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Elijah called down fire from the sky to set them free from their blindness and captivity to a false religion.

God had a simple desire for Israel . That He would be their God, and they would be His people. That the blessings He had to give, He might bestow upon His children.

After Ephraim and the northern ten tribes were carried off by the Assyrians, a remnant would eventually return to the very heart of Ephraim’s land, just north of Jerusalem . The Samaritans, so named for the territory they inhabited, were that remnant of Ephraim which had returned.

That is why the disciples of Jesus, upon hearing that one of the villages of the Samaritans would not receive Jesus, eagerly asked the Lord if they could “command fire to come down from heaven and consume them, even as Elias did?” Luke 9:54

The apostles, because of the hardness of their hearts toward Ephraim and the ten lost tribes, misunderstood, not knowing that Elijah was not called of God to punish Ephraim, but to deliver them from the darkness that had bound them. In slaying those wicked priests, he sought to liberate the people from satanic leadership.

Rather than calling down fire (or judgment) upon the Samaritans, Jesus later told a parable that depicted a lowly Samaritan as being more righteous than two members of the Jewish priesthood: a Priest of the Aaronic order, and a Levite - a minister from the Levitical tribe.

It is known that the Jews in Jesus’ day would walk many extra miles to go around Samaria when they traveled simply to avoid possibly defiling themselves by coming in contact with a Samaritan, whose very blood and lineage had been made unclean in their eyes - a mixture of Ephraimite and Gentile through intermarriage during their long dispersion.

Contrary to this tradition of avoiding contact with the Samaritans, Jesus one day said:

He had to go, because the Father had set up a divine appointment for Him to keep.

Jacob dug a very deep well, in the heart of what would become Ephraim’s territory. It is a place of great historical significance. He would then give this well unto his son, Joseph, for an inheritance.

You have an inheritance! Are you ready to claim it?

The bottom of Jacob’s well has varied in depth through the centuries, from 240 feet in A.D. 670 to 67 feet in A.D. 1881. According to the testimony of John it was "very deep" in Jesus' day. If you go see this well today, the guide will let out a 125 feet of rope before the bucket even touches water. After the arduous task of raising the bucket, the visitors gather around and drink from a common brass cup. This well is fed by underground springs, and its water is fresh and cool. Because the water is moving and not from a cistern, the ancients called it "living water" -- a term to which Jesus gave a new and special meaning.

It was at this same well, in what was once Ephraim’s capitol city, that Jesus makes the divine appointment His Father set up, exactly on time. He meets there the Samaritan woman - a woman of the tribe of Ephraim. Prophetically, this woman represents the church. She represents Ephraim. She represents you here today.

“Then he [Jesus] cometh to the city of Samaria which is called Sychar, near to the parcel of ground which Jacob gave to his son Joseph; the place where Jacob's well was. Now Jesus being weary with his journey, it being about the sixth hour, sat down on the well; And there came a woman of Samaria to draw water; Jesus said unto her, Give me to drink.” [John 4:7-9]

“Now his disciples were gone away into the city to buy meat. Wherefore he being alone, the woman of Samaria said unto him, How is it that thou being a Jew, askest drink of me, who am a woman of Samaria ? The Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans.

“Jesus answered and said unto her, If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink, thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water.

“The woman said unto him, Sir, thou hast nothing to draw with, and the well is deep; from whence then hast thou that living water? Art thou greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well, and drank thereof himself, and his children, and his cattle?

“Jesus answered and said unto her, Whosoever shall drink of this well, shall thirst again; But whosoever drinketh of the water which 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.

Just as so many of the Patriarchs of old first met their wives at a well, so also, as a prophetic shadow of things to come, was Jesus now offering this woman a marriage proposal – the very same marriage proposal He makes to us all.

“The woman said unto him, Sir, give me of this water that I thirst not, neither come hither to draw.

“Jesus said unto her, Thou hast well said, I have no husband. For thou hast had five husbands, and he whom thou now hast, is not thy husband; in that saidst thou truly.” [John 4:10-20]

I believe there is a purpose for everything that is recorded in our Scriptures. Why would we need to know the details of this woman’s life, and why is the exact number of her husbands recorded in the Scriptures?

Ephesians 5:23 tells us that the husband is the head of the wife. In a body of people, a prophet who leads a people as their spiritual leader could be likened unto a husband. Beginning with Joseph Smith, Jr., and counting to five, the list of RLDS Prophets who served as head of the Church are as follows:

Here we have five husbands. Jesus said the Samaritan woman had five husbands, and the one she was now with was not her husband. The sixth man to hold the office of President in the RLDS was Wallace B. Smith.

It could be argued that, like as the sixth man of the Samaritan woman’s life was no husband, Wallace B was no prophet to the church. There has been no prophet since.

The number five represents grace – and perhaps the first five Prophets of the church represented a time of grace that God bestowed upon the RLDS Church, that they may have a space of time to become what they were called to be and accomplish their purpose. But God seeing that the leadership led us astray, even as the leadership of Ancient Israel led them astray, God saw fit to reveal their transgression, even as Elijah had revealed the falseness of the priests of Baal.

That is why the number of the beast is said to be the number of man in Revelation 13:18 Six represents man. Three represents God. And so 666 represents man making himself as god, even as the book of Revelation says the beast shall do.

If six represents man, then many would argue that the will of man, and not God, was done under the sixth President to the church. I do believe that it was as a result of this man’s uninspired leadership that the church moved away from its foundation and began to embrace the values of the world, more than the laws of God. Since that time, the Church has become scattered and divided.

In the prophetic picture of Jesus at the well with the Samaritan woman, I believe we see an offer being made to the latter-day church. He is saying: “Let me be your Head. Let me lead you, and give to you that living water. If you accept, I will be your God and you will be my people.”

Going back to the Priests of Baal, it is recorded that as they called upon their god, they cut themselves… Metaphorically speaking, the Baal worshippers afflicted themselves, even their children, so that their god would hear them and act on their behalf.

Some today think that if they afflict themselves, God will hear, or approve of and accept them. They don’t cut themselves with knives. But the ways they afflict themselves are varied… often it is mostly psychological, or verbally. But it can extend into our very works.

I know that in the past, when I understood the nature of God even less than I do now, I made the mistake of reading the scriptures, or praying, or fasting, or doing a great many things, so that God would accept me. Though I didn’t consciously think of it in that way… at the heart of many of the things I was doing, was a fear that He might not accept me. That I wasn’t good enough.

The priests of Baal thought that if they afflicted themselves, Baal would hear them.

Sacrifice is a part of our covenant walk… but I ask you, first and foremost, what is the sacrifice that God desires most from us?

“The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and a contrite heart.” Psalm 51:17

Contrite: from LATIN. contritus, lit. "worn out, ground to pieces," pp. of L. conterere "to grind," from com- "together" + terere "to rub."

· filled with a sense of guilt and the desire for atonement; penitent: a contrite sinner.

I believe that while a “broken heart” and a “contrite spirit" may be closely related, they are not exactly the same.

When my grandfather died... I was broken hearted, but I was not contrite. I did not cause his death, I had nothing to personally be sorry for, or repentant of, in regards to his passing.

"Brokenness" in terms of our Christian walk, it is an acute awareness (both in thought and feeling) of just how broken and incomplete we are without Christ, and in need of His healing power and salvation. If you are not aware of your own brokenness, then you cannot be helped. Jesus said that the whole need no physician. Though those he said that to were indeed as every bit broken as anyone else… though the Scribes and Pharisees could not see it, so because they SAID they could see, Jesus could not heal their blindness. It has always been the religiously proud that resist the truth. Do not let that hinder you. If you really come to God, He will show you your weakness. Stand before a holy and righteous being, and you will quickly realize your brokenness… even as Isaiah, upon seeing the very throne of God exclaimed: “I am undone!” Isaiah 6:5

To have a “contrite spirit” is to experience "true remorse" for what we have done. In order to experience this, we must have a revelation of the effect of our sin on God, our families, people around us, and even our own souls.

The Baal worshippers did many things to try to get their god to bestow blessing on them.

God does not want us to work for His love. He wants a loving two-way, intimate relationship with us.

In order to have a relationship with a holy and righteous God, we must be able to abide His presence. And we do that by having a broken heart and a contrite spirit.

To be in His presence we must desire a deeper relationship with God, and value it above all the riches of this world.

It is His presence that transforms us, and sets us about and enables us for the work He has for us to do. That is why Jesus says we must ABIDE in Him.

Our fruit is our works. Our fruit comes from that abiding relationship. Without it, we can produce only dead works.

Let our fruit not be that of the priests of Baal, who thought by their much chanting, dancing, and the afflicting of their own souls, that they would move their god to act on their behalf. Let us not run about doing busy things for God in hopes that He will receive us for it. Rather, let us be still, and seek Him out in quiet places, and learn to abide in Him daily, in a richer and deeper way. It is from this abiding that out of us will flow the righteous works of God, empowered by His Holy Spirit.