Letters in the Sand │ Msg 4/14

1:29 without condemning her. Let's read the account of John chapter 8 verses 1 through 11. I invite you to open your Bibles to John 8. I'll be reading from the New Living Translation. Beginning at John chapter 8 verse 1.

1:52 Jesus returned to the Mount of Olives. But early the next morning he was back again at the temple. A crowd soon gathered, and he sat down and taught them. As he was speaking, the teachers of religious law and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in the act of adultery. They put her in front of the crowd. Teacher, they said to Jesus, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. The law of Moses says to stone her. What do you say? They were trying to trap him into saying something they could use against him. But Jesus stooped down and wrote in the dust with his finger. They kept demanding an answer.

2:47 So he stood up again and said, All right, but let the one who has never sinned throw the first stone. Then he stooped down again and wrote in the dust. When the accusers heard this, they slipped away one by one, beginning with the oldest, until only Jesus was left in the middle of the crowd with the woman. Then Jesus stood up again and said to the woman, Where are your accusers? Didn't even one of them condemn you? No, Lord, she said. And Jesus said, Neither do I. Go. and sin no more.

3:43 It is remarkable to me what one woman can do to a nation. It all started up in Sacramento when a crowd had gathered outside the State House to greet our president. He had been visiting inside and then made plans to greet a few citizens outside before he met the next assignment. But there was something more for him outside than just a crowd. There was one woman who later showed herself to be a 26-year-old, freckle-faced woman dressed in red, whom Newsweek said looked more like Little Orphan Annie than a presidential assassin. She had in her possession a weapon she did not understand, and we're thankful for that. If there had been a round in the chamber which found its way into the barrel, we may not have President Ford today, but thank God she didn't know anything about that .45 revolver.

4:46 When he came within a very few feet of her, she pointed it toward his chest and was quickly apprehended and later placed into custody as a would-be presidential assassin. It seems incredible that a woman with a strange name like Squeaky would suddenly attract everyone's attention in the nation. Nobody remembered any longer the Middle East crisis, the hot and humid weather of the summer. We were all glued to the set as it spoke of a woman in the streets of Sacramento. As if that wouldn't be bad enough, it happened again. A woman who had been in hiding for 19 months and had lived anything but a virtuous life during that time, a member of a radical party, gave herself up in an obscure and relatively unknown house in San Francisco. She was taken into custody, and there's a long list of indictments against her name.

5:49 Patty, Patty Hearst, suddenly attracted the attention of the nation. One woman turned the whole events of the press, stopped the press and brought attention to herself. Not since Billie Jean King smeared Bobby Riggs in the tennis courts in Houston has one woman gained such public notoriety. You know what happens in Scripture? It actually happens in the reading of the Gospel of John. You're moving along and the scenes are relatively predictable by now. Jesus has been announced by John He has begun an incredible ministry He has performed a few miracles And all of the press, as it were, is pushing attention Toward his coming eventful life And subsequent death Then suddenly everything stops And a woman is splashed across the page And you're made to stop and study her rather than anyone else around.

7:02 And this woman is not an athlete or the member of a radical party nor even an assassin. She's an adulteress. And that in itself carries an unfortunate, ugly stigma which makes it the scarlet of all the sins. I say unfortunate because all sin are the same to God. Perhaps the most heinous of all, self-righteousness, which comes in contrast to her sin on the pages of John chapter 8. It all began early one morning. It was not anything unusual that morning. I'm sure the dew had not even dried on the ground of Jerusalem Maybe there was an early morning fog that hung over the hill of Zion If you had been a songbird that morning You would have been perched in a tree above a small Bible class Being taught by Jesus before daybreak The only voice you would have heard would be his deep baritone voice as it fell from his lips out over their ears and into the valley and perhaps the empty chambers of the temple of Herod.

8:27 He was teaching a group of people that morning on a subject that's never revealed in Scripture. But suddenly his teaching is interrupted in a crude and ugly fashion. As we read in Scripture, verse 3, the scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman.

8:51 Suddenly the Lord Jesus stands up. In good rabbinical fashion, he has been seated teaching this class. Now he stands to his feet and he studies this interruption. The men who interrupted are called the scribes and the Pharisees. They are the rigid technicians of Scripture. They are the unbelieving religious crowd. Their lives are tied in what Jess Moody calls the corset of regimented religion. They are the synchwanon of pride. They know every dot over the I, every cross of the T, every transmission of one page of text to a new page of text. They are the clinicians of Scripture.

9:50 And yet the word that rests in their heart is a letter of the law, not the teachings of God. as we see this morning. They were a hard pocket of men whose voices were honed on hate. And they had one great goal at that time. And that was the capture and subsequent murder of Jesus Christ. They hated him. Hated him worse than anyone on earth because he brought a message of grace. He hoped to free people from the bondage of religion and to put them in right relationship with God through faith in himself. His offer was a gracious offer of love, and they despised him.

10:47 So they set a trap for him, and the woman was nothing more than meat as bait in the trap. they interrupted, and they brought the woman as evidence before Jesus and the Bible class that morning. I want you to picture the woman who had been caught in adultery when she was set in the midst. There's not a woman here this morning that cannot identify with what that must have felt like. she was guilty there's no denial of that she never denies it she could have but she didn't she knew they had the facts on her her hair was disheveled her garment was dirty perhaps bloody from the fight between where she was and where she came she was barefooted and she was angry stretched across her face was a mixture of bitterness and humiliation.

11:55 As the sin, which had been the best kept secret of the night, was now made public for the entire crowd to witness. These people brought the question to Jesus because he was the local rabbi, as it were. You see, in those days, when a person had a naughty question of law, he didn't go to an attorney as we do. he came to the rabbi first, hoping to gain some insight from God through the counsel of the rabbi. And so they approached him in a respectful fashion, and they said to him, Teacher, we have a problem.

12:38 Look at how they approached it. Verse 4. This woman has been caught in adultery. the word that is used for caught is the term that means to seize to overcome the tense that is used by the writer is the tense that means she has been caught at a point of time in the past and she is now seized we are the ones that caught her and we still have her in our grip. When the word adultery crossed the ears of Jesus, he was aware that in those days there were three major crimes calling for capital punishment. In Judaism, the three were idolatry, murder, adultery. If any one of the three could be proven against you, you would be killed.

13:42 Capital punishment was meted out without hesitation. They had their choice, actually. Some Jews preferred to use the Mishnah, which is the handbook of tradition. The Mishnah taught that the man who was an adulterer would be treated differently than the woman, the adulteress, the partner in the crime. The Mishnah taught that if a man were captured and proven guilty, he was to be placed knee-deep in animal dung. A rope was to be placed around his neck, long enough for one man to hold one end on one side and another man to hold the end on the other side. a thick towel was to be placed around the neck and then the rope so as not to mark the body when strangulation occurred then the men were to go in opposite directions with all their strength and it was to be done publicly the Mishnah also taught that if a woman was caught in adultery she was to be stoned but there was a higher law than that the law of Moses, commonly referred to in writings as the Torah.

15:06 The Jews of that day lived by the Torah. Deuteronomy 22, 24 taught a very important detail. It said that if the woman was an adulteress in the city, she was to be treated differently than as if she had been guilty of it in the countryside. This was the city. if she was in the city caught in adultery she was to be stoned because in the city she could have cried for help had it been a case of rape but if she did not cry out it was obviously a voluntary act and she was to be stoned so they quoted Moses' law when they brought the accusation to Jesus they said to him teacher the woman has been caught in adultery in the very act.

16:05 Forgive me for parading this point. It's almost crude to do so, but it is a clue that Jesus did not ignore. They said she has been caught in the act. She was literally pulled from the partner. They were the ones that had done it, and they still had her in their grip, and they dropped her like a piece of meat in front of the class and Jesus, and they said, what will we do?

16:40 Now, before we go any further, I want to press the issue as if you are the jury, and the writer is the attorney presenting the case, because I want you to face the facts as they were. In all of my reading and all of my listening to a few sermons on John chapter 8, I have never heard another issue mentioned. Where was the man?

17:13 Doesn't that seem to be as significant to you as the presence of the woman? I think his absence is as conspicuous as her presence. It certainly would be to any woman here today as you enter into that experience and it should. Where was the man? If she was taken from the act, he must have been there when they took her. Where was he?

17:46 Well, there are two possibilities. First, he escaped. Now, that is a possibility, but it's doubtful. If they were strong enough to take this woman and bring her to Jesus for the purpose of trapping Jesus, then surely there were enough of them to bring the man. And I never find in Scripture where the woman is to receive greater judgment than the man. As a matter of fact, it seems quite the contrary since the man is viewed in the Old Testament as the aggressor. Where was he? Well, the second possibility is that they let him escape. It was all part of a premeditated, well-rehearsed plan in their minds.

18:45 now let's face it this is not the kind of thing you would normally stumble upon as you're walking through the streets of Jerusalem early in the morning or any other city for that matter it is the most intimate secret of any person's life great care is made to lock the doors and to close the blinds so that this isn't something that is discovered.

19:21 Therein lies a clue that you must not ignore. Jesus didn't. I'm convinced he saw through that plan just as you're beginning to see through it this morning. I think it would even be wise for you to entertain a further thought that the partner was one of the men accusing her. Now that isn't just the wicked imaginations of a preacher, as I suggest that. I think the text would suggest such a thought. Put it in your mind and let it rest there for a moment. Let's look at the scene as it really was. They said she was caught in the act. Now, verse five.

20:13 In the law, Moses commanded us to stone such women. Notice her name is never used in scripture, not even her first name. She meant nothing to those men. She was a piece of warm flesh, that's all. She was a means to an end, nothing more. she was as in the case of some ultra busy physicians she was case number so and so that's all this woman what do you say they quoted Moses he said we're to stone her what do you say and the you is emphatic in the Greek text you there Jesus what's your answer Here we go.

21:13 now I want you to appreciate the naughty dilemma in which Jesus found himself if he said stone her then instantly he has lost the reputation in the minds of the people that he is any different from the Pharisees he has been teaching a message of hope and forgiveness and love and grace they instantly changed that opinion. That's not half as bad as breaking the law of Rome. Rome declared no one was to pass on capital punishment without the court of justice. Rome itself saying thumbs down, take his life. If Jesus in the streets that day was to declare her guilt he would be guilty, at least tacitly guilty of treason breaking the law of the emperor.

22:11 What if he said, let her go, forgive her, release her, do not stone her? Well, then he breaks the law of Moses as he wins their favor. That is the favor of the people, not the favor of the Pharisees. Now that's what you call a trap. That's why the living Bible, when it renders verse 6, says they were trying to trap him. Notice in the sixth verse, they said this, testing him. How insightful. They didn't bring the accusation to shore up justice. They brought the accusation to trap him. She was an insignificant nobody.

23:06 She was nothing more than part of the trap because they wanted to have grounds for accusing him. Now what did Jesus do? Look at verse 6. Jesus stooped down and with his finger wrote on the ground. This is the only time in all of the Gospels where Jesus has ever said to write anything. At no other place does he write something down. The Greek text says he wrote in the ground.

23:51 What does that mean? well if you haven't dusted your piano for a while it is possible to write in the piano top isn't it or in the dining room table if it's gone undusted for a while right all right that's what it means he literally made an impression with his finger in the dirt in the sand as he stooped over in their presence. Here is a sneering, growling, angry woman. Here is a pocket of angry, ugly, hateful men waiting for the answer. And Jesus stoops down and writes in the sand. What is he writing?

24:46 Well, there are some that have said Jesus was doodling. You believe that? Jesus was doodling in the ground, spending some time thinking about what he was going to say as you would doodle beside a pad of paper near your telephone or waiting to think of an answer you wanted to give back. But the word used by the writer is grafo. Doesn't mean doodle. It means to write. We get our word graphic or graph from that word. It's the most common New Testament word for write. He wrote something. He didn't doodle. But that's only the root word. there is a prefix on that word kata which means down in the Greek text he wrote down something it's the only place it's used in all the New Testament so we have no other reference to turn to to see what it means years ago however there was a group of scholars some 70 men who put into the Greek language the Hebrew Old Testament because the speaking world became Hellenistic.

26:08 They became a Greek-speaking people. And the only Old Testament they had was in Hebrew, and they couldn't read it. They needed a language, a Bible in their own language. And so this group of men wrote the Old Testament Scripture into Greek. and in the Old Testament that word is used in a very careful way Job chapter 13. I want you to turn with me. It's important enough for you to see it so I'll ask you to turn. Job 13 And then we'll see you next time. This is the last part of Job's answer to Zophar. Some of you in the fellowship class are studying the book of Job, and so the name Zophar will not be foreign to you. He was one of the alleged counselors of Job.

27:03 Counselor, in quote, Zophar came with bitter indictments against Job, just like the other men. Their philosophies were different, but their goal was the same. Job, it's your fault that you have boils all over your body. So Job is answering back to Zophar an answer. He is giving a reason or a response to Zophar's accusation. Look at chapter 13, verse 26. for thou dost write bitter things against me and dost make me to inherit the iniquities of my youth look at the words right against that's katagrapho that's the same word in the greek used over there in John chapter 8.

27:59 You are writing this against me. One New Testament man says the term means to write down a record against someone else. Now go back to John 8, and let me show you how it all fits together in a package. Some of you are beginning to shake your head wondering what in the world does all of this have to do with the woman? It has everything in the world to do with the situation. or I wouldn't take your time with it. I am convinced that when Jesus stooped down, he began to write out a list of sins in their hearts. And he wrote them so that the men could read them there in the sand. He began to write down one indictment after another. The men we read in verse 7 persisted in asking him, what do you say?

28:53 What's your answer? What are we going to do with this woman? And Jesus was writing in the sand the accusation against him. Suddenly he stopped. The scripture says he stood up. I am convinced that he was a foreboding figure when he stood to his feet. If you could have lived in the days of the Lord Jesus and if I could have, and he looked at you and me as he looked at those men, we would have testified he saw into my soul. No man penetrated the eyes of men and women like Christ. With penetrating vision, looking into the wicked souls of those men, filled with the scab of self-righteousness, he said to the men, All right, stone her.

29:59 He who is without sin among you, go first. Think that through, will you? The word that he uses for without sin has a hint of a suggestion that he even means you that have never entertained that very desire. you throw the first stone.

30:31 Now if you have ever entertained in your mind the thought of silence, this is the place to do it right now. I don't think we can feel the thickness of silence that they must have felt that moment. When those words fell from his lips and entered their ears, there was an aching void of silence. They were discovered in all of the ugly sham that they had over their lives. It had been penetrated. Their sins were written down.

31:16 Listen to Peter Marshall. Looking into their faces, Christ sees into the yesterdays that lie deep in the pools of memory and conscience. He sees into their very hearts and that moving finger writes on. Idolater, liar, drunkard, murderer, and last, adulterer. There is the thud of stone after stone falling on the pavement. Not many of the Pharisees are left.

32:13 One by one, they creep away like animals slinking in the shadows, shuffling off into the crowded streets to lose themselves in the multitudes. What's left? Well, tight-lipped and silent, beaten like whipped curves, they walked away, leaving the most incredible scene of the whole passage. Two more different people never stood eye to eye. a man, a woman the son of God an adulteress one who never knew sin one who a few seconds before had been engaged in it the one who had the right to condemn the one who deserved it And suddenly I have the feeling there is an incredible bridge built between the two of them.

33:29 Just like he built between you and himself when you came to know the Lord Jesus. You remember? Bunyan remembers. Christian comes to that place and he looks across the chasm and the sin that has been a part of him all of his life begins to break loose. And Christian says, as he looks across to see the cross and the empty tomb, thus far did I come burdened with my sin. Nothing could ease the grief that I was in until I came here. what a place is this must here be the beginning of my bliss must here the burden fall from off my back must here the chains that bound it to me crack blessed cross blessed sepulcher blessed rather be the man that was put to shame for me and that sin was tumbling down the valley and he moved into the celestial gates the place of glory that woman who deserved to be condemned never heard those words from Jesus the only one that could have condemned her didn't and the ones that wanted to couldn't and so they met eyeball to eyeball and Jesus gave her an answer the likes of which the greatest genius in the world could have never handled. Look at the answer. He said to her, woman, where are they? Did no one condemn you?

35:17 He looks at her right in the face with the scars and the marks of wrong on her body and he says, woman, where are those that are condemning? And she says, no one, Lord. My, I just want you to entertain that for a minute. Was she wrong? Was she guilty? Was she sinful? You better believe it. Was she condemned? She was not. His counsel to her is, neither do I condemn you. I want you to take a few moments to look on the back of the outline sheet you got today. If it weren't significant enough to take the time, we wouldn't do it.

36:21 But I want you to see something. I want you to see a portrait of conflict. This portrait was brought to my attention through the writings of David Augsburger. who wrote a work entitled Caring Enough to Confront. I don't agree with everything he said, but the basic tenet of the book is splendid. In the book, he develops five different relationships that are carried on between person and person.

36:58 There is, to begin with, the I win, you lose relationship. This is the one who says, I win because I'm right and you're wrong. It's a rather dogmatic point of view. It says I am totally right and you are absolutely wrong, so I win. Some husbands use that with their wives occasionally. Some wives use it with their husbands. Some teachers with their student. Some pastors with their congregation. It's possible to use that with your children. Are they with you?

37:38 Sometime it is true. There's a second kind of a relationship. I won't develop it, but it says, I want out, I'll withdraw. The third one is akin to that. It says, I'll give in no matter what. It's sort of the nice guy, Mr. Dormat approach. Leads to a feeling of worthlessness when it's produced by the flesh. When produced by the spirit, it's beautiful. But we often try to do it in the flesh. The fourth one is a very helpful approach. I'll meet you halfway. I only see half of this truth. Maybe you can help me with the other side. The best of the five is the fifth. I care enough to confront.

38:22 This is the I want a relationship based on love, honesty, and respect position. It says I care. It says I want. It says, in effect, I want the two most essential ingredients to be paramount in our relationship, truth and love. If we disagree, I'll have a mutual respect. We will have that with one another. I care enough to confront you about this. Would you look? Jesus used the fifth approach where the Pharisees were using the first approach. the Pharisees came saying I win you lose woman and they left in silence Jesus came stood there and administered as it were the I care enough to confront you how do I know he cared for her well look at his response woman does anyone condemn you no she says neither do I he cared That's beautiful, isn't it?

39:29 The only one qualified to condemn her refused to do so. And then he gave her the counsel, now go your way and from now on stop this kind of sinning. That's confrontation.

39:51 Who knows the outcome? Don't you wish you had a complete story of the woman? you never know where she appears again. She may be later in the Gospels one of the major women in the book of Acts. For all we know, she emerged as a woman of God.

40:18 But she moves into obscurity never to be traced by name. Forgiven. Confronted. Cared for. I do not know what you do with the passage, but I draw from it three principles for living, which I'm hoping by the grace of God to implement in my life. And I have my struggles with them, but I'm believing them the more I think of them. First is this.

40:56 Confronting wrong calls for humility, not pride. Galatians 6.1 Confronting wrong calls for humility, not pride. You have a friend that is wrong. You have a mate that is wrong. You have a child that is wrong. you have a parent that is wrong if you want to confront because you care then you carry with you a great dose of humility if a brother be overtaken in a fault Paul says you who are spiritual you who are controlled by the Holy Spirit confront, restore such a one. Help him. Help her back. Bring healing. How? With a spirit of meekness. Humility.

41:59 I'll tell you if there is one thing that characterizes Mr. and Mrs. Average Evangelical today, it is relationship number one you saw on the chart. I'm right, you're wrong. It's this rigidity that dooms us at crucial moments of relationships. Friend, you may be absolutely right But if you carry it in pride You become absolutely wrong Now there's a second lesson I'm learning. Condemning wrong is based on righteousness, not knowledge. Think that through.

42:55 Condemning wrong requires righteousness on your part, not simply knowledge. If you're going to condemn the wrongdoer, you better be righteous, genuinely. Jesus says in Matthew chapter 7, that very thing, you that have the knowledge of someone else's speck, you know the speck in the brother's eye, take care of the plank that's in your own eye, and then deal with the speck in his eye. The word for plank is a great timber, telephone pole, tree kind of plank. We're walking around with a tree sticking out of our head, nitpicking the specks in someone else's life. Jesus says, get rid of the tree and then you'll be able to handle the specks.

43:52 I've got news for you, friends. You never will be rid of the tree. You'll live with trees. That's part of it, meaning you have no right to condemn anyone. The one who had the right didn't, and he was righteous.

44:16 Third lesson, correcting wrong starts with forgiveness, not a rebuke. Jesus gave her assurance of forgiveness before he leveled that word of confrontation. Neither do I condemn you, meaning, woman, you're forgiven.

44:45 Then he said, stop that kind of living. It's a remarkable way that God has made man and woman. We respond with incredible motivation when we're secure in someone's forgiveness. Isn't that true? Who are you most at ease with? Those that know you and still love you. Those who see the cracks and still say, oh, like you can't believe how I love you. I appreciate the words of the old spiritual, it's not my brother nor my sister, but it's me, oh Lord, standing in the need of prayer.

45:51 It's not the preacher or the deacon. It's me, Lord. It's not my neighbor. It's not my mother. It's not my child. It's not my boss. It's me in need of prayer. You carry that with you through life, you'll have a shepherd's heart. God will use you to heal like you can't believe. A shepherd in the highlands had a heart like that. He lived high above Glasgow with his little daughter. And they used to love to walk together over the moors into the valleys of the green grass near the highlands where they lived together with such delight.

46:49 She used to love to hear her father call the sheep with the shepherd's call. It was beautiful to her ears. The voice would float over the valley and down into the other side of the hill and she would remember that as a little girl and just enjoy the father's voice, the voice of the shepherd. By and by the girl grew up became a beautiful young woman. She moved down into Edinburgh and then Glasgow. She first wrote every week and then regularly once a month, and after a while she stopped writing to her shepherd father in the highlands.

47:36 She began to live a fast life filled with lust and immorality. A boy who knew her reported to the father one day that the rumors were running fast. the girl was living a wicked life in the city not like he had raised her to love the Lord and so he took his crook in his hand and he wrapped the shepherd's mantle about him and he went down to the city looked like a strange person in his sandals and strange wrapping and the crook but he was looking for that daughter he went first to the avenues and boulevards and then the alleys and the slums.

48:24 And he couldn't find her. Sleepless nights passed. Early one morning he thought, I'll use the shepherd's voice. And he got off that morning and he walked down one alley after another calling that girl, calling the shepherd's voice and some dingy little dirty room in the slum section of Glasgow, she heard her father's voice. And she pushed that companion away from her and she went to the door and she pushed it open and she saw her dad. She said, that's my dad's voice. And the story goes that he took her and he wrapped his arms around her and said, I forgive you. carried her back to the highland home where he loved her back to decency in God.

49:23 Tradition tells us there is an old grave where the gravestone reads one word. forgiven. Let's bow our heads together, please. You heard the shepherd's voice today say, oh pastor if you knew my life you'd you could preach another sermon like you preached this morning.