when we will no longer be concerned about whether to worship the Father here or in Jerusalem, for it's not where we worship that counts, but how.

Is our worship spiritual and real? Do we have the Holy Spirit's help? For God is Spirit, and we must have his help to worship, as we should. The Father wants this kind of worship from us, but you Samaritans know so little about him, worshipping blindly, while we Jews know all about him, for salvation comes to the world through the Jews.

The woman said, well, at least I know that the Messiah will come, the one they call Christ, and when he does, he will explain everything to us. Then Jesus told her, I am the Messiah. Just then, his disciples arrived, and they were surprised to find him talking to a woman, but none of them asked him why, or what they had been discussing.

Then the woman left her water pot beside the well and went back to the village and told everyone, come and meet a man who told me everything that I ever did. Can this be the Messiah? So the people came streaming from the village to see him.

Prayer for a Personal Encounter with Christ

Do you think we might just have a little word of prayer together? I would like you to just pray in your own words that God would speak to you tonight, that you may forget about the preacher, forget about everything and everybody, but that you matter to God, that he is here, because he said that where two or three are gathered together in my name, I am in the midst of them.

Maybe be strangely conscious of the presence of Christ, and maybe find the answer to life in the reality of the Lord Jesus. You just talk to him for one minute and ask him to speak to you. Now echo in your heart the prayer which I would offer for you and myself.

Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth. Speak just now some message to meet my need, which thou only dost know. Speak now through thy holy word and make me see some wonderful truth thou hast to show to me.

For Jesus' sake. Amen. Since I was here three years ago, I've spent some 15 months in the United States, some six months in South America, and the remainder of time at home in Britain and in North Africa and Europe.

This has involved a colossal amount of traveling. Very interesting sometimes, but also very tiring. At the same time, you come to see a situation and world conditions for yourself and see often how very falsely the press report them sometimes.

And you come to sort of size up the situation for what it is. And, of course, as one who is responsible and privileged to offer Christ to people, one is naturally concerned, is this Christian faith really outdated?

Is it outmoded? Is this a post-Christian era, as some people say it is? Or is the answer to be found the only answer to be found in the reality of Christ himself? I find the mood of people everywhere is extremely interesting.

It's really a crisis age and I would think that you would it's very difficult to generalize, but you would use the word revolt as the word which typifies society today. In every nation, every country, it's in revolt.

Revolt against tradition. Revolt against just maintaining the status quo. Revolt against belonging to anything. Demand for our independence. A refusal to accept authority. Revolt. And often this finds weird expressions.

Street marches. Riots. Student riots. University campus riots. Many, many people everywhere. Trouble in Vietnam. Trouble, racial conflict everywhere and especially in South Africa, perhaps the most misunderstood country of the world.

All this revolt is typical of the day in which we live. And of course, we don't choose the atmosphere or the climate in which we seek to present Christ to the people. We might well wish that we had a more, a different climate from this.

Yet somehow, honestly, the older I get, the more thrilling I find the situation to be. The more exciting. To read my Bible alongside my daily newspaper I find a most interesting exercise. Not so long ago, in Glasgow in Scotland, there was a TV program put on by nuclear energy scientists.

And some professors were discussing with about a dozen students this effect of nuclear energy and discoveries. And one professor asked this student group what they thought the world would be like in the year 2000.

And without hesitation, all of them said, we don't think it'll be here. Well, my word, that's something. Only 30 years to go. And they say we don't think the world will be here because they're facing realistically that it just cannot carry on in the present mess that we're in today.

In these three years since I saw you last, Britain has gone through one tragedy from one to another. When I left home, there was electricity strike and power cuts. And one shop steward came on TV and he said all that concerns us is that we cause as much suffering to as many people in as short a time as possible.

We have a postal strike now. That was going on last time I was in Adelaide. Only it was at this end. It had the same effect as far as I'm concerned, except of course that my wife is with me. But now we have no news from Britain and they can't get any from us.

Complete isolation. Everything's striking and everybody's striking. Ford factory, motorcars, biggest exports in Britain, closed down because the workers demand 50 more. This is the general climate in Britain today.

And the sheer revolt, which has come right out into the open, finds Christianity, I don't say with its back to the wall, but I do say with a tremendous challenge. Now I'm not an Australian and I don't know situations in this country and I'd be very foolish to attempt to speak to them.

But by and large the trend everywhere is a refusal to conform. Now that of necessity isn't bad. Some things it's better not to conform to. People I find, especially a younger generation, are sick to death of the traditional church.

Tired of religion. Absolutely tired of it. But you know, sometimes I have the thrilling opportunity of speaking to a group of hippies. I did not so long ago in California and one of them said to me, when you stop talking about Christianity and start talking about Jesus Christ, we can tune in.

Well I thought that was a tremendous thing and I realized this fact that people are sick to death of the traditional kind of church program. But they're not tired of Jesus, they simply don't know about him.

Jesus Christ Rather Than Mere Religion

And I haven't come here to preach lots of sermons to people, I've come here to talk about Jesus. Because to me he's the most thrilling person alive. And I know he's alive, he isn't dead because I talk to him and he talks to me every day and he's real.

Real in my life. I don't know that I ever told you this, perhaps it was too fresh in my mind at the time but I remember at Adelaide, last three years when I was here, I got a letter from our younger daughter at home.

And she said to me, Daddy, I've got a boyfriend. Well that nearly made my hair, such as I have, stand right on end. Because previous applicants, of whom there'd been a few, had received the brush-off treatment.

So I thought, well now this is extraordinary. And then she went on to describe this boyfriend in language that, well, I just couldn't cope with it. She said, you know, he's absolutely fab. I think that means fabulous.

And he's fantastic and wizard and smashing. And lots of other words. The American revised version on that would be, he's neat. Or he's cool. Or groovy. I don't know what the Australian would be. His beaut, would that be it?

Something like that. Anyhow, a week passed and then she had wrote me another letter. It was during the time I was here, I remember it so well. And she said, she described him all over again. Tremendous.

Oh, it was terrific. You know, I could hardly wait to get home. Because I knew the fellow quite well. He had a lot to do with the church of which I was pastor. And he was leader of the youth work. And I couldn't wait to get home because I could hardly believe it could be the same man.

I mean, he's an awfully nice sort of fellow and all that. But beaut, fab and fantastic, wizard, smashing. That wasn't, I didn't think he was that. Oh, but you see, there was a different situation. You see, she thought he was all that because she loved him.

Or she thought she did. And this was a living person who was real to her. And he had first place in her life. And she couldn't stop talking about him. I mean, for a girl, to write to her father about 15 ,000 miles away and go into all the detail, well, that's quite something.

You know, that's what I feel we ought to be feeling about Jesus. If he really was what he claims to be and can do for you and for me what the Bible says he can do, then he's the most thrilling person alive.

I'm not interested in religion, but I'm tremendously interested in Christ. Religion is the story of what men have done to try and find God. Christianity is the story of what God has done to find us in Jesus Christ.

And it's about him I want to talk to you just for a few minutes and to base what I want to say on this remarkable story which I have read to you this evening. Because when you meet people today, you find they're absolutely, many of them, bored.

Boredom, Addiction, and the Emptiness of Life

They have no goals, no purpose, no real object of living. And the outcome of that has been that they've resorted, in many cases, to drugs and drink and all the other excesses. On television in England a little while ago, there was a drug addiction program and one girl was being interviewed by a man, a questioner, and she didn't know who her father was.

She had lost her mother or her mother left her when she was two and for 15 years she'd been just dragged up. And for two years she'd been going high on heroin. And the man who interviewed her, having obtained this information about her background, said to her, aren't you afraid that this drug will kill you one day?

And I can't get over, in my mind, the look in her face on that TV set when she said, I hope to God it will. I could have just leapt into that set, if it were possible, to tell her the way out. The way out from boredom, from sheer boredom and from the emptiness of everything in life to the secret of it all in the person of Jesus our Lord.

The Samaritan Woman’s Loneliness and Need

Well now, just get your mind upon this story that I read to you. You remember. This woman, this woman of Samaria, a Samaritan woman. She was long past childhood, past adolescence, past even young womanhood, I imagine, and she'd had a pretty hectic life.

She hadn't been married, but she'd had five men. And one after another had played fast and loose with her and then chucked her overboard. And she was living with somebody who was doing exactly the same thing.

And this girl had lost all confidence in everybody, didn't trust a soul, kept people at a distance, wouldn't tell anybody anything about what was going on in her life. And life to her was a sheer emptiness, a sheer, just an existence.

And she was absolutely lonely. And this girl, this woman with all her disillusionment had come one day to, she came every day to draw some water from a well. She came at midday, the sixth hour of the day, the only time of the day she was sure of being alone.

Nobody else would come at that time of the day. And rather a self-righteous society had sort of cut her off, looked down her nose at her. Nobody had quite gone so far as she had. And so she found herself absolutely alone.

Until an amazing thing happened. A stranger came and sat by this well. Jesus. He was going on a journey from Judea into Galilee. If you have your map of the Middle East of that particular time, you would think to yourself, well only naturally he would go through Samaria.

Judea, Samaria, Galilee, going north. But no, that wouldn't be the natural way to go for a Jew. A Jew had no dealings with Samaritans. Do you know your Bible well enough to remember that in the time of folks like Ezra and Nehemiah, the Samaritans had tried to get alongside the Jew and have something to do with them, but the Jews weren't having anything so they set up their own religion, their own system, and the Jew had nothing whatever to do with them.

They despised them. So if a Jew made on that journey, he would go across over the river Jordan to the east and then go up north through Perea and then come back into Galilee in order to avoid this country of Samaria.

But Jesus didn't because he knew there was somebody there at that well who needed him. So he sat down in the well and presently this woman came to draw water. I often ask myself, I wonder how I started a conversation.

I wonder what I would have said to her. What would you have said? Given her a tract? Look down your nose at her and say, your theological nose, and say you've no business to be living that kind of life.

And sort of, you know, being sanctimonious. Would you? What do you think Jesus did? He said, give me a drink. He asked her a favour. And for the first time for years that woman realised she could do something to help somebody.

And so she gave him a drink and she was absolutely amazed that you should ask a Samaritan for a drink. So she said to him, how come? How come that you, who are a Jew, ask a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?

And then he said to her, you know, if only you knew what God could do for you, and if only you knew who I am, you would have asked of me and I would have given you living water. Living water? What do you mean by that?

I've been coming here every day for years getting water from this well and I go back and I come again and I go back and I'm still thirsty. Living water. I wonder, are you greater than our father Jacob who gave us this well?

Where do you get this living water from? You haven't got any rope? You haven't got a bucket? How do you get it? Oh, no, just it, just wait. You go on drinking from this water and you go on being thirsty, don't you?

Yeah, sure. Ah, but you see, the water that I can give you, I'll give you the kind of water which will be not from a well outside, but which will come into your heart and fill your life and satisfy you just like a fountain springing up forever, every day fresh in your heart.

Oh, I would like that. Please, could I have that water that I may never again come here to draw? If you were reading this version with me tonight, following in your authorized version, you would see that this woman, she referred to a well in the ground and Jesus said, well, I'll put a well in your heart.

The two words are the same, but in the Greek language very different. The one speaking of something outside of us, a well that's deep down from which we draw. The other, a fountain of light from within.

Living Water and the Source of True Satisfaction

Now then, I think we're getting near a secret. Because whether or not somebody here tonight is empty, frustrated, dissatisfied, bored, or have found the answer depends upon whether you are drawing from a well outside yourself, having to go here and there and to this and that to find happiness, or whether you found the secret of life in the person of Jesus indwelling your heart with himself and with his life.

Now let's just ask ourselves, which are you? Are you finding that you have to go outside yourself to get things, to make it happen? Or have you got a source of satisfaction within? Going outside, you have to find things, you're dependent on something?

That's what everybody's doing today who are all sort of fed up with religion, going here, there and everything to find the secret, but they don't get it. The more they get, the more they want, the more thirsty they are.

Or have you got a life that Christ can give, that dwells in your heart, that absolutely satisfies? That's the contrast. You see, if you're really going outside yourself, it's because you're preferring independence to dependence.

That's the basis of what the little word sin is all about. It's the life of independence that refuses to yield my little kingdom and give it up and surrender to God. I prefer my own way. I think the most devastating description of it is in an Old Testament book, which you may remember, and says this, All we like sheep have gone astray.

We have turned, listen to this, everyone to his own way. To his own way. That's the most devastating description of the whole trouble with the whole world right now. The Bible isn't at all complimentary to human nature.

All we like sheep have gone astray. Sheep are very interesting creatures. I live in the country nowadays, Cape and Ray, in North West England, and our next door neighbours are about 50 sheep. And they're very, very interesting.

I study sheep quite a lot now. They're very stupid creatures. Very stupid. I was watching some, not so long ago, not far from us, being unloaded from a ship. And there were about 400 sheep on board the ship.

And a British railway porter had put a ladder up the side of the ship, and part of the side had been removed, and the first sheep, the idea was that she or he should come down the ladder. Well the porter put the ladder up and then waited, nothing happened.

And I looked around very interested because there at the top of the ladder was a very sheepish looking sheep standing there with horns. And so the porter thought, well the best thing I can do is really to go and help it.

So he went up the ladder, and he got hold of the sheep by the horns, and he dragged it down, and then let her go. And she raced across the ground, and it was near a sort of railway station place, and it raced across, and as it did so, it suddenly came confronted with a whole baggage, pile of baggage.

Well what could the poor thing do? I mean, it couldn't go back, it couldn't turn sideways, the only thing it could do was to take a great leap. So it took a great leap over the top and came right down the other side.

Well you know, sheep number two by this time had come down the gangway, because once you've got one sheep started, you get the lot. And so they came one by one, one by one, and they all went the same way, and they all came to the same bit of baggage, and up they went, and then over the baggage.

It was really quite a remarkable display of high jumping, I thought. But you know, that British railway porter with remarkable, remarkable initiative, I thought, especially in these days of trade unions, you know what he did?

He saw these sheep having all this bother, so he got hold of this baggage and thought, well I'll save them all the trouble, and he moved the baggage aside. See, cleared the way for them. Do you know, I watched 391 sheep come to that place where the baggage had been, and every one of them came right there and took a terrific leap over the edge, and then went down the other side.

Nothing in the way at all, nothing at all. Isn't that a fantastic idea? I'm not kidding, it's absolutely true. Just because there were sheep. And the Bible says, fancy, the Bible says, all we like, sheep, have gone astray.

Turned everyone to our own way. That's it. And there's your whole problem. And if we're trying to find satisfaction outside ourselves and sort of going to this and that and the other thing and drinking, drinking, drinking, we're becoming more and more dissatisfied and more and more empty and more and more thirsty and more and more frustrated and we're just absolutely fed up to the back teeth.

Give me this water, this life, that I may never again come to draw. That's what I need. And that's what you need, isn't it? Someone who can come into your heart and someone who can put into that life of yours a spring of water, a spring of life, that shall spring up fresh every day and give you vitality and life and peace and joy and victory and power.

Oh, everything in Christ. Yes? Well, what did Jesus say to her? Give me this water that I may never, never again come to draw. I need it. Go and bring your husband here and I think that statement must have rocked up to the foundation and brought back memories, memories that were desperately painful.

Repentance and Coming Clean Before Christ

And she hastily replied, I haven't got one. No, he said, you're quite right, you haven't. You couldn't have spoken a truer word. You've had five and the one you're living with now isn't your husband. And she found herself in the presence of somebody who knew absolutely everything about her.

Fantastic. Knew the whole story, knew her whole life and he retraced her whole life and told her the whole thing in about a couple of minutes and she knew that he knew all about her. Go and call your husband.

Now, what is Jesus saying to her? Just this, I am prepared to give you, give you life, if you are prepared to come clean, if you are prepared to be straight, if you are prepared to be honest, if you are prepared honestly to confess the past and get it put right.

First of all, before you can come to me and have life, you must go and fetch your husband. You see, before Jesus says to you come and have life, first he says go. It may not be in that area, though it may be, and it may be that you have been listening and thinking to yourself that good night, this fellow knows absolutely everything about me and I don't know a thing about you at all.

That's merely the Lord doing something very wonderful in your heart and in mine, directing me to speak to you about this particular story and this message because this is hitting the nail on the head in your life.

It may not be that area. But he says to you, now before you can come and have life, there's a go somewhere, go into, you remember that lie you told? You remember that dishonesty you practiced? You remember that deceit?

You remember that sharp practice? You remember that absolute refusal to yield on this point and that? You remember how often you've said no and often you've rebelled? Now then, you go and are you prepared to do that?

See, before he can give me life, he wants me to be absolutely out in the open with him. When you travel a lot, like I do, it's rather essential that you have what they call a visa. A British passport is the most impressive document.

Maybe you've seen one. It says on the inside of the front cover, Her Britannic Majesty requests the safe custody of the bearer of this passport in whatever country he may desire to travel and his safe return to Britain.

That gets you to London Airport. At which point, you need to do something more. You have to have a visa. And you know, the point about a visa is that you need to have your photograph taken. Now this is something which I hate, loathe.

I cannot put it too strongly. I loathe it. But having lived in Edinburgh for several years, I know a store in Edinburgh where you can get twelve passport photographs for half a crown. Cheap. I can tell you where it is in case you want to go and get them.

So I had to go and I went to this store and they say, you know, it's most exciting. All you do is you go inside a little kind of booth and you pull around a curtain and you put two and six in the slot and you sit still for two minutes, no less than that, about a minute and then out drop twelve of these photographs.

And a girl comes along and smears them over with something and then she puts them in a little envelope and you have them. And she marks that envelope unfinished proof. Well I took them home without bothering to look at them.

When I got home I went into our living room just to see them and I looked at them and I thought, good night. Surely it can't be as bad as that. And we have on our family piano in the drawing room, living room, a photograph which was taken by an expert and photographer in Chicago.

And I saw this and I thought to myself, that looks a bit better. It's the one actually that's on this program. And I thought, you know, that's really good. And I was just comparing these two, this proof with that, when my wife came into the room.

She is a very discerning lady and knew exactly what I was thinking and said to me, now, don't you get any wrong ideas because this is really you. Well you know, that deflates you completely. Just puts you in a...

But you see, that was the truth. And the interesting thing was that the photographer calls it an unfinished proof. And I want to say to you tonight, God is only concerned about the unfinished proof. And seeing you, not as you want other people to think you are, not as you try to pretend you are, but as seeing you as you really are.

And so to this woman, he says, yes, you may have life, but first, are you prepared really to be honest and come clean and confess that which has bogged you down for all these years? Go. Call your husband.

The terms of salvation, terms of a personal experience of Christ, are not simply belief, trust, but it's more than that. For the only trust that's valid, the only belief that's worth anything is that which has behind it a genuine repentance.

Listen, the sin which God forgives is the sin which you are prepared to forsake. The only sin which he doesn't forgive is the sin you're not prepared to forsake. And can you blame God if one day, one day, you become involved in the judgment of that which you won't give up?

Judgment, Holiness, and the Cost of Refusing Sin

One day, Jesus is coming again. It won't be long. He's going to put things right, and this earth is going to be under his control and under his authority and under his rule, and one day, there's going to be a reckoning day, a judgment day, and one day, everything that is unclean and sinful and rotten will be just...

Well, the Bible says use the word hell. It's a word we don't like. It's a word that's most unpopular. People don't believe it nowadays. Nevertheless, the God who made heaven made hell. And one day, everything that's sinful will be put there, and don't blame God.

Don't blame God if I'm involved in the judgment of what I won't give up. That's only fair. It's not his will that one of us should perish, but he's bound to be righteous and bound to be just as well as love, and he's not one at the expense of the other.

So he, in all his love and grace, says, yes, come and have life, but, but, it must be on the terms that you are willing, willing to give up. Or it may be that you say, yes, yes, I would be willing, but, perhaps, I can't.

True Worship in Spirit and Truth

Well, to continue with our story a second, what did the woman react? How did she react? She reacted by discussion on religion. It's almost like saying, well, you know, I'm not a Presbyterian, I'm not a Baptist, I don't worship like that, I worship here and there and so on.

And then he said to her, now look, just cut that out. For the hour has come when we must realize this, that God is a spirit, and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth. The Father seeks such to worship him.

I haven't time to elaborate on this, but I want to say to you that that is true. God is a spirit, and basically, you and I are spirits, living in a body. And people who are dead to God, people who have never turned to God, turned to Christ, and therefore are spiritually dead.

People tell me that the Christian isn't all there. It's the man who isn't a Christian who's not all there. When you're born, you have physical life, and you have mental life, but you have no spiritual life.