# The Lutheran Pioneer_St. Louis_1911_S57
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

The Lutheran Pioneer,

A MISSIONARY MONTHLY. .

PUBLISHED BY THE EVANGELICAL LUTMERAN Synopican CoNFERENCE OF Nort AMERICA.
R. A. BISCHOFYF, Eprron.

Entered at the Post Office at St. Louis, Mo., as second-class matter.

Vol. XXXIII.

A Missionary.

(Joun 4, 28, 29.)

She left her pitcher at the well,
And to her home returned,

The welcome news of life to tell
That in her full heart burned,

; : If you, like her at Jacob’s well,
Have found the Christ, then go,
Let others know the life and joy
That from the Gospel flow.

*

eae ——

* a
Has ane

Jesus at the Well.

A weary one sat at Jacob’s well near the city
of Sychar in Samaria. It was Jesus. As He, weary
of His journey, sits there to rest, a woman comes
with her waterpot to the well to draw water. She
is a despised Samaritan, and that is not all—she
is a poor, wretched being, living in open sin. She
little knows that she is about to meet the eye of
Him who knows all that ever she did. She reaches
the well, and is astonished that Jesus, being a Jew,
should ask her to give Him to drink. “Jesus an-
swered and said unto her, If thou knewest the gift
of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me

ST. LOUIS, MO., AUGUST, 1911.

- all that ever she had done.

to drink, thou wouldest have asked of Him, and
He would have given thee living water.”

He did not say, If thou wert not so great a
sinner. He did-not say, If thou wilt reform and
become a holy woman, then I will give thee living
water. No, no! He let her know that He knew
But He did not cast
her away. In His great pity and compassion He
tenderly led her to the knowledge of the true God
and His salvation. He led her to drink of the water
of life which He gives to sinnets, that their souls
shall never thirst. “Whosoever,” He said, “drinketh
of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst;
but the water that I shall give him shall be in him
a well of water springing up into everlasting life.”
As He so tenderly spoke with the woman, He was
revealed to her as the promised Messiah, and leay-
ing her waterpot, she went to the city and told
others that she had found the Christ. She was a
missionary, leading others to the living water from
which she had drunk salvation.

“Tf thou knewest the gift of God,” said Christ.
The gift of God is thé one great thing needed by a
poor, wretched sinner. Of whatever race you may
be, whatever the sins you may have committed, the
one great thing you need is not works of your own
by which to make yourself better, not prayers of
saints, not feelings aroused by shouting and nervous
excitement. No. The thing you need is a saving
knowledge of the gift of God.

Do you ask, Who and what is that gift of God?
The same that met that poor Samaritan sinner at
Jacob’s well. It is Jesus, the Son of God, the
Savior of sinners. ‘For God so loved the world
that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whosoever
believeth in Him should not perish, but have ever- —
lasting life” “The gift of God is eternal life.”