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Mt. Gerizim, Mt. Ebal and the Samaritan Woman at the Well

Voice of the Kingfisher speaks out  …from a different perspective

                                                          by Elinor Montgomery

August 06, 2013

The Samaritan woman at the well drank of the water, which Jesus offered – the water of life so that she would never thirst again. Jacob’s well could not offer it; no water of this world could quench her thirst for life. She had been captive to the spiritual waters of this world, which led to death. Surprise of surprises to His disciples when they arrived on the scene, only to discover she was one whom they considered an unclean woman, to whom the Master was speaking. All she ever needed was an encounter with Jesus and to hear His voice and His words of truth about Himself.

She dropped the waterpot, which she had brought to fill at the well, like a hot potato, and ran whence she had come to tell the others. It was feast time, and Jesus would provide the food of understanding. The harvest was not far off – He was taking His apostles in prophecy to see His bride, the revived apostolic church, when the fields would be white in purity and ready for the harvest. It is time for the sowers and the reapers to rejoice together and reap that for which others had labored and now she, too, would enter into the labor to finally bring forth the child of her labor (see John 4:7-38).

And many Samaritans of that city believed in Him because of the words of the woman who testified to His words of prophecy. She would lead the others to the source of the Word so they could judge for themselves. They were the ones who had ears to hear her call and take action.

And what will be at the heart of her message, itself? It will be about the very nature of worship and a church, which is not a place, or a building, or a mountaintop, or a temple. It will not be carried out on Mount Gerizim or in Jerusalem, where the worship of God has been compromised by religion. It will be the worship of a Father by His family, the true Jew, who knows who he/she worships in spirit and in truth.

Of such is spiritual Israel, which will worship only in spirit and in truth and without the compromise of being in a religion of any shape or form, at altars made by man’s hands using tools of iron to do so.

Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe Me, the hour is coming when you will neither on this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, worship the Father. You worship what you do not know; we know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews. But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him. God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth (John 4:21-24).”

The corollary to this for today would be that, as worship would be neither on Mount Gerizim nor in Jerusalem, likewise, it will not be either in St. Paul’s Cathedral in London and the Vatican in Rome or on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. All have become as Mount Ebal. Worship will only be in the spirit anywhere in this world where one worships in truth, and not in religion.

So what did Gerizim represent for this woman? It was just another mountain where religion was practiced in a temple built there to commemorate an act initiated by God. Like the great, spiritual moments of God in history, man transposes them into religion by believing the lies of the devil, beginning with Eve, in the Garden, accepting the lies of the serpent over the truth of God.

Twin mountains, or high hills, were to the North and South of the valley of Shechem – Mt. Ebal to the north and Mount Gerizim to the south – the town where the Samaritan woman lived. Before entering the Land of Promise to possess it, Moses commanded the people to keep the Law. In this place, after they had crossed over into the Land, the tribes of Israel were to be divided into two groups, with one-half on Mt. Ebal and the other half on Mt. Gerizim. He told the people they would be blessed or cursed as they passed between the mountains; if they obeyed His commandments, they would be blessed. If they disobeyed, they would be cursed.

From Mt. Gerizim, the six tribes would shout blessings upon the obedient of God’s people to the Law, as they passed through the valley, and from Mt. Ebal, they were to shout curses upon the disobedient, as they passed through. God was extremely specific about His expectations of obedience and the resulting judgments for disobedience.

When the supreme power of a nation provides good laws, as in America under God, if inferior magistrates in their place, ministers or priests in theirs, and masters of families in theirs, do not execute their offices in righteousness, then the Law will be of little effect.

A covenant with God was ratified by eating His food (truth) at His table. As His servants and tenants in possession of His good land, they were bound to pay the rent and to do the services required by the royal grant. In God’s terms of blessing or cursing, the life or death of His people and His nation was set before them.

In the way of blessings, the Law would make them the head, so all peoples of the earth should bow before them and be afraid of them. In the language of Jesus, centuries later, He expressed it by saying, “But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you” in so far as infinite wisdom seeks good, and who can desire more (see Matthew 6:33)?

On the other hand, for disobedience, the curses will come upon His people, and they will not be able to escape; they will follow the people wherever they go, seize them, overtake them and overcome them. The cursed cannot flee from the iron weapon (see Job 20:24), any more than man can build an iron ship, which is impervious to God’s judgment. They will find that the allies they confide in will distress them and will certainly not strengthen them by means of iron (see 2 Chronicles 28:20-21).

They are a people who will go mad, be bereaved of all comfort and hope, and abandoned to utter despair, because they walk by sight and not by faith. A foreign enemy shall invade them and their country shall be laid waste. Their cities shall be besieged with multitudes perishing so they become few in numbers (see Deuteronomy 28:62).

And so, as the end to this matter, God will leave those who refused the blessing of being His people, exactly where He found them – in Egypt, in the house of bondage (see Deuteronomy 28:68). But, since God said they would see Egypt no more (see Deuteronomy 17:16), then these cannot be His people. The nation, which rejected Jesus, cannot be His people. How about Christianity? Do His people live by the religion of the empires? Is it not about to ally itself with Egypt through the working of magicians bringing it into one with Islam in a new form of religion called Chrislam? So they, as well, cannot be His people, the true Jews, if they are worshiping in religion instead of in truth.

Salvation is only of Jesus for the true, spiritual Jews, who worship in spirit and truth; for their Father, God is Spirit (see John4:24).

In the whole matter of the mountains of Gerizim and Ebal, Moses spoke by the Spirit of God with such a powerful warning to the nation established in God’s name. Today, it points to America in prophecy. He saw the great blessings of obedience to the Law, which were to be shouted across the valley of Shechem (the world), but He also saw the terrible results of the cursings, which would come upon the nation for her disobedience to the same Law, which were shouted across the valley, from the top of Mt. Ebal.

America has become like one caught in the quagmire of a sink hole, slipping, ever deeper, into the mud, with each move of rejection she makes for the Law of God. She has taken upon herself the sickly appearance of the laws of rights and of the cults that flow into her land as she tolerates and honors their gods. Her condition is weakened and she is about to disappear in the sink hole of her own making.

And so, deeper she goes without a hand to reach out and pull her out of her pitiful state, a situation, which she chose the day she rejected God (no God), His Law (no Ten Commandments on the walls of public places), His justice (no biblical rules of morality for her children) and His blessing. If it is Ebal she wants, then it is the cursing of Ebal she will get, as it pursues her.

Only repentance for her disobedience, coupled with truth, could offer the hand for her salvation, along with the water of life, which Jesus offered the Samaritan woman, when He met her at the well. For there she stood, the bride of salvation, having been subjected to the husbandry of this world, the five religious/state empires, but, presently, she is subject to only the glue of Christianity, the religious system linking the two empires, from which He is about to set her free. It is not a husband, like Him, at all.

This is a woman who will refuse the spiritual waters, marked by the number 666 of the world Antichrist. She will drop the world waterpot, in order to cling to the hand of her beloved Christ, just as the Samaritan woman, before her, in order to drink of His water of life.

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