Let's dive straight into it tonight. A sermon that, from John chapter 8, verse 2 to 11. John 8, 2 to 11. A message that wasn't to be preached three weeks ago, but things change, which is always good. So, John 8, verse 2 to 11. Hear the word of our Lord. Early in the morning, he came again to the temple. All the people came to him and he sat down and taught them. The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery and placing her in the midst, they said to him, the teacher, this woman has been caught in the act of adultery. Now in the law, Moses commanded us to stone such women. So what do you say? This they said to test him, that they might have some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground. And as they continued to ask him, he stood up and said to them, let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her. And once more he bent down and wrote on the ground. But when they heard it, they went away one by one, beginning with the older ones. And Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him. Jesus stood up and said to her, woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you? She said, no one, Lord. And Jesus said, neither do I condemn you. Go. And from now on, sin no more. May the Lord add his blessing to the reading of his words tonight. Let's pray. Father God, we do thank you that tonight, as we look at a controversial passage of scripture, that you will be amongst us, that you would guide us through the Holy Spirit, that, Father, as we delve briefly into the controversy surrounding this passage, we pray that, Lord, we would still remember love and charity, that we would not jump the gun in our assessment of this passage, that, Father, as we do hear from your Word tonight, we pray that you would speak to us that the Holy Spirit would give us ears to hear what you would say to this church. Father, I do pray for myself as the preacher, Lord. I pray that you would fill my mouth with your word, that I would preach what I ought to preach and withhold that which ought to be withheld. That, Lord, you would even send the Holy Spirit amongst us tonight to be the second preacher, the preacher that preaches directly to the heart. Lord Jesus, we pray most of all that throughout this message you would be glorified, that you would receive praise and blessing and honor that is due unto your name and your name alone. Be glorified, be exalted. Tonight we pray, not just here in this church, but in churches and gatherings of your people throughout this world. Glorify your name for Jesus' sake. Amen. Well, tonight we come to one of the most hotly debated texts in all of the scripture. Now, this text is debated over not because of some deep theological truth, it is not debated over because there's some controversial doctrine found within it, but the reason there's debate over this passage of scripture centres around the question of, is this passage really the word of God or not? Now, let me stress something. When debates question if this passage is a part of the Scripture or not, it's not some sort of demonic plan in order to overthrow the Scripture. That's not what's going on here, but rather what is happening in academic discussion is a search for truth, a search for answers to find out if the oldest and most reliable papyri manuscripts of the New Testament contain this section of Scripture. And if you take the time to look at the oldest Greek we have of John's Gospel and indeed, the oldest Greek we can find of the New Testament, we'll find that in many cases, this section of Scripture, these verses, do not actually appear. And that has led many people to say that this is not actually Scripture, that this is not exactly the Word of God. For instance, if you look at many modern translations, including the ESV, They will have a little thing in brackets saying, the earliest manuscripts do not include 753 to 811. Many new Bibles will have that sort of note there saying, hey, there's some question over this text. Perhaps your Bible has it listed in brackets like the ESV does. Perhaps you have a footnote in your Bible that details a bit about the debate. If you have a study Bible, you will find that there's quite a lengthy comment on this section of scripture. Now, let me stress something, that when we do look at the question of is this the word of God or not, we need to consider a few things. First, we need to consider that the Bible was written by human pens. God used man to write his word. We also must consider this, that much was said by Jesus that was not recorded by the scripture writers. And because of that, the question arises, is this scripture or not, or is it oral tradition that somehow entered into John's Gospel, or is it even a part of John's Gospel? Now, I know it sounds pretty complex, but some scholars would actually argue that this section of scripture is the Word of God, but it's not a part of John. In fact, I would argue that it's a part of Luke. And there's huge debates on all this section of scripture, and if you want some fun, go read a commentary on it, because you will get a headache and a half just trying to sort through what the scholars are saying. But is there such a basis to make a claim that this may not be the Word of God? Is there a valid argument to even question this passage of Scripture? I mean, we can claim that the oldest manuscripts do not contain it. We can look at the majority of Latin and Syriac versions as well and see that they do not contain this passage of Scripture. We can look at things like that and go, well, maybe it was added by a scribe. We can look at some of the earliest manuscripts and find that it's in Luke's Gospel. We can look at other manuscripts and find that when it is included, it's often included with asterisks around it, making a question of if it's meant to be there or not. Greek scholars would argue that this is not Scripture because of the disrupt of the flow of text. Others would say, well, that actually isn't provable. The interesting thing in this debate, and I'm sharing it for a reason, is that there's not actually any clear evidence each way. There's about a 50-50 split when you look at the evidence. You have all this evidence saying, yes, it is, and you have all this evidence that says, no, it isn't. So, I think when we look at this debate, when we look at this introduction to this passage, we have to conclude that we cannot definitively know if this section is of scripture or not. But something we can know is this, There is nothing unbiblical about this passage. There's nothing in this section of scripture that contradicts anything else in the Bible. There's nothing in these few verses that cause us to go heresy or cause us to question the validity of God's Word. D.A. Carson says, even though this text may not be in the original, there is no reason to doubt that this event did occur. And because of statements like that, many have concluded that this is oral tradition that somehow entered into the text of a real event where Jesus really dealt with a woman who was caught in adultery. I share all this for this reason. When you take the time to study the Bible, you'll find textual debates and arguments erupt over passages like this all the time. And sadly, when many Christians read a book that questions and says, is this section Scripture or not, many people will freak out at that moment and go, well, throw that book away, throw that writer away because obviously he's trying to destroy the Word of God. That's not the case. We need to be educated as Christians, I guess, and we need to have a knowledge of the debate that surrounds this text. So, I'd encourage you in your own time to maybe grab a commentary on this text to examine the evidence for and against it. Now, that all being said by way of introduction, let's just look at the text and let the text speak for itself. And tonight we're going to be looking at two points from this section of scripture. First, we're going to look at the traps set for Jesus, verses 2 to 6a. And secondly, we're going to be looking at the mercy of Jesus, verse 6b to 11. With that in mind, Let's turn to the word of God. Look again at the scripture. A trap set for Jesus, 2 to 6a. Early in the morning he came again to the temple. All the people came to him and he sat down and taught them. The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery and placing her in the midst, they said to him, teacher, this woman has been caught in the act of adultery. Now in the law, Moses commanded us to stone such women. So, what do you say? This they said to test him that they might have some charge to bring against him. It's interesting to note here that if we go back just a few verses to the end of chapter 7, we see that Jesus has just preached one of his greatest open air sermons. He has declared that he is the one that can give living water. And as a result of his declaration, Many people start to question and wonder, is He really the Saviour? Is He really the Messiah? And it got to the point where the religious leaders even began to debate amongst themselves. The Pharisees were arguing, who is this Jesus? And we see that in the end of John 7 and the start of John 8, that Nicodemus, who came to Jesus by night in John 3, says, let's give Jesus a fair go. Let's examine to see if He really is who He claims to be. And the section we dealt with last time we were in John's Gospel closed with the Pharisees dismissing Nicodemus and then they all go off to their own houses and Jesus going up to the Mount of Olives. That was the day before this section of Scripture. And John starts off the narrative again at the end of the Feast of Tabernacles and says in verse 2 that early in the morning, that is the day after he has just preached one of his greatest messages, Jesus came again. to the temple. Jesus had just spent the night on the Mount of Olives. He has been up there resting, no doubt spending time with his disciples and ministering and teaching to them. And then early in the morning, the next day, he came again to the temple. He would have come to the temple at a time when all the morning sacrifices would have been occurring. And when Jesus entered into the temple courts, all the people came to him, John tells us. So, Jesus has just walked in. There was probably still a buzz from the day before. This man has just preached a message that has caused huge public debate and then all of a sudden he is back in the temple. And all those in the temple then come to Jesus. They were there sacrificing, but all of a sudden they want to hear from Jesus, to hear what he has to say. So, when the people came to see Jesus, the Bible tells us that he sat down, assuming the position of the rabbi, and he began to teach the crowd. He sat in the outer temple courts teaching all those who would come and listen. But the religious leaders didn't like that. The religious leaders did not like the fact that Jesus was in the temple teaching. So, what did they do? In verse 3, John tells us that the scribes, that is those who are the lawyers, those who study the law, And the Pharisees, the religious leaders, brought a woman to Jesus who had been caught in adultery. And they placed her not softly to the side and wait for Jesus to finish his preaching to deal with this issue, but they grabbed this woman who had been caught in adultery and hurled her in the middle of the crowd. So, you would have Jesus sitting here teaching, the crowd would have been gathered, and the lawyers, the scribes, and the Pharisees grabbed this woman and throw her bang in the middle. It's a good way to interrupt a sermon. It's a good way to interrupt a message. You know, doing open air, they oftentimes have people try and interrupt you and try and argue with you when you're preaching outdoors. But I can't say I've ever had religious leaders drag an adulterous woman and throw her between me and the crowd and say, deal with this issue. So, they brought to Jesus this woman. But they do so not with the purpose of caring for the woman, not with the purpose of even fulfilling the law but the reason they brought this undesirable woman, the social outcast, the adulterous woman to Jesus was in order to trap Him. I found something quite interesting, just think about this. The text tells us this woman has been caught in adultery. Now, I'm no expert but it takes two people to commit adultery. Where was the bloke? Where's the man? Why have the religious leaders just caught this one woman and brought her to Jesus? Where's the second person? The religious leaders have caught this woman doing the dirty. Some commentators believe that they probably set a trap for her in order they could test Jesus, that they had baited her up even to the point where she may have been a prostitute who was hired in order that they might try and trap Jesus. So, they come to Jesus with this woman. The man's not there, just this woman. And they say to Jesus, Teacher, this woman has been caught in the act of adultery. Now, in the law, Moses commanded us to stone such a woman. So, what do you say? The trap is being set. These religious leaders have got nothing on Jesus. They've got no charge to bring against Him. So, what they're trying to do is to create a situation where Jesus, by His own words, would cause a problem. John tells us that this they did said to test him, that they might have some charge to bring against him. It's a brilliant trap. It is an absolute brilliant trap. Just think how you would respond. Imagine you're sitting in the temple. You're teaching all the people. Then all of a sudden the religious leaders grab this woman, bring her to you, And in front of the crowd says, oh, by the way, the law says kill her. What do you say? How would you respond to a question like that? It's a classic catch-22. Under the worldly wisdom, the wisdom of man, whatever way Jesus answers, he's going to condemn himself. They are correct when they said to Jesus, The law of Moses says that this woman should be killed. The law of Moses does say that in Deuteronomy 22 and Leviticus 2010. It's very clear that if you're caught in adultery, you should die. In fact, it says a bit more specifically than just the woman dying, it says the man should die as well. So both parties in adultery, according to the law, should die. God takes a dim view on sin. He says sin is to be punished by death. So, Jesus could have answered and said, yes, let's kill this woman. And by doing so, he would have been keeping the law. But if he'd answered that way, the religious leaders could have nailed him. If Jesus had said, yes, the law of Moses does say kill this woman, pick up stones, let's kill her, Jesus would have condemned himself. Why would he have condemned himself? because Jesus has been preaching on love and mercy and mercy triumphing over judgement. And the religious leaders were probably waiting on Jesus to say, kill the woman, because then they could have seized on that fact and said, this man's a hypocrite. He says, love, be merciful, but then he wants to kill someone. The religious leaders were trying to trap Jesus into saying that. But if Jesus said, no, this woman should not be killed, then the religious leaders could say, look, this man doesn't follow the law. This man is the enemy of all that which is holy. Religious leaders thought they had it. It's a brilliant trap. And as I thought about this trap, I thought, how would I answer it? I probably would have said, the law says do it, kill her. And I would have been condemned as being a hypocrite. I would have got in trouble if I had answered in a worldly way. It seems pretty bleak for Jesus. How is Jesus going to answer? There seems to be only two options. Yes, kill her, or her no, don't kill her, and either way he answers, he is going to be condemned. But Jesus doesn't answer with the world's wisdom. He doesn't answer with the wisdom that comes from man. No, Jesus answers with heavenly wisdom. He gives an answer that no one saw coming. Look again at the scripture. Verse 6b to 11, our second point. Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground. And as they continued to ask him, he stood up and said to them, let him who was without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her. And once more, he bent down and wrote on the ground. But when they heard it, they went away one by one, beginning with the older ones. And Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him. Jesus stood up and said to her, woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you? She said, no one Lord. And Jesus said, neither do I condemn you. Go and from now on sin no more. The scribes, the Pharisees are probably pretty happy with themselves at this point. They've pushed Jesus into a corner or so they think. They've got Jesus pinned between the rock and the hard place. Jesus had it no matter which way he answers. But then Jesus responds to their initial question of, what do you say, by not really responding at all. Jesus doesn't verbally answer them. He doesn't say anything to them. He doesn't enter into a theological discussion with them. He doesn't try and argue that mercy triumphs over judgment. He simply, from the sitting position, bends down and wrote on the ground with his finger. Now, if I had asked someone a question and that's how they responded, I'd be pretty annoyed. You want an answer. These religious leaders, they want an answer. They want to trap Jesus. But Jesus just writes on the ground with his finger. Now, the scribes and the Pharisees probably didn't see that one coming. Their mind had already worked out what was going to happen. I'm going to ask Jesus this question. He's going to answer one way or the other and then we've got him. They didn't see Jesus sitting there going, hang on, I'm just going to draw on the ground. I'm going to write something on the ground. But Jesus bent down and he writes on the ground. In his wisdom, he remained silent. But that wasn't an answer that was sufficient for the religious leaders. John tells us that they continued to ask him. They asked him again the question from before. This woman has been caught in adultery. Moses in the law says that she should die. What do you say? And when they continued to ask Jesus these questions, Jesus stood up to his feet, no longer in the position of a rabbi, but rather standing as a prophet would. and he turns to these religious leaders and these scribes and says to them, one of the most profound statements in all of Scripture, let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her. What a great answer. He's not saying, yeah, kill her. He's not saying, no, don't kill her. He's saying, okay, if you want to go ahead and do that, let the sinless one go first. Let the one who is pure go first. Let the one who has never done any wrong, let him go first. Let the one who doesn't deserve to die, the one who is sinless, let that person go first. Jesus knew it was a trap and he answered in such a brilliant way. He's turned the tables. They're trying to nail him with a question and Jesus just goes, well, hang on, and swings it back onto them and says, if you're about sin, you cast the first stone. It's a brilliant answer for the religious leaders and the scribes, those who studied the law, would be fully aware that in the law they too were condemned to death. So, they had caught a woman. If it had been a trap, then that is a punishable offence. But even if it hadn't been a trap, even if they just happened to walk in on the woman committing adultery, even if they had just happened to find a woman committing adultery, these religious leaders would have known that under the law, They deserve to die because of their sin. So Jesus says to them, if you're sinless, if you don't deserve to die, you cast the first stone. With that great answer, Jesus just bends down and writes on the ground again. He makes a statement, short, sharp, and shiny, and then writes on the ground all over again. What did he write on the ground? I have no idea. I've been given papers from some people saying this is what Jesus wrote on the ground. I've read what some commentators have said. And the fact is we don't know what Jesus wrote on the ground. The Bible doesn't tell us. But whatever he did right was enough to get under the skin of the religious leaders. It was enough to stop what was going on. Some have said that Jesus was writing the Ten Commandments on the ground, revealing the sin to those who were there. Maybe, I don't know. Someone else says Jesus was writing a scripture on the ground that condemned all people. Maybe, I don't know, the scripture doesn't tell us. But all we know is that Jesus, after telling them if you're without sin, cast the first stone, continued to write on the ground. And John tells us that upon hearing that statement of Jesus, the scribes and the Pharisees went away one by one beginning with the older ones and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him. The trap had failed. Jesus had answered in a way they didn't expect, Jesus had turned it upon them and basically condemned these guys for trying to trap him and it says the oldest ones left first, right down to the youngest ones. the senior religious leaders turned and left, the senior scribes they left and just basically left the apprentices standing there and they soon left as well. The oldest to the youngest left and all that was left at this point was Jesus and the woman standing there with him. It's interesting to note that at the start of this passage it says that all the people were there listening but by the end it's just Jesus and the woman. That's all that is left. What happened to the crowd? They disappeared. They left. It must have got too hot for them to handle as well. Because Jesus has just condemned everyone since saying, you know what, we've all sinned. None of us are sinless. None of us have the right to kill this woman for her sin. John goes on to tell us that Jesus then stood up He's still riding on the ground. He must have been riding for some time for the whole crowd to leave. He's riding away on the ground and he stands up, turns to the woman and says, where are they? Has no one condemned you? He's saying, you've been caught in adultery. Where are those who are calling for your blood? Where are those who have condemned you? Have they signed a death warrant yet? Where are they gone? This question was not asked of Jesus to find out where people had gone. He knew they had left. It was more for the woman saying, why are you still here? Everyone's gone. Why are you standing here? Who condemns you? And the woman says, no one condemns me, Lord. And Jesus, in a great display of mercy, says, neither do I condemn you. Go from now on. Sin no more. That is a great statement of kindness. Why is it a great statement of kindness? Because when Jesus said, let him who is without sin cast the first stone, you know who could have picked up the stone and cast it? Jesus. Jesus, the sinless one, could have picked up the stone and said, right woman, gotcha. He could. And if he'd done that, he would have been perfectly right, he would have been perfectly just, and he would have been perfectly holy. Because he was without sin and he was upholding the law. But we know from the scripture that mercy triumphs over judgment. And Jesus has shown great mercy towards this woman here. This woman has been left with Jesus. She's got nowhere else to go. She stays with Jesus. Everyone else has left. It would have been a good time to disappear, but she stayed. You know, if I was brought before a trial in public like that and all of a sudden all my accusers disappeared, I'd be legging it. I wouldn't be standing there going, alright, I'm just going to stand and see if anyone comes back to stone me. Maybe they're going to collect stones, I don't know. But this woman just stayed with Jesus. And Jesus says to her, I don't condemn you either. Go and sin no more. Jesus doesn't excuse her sin. He doesn't say, well, we're just going to sweep that sin under the carpet. No, he calls on this woman to repent. Go and sin no more. Don't do that again. You've come to the right place. You stayed with me. Don't go living in sin. Jesus has commanded this woman to repent. That's mercy. That's grace. Jesus could have killed this woman. He could have condemned her. She deserves to die. But Jesus showed kindness towards her. Jesus was the friend of sinners, loving the unlovely. This woman was despised. The adulterous woman in that culture was hated. She was the outcast of society. She was the one that no one ever spoke to or associated with. Yet Jesus is a friend of that woman. Jesus is the friend of sinners. Are you a sinner? If so, Jesus is a friend of sinners. It's such great comfort to us. Well, it's well and good for us to look at this passage and go, oh that's nice, Jesus forgave a woman caught in adultery, Jesus told us repent, that's excellent, that's a nice little story. But what's it mean for us? How does it apply to our life? How can we as Christians learn from this passage of Scripture? What is the application that we can get from this section of God's Word? I can think of two applications. First, we don't have the right as Christians to go around condemning people to death and hell. We can't walk around saying, that person is such a great sinner, they should go straight to hell right now, God's never going to save them. We can't say that because we too deserve to go straight to hell. We can't run around saying, right, that woman should die right now because of her sin. We can't say that because we deserve to die right now because of our sin. We can learn mercy from this passage. We can learn grace from this passage. We are to imitate Christ. We are to love the unlovely, love the social outcast and minister to them. We are not to condemn those who are hated by society. You know, last night I was talking to a man in the city who started off being an atheist but then he quickly changed to believing in God and then he's like, well, my chief rejection of Christianity is this, Christianity hates and abhors homosexuals and wants nothing to do with them. Christianity should not have that rep. Christianity should not have the reputation of saying, we hate homosexuals and want nothing to do with them. The Christian should be able to say, I am a friend of homosexuals. By being a friend with the sinner doesn't mean we condone their sin. But it means we love those who are the social outcasts. We love those who are in sin and we minister to them. Jesus loved this woman and ministered to her and showed her mercy. We are to do likewise. Tradition says this woman went on to become a follower of Jesus, we don't know. Some tradition actually says this was Mary Magdalene, that's pure speculation, we don't know. But if it was, it'd be pretty interesting. But Jesus loved the unlovely. The second thing we can learn from this passage is this, Jesus, in his kindness towards sinners, is kind towards sinners, not just kind towards this woman, but kind towards us. We, like this woman, deserve death. We, like this woman, deserve to be punished and go to hell. While you may not have been caught committing adultery, you have been caught by God's sinning. And your sin demands death. But Jesus is kind. He is so loving that even though we deserve death, even though we deserve judgment, he in mercy came to die in the place of sinners. He loved us when we didn't love him. Jesus died and was buried and rose again. He showed mercy towards us, not just by pardoning us, but dying and taking our punishment. And that's something we can take from this passage. The Christian can claim the words of Jesus just as much as this adulterous woman when Jesus says, neither do I condemn you. Go and from now on sin no more. Because that is what Jesus says to the Christian. There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Jesus does not condemn you if you are a Christian. But the command to go and sin no more is still there. Shall we live in sin that grace may much more abound? God forbid. Go and sin no more. Tonight, would you be like this woman caught in adultery? Would you stay with Christ? Would you cling to Jesus? I don't care if your family's a Christian. I don't care if you read your Bible. All I care about is this. Are you clinging to Jesus? Are you, like this woman, staying with Jesus and looking for his mercy? If not, if you've never done that tonight, cry out to Jesus for mercy, as he is so loving and kind towards sinners. He is so merciful towards us that even though we should die the moment we commit sin, he gives grace and kindness towards us, holding back his wrath and calling us to repent. God's mercy is displayed very clearly in this passage and it's the mercy that we need to experience daily. We need to experience this mercy as Christians and we need to show that mercy as Christians. Would you go and show mercy to the unlovable? Would you show kindness to the social outcast? Would you be a friend of sinners just like Jesus was? Let's pray. Father, we do thank you for the great mercy of Jesus Christ. We thank you for the great love of which you loved us. We thank you that you showed kindness towards us in that when we deserve death and that when we deserve judgment, Jesus died on our behalf. Lord, may we never forget that mercy and kindness. May we cling to Jesus even more tighter tonight. Lord, for those here tonight that may not know you, I pray that they'll cling to Jesus for the first time. That they would look to Jesus and be saved. Father, be glorified in our lives. Help us to imitate Christ. Help us to love the unlovely. And help us to love you more. We pray these things for Jesus' name's sake. Amen.