A Woman At A Well

LET’S PRAY

Father we ask for Your anointing on us today. Place Your anointing on me as Your messenger today. God move in our lives. Help us to see things the way they are and understand that we need to prepare for the day you send your Son to bring us home. Rip open the heavens and visit Your people today.

Open our eyes so that we may see Your Word. Open our ears so that we may hear Your Word. Open our minds so that we may understand Your Word. Open our hearts so that we may receive Your Word today.

AMEN

Last week I shared John 7:37-39 with you.

It was after the Feast of the Tabernacles and Jesus said, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him…” John 7:37-39

In today’s message we will hear that same thought. It was something that Jesus said to a woman he met in Samaria before the events of John 7.

Jesus was on His way to Jerusalem for the Passover. The trip was long and Jesus and the disciples were hungry and ready from some rest.

They stopped at a place in Samaria that was known as Jacob’s well. This land and this well have some important past history. It was land that Jacob had given to his son Joseph.

Jacob had bought this land after reuniting with his brother Esau after years of separation. It was in the land of Canaan and he bought it for 100 pieces of silver from the sons of Hamor. He set up an alter on this ground and called it El Elohe Israel.

El is the name by which God is called in the Old Testament.

It is used as El Elyon, which means, “the Most High God.”

It is used as El Shaddai, which means, “God Almighty.”

It is used as El Hai, which means the, “the Living God.”

And in Genesis 33:20 it is El Elohe Israel, which means, “the Mighty God of Israel.

Just as the place they met had some history, this woman at the well had some history also. She had a reputation in her town as being an immoral woman. She was morally bankrupt. She had been living a life of sin.

She was a woman who was searching for something but always ended up looking for the answers in the wrong places.

Because of her current and past lifestyle I am sure that people looked down upon her. I am sure they condemned her. People would talk about her when she passed by, they would gossip about her and pass judgment upon her. She was ashamed of herself and her reputation.

All she wanted was to be loved.

She is not that much different that any of us here today.

SHOW VIDEO, I Am A Woman (Sermon Spice)

Here was this Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well to draw water and she meets up with Jesus. Was it an accidental meeting? I don’t think it was.

Isn’t it awesome that Jesus is always were He needs to be at the time He needs to be there?

Jesus had never met this woman before and yet He knew her life. How did He know?

He was and is the El Elohe Israel, the Mighty God of Israel. He is El Elyon, El Shaddai, and He is El Hai.

Normally the women would come to draw water from the well earlier in the day and they would accompany each other.

This Samaritan woman came to the well later in the day and alone. We can speculate that her reputation was the cause of this loneliness. It was also probably the reason she was so surprised when Christ asked her for a drink although she gave another reason.

Jesus was a Jew and she was a Samaritan and the two did not get along. The reason for the bad feelings was due to the religious differences between the two people that were serious and deep-rooted.

They went back to the days of the Babylonian captivity hundreds of years before the birth of Christ.

The Jewish people feared any kind of relationship with the Samaritans and by asking a Samaritan for any kind of favor would mean ritualistic defilement fir the Jew.

Jesus was thirsty and did not have anything to draw the water from the well with; this woman came to draw water from the well, but if she complied with His request, He would have to drink from her vessel and those things just didn’t happen. He was risking ceremonial pollution because she was a Samaritan and because she was a woman.

His request caught her off guard. He asked her for a drink knowing who she was, what she had done, and where her life was going. Those things were not the issue. Jesus didn’t care about those things.