Still have your Bibles open,
keep them open there to John chapter eight. That'll be our
text this morning. I've titled the message, Where
Are Your Accusers? You know, a lot of the old timers
were afraid to preach from this passage. They were afraid if
they dealt with it, that it would make people feel free to commit
adultery, like they're promoting adultery or something. But as
I read this passage, I don't find this passage encouraging
me to sin at all. This passage causes me to flee
to Christ. And if you're a sinner, my prayer
is after you hear it this morning, it'll make you flee to Christ
for mercy too. Now if you're a rebel, it will
make you have an excuse to sin and it's as simple as that. But
if you're a sinner, it'll cause you to flee to Christ. I love
this story so much because it's such a good illustration. It's
a demonstration. Of the tender love and the compassion. That our Savior has for sinners. He's holy, he's undefiled, he's
separate from sin. Yet he in this passage demonstrates
his love. They would move him to condescend
to come where we are and to sacrifice himself so that the sin of his
people could be forgiven. And if the Lord will show us
this picture of salvation and his love for sinners, our hearts
are gonna be moved with awe and wonder and thanksgiving and worship. This is a special, special passage
I feel. I pray the Lord bless us as we
look at it. Now, the first thing I see here
is this. If a sinner's gonna be saved,
first thing, we gotta have a sinner. If Christ is going to save his
people from their sin, there's got to be a guilty sinner. I
mean, a real life sinner. And we find one of those in our
text. And she's a picture of every sinner that Christ came
to save. Look here at verse one, John eight. And Jesus went under
the Mount of Olives. And early in the morning, he
came again into the temple and all the people came unto him.
And he sat down and taught them. And the scribes and Pharisees
brought unto him a woman taken in adultery. And when they had
set her in the midst, they say unto him, Master, this woman
was taken in adultery in the very act. Now before we get to
this woman, I want us to understand the scene that's going on when
the Pharisees bring this woman to our Lord. At that time, it
was different than it is now. I stand to preach. At that time,
they sat to teach and to preach, and the Lord was sitting before
this crowd in the temple, and he was teaching the scriptures.
Now just pause and think how wonderful that had to be. Here's
the incarnate word teaching the written word. This is a man who
could take the word and say, I say unto thee, and he could
teach the scriptures. He could say this is what these
scriptures really mean. These people gathered together
hearing the Savior speak, they weren't hearing the dos and don'ts
of the law. They weren't being threatened, you better not do
this, you better not do this, you better not do this, you better
do this, this, this. These people were not having the burden of
the law heaped upon their shoulders. They were hearing grace pour
from the lips of the fountain of grace himself. So I have no
doubt this was a true worship service. They were hearing from
the master himself. And there had to be such joy
in the hearts of the people You know, I mentioned in the class
this morning, you know, there are times that Lord enables us
to truly worship. I mean, truly worship. And you
know the difference. You know, don't you just, you
just have such joy. You just skip out of here being
so happy. These folks had joy in their hearts. They're hearing
from God. That was our prayer. Dan prayed
that we would hear from God. They were, they were hearing
from God. It's such a special time. And then the Pharisees come to
ruin it. But you know, the Lord, sovereign
over all this, making all this happen so that he could use their
sinful actions to give you and me today a picture of how God
saves his people in great love and compassion for sinners. Now,
no doubt, this woman has committed a great sin. I mean, you can't
say one sin's worse than another, You find no argument that adultery
is a great sin, would you? It's such a betrayal of your
spouse. It's a betrayal of the vow that
we made before God when we got married. And worse yet, adultery
is a sin against God because it violates the picture of the
union between Christ the bridegroom and his bride. And this woman's
guilty. I mean, there's no doubt about
it. They caught her red-handed. But isn't that creepy? How'd
they caught her red-handed? I mean, somebody had to be like
a peeping Tom or something, you know? This had to be a setup. And they bring the woman to the
Lord, and I always wonder, where's the man? How come they didn't
bring him, you know? The law says both parties were
to be stoned, the man and the woman. Well, the man must have
been part of the setup as far as I can figure. Maybe he's one
of the Pharisees' cronies or whatever, you know? I mean, this
was wicked how they caught this woman in the act. Bring her to
the Lord. But it's wicked. Now, you know, this is wicked.
I mean, I can't say that strongly enough, but let's not forget
this. She is still guilty. She's guilty. They caught her
in the act of adultery. Now I say that so we'll understand
this. You and I will not get a blessing from this passage.
This passage will be just another story. to us until we understand
that each one of us is just as guilty as this one. I can show
you that. Look at Matthew chapter five.
Not only are we guilty of this very same sin, we're guilty of
every sin. We've been caught red handed
in it. There's no denying our guilt. Matthew chapter five,
verse 21. You have heard that it was said
by them of old time, thou shall not kill. And whosoever shall
kill shall be in danger of the judgment. But I say unto you,
whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause, shall be in
danger of the judgment. And whosoever shall say to his
brother Rekha, that is in danger of the council. But whosoever
say thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire. What the Lord is
saying here is, You just desire to break the law. You just feel
that anger. You just feel that in your heart,
and you're guilty of it. That applies to every commandment
of the law. We've broken every one of them,
if not outwardly, in desire. We're guilty of breaking every
commandment of the law, and we're just as guilty as this poor woman
in this particular sin too. Look down at verse 27. You have
heard that it was said by them of old time, thou shall not commit
adultery, But I say unto you that whosoever looketh on a woman
to lust after her hath committed adultery already with her in
his heart." The Lord says that this thing is not just outward,
it's in the heart. Every one of us is guilty. We're
just as guilty as this woman. This woman was guilty and she
deserved to die. According to what the law says,
she deserved to die. The Pharisees weren't wrong about
that, but so do we. We're guilty and we deserve to
die. We deserve for God to cast us
into hell. Not only have we committed adultery
in our hearts, we've committed spiritual adultery against God
when we worshiped idols. We've committed every sin imaginable
in our hearts. So we're guilty. We deserve to
die. And since that's true, we ought
to be mighty interested in what the Lord has to say about this
woman, shouldn't we? So number one, if there's gonna be a sinner
saved, there's got to be a guilty sinner. Number two is this, if
a sinner would be saved, God's law and God's justice have to
be dealt with. In verse five, they said unto
the Lord, now Moses in the law commanded us that such should
be stoned, but what sayest thou? Now you can just see it, the
sick, twisted glee of these Pharisees. I'm just confident they set this
woman up. This was not an accident. They just stumbled across her
and caught her red handed. If somebody's going to commit
adultery, they're going to take a lot of steps to be sure they're not
caught. This woman was set up. I'm just sure of it. And it was
set up by these Pharisees so they could catch her red handed
and trap the Lord. See, this woman's not the issue.
She's not the issue at all. They just wanted to trap the
Lord. And if she ends up being stoned, she's just collateral
damage and they don't care. They don't care about her a bit.
They really thought they had the Lord trapped here. Now that
doesn't show you the foolishness of our nature to think that we
can outwit wisdom himself, wisdom personified. But they thought
they had him. Because the law clearly said
she should be put to death. That's what the law says. And
if the Lord says she's guilty, You boys go stoner. Then they're
gonna say, wait a minute. Now, what about all this mercy
and forgiveness you've been talking about? Why? I thought you were
the friend of publicans and sinners. Here's a sinner and you're saying
stoner. I thought you said your father didn't send you into the
world to condemn the world, but that the world through you might
be saved. You're talking about both sides of your mouth. You're
talking about mercy, but you're condemning this woman. First
chance you get. But if the Lord says have mercy on her and let
her go, then they're gonna say, ooh, what about the law of God? Don't you care about the law
of God? Don't you care about holiness and justice and these
things that God command? They thought they had him. You know why? Because they couldn't
come up with an answer to their trap. That's what it says in
verse six. This is why all this happened.
This they said, tempting him that they might have to accuse
him. You know, this has always been
the problem with man's religions that we've made up. And the problem
always starts here. No man yet has ever figured out
a way to marry mercy and justice. No man yet has ever figured out.
No man yet has ever figured out how to satisfy both God's law
and God's grace at the same time. Nobody's figured it out. No man
yet has ever figured out how can we condemn sin, yet sin be
forgiven at the same time. How is that possible? These Pharisees
didn't know the answer to the question. That's why they thought
that the Lord would be trapped. Now, if there's going to be true
salvation for a sinner, this question has to be answered.
Both God's justice and God's mercy must be satisfied. They must be. If a sinner would
truly be saved, God must magnify his law and his mercy. He must do both. And the Pharisees
couldn't figure that out, so they thought, well, we got the
Lord trapped here, because he don't be able to figure it out either.
And here these men are, you know, using this woman to trap the
Lord. I mean, you see the picture here? They've taken her in, thrown
her down in front of this crowd. She is totally humiliated. I mean, here they, you know,
she's been caught red-handed, they've exposed her sin, in front
of all these people in the temple. In the temple. People that she
knew probably in the community. People she saw at the grocery
store. She'd been publicly exposed. Probably in some state of undress
or something, you know. And she knows. Now, I've been
brought to the temple. I mean, I've been brought to
the seat of holiness and righteousness and justice in our town. I'm
surely going to be put to death very shortly. in a very painful
way. Can you imagine how painful it
must be to be stoned to death? I mean, it's so painful. She's
full of shame. She's full of fear. Have you ever been there? Have you ever been there because
of your sin? Knowing what I deserve is for God to cast me into hell.
I mean, I feel like I'm just on tiptoes at the very edge of
it. And what I deserve is God to
cast me into hell because I'm guilty. Well, if you have, you
ought to be mighty interested in the Lord's answer here. And
I believe you'll get a blessing for your heart from it. Now,
the Pharisees were right. All that the law can say is death. There's guilt. There must be
death. That's all the law can say. But that's not all God can
say. You know, the Pharisees didn't
know it, but they brought this guilty woman to the best place
they ever could have brought her, to the feet of the Savior. So here's the third thing. If
a sinner would be saved, there must be forgiveness of sin. In
verse six, this they said, tempting him that they might have to accuse
him. But Jesus stooped down and with
his finger rode on the ground as though he heard them not.
I just love this. I just love this. The Pharisees
just come, they spring their trap, and they're so excited
they got their traps set just right, you know. And the Lord
just acted like he didn't even hear them. He just stoops down,
starts writing with his finger on the ground. His body language
was telling them, your question just doesn't even deserve any,
I'm not even dignifying you guys with the response. And oh, it
just made him so mad. Now what, Did the Lord write
when he stooped down and wrote with his finger? Well, nobody
knows because Scripture doesn't tell us. But I can speculate
about some things without violating the rest of Scripture. Could
be that the Lord stooped down and wrote with his finger, he
wrote the law. You remember another time, the first time in Scripture
it says God wrote with his finger? He wrote the Ten Commandments
on those tables of stone and gave them to Moses. Could be
that's what he's doing here. He's writing the law. Could be
the Lord wrote, thou shall not commit adultery. You know, the
command of scripture is everybody else isn't supposed to commit
adultery. The commandment of the law is thou shall not commit
adultery. You're not supposed to be watching
out to see if this woman's committed adultery or not. You don't commit
adultery. Showing us and the Pharisees
what the law says. It says to you, it says to you. What the law says, it says to
me, saying that I'm guilty. The law's not written for me
to show me you're guilty. The law's written to show me
I'm guilty. The law is written to shut my
mouth because I'm guilty. The law is written so that I
will be shut up to Christ, so that I'll see I've got no hope
but Christ. That's why God gave the law. Well, the Pharisees,
they didn't like being ignored, and they probably thought, well,
the Lord's just stooping down here, scribbling on the ground,
you know, trying to buy time. So verse seven, when they continued
asking him, he lifted up himself and said unto them, he that is
without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her. I like thinking about this. This
should have got their heart rate up a little bit. The Lord stooped
down, writing with his finger, and then he stands up. Oh, the
Lord stood up as the judge. He stood up as God, like Judah's
lion rousing himself up. He stood and he told them, whoever
of you is not guilty of this particular sin of adultery, let
him cast the first stone. Now the Lord knew that they were
all guilty. It's just probably all these
men These Pharisees and scribes, they're probably all guilty of
adultery, because adultery was so common in that day. It was
so common, which is why the Lord called the Pharisees an adulterous
generation. So if they were guilty, you know
the Lord knew it. He said, whoever's without sin
among you, let him first cast a stone at her. And he didn't
wait, looking around, to see if somebody's going to cast a
stone at her, did he? He went back to ignoring them and writing
on the ground again. Look at verse eight. And again,
he stooped down and wrote on the ground. Well, what did the
Lord write this time? Well, nobody knows, because Scripture's
silent on the subject. But again, I got some ideas here
that match the rest of Scripture, that do not violate Scripture.
It sounds like the Lord wrote something that made these men
feel guilty. It could be that the Lord exposed
their guilt. Maybe he wrote dates and names.
Maybe he wrote you're guilty. I mean, I don't know. But that
would fit with another time that I know the Lord wrote with His
finger. Remember in Daniel 5, King Belshazzar
was throwing that big party. And he said, oh, well, here's
what we'll do. He said, go down and get all those golden vessels
from the temple that we took from the Jews. We conquered them. Those were holy vessels to them.
Bring them up here. We'll drink wine out of them.
And while they were doing that, a man's hand appeared with his
fingers and wrote on the wall, thou art weighed in the balance
and found wanting. Maybe the Lord wrote something
like that. I don't know, but I do know what their reaction
to it was. Verse nine. And when they heard it being
convicted by their own conscience, they went out one by one, beginning
at the eldest, even unto the last. And Jesus was left alone
and the woman standing in the midst. You know, the guilty conscience
of the Pharisees made them leave. You know, the self-righteous,
they like to say how they're righteous by their own acts,
by their own words, by all the things they've never done wrong.
But boy, it's easy to make them feel guilty. The self-righteous
never like to be in the presence of the Lord Jesus. The self-righteous
never like to be in the presence of righteousness personified. But the guilty sinner, she stayed
in the dust at the master's feet. She didn't take this opportunity
where everybody's distracted watching the scribes and Pharisees
go away to crawl away and scurry away and get away from the Lord.
She guilty and she stayed right at his feet. Now she's in the
very, very, very best place a sinner could ever find themselves, alone
with the Lord. Well, verse 10, when Jesus had
lifted up himself and saw none but the woman, he said unto her,
woman, where are those thine accusers? Hath no man condemned
thee? She said, no man, Lord. And Jesus
said unto her, neither do I condemn thee. Go and sin no more. Now here's the wisdom of the
Lord and the wisdom and beauty of the gospel of salvation in
Christ. The Lord did not condone her sin. but he didn't condemn
her either. Now, how's that possible? We
find that out. We're gonna find out how God
saves sinners. The Lord did not condone her sin, but he didn't
condemn her either. He told her, I don't condemn
you. Can you imagine the joy and the
relief that she felt? She thought she's gonna get stoned
to death. Now the Lord's telling her, go away. But how can the
Lord tell her, now go your way, I don't condemn you. How can
he say that and still be holy? How can he say that and still
be God? It's because in his wisdom, God found a ransom. He didn't
find a ransom like he stumbled across it. God provided the ransom. God provided the way for him
to be both just and still justify sinners. And that way is pictured
in the two stoops, two different times that the Lord stooped here.
See, before the Lord Jesus Christ could be glorified, he must stoop
and he must humble himself twice. Now remember, this woman is us.
We're guilty. We're guilty of every sin. Now
what's God going to do with you and me? What's he going to do
with us? If God shows mercy and lets us go, God's justice and
God's holiness are going to say, wait a minute. What about us? We must be satisfied. You can't
let them just go. We must be satisfied. But if
God shows strict justice and sends us to hell, mercy and grace
are gonna say, wait a minute, what about us? Mercy and grace
are attributes of God too. Mercy and grace must be satisfied.
Well, how can mercy and grace or how can mercy and justice
meet in harmony? How can grace and righteousness
kiss in peace? Well, it's not by Adam's race.
It's not by anything that we do, because we're guilty. We
can't do anything to clear ourselves. All the law can say is death. All the law can say is the second
death, cast him into hell. That's all the law can say. We're guilty. But that's not
all God can say. God in his wisdom found a way
to honor both his justice and his love, both his grace and
his righteousness, both his mercy and his hatred of sin is true,
and that way is in the Lord Jesus Christ. In these two stupes that
are pictured here, Christ, the Son of God, stooped to satisfy
the law of God. He stooped to satisfy God, and
he stooped to show his love for sinners, what he would say In
first time, the Lord stooped. He stooped down on the ground
next to this woman. Now that had to feel good to
her. Now she's not all alone. Now the Lord is right beside
her. And this stoop shows us the Savior's love and compassion
for sinners. The Son of God loves sinners
so much. He stooped down. I mean, he stooped down to become
a man. so that he could live amongst
sinful men, so he could be right there with them. The word was
made flesh and he dwelt among us. Nobody's ever stooped lower
than that, that the son of God stooped to come where we are,
to be clothed in flesh like we have, to live right where we
live in the cesspool of our sin. The Savior stooped down to come
where we are. That's good news. Now I'm not
alone down here at the bottom of the barrel. Now I'm not left
without any hope because the Savior's with us. He stooped
down to be with us. But then the Savior stooped a
second time. He stooped even lower. He stooped to satisfy
his Father. Our Savior got right down there
with that woman, right beside her, like he's telling her and
everybody else, she's guilty. but all the condemnation she
deserves fall on me. You can throw a rock at her,
but if you do, you're gonna have to throw one at me first. Now that's how God
saves sinners. When the Lord Jesus Christ stooped
to become a man, he stooped so far down to be the representative
of his people. He stooped to make himself under
his own law, to obey his own law, to produce a perfect righteousness. Now the son of God's righteous,
that's his free nature, he's righteous. He doesn't need to
become a man, obey the law to have a righteousness, he's already
righteous. But he stooped to become a man
to earn a righteousness that he could freely give to his people.
Freely give to them. And then he stooped a second
time. He stooped to be made sin. Even though he was perfect, he
knew no sin, The Lord Jesus Christ stooped to be made a sacrifice
for the sin of his people. And at that time, his flesh was
tortured and he was put to death by men. And his soul was tortured
by his father when he made his soul an offering for sin. And
it had to be so. It had to be that way because
God's holy, because God's just. God spared not his own son. He took the sin of his people,
he took it away from them and put that horrible, heavy, black
load of sin upon his son, all of it upon his son. And when
that happened, the father delivered not his son, but delivered him,
or spared not his son, but delivered him up for us all. God's holy law could not let
Christ go when he was made sin for his people. Now, how far
down, I mean, try to imagine, did our Savior stoop to become
the sin that we are, to be made sin? How far did He stoop to
suffer everything that the sin of His people deserves? Now,
the Savior is the one being weighed in the balance, and He was fully
punished for all the sin of His people, and by His sacrifice,
He put away all of the sin of all of his people. When he cried
from the cross, it is finished. Sin was finished. The sin of
his people was finished and gone forever because he stooped to
suffer and die for his people. What a stoop. Now the Lord stooped,
he died, didn't he? He didn't stay dead. roused himself
up. He lifted himself up just like
he lifted up himself and asked this woman, where are those nine
accusers? The Lord Jesus Christ died, but he didn't stay dead.
He lifted himself up. He raised himself from the grave
and walked out the mighty conqueror. So now when Christ forgives sin,
he forgives sin on resurrection ground. on resurrection ground. What I mean by that, he forgives
sin because he suffered and died to put it away. And he rose again
for our justification. He rose again to show his death
put away all of the sin of all of his people. And now it's right
for the Lord not to condemn this woman. Because his death made
it. So there's no sin to condemn.
That sin is gone. Where there's no sin to condemn,
A person can't die. There's no sin left to condemn
God's people because Christ has died. He shed his blood and he's
risen again. A justice will never demand two
deaths for one sin. Since Christ was made sin and
he died in my place, justice will never demand I die too because
Christ already died and God's justice is satisfied with the
death Christ my substitute. So the Lord didn't condemn this
woman. Because shortly, he's gonna stand condemned for her.
And you know in the mind and purpose of God, you know that
transaction was already done. This man who stooped and then
raised himself up again, he's the lamb slain from the foundation
of the world. The father already saw this transaction
is done. Her sin has already been put
away by the blood of Christ God already looked at this woman
as justified in Christ. Therefore, the Lord could forgive
her sin and not condemn her. He could say the same thing to
you. There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are
in Christ Jesus. See, the Lord's doing a whole
lot more than ignoring her sin. What he's saying is, you're not
guilty. The all seeing eye of God sees
no sin in you. You're not guilty. There's no
sin left to condemn you. And the Lord does the same thing
for every sinner he saves. If you know anything about these
two stoops of God's son, how he stooped to be made flesh,
the word was made flesh and dwelt among us. and how He stooped
to be made sin for you, but knew no sin, that you might be made
the righteousness of God in Him. I promise you, you do not look
at the message of grace and forgiveness to sinners through the death,
burial, and resurrection of Christ as an excuse to sin. I promise
you, you don't. The last thing that you want
to do is sin. You hate sin, you hate your sin
that condemned the Savior to die that way. We're still gonna sin, but the
believer never tries to find an excuse to do it. We hate our
sin. God does not overlook our sin.
The gospel is not God saying, well, you know, you have an excuse
to sin. No, he never condones our sin. But he'll never take the sin
of his people and cause it to condemn him. Because Christ the
Savior was already condemned in our place. No one can ever
make an accusation of sin, stick against you, if Christ died for
you. Because his blood put it away. That's how God can save sinners,
forgive the sin of guilty sinners in grace and truth. Now I hear this story, I read
this story, I've read it several times this week. That gives this
guilty sinner a reason to run to Christ. I mean run as fast
as my little legs will carry me, run to Christ. So here's
the only question left for you and me. Are you as guilty as
this adulterous woman? Are you as guilty as she is?
You know, the Lord always condemned the self-righteous, always. But
he always forgives the sin of the guilty sinner. Now, are you
guilty? Are you a sinner? then be like
this woman and come to Christ for forgiveness, because it's
all in him. It's all in him because of how
he stooped to be made flesh, how he stooped to be made sin
for his people, how he stooped to suffer and die and to lay
in the grave for his people, and then how he roused himself
up again as the mighty conqueror. All right, I hope the Lord will
bless that to you. Let's bow together. Our Father, how we thank you
for these accounts in scripture that you've given us, how you
came in the flesh and how you always dealt so kindly, gently,
compassionately with guilty sinners. Father, your love, your capacity
to love sinners such as we are, it's overwhelming. That you would
love sinners such as we are so much that you would suffer and
die to put our sin away. Father, I pray you'd take that
love, that compassion for sinners and break our stony hearts. That
you'd warm our dead, cold hearts and cause us to flee to Christ.
To find in him full, free forgiveness of our sin because of his sacrifice.
Father, I pray you'd take your word and that you'd apply it
to each heart here, that you'd cause each one of us to run to
Christ. Father, it's in Christ's name,
for his sake and his glory, we pray, amen. All right, Sean,
come lead us in a closing hymn.