John Chapter 8:1-11

If you just feel bad and you never do anything, that's not spiritually productive.

As a matter of fact, it's spiritually unproductive and it can harden your heart. The law lets us know that we've done wrong and we need forgiveness, and grace comes in with that forgiveness. There must be conviction in our hearts before there can be conversion. He came again into the temple and all the people came to him and he sat down and taught them. The Mount of Olives overlooks the temple mount. There's the valley there that contains the Garden of Gethsemane, and then you rise up again to the temple mountain. So Jesus very likely had been there praying that night before he went into the temple, and what did he do in the temple? Again, he was teaching. I believe that a church that is following Jesus has to be a teaching church.

Why? Because that's what Jesus did. If we're modeling Jesus, then we should be teaching. Not shouting at people necessarily, not throwing bibles at them, you know, if they nod off or something, but teaching the Bible.

Not getting caught up in any hoopla, but just explaining simply what the Bible says. And I don't think there's any way that a body of believers that's following Jesus cannot be a teaching church. It's weird that we actually define, well that's a teaching church.

As if, and it's true, it's in the minority. That's sad to me as a Bible teacher. The first life lesson here, as a church we should be teaching the Bible.

Two things, reach and teach are so important. To reach out into the community and to teach the Bible. Verse three, then the scribes and Pharisees brought to him a woman called an adultery. And when they had sent her in the midst, they said to him, teacher, this woman was called an adultery in the very act. Now, let's move back to verse three and let's get the picture. Jesus is sitting there teaching, people are gathered around him, and then what happens? The Pharisees come and disrupt the teaching with the adulterous woman.

Obviously, this was a pretty major disruption you'd have to say. Verse five, they continued, now Moses in the law commanded us that such should be stoned, but what do you say? First of all, notice something. Where was the man? I mean, they said they caught her in the very act. Adultery takes two people. Where was the man? They didn't bring him.

Why? Well, probably because, well, my guess is he was probably a Pharisee, one of their friends, but that's just a guess. But that time, that culture, they were, women were discriminated against pretty heavily. Now, it's amazing to me that people think outside the church, they think Christianity discriminates against women.

Nothing could be further from the truth. A godly man treasures his wife way above what the world values her as. And you look at other places, wherever Christianity goes into the world, women are elevated in their status in that culture everywhere. But where was the man? See, Deuteronomy 22, 22 says, if a man is found lying with a woman married to a husband, then both of them shall die. The man that lay with the woman and the woman. So you shall put away the evil from Israel. Or Leviticus 20, 10 says, the man who commits adultery with another man's wife, he who commits adultery with his neighbor's wife, the adulterer and the adulteress, so surely be put to death. Where's the man?

He's not in the picture. Now understand something. I understand that the world says that what's happened in this chapter is okay. Oh, that it's even natural, it's part of a normal married life that adultery gets committed. But guys, we can't look to the world to instruct us on how to live our lives. We have to look to the Bible. And so often in conversations with people that say they're Christians, say they're saved, they say, yeah, but you know, this guy said this and this therapist said this, and then this psychiatrist said this, and this guy said that.

You know what? I'm not really interested in what they have to say. I'm very interested in what the book has to say about what is right and what is wrong. We've watched a video clip before.

It's an amazing video. They go around and they ask people, can you really know right and wrong? Scary thing is all of them say, no, you can't. How can we know right from wrong?

As a matter of fact, one of them is pursuing his master's in theology. And he goes, well, no, you can't really tell because what used to be wrong is no longer wrong. And what used to be right is no longer right. And I don't buy into that. As a matter of fact, I don't think anybody else buys into it.

And I'll tell you why. During this video clip, they say, you know, well, is it wrong to push an elderly lady in a wheelchair downstairs? And one of them says, well, it might be wrong for some people. It might be wrong for some people, but here, let's change it up a little bit. Is it wrong to push your grandmother in a wheelchair down some stairs? I think most people say definitely that is wrong. Oh, but what happened?

Oh, she became your grandmother. People talk about anarchy. I don't believe in anarchy.

No, you know, no control, no government, just, you know, no rules, no laws, no regulations. Yeah. You know what? I don't think anybody believes that.

I don't think anybody believes that. And I'll tell you why, because now I've never done this. I don't think anything weird, but you know what? When somebody says that, I wonder what they would say.

I wonder what they would do if I just drilled them right in the mouth. What'd you do? What'd you do? You hit me. Well, I didn't really feel it was wrong. I mean, I didn't really, you know, I didn't, I didn't know it, you know, if it's wrong to you, you shouldn't hit me back. But I didn't really feel like it was wrong for me to do that. So, you know, right, wrong, who can know? At that moment, I think they would be convinced that there are absolutes, that there are absolutes.

And we get our absolutes from the Bible. And, guys, adultery is absolutely wrong. It's very damaging. It's not an indiscretion.

It's not a midlife crisis. It's not sowing wild oats. And I don't care if the world says it's okay. We should look to the Bible to tell us right from wrong. We should look to the Bible to tell us right from wrong.

This man is absolutely wrong. This book has so much to say about how we are to live, how we are to conduct our lives. This book is enough for me to work on for the 70-plus years I'm here.

Amen. I don't really need to go outside this book to find other things to work on. I'm still working on the simple stuff of, you know, love thy neighbor and those sorts of things. Let me clarify, too, before we move on. Adultery is a sin that can be forgiven. And adultery doesn't always mean that marriage is destined to fail.

I've seen many marriages recover from the pain of adultery. But you know what? You understand, guys, there's a price to pay. There's a big price to pay.

Because, you know what? Years after that, both partners still feel the pain of that action. As a matter of fact, things can go well for years, and the other partner can reach out and just kind of touch that scar the wrong way, and the pain can flare up. It's not worth it. It is not worth it. As followers of Jesus, we need to think about the consequences of our actions. And in this action, there's a lot of damage to the marriage, to the family, for just a few minutes of pleasure. Guys, it's not worth it. If we consider the consequences, we won't do it. But if you just get isolated, if you listen to the wisdom of the world and you go, well, you know, it's a few minutes of pleasure, and hey, it's okay, and everybody's doing it, and we can talk ourselves into that sin. And then we'll suffer the consequences.

We will begin to reap what we sow. And if we just stop for a moment and consider the possible damage that it can do, we won't do it. And I guarantee you, guys, I guarantee you, there are people in this room right now who are in danger because they're terribly close to this line. They're messing with this line, and they're thinking, oh, well, I haven't crossed the line yet.

I just want to see how close I can get to the line. The Bible says, you know what, you can't take a burning coal to yourself and not get burned. And if that describes you, you need to be careful. And if some of you have crossed the line, you need to repent and change your actions. God can forgive you, but you need to quit crossing that line because let me tell you what will happen. If you don't repent, if you don't take the action to repent, God will reveal what you're doing. And it's probably going to be in a much more painful way than if you dealt with it this morning. If you said, Lord, you know what, that describes me.

I've crossed the line or I've gone right up to the line. I need you to forgive me, and I need you to give me more discernment so I don't place myself in that position. And since we're talking about this, if you're young and you're unmarried in here, be careful.

Be very careful. I don't think you'll ask one person in here who had sex before marriage that would say, you know what, it's great. I recommend it for everybody.

They'll say, no, you know what, I'm sorry that I blew it. So if you're a young person in here, remember God has created you and made you an awesome gift to offer to your husband or your wife on that day that you get married. And that's an awesome gift. It's to be treasured. It's to be valued. And if you ever cross that line, realize you can never ever again have that gift to give to somebody. So be careful, gang.

Be careful. We can pray for them as well, just by simply going to crossthebridge.com and click on the pray for the lost button. All you need to do is put in the first names of the people you love that need to know Jesus as Savior, click on submit, and immediately hundreds of people will begin praying for your lost loved ones. And what an awesome way to bring your loved ones to Jesus. Here's a word from associate pastor D.A.

Brown. Amen. Thank you, brother. And now, let's get back to David McGee as he continues teaching verse by verse. Verse 6, this they said, testing him that they might have something of which to accuse him. But Jesus stooped down and wrote on the ground with his finger as though he did not hear.

Now, incidentally, some of you, and a couple of people have asked me this question before this week. Some of you may have notes in your Bible that say some of the translations or some of the manuscripts don't have this piece of scripture in the manuscripts. You can just cross through that if it says that in your Bible because there is plenty of manuscript evidence about this passage being in the Bible.

Now, this was an ingeniously late plan. The Roman government had taken away from the Jewish people the right of execution. They had said you no longer have the right or the ability to look at somebody and say you have to be executed, you have to be stoned, you have to be put to death.

You no longer have that right. So here's Jesus. If he says yes, stoner, he's broken a Roman law. If he says no, don't stoner, then he's broken the Mosaic law. Either way he would go, well so it seems, either way he would go, he would be in a mess.

So this trap is ingeniously late. Now, it says he wrote on the ground. Do you know what he wrote? I mean, I don't know either. I was just asking you. This is a real topic of conversation for believers, but you know what? Nobody knows.

Nobody knows what he was writing. Now, I'll give you my two theories, if you will, that are supported by scripture. But understand, file this under conjecture. Whenever I'm throwing something out there, maybe, maybe so, maybe, I'm always going to let you know about that. A couple thoughts here. And I love the saying, where the Bible is silent, we should be.

Okay, but I'm going to break that now, but just to tell you what the theories are. Jeremiah 17, 13 says, oh Lord, the hope of Israel, all who forsake you shall be ashamed. Those who depart from me shall be written in the earth, because they have forsaken the Lord, the fountain of living waters. I think this may have been what was going on. He was writing there names in the dirt.

Why? Because they had forsaken the Lord. And so he might have been writing their names in the earth.

The other theory that I think holds water is perhaps the 10 commandments. Exodus 31, 18 says, and when he had made an end of speaking with him on Mount Sinai, he gave Moses two tablets of the testimony, tablets of stone written with the finger of God. So perhaps he was writing their names or perhaps the 10 commandments, but we're not sure. Verse 7, so when they continued asking him, he raised himself up and said to them, he who is without sin among you, let him throw a stone at her first. And Jesus is awesome. You know, I had a feeling that everybody that approached him with an impure motive and asked him a question or put him in a situation always regretted it. You know, and then one in passage it says, and after that, they didn't ask him anything else. You know, they got tired of the way that Jesus always could turn it around. And here he does the same thing.

He turns it around. He who is without sin among you, let him throw a stone at her first. Now, understand a couple of things. A lot of people use this passage to say that Jesus didn't condemn the adulterous. And by some quantum leap in logic, they then say, so Jesus really was okay with her being an adulterous.

That's a huge leap in logic. And we're told that the spiritual man judges and discerns all things. Now, I know people, you know, they throw them around Matthew 7, one judge not like to be judged.

That's one of those that, you know, that we throw around. But then the offset is that the spiritual man judges and discerns all things. So we are to judge. We are to discern as believers and as Christians. The thing that we get in danger of sometimes is condemning people, condemning people. Looking around, and believers have said, well, look at them. There's no hope in Jesus for him.

You got to twist your face when you say something like that. But if there's no hope in Jesus for him, there's no hope for me. There's no hope for you. And who are we to say that there's no hope in Jesus for somebody else? I'm not comfortable playing that role or making that decision.

God has not given me that role or that decision. Verse 8, and again, he stooped down and rode on the ground. Then those who heard it being convicted by their conscience went out one by one beginning with the oldest even to the last. And Jesus was left alone and the woman standing in the midst.

So the older guys, they had the sense to get out of there quick. Verse 10, when Jesus had raised himself up and saw no one but the woman, he said to her, woman, where are those accusers of yours? Has no one condemned you? She said, no one, Lord. And Jesus said to her, neither do I condemn you. Go and sin no more.

I understand something. Jesus didn't say she had an indiscretion. He called what she did sin when he said, go and sin no more. And he was extended to her mercy. What is mercy? Mercy is not getting what you deserve.

We deserve punishment. Mercy is not being punished. I'll never forget when JD was about seven years old one day at devotions, he said, Dad, can you explain mercy to me? And I gave him this definition. Mercy is not getting what you deserve. Man, he locked onto this definition. Because every time after that, when he would do something and we would be disobedient and I would be prepared to correct him through biblically advised spanking, he would look at me and go, mercy, Dad, mercy.

And man, it was really effective. But mercy is not getting what we deserve. But understand, we have to get a picture that we're condemned under the law. And the next life lesson is there must be conviction before there can be conversion. There must be conviction before there can be conversion. But let your conviction draw you to the Lord. If you just feel bad and you never do anything, that's not spiritually productive.

As a matter of fact, it's spiritually unproductive and it can harden your heart. Respond to that conviction. Ask the Lord to forgive you. Early on, I thought, you know, that you had to feel bad enough or long enough before you could ask for forgiveness. Well, I just did that, so I got to wait a few days before I asked for forgiveness.

But you know what? It got harder to ask for forgiveness, not easier. So then I started, you know, as soon as I messed up, I said, oh, Lord, forgive me of that.

I'm so sorry. Here we see the beautiful thing of law and grace working together. Now, God's law never saved anybody.

But I don't think anybody ever got saved without realizing they needed to be saved. The law lets us know that we've done wrong and we need forgiveness. And grace comes in with that forgiveness.

It's a necessary part. And I know part of us wants to run with our sin away from Jesus. Perhaps you're sitting in here this morning and you've done stuff that has been wrong, maybe even adultery, and you're sitting there and you're just, you're feeling horrible, and you're going, oh, my gosh.

He was looking right at me when he said that. I've sat where you sat, sitting in a church service and feeling horrible. And you know what? Service after service after service, I did nothing. I just sat there and felt bad and thought that's what I was supposed to do.

And that was all there was to it. You don't have to feel overwhelmed with your sin. You can bring it to Jesus and let him have it.

You were never meant to carry that. And if you reject Jesus, if you say, you know what? I don't need this forgiveness you keep talking about. Understand what you're saying is I want to stand before a holy, righteous God and I want to stand on my own merits. I want to stand before the law. I think I can pull it off. Friends, you can't do it.

And let me tell you, a lot better men and women than you and I have tried to do it and couldn't do it. We're dependent upon grace. Did Jesus at this moment break Mosaic law?

No. No, what he did sounds almost too good to be true, but it's true. What he did is he placed himself and the cross between this woman and her punishment. And understand when he did that, he was making the statement that he was going to die for her sins.

She deserved death, but he stepped in and said, you'll live and instead of you dying, I'll die for you. It staggers imagination, but this is what we need to do with your sin. Not just one time guys, but in your life, in your life, in your life, in your life, in your life, allow Jesus to come between you and your sin. Put the cross there because, and again, the mind staggers at this, Jesus Christ forgives sin. Jesus Christ forgives sins. Man, that's why they call it the good news. He's willing to do that this morning.

He's willing to forgive you. Some of you are trying to carry this stuff around. Man, you were never meant to carry it around. You're trying to carry it around and you know what? People around you see, man, they're like, what's wrong with him?

What's wrong with her? And then they got 500 pounds of luggage on their back. You can lay it down this morning or you can carry it back out like you carried it in, but what a tragedy to come here that you can be unburdened and to decide to carry this with you and not let the cross come in between you and your sin because Jesus says the same thing to you this morning. Oh, you deserve death, but you know what?

I'm willing to die that death for you. What an amazing thing and understand Jesus didn't say that lightly because while forgiveness is free, it is not cheap. It was bought for you with the precious blood of the son of God on the cross. Jesus died for you because you do stand condemned under the law, but he stands here this morning willing to offer you forgiveness. Friend, do you know for sure that your sins have been forgiven?

You can know right now. I want to lead you in a short simple prayer, simply telling God you're sorry and asking him to help you to live for him. Now, God wants you to pray this prayer so much that he died to give you the opportunity and the ability to ask him to forgive you.

Please pray this prayer with me out loud right now. Dear Jesus, I believe you died for me that I could be forgiven and I believe you were raised from the dead that I could have a new life and I've done wrong things. I have sinned and I'm sorry. Please forgive me of all those things. Please give me the power to live for you all of my days in Jesus name.

Amen. Friend, if you prayed that prayer according to the Bible, you've been forgiven. You've been born again.

Jesus said he would not turn anybody away who comes to him and he came for those people who knew they needed forgiveness, those who were sick, not the righteous. So congratulations, friend. You just made the greatest decision that you will ever make. God bless you. What are some ways that we can bless our listeners? Each day you can wake up with encouragement from Pastor David through the Word of God with his email devotional, life lessons to consider, a daily reading plan, and a thought to meditate on throughout your day from the heart of David McGee. That sounds good, Pastor DA.

And again, it's been great to have you with us on the program today. But tell us, what else can our listeners find on crossthebridge.com? If you're not able to make it to your home church this Sunday, why not join us for our live stream at 10 a.m. Eastern Time or on Thursday nights at 7 p.m. Eastern Time? Just visit crossthebridge.com and click on our live stream link. There, you'll experience a live service from David's home church, The Bridge in North Carolina. Again, that website is crossthebridge.com. Thanks again for listening and join us next time as David McGee continues teaching verse by verse in the Gospel of John.