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Post Falls SDA Church

Willard Santee

God Understands

Father, please speak to our hearts, for in a sense we're all children today And we need you.

Every 1 of us today needs you in 1 way or another.

Thank you for hearing and now answer, Father, our request.

Let us know that you understand us and that you really care.

I'd invite you to take your Bibles if you would this morning and turn with me to the New Testament Gospel of John.

And we're going to take a look at the first part of chapter 8 today in our study.

It's a study that is only found in the book of John.

In fact, there are some commentators that feel that the story we're going to be sharing today was really not part of John's original script.

However, other commentators in reading what we're going to be sharing today are convinced that this not only was part of John's original intent, but it certainly has the overtone, it has the ring of the gospel, the good news of salvation, And there are those who believe it fits and needs to be here.

And I'm so grateful to those commentators that support it and encouraged it to remain where it is in your Bible and mine.

A simple story, but it depicts a God who understands.

I wish I knew the background of this story, but there is not much that can really be told outside of the story itself.

But I'm going to, with a little sanctified imagination today, extrapolate just a little bit because my Bible and yours tells us that there is no temptation, there is no test, there is no trial, there is nothing that comes to you but such as is common to man.

So I'm going to share with 40 years of experience in ministry today a little bit about this story and if you would oblige me I think you will discover that you and I both are found in this story somewhere.

Chapter 8, we find it begins with Jesus going up to the Mount of Olives.

And the reason that He goes up to the Mount of Olives is because He had arrived there in Jerusalem during the Feast of Tabernacles in the autumn of A.D.

And according to verse 37 of the previous chapter, it says it's the last day of that great feast.

And not unlike the leaders of the church then as now, there were those who were questioning Jesus' right to speak about Scripture.

For you see, He had not graduated from Andrew's theological seminary.

He had not gone to a theological seminary.

He had not gone through the system of education.

Therefore, who gave him the right to speak about the Scriptures and so differently than those in the traditional synagogue.

And so they had confronted him again asking him who he thought he was and who gave him the right and the privilege to share biblical truth to the common people.

And Jesus, you can read this story in chapter 7, after defending his position quite eloquently for he never preached his opinion.

After he had defended himself most eloquently, The Sanhedrin pulled themselves together and decided that they would take action that would ultimately bring about his demise once and for all.

But the last part of chapter 7 ends with 1 man by the name of Nicodemus in verse 50, if you just want to move up a few verses from chapter 8.

Nicodemus, the same 1 who came to Jesus by night, being 1 of the Sanhedrin, said to them when they were furious at Jesus, they were angry with Him, they wanted to exterminate Him, kill Him.

Nicodemus asks the question of the Sanhedrin in verse 51, Does our law judge a man before it hears him and knows what he's doing?

They were proud of upholding the law, but now they were in violation of the law and what they were proposing to do and Nicodemus, 1 of their own, dares to challenge the Sanhedrin and this you just didn't do when everyone was already voting to get rid of Jesus and then 1 of their own dares to stand and say in defense of Christ, has anyone really heard him yet?

He has not been brought before the council yet.

They were so angry, verse 52, they answered and said to him, Are you also a Galilean?

For there's nowhere in scripture that says a prophet came out of Galilee.

But there was such confusion among the ranks and frustration that they disbanded and went home every man to his own house And then Jesus left and went to the Mount of Olives to be alone.

It says, now early in the morning, He, Jesus, came again into the temple, and all the people came to Him, and He sat down and taught them.

Now you have to kind of imagine this in your mind.

The Bible says all the people, all of those that had been in the sanctuary that morning, those who had come to the temple to pray, to worship, all of those there in the court had gathered together to perform their little services as we're coming to the close of this incredible feast of tabernacles.

It was sort of what we call in our modern Adventist mindset a major camp meeting where we pitch our little tents and come and get refreshed with the Spirit of God and with great preaching and teaching and where we come to meet friends that we haven't seen in over a year or 2 or maybe more.

And they were there and they had come to the temple 1 last time that morning, some to say their goodbyes.

And as they're gathered there in the early morning, Jesus comes among them and He sits as a teacher in the court and now He begins to teach the common people once again.

Verse 3, Then the scribes and Pharisees bring to him a woman caught in adultery.

And when they had set her in the midst, they said to him, Teacher, this woman was caught in adultery in the very act." Now I just want you to stop and think with me for a moment what this must have been like.

The mood was worship, praise, thanksgiving, Farewells and hugs, saying goodbye to old friends that we won't see you but keep the faith.

People were there, they were listening to Jesus give His last little message that some would ever hear and some would hear only once.

And his speech was interrupted by this group of religious leaders coming in their royal robes if you can imagine them.

And there's a great commotion as they thrust this woman into the midst of Jesus where He's teaching and all of these common, ordinary people around and they're taken back.

They can hear the woman moaning and groaning and she's embarrassed.

She's only half clothed, perhaps I imagine in my mind, covering up her body as best she can, perhaps even with a sheet.

But it's an embarrassment for her, it's an embarrassment for those that are there, it's an embarrassment for all except for the priests.

They seem to be gloating over this moment that they have to put Jesus, as it were, on the hot seat.

They want to catch Him in His words so they can justify their annihilating Him, putting Him away once and for all, or even exterminating Him, killing Him would be ideal.

But if they can embarrass Him now in front of the multitude, in front of the people that morning, and prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that He is not God, they would be satisfied.

And so they bring the question in verse 5, Now Moses in the law commanded us, that such an individual such as this should be stoned.

What they have done now is compared him with Moses.

It was the 1 who spoke for God, the word that John refers to Jesus as, who had given the 10 Commandments to Moses.

He had spoken them on the mountain in his divine form, but now he's in human form being charged as 1 who's against the very law he gave to Moses.

But you see, they would not admit that he is God.

Therefore, they're challenging him to prove who he is.

And they had him, as far as they knew, they had him on this 1.

For they knew that he was a merciful human being that he was kind to people that he was willing to forgive and they assumed that probably what he would do would be let her off the hook and show mercy on her.

But if he shows mercy then he sets the law of Moses aside And they have him.

They condemn him for breaking the law of God.

On the other hand, if he carries out the law of Moses and allows her to be stoned, then he usurps the authority of Rome, for only Rome had the right in such cases of capital punishment to carry out such deeds.

They had brought the woman, she was condemned already in their eyes.

Verse 6 says, they said this to Jesus, testing him that they might have something of which to accuse him.

He simply stoops down and writes in the dust on the marble floor of the temple court.

The temple, I think most of you are aware, was continually in process of being built.

There were always, it seemed, carpenters and contractors and builders and masons always around there repairing and rebuilding and extending.

This particular temple really wasn't completed in the days of Jesus.

They were still working there and it was not uncommon to find a lot of dust on the marble and on the floor.

Easy for Jesus to reach down and write with his finger in the dust.

The only words ever recorded by Jesus were never recorded.

Only that which men saw with their eyes, That's where it was recorded.

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God Understands

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