If I were to ask you what man's greatest need is, what would you say? Would you say money? Would you say shelter? Well, no, that's not even our greatest need. Would you say companionship? No, that's not it. Man's greatest need is not even food and water. Man's greatest need is forgiveness. It's called salvation in the Bible. Before we exit this world, sometime between the time we're born and the time we take our last breath of air, we need to be forgiven by our Creator. The Bible says that the gospel of Christ is the power of God unto salvation. Welcome to Pulpit Power featuring Pastor Tony Skeving, Senior Pastor of Fargo Baptist Church in Fargo, North Dakota. Today's message was previously preached before a church audience. And now, here's Pastor Skeving. Let's take our Bible squeeze at this time and turn to the Gospel of John and the 8th chapter. John chapter 8. We've been in a series about the Lord Jesus Christ. We started out by asking, who is this? Who is this? We moved from there to, what did he do for us? Remember that? And then we talked last time about what we can do for him. Well, here in John chapter 8, we're going to see what He did for somebody at a very desperate time in that somebody's life. It's the woman taken in adultery. We pick it up in John 8, and we're going to read the first 11 verses, beginning in verse 1. It says, Jesus went unto the Mount of Olives. And early in the morning He came again to 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 Moses in the law commanded us that such should be stoned. But what sayest thou? This they said, tempting him that they might have to accuse him. But Jesus stooped down and with his finger wrote on the ground as though he heard them not. So 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. And again, he stooped down and wrote on the ground. And they which heard it being convicted by their own conscience, 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. 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. I've called this Jesus to the rescue or Christ to the rescue. We'll talk about it, but let's pray first, shall we? Father, we just pray now that you'd bless this time as we study this story from 2,000 years ago and bring it up to the 21st century and make the application to us today. Help us now to listen carefully. Help us to learn the truths, the thoughts, the principles, that are engaged within this passage. And Lord, may it help us now. We pray and ask these things in Jesus' name. Amen. If I were to ask you what man's greatest need is, what would you say? Would you say money? Well, no, that's not his greatest need. Would you say shelter? Well, no, that's not even our greatest need. Would you say companionship? No, that's not it. The world might even say in this present day and age in which we live, that it's sex, or that it's entertainment, or that it's materialism, but that's not man's greatest need either. In fact, hang on, man's greatest need is not even food and water. Man's greatest need is forgiveness. It is forgiveness. Before we exit this world, sometime between the time we're born and the time we take our last breath of air, we need to be forgiven by our Creator. It's called salvation in the Bible. And you say, well, why do I need to be forgiven? Because we're sinners. You say, well, I'm not that bad of a sinner. Oh, I think if we even just took a look at God's 10 commandments, God's law, we would see that we have put other things ahead of God and violated the first commandment. I think if we looked at the second commandment, we'd realize we've invented a God of our own imagination. We do that all the time. We say, to me, God is like this or God is like that. And what we've done is we've concocted this God on our level and by our standard. I think if we looked at the third commandment, we would realize, at least many would, that they have taken God's name in vain. And God adds, I will not hold him guiltless that taketh my name in vain. That's a very serious offense, to take God's name in vain, to curse and to be profane in our behavior. I think if we looked at the fourth commandment, none of us could say we've always honored the Lord's day. We've always respected it. I think if many of us were honest, we would say we violated the fifth commandment. We haven't always obeyed our parents. We haven't always done it with a good attitude. We haven't always done it right away. And so you look at the first half of the ten and we're not in too good a shape. But then God says, thou shalt not kill, and you might say, well, I've never killed anybody. But God adds, if you've even hated somebody, or been mad at somebody, or even bitter toward somebody, you violated the sixth commandment. The seventh one says, thou shalt not commit adultery. This woman had done that. And you say, well, I've never done that. But if you've even lusted after the opposite sex, you've committed adultery with them already in your heart, according to Jesus Christ. And so how are you doing so far? How about the eighth one? Not to steal, basically. Ever taken anything that wasn't yours? Even stolen the boss's time? How about the ninth one? Thou shalt not bear false witness or lie. Who can say they have never fibbed, never told a lie? I think we'd all be lying if we tried. And then the 10th one says, "...thou shalt not covet." And who could say they've never wanted something they didn't have, something somebody else had? I mean, let's just admit it, folks. We need forgiveness, don't we? That is man's greatest need. We don't have to be a woman taken in adultery to need forgiveness. We need to be forgiven for our sins. But nowhere is that better illustrated, I think, than what we just read a moment ago. In these 11 verses here found in John chapter 8, we see this. Now this was probably about midpoint in the ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ. Long enough anyway for Him to have enemies. His enemies were primarily the religious clergy of His day, if you can imagine that. The scribes, the Pharisees, the Sadducees. They hated Him. Because they were jealous of him. He had the huge crowds. They were losing their following. And so they were doing everything possible to nail him, to try and trip him up. And they were dog-tracking him all over the Judean hillside, looking for an opportunity to smear him, to make him look bad. And they thought they had such an opportunity here. As we look at this passage today, we see how this all happened, and we look at several things. First of all, we see this revealing of disgrace. This woman is disgraced. Her sin is revealed. The revealing of disgrace. By way of background, you get the setting by reading the last verse of the previous chapter, chapter seven, and verse 53 says, and every man went unto his own house. So everybody goes home. There was a little episode in chapter seven, we don't have the time to get to it, but everybody goes back home, and the next morning we find out that Jesus Christ comes and he teaches. In verse number one of chapter eight, Jesus went into the Mount of Olives, and early in the morning he came again unto the temple, And all the people came unto him, and he sat down and taught them." So he begins to teach. He's teaching them truth. And then, all of a sudden, out of the blue, this angry mob appears. They're dragging this screaming, crying woman to Jesus Christ. They hated this woman for what she had done. But they hated even more this teacher they were bringing her to. They had something in mind for her. They'd been looking for this chance. And so they interrupt the sermon of Christ there. And by the way, if you've ever taught or preached or been a public speaker, you hate when this happens. But it happens. We've had our interruptions over the years here. I've never had one like this. They bring this woman, drag her in, and interrupt the teaching. And they have a trap set. We know it's a trap. Verse 6, it says, this they said, tempting him that they might have to accuse him. They're gunning for Him, trying to bring Him down. And by the way, every ministry has those who are gunning for it, those who are trying to bring it down. We have them here. The greater the ministry, the greater the adversaries to that ministry. Over the years, God's work has been attacked. Let's not think it's strange, because the Lord Jesus Christ is no exception. They were trying to bring him down. And so we read in verse 3, it says, And the scribes and the 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. Can you just see him shoving this woman in front of Christ, shoving her to the ground? No feeling for her whatsoever. She meant nothing to them. They say something interesting in verse four. They say unto him, Master, this woman was taken in adultery in the very act. Without painting a picture in your mind or without getting too graphic, the bottom line is they walked in on her and her partner in the very act. And it was adultery. At least one or maybe both of them was married. We don't know for sure. But this was adultery at its worst. And this would have been a nightmare anywhere, but especially in Israel. The Jews had three things they especially hated. They had hundreds of laws. But boy, at the top of their hate list, they hated idolatry. Boy, they were cured in Babylon, so they hated idolatry. Secondly, they hated murder. Oh, murder was serious. You know what the third one was? Right here. Adultery. They absolutely hated adultery. They had a much different attitude toward it than we have today. Today we smirk at it. And late night talk show hosts, they joke about it. And primetime television that makes fun of cheating on your husband and so on. And we call it a fling. And we call it an affair. And you use the word adultery down at work tomorrow, people kind of pull away from you. I mean, that's strong language. But back in those days, it wasn't smirked at. It wasn't a fling. It wasn't an affair. It was serious business. It was punishable by death. And so they burst into this room. They caught this man and this gal in the very act. And they grabbed her. They probably threw a sheet or a robe on her and said, we have a good purpose for you. They knew exactly what they were going to do with her. And so they drag her off to the Lord Jesus Christ. I find it interesting, the man's not here. You notice that? In fact, they left the man behind as far as we know. I have a theory. I can't prove it, but you can't prove otherwise. I have a theory that they were so gunning for Jesus Christ that they set it up themselves. Whether they hired some single guy or some young man to get in on this act with this woman here, I think they were basically trying to set this trap for Jesus Christ because a hypocrite will stop at nothing, especially a religious hypocrite will stop at nothing, as horrible as it might sound. Regardless, we know that she was doomed. We read in Deuteronomy, this is what the law said in chapter 22, verse 22, If a man be found lying with a woman married to an husband, then they shall both of them die. Both the man that lay with the woman and the woman. So we know what her fate was. It was death. Imagine death for both. But even before death, there's this fate almost worse than death. It's called disgrace. She was known in the city there. And she had been caught naked and in the act. And now she is sitting before her accusers on the ground, face flushed, head drooping. And oh, the shame! Oh, the shame! We read in Psalms 44.15, the psalmist said, My confusion is continually before me, and the shame of my face hath covered me. The shame of my face hath covered me. Oh, the shame, and oh, the disgrace, and oh, the dishonor, and oh, the regret, and oh, the pain of all of this. If you've ever been caught at something, maybe not even this bad, but you can relate to this if you have ever disgraced yourself. Have you ever disgraced yourself? number of years ago there was a uh... magnetic storm i guess a serious storm out east and uh... somehow the conversation a very intimate and revealing conversation taking place on a a telephone line transferred to a uh... a uh... radio line of all things and back in the the big days of am stations this this conversation was revealed almost coast to coast. This man and this woman talking and saying things they shouldn't have been saying were heard by thousands. Oh, the shame of that. But you know, that's nothing like the shame when the life of an unsaved person is going to be replayed one day. There are several verses in the New Testament that tell us that every act, every word, every thought is one day going to be revealed before everybody. In Luke 12 and verse 2, It says, and Christ said, for there is nothing covered that shall not be revealed, neither hid that shall not be known. Imagine that. The shame of that day. Well, here's this woman. She's getting hers now. This is a blot. This is humiliation. This is naked guilt. This is raw disgrace. It's so devastating because it's so public. It's right in front of the whole town here. Somebody said shame is the reaping of our sin. How true that is, the reaping of our sin. In Proverbs 3 and verse 35 it says, Shame shall be the promotion of fools. Mark it down. Foolish behavior is going to reap shame. And the Bible reads like who's who when it comes to folks who shame themselves. David shamed himself, remember that? His sordid, steamy affair with Bathsheba. Peter shamed himself the night he denied the Lord Three times in Matthew 26 75 it says Peter remembered the word of Jesus Which said unto him before the cock crow thou shalt deny me thrice, and he went out and wept bitterly Shame disgrace shame says it was you it was you as it points this bony finger at us Maybe you have in some time in the past impaled yourself on the stake of shame during your lifetime. Maybe in the past you have been ensnared on the jagged edge of shame's powerful jaws. And you can relate to what this woman was feeling here. We see this revealing of disgrace. But secondly, Let's look at the requirement of death. She was to be put to death. It was required. The Law said it plainly. We read it a moment ago. Moses had said it. The people knew it. In verse 5, they reminded Jesus, now Moses and the Law commanded us, that such should be stoned. But what sayest thou? Oh, now he's on the hot seat. What's he going to do? Show compassion and mercy? Or is he going to let her the law and show justice and say, carry her out and put her to death? I mean, they thought they had him over a barrel here. He had said this back in Matthew 5.17. He had said, Think not that I am come to destroy the law or the prophets. I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill. So he had said, I haven't come to do away with the law. So what would he do now? Would he disobey God? Or would he cave in to men? Well, neither. He wouldn't have to. He was smarter than these guys. He was wiser than them. The bottom line is this. The Jews had no power to put this woman to death, and we looked at that a few weeks ago. Pilate had even reminded them of that in John 18.31. The Jews therefore said unto him, It is not lawful for us to put any man to death. They admitted it. They knew it. And so they couldn't put this woman to death anyway. And yet there was this requirement of death. So how is Jesus Christ going to handle this thing now? Is He going to cut against the grain and just say, let her go and ignore the law? Well, let's look at this passage carefully, and when we do so, we can conclude a few things. When they brought her, first of all, to Jesus Christ, according to verse number 2, He was sitting. The Bible says the last of verse 2, He sat down and taught them. But in verse number six, the Bible says that Jesus stooped down and wrote on the ground. So evidently between verse two and verse six, Jesus Christ had stood up apparently when they arrived with the woman. Now in verse six, it says, this they said, tempting him that they might have to accuse him. But Jesus stooped down and with his finger wrote on the ground. You know, this is the only place in the Bible where we find Jesus Christ writing. We find Him listening, we find Him speaking and walking and eating and such, but this is the only place in the whole Bible we find Him writing. This is kind of interesting because The previous chapter, you don't have to turn there, but in chapter 7 and in verse 15, the Jews marveled, saying, how knoweth this man letters, having never learned? How can he read? How can he write? He's just a carpenter. Well, Christ had invented all languages, and certainly he knew how to write and how to read. And in verse number 6, it says, he wrote. I want you to look at that word wrote in verse 6, because in the Greek, it's actually more than just doodling or scribbling. It literally means to etch, which he would have had to have done. He was etching this into the dirt there. He didn't have paper and pen. But it also means in the Greek to actually describe something. So he's writing something descriptive. He is describing something. It's a dual meaning to the word here. Now I have a theory, alright, if you want to just take it at that. In verse number six, he stoops down and he writes on the ground, but he's going to stand up and then he's going to stoop down again and write some more stuff. I think in verse six, the first thing he was writing was the names of these men. And I don't know how many there were of them, but maybe six, eight of them. And so he stoops down and he writes their name. How would you like to see your name being written by Christ? What's he mean by that? Well, why is my name on the ground there? And how does he know my name? So maybe they're getting a little nervous at this point in verse 6 It says he wrote with his finger on the ground as though he heard them not he's ignoring them He's blowing them off. They're getting nervous. This is the Son of God. This is God the Son This is this is a little unnerving here. You could cut the tension in verse 7 It says, so when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself. Notice, they continued asking him. Well, what are you going to do about it? What are we going to do with her? You can just picture the harassment here. They're getting on his case. And verse 7, so 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. And again he stooped down and wrote on the ground." Here's what I think he did at that point. He connected the dots, if we could put it that way. He connected the sin with the person. And he had already written, let's just say, Metadiah. Metadiah. And then he writes across from him, lustful toward his neighbor's wife. And Metadiah goes, how does he know about that? And then the next name down is Jedediah, and he says cheated on his cousin when he bought his land from him. And Jedediah's going, how does he know about that? And then there's Solobom, and he writes across him, lied to his wife about how he spent that money. And Solobom's going, he knows. And then there's Lumediah, and he writes across from him, committed adultery himself. Lummadiah goes, oh no, how does he know that? Then Ben Judah, he writes across from him, he was selfish with his brother. And then he writes across from Appentidiah, he's bitter toward his dad, and he goes through all these names, he goes through all these sins, and he knows what they had been doing because he was omniscient. That means all-knowing. This was nothing for him to know everything about those accusers. In fact, we read in Luke 11.17, it says, knowing their thoughts, said unto them." I mean, he knew their thoughts. He knew what Nathan or Nathaniel was thinking under the fig tree there. He knew absolutely everything. He could look right through them. And now, these words he's writing on the ground are cutting to the heart of these men. as He reveals their sin. You know, I'm not going to have you turn there, but in Matthew 7, verse 1, Jesus says, Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye? And behold, a beam is in thine own eye, thou hypocrite. First cast out the beam out of thine own eye, and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye." Here's the problem with those men who brought that woman taking an adultery. They had enough sin to say grace over. They had enough clutter and junk in their lives. They were the last who should have been bringing anyone in and asking for justice. Now, Jesus Christ is not saying when he says, judge not that you be not judged, he's not saying we shouldn't pass judgment. I mean, we have to at times. In fact, Ephesians 5.11 says to have no fruit or connection with the unfruitful works of darkness but expose them. And so we are to show false doctrine. Actually, in John 7.24, Jesus says, but judge righteous judgment. So there are those who come along and when you expose error or false doctrine, they say, Judge not that you be not judged. It's like the only verse in the Bible they know. Judge not that you be not judged. And they don't really understand that passage that Christ is talking about. He's not condemning judging. He's condemning hypocritical judging. In fact, in John 7.43, Jesus said unto them, Thou hast rightly judged. There's a time to be discerning, but not to be a hypocritical judge. That was the problem here in John chapter 8. They were pointing fingers, they were finding fault when they had enough to say grace over. There's really a lesson here for all of us. We as Christian people need to be careful about being judgmental to others when we got enough sin in our lives to say grace over. You know, I've seen Christian people, and they see another Christian who's maybe not as high in their standard or their conviction, and they snub them. They flit on their heel and they walk away, or they treat them coldly. Shame on you! You don't treat people that way. I don't treat people that way. We are not snobs, okay? And the attitude with which we find fault is often worse than the fault we find. What's worse? What they're doing that maybe they shouldn't be doing? Are you flitting on your heel and snubbing them? Shame on you. We don't do that. Now, in verse number 7, it says, So 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. Now, is Jesus Christ compromising here? You might say, boy, he's getting soft on sin. No, he's only quoting the law. What he said is true. We read back in Deuteronomy 17 and verse 7, He's simply quoting the law. He knew it. He says, you guys, the ones who are accusing, you be the first ones to start casting those stones. But he added something. You who are without sin, who are not guilty of the same sin, who are not being hypocrites, go for it. So we see the requirement of death, but thirdly we see the remission of damnation. Jesus Christ turns this thing around. You know, back when the newly formed democratic government of East Germany came into being, there had been 40 years of denial of the Holocaust. I mean, denial of the death of 6 million Jews throughout Europe during the days of Hitler. Finally, the Germans come clean, and they beg the Jews for forgiveness. They say we are shamed, we are sorrowful, but it ended 40 years of denial. And the key to it was really repentance, a repentant attitude. Only when we repent can the healing begin. Now, this woman was repentant. She had learned her lesson. Can you see her brought into Christ with her arm bruised from being dragged in? Can you see her hair all messed up? And can you see her makeup all smeared? And can you see her face streaked from the tears she'd been crying? And her voice hoarse from the screaming she had been doing? And the bare feet and the torn robe half over her shoulder. And here she is dragged in in that condition and she is thrown down. And what a contrast! You have one so sinful. at the feet of one so sinless. The sinless Son of God overlooking this woman. And she looking back into the eyes of deity. What a moment that had to be, huh? Think about it. In verse number 7, they continued asking Him, Well, and He lifted up Himself and said unto them, He that is without sin among you, let Him first cast the stone at her. And again He stooped down and He wrote on the ground, And they which heard it, being convicted by their own conscience, went out one by one, beginning at the eldest, there they are, they have the most sense, even unto the last, there's the youngest, the self-righteous with the least sense, and Jesus was left alone and the woman standing in the midst. Those stones they were holding in their hands began to sound like popcorn, Boop, boop, boop, boop. As they thud to the ground, as they drop those stones, as they give up their idea, and they slink off into the shadows like a cockroach when you turn the light on, and they forget the whole thought of putting this woman to death. In 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." You say, was Jesus being soft on sin? Was Christ condoning sin? Was Christ sweeping it under the carpet? No, no. He said, go and sin no more. In John 5.14, Jesus said to this man he had healed, Behold, thou art made whole, sin no more, lest a worse thing Come unto Thee. Sin is the worst thing that could happen to us. And so Christ in so many words is saying, I don't condemn you. Go, but don't do that anymore. Don't do that anymore. You see, when God sees repentance, He is willing to forgive. Christ always treated the Pharisees like He did here. I mean, He skinned them. But He always met the repentance with mercy. When God sees repentance, He's willing to forgive. Have you had a time in your life when you realize you're a sinner, unable to save yourself, willing to turn from sin? It's a change of mind, basically. It's called repent. It's the Greek word metanoia, a change of mind, a change of attitude. You get to where you're sick of your sin. You realize it's taking you to hell. You realize what a dead end it is. and you turn from it mentally to Christ and you put all your trust and your faith in Him. You ask Him to save you. You trust in what He's done on Calvary's cross as the only thing to take you to heaven when you die. You get your sins under the blood. That's the way of putting it. The Bible says when we get saved in Psalm 103.12, as far as the east is from the west, so far hath He removed our transgressions Folks, the East and the West never meet. And when we get saved, God removes our sins from us and Him as far as the East is from the West. In fact, we read in Micah 7.19, the prophet says to God, into the depths of the sea. That's where your sins are buried if you've been, say, born again the Bible way. Your life won't be replayed one day. All of that is under the blood. Now, deliverance from condemnation begins with compassion. May I say that again? Deliverance from condemnation begins with compassion. Compassion is not pity. I mean, can you picture pity with arms folded and passive? Oh God, pity that person. I feel sorry for them. But compassion is pity with shoes on. Compassion is actually doing something about that. We're conscious of the stress of this person and we move in to alleviate it. We move in to do something about it. We want to make a difference. It's a desire to get involved. You know, I have found in 25 years of pastoring this church that the biggest critics are normally the least involved. Those who are doing most of the finger pointing, and doing most of the criticizing, are the least compassionate. Cynics only find fault, and cynics only point fingers, and cynics walk around with this FBI spirit. Alright, what can I find wrong here? What can I condemn here? And at the same time, they're the least involved in doing something about it. God helped this church not to be like that. God helped Fargo Baptist Church to pull together, to ditch the critical spirit, to get some compassion. There's a lot of scripture on this. Galatians 6 and verse 2 says, Did you know that's the law of Christ? Not sitting there pointing our fingers, but bearing one another's burdens. And so fulfill the law of Christ. We don't need rock-throwing Christians. Are you one of them? Are you looking for fault all the time? Finding dirt and spilling the beans and pointing out failures? Furthermore, Romans 14.19, it says, Let us therefore follow after the things which make for peace. And things wherewith one may, notice, edify another. There's a novel thought. How about edifying one another? May Fargo Baptist Church be a place where people are loved, where they're supported, where they're encouraged, where they're given responsibility again even after they've messed up and forgiven? You know, Jesus didn't sweep this woman's sin under the carpet. He took it to Calvary. He nailed it to the cross. He did something about it. That's compassion. He said, guilty as charged, no question about that. But I forgive you. And by the way, this woman didn't make any excuses. She didn't point to the other guy. Well, he provoked it. Or I was raised on the wrong side of the tracks. Or I was this when I was a child. I'm a victim of my surroundings. I have poverty to blame. She could have pointed a lot of fingers here. But she didn't rationalize it at all. She didn't try and defend herself. She knew she was guilty. She had been caught. She was humiliated, but she accepted her medicine. Let the truth be stated, and then we can find forgiveness. As long as we're making excuses, we will not find that forgiveness. She is a real person recorded forever in the Word of God, a precious soul, and that's how Christ looked at her. She was a precious soul. You know, sometimes we get indignant when we get around sinners, don't we? Who? Who? Sinner, you know? And really, we lose the sinner in the cloud of sin sometimes. We forget them. We forget what we're dealing with. She is precious to the Lord Jesus Christ. May we be mindful of that. Well, we see the revealing of disgrace, the requirement of death, the remission of damnation, and finally and quickly, the restoration of dignity. the restoring of her dignity. Somebody said that shame and past guilt is like hauling a corpse around on our back. It's like, how can we shake this? Oh, it happened. I can't reverse it, but how can I move on? Well, salvation is the key. The Bible says if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature. All things are passed away. Behold, all things are become new. At salvation, old things pass away. I don't know what kind of life she lived before this. This was bad enough. But she got saved and old things were passed away. Behold, all things became new. Scars need not be permanent. Christ is the solution. Christ is the answer. Christ is our shame bearer. Christ is the one who redeems our worth. He restores our dignity. Here's this woman in John chapter 8 broken and humiliated, committed the scarlet sin of adultery. But in Isaiah 1.18, God says, Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow. Though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. Isn't that glorious? Isn't that wonderful? You say, Oh, but pastor, you don't know what I've done! No, I don't. But I know what He did. What He did to restore our dignity. What He did to save us. Some of you would remember the galloping gourmet. Name was Graham Kerr. He was on TV and watched by millions for many years. And he was always kind of risque. He would say things in his humor that were a little bit gray and so on. Well, he finally hit rock bottom as his wife was about to leave him and divorce him. And anyway, she got involved in a Bible study and she got saved. And she led somebody to the Lord, I think it was Graham Kerr's secretary, and she got saved. And now Graham Kerr is surrounded by born-again Christians, losing everything, and he gets interested in the gospel, and he gets saved. Long story, but Graham Kerr got saved. The Galloping Gourmet was born again. But you know what he said in his latter years? He said, I can't even watch the reruns of my earlier programs. He said, it's so embarrassing. I mean, it's all recorded. It's all there. It's all on tape. You know, I'd hate to have my whole life taped. There's only one way to have it forgiven, to have it washed away. No therapy will do it, no pill will do it, no psychologist can remove our shame. The Bible tells us in 1 John 1.7 that the blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanseth us from all sin. Only the shed blood of Christ can remove that stain, that guilt, that blot, that shame that comes from our past. The Bible says by His stripes in Isaiah 53 we're healed. We have been healed. In Luke 5 and in verse number 32, Jesus said, I came not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance. If we'll just admit we have a sin problem, if we'll just admit we need forgiveness, we can be forgiven, we can be born again the Bible way. Have you had such a time in your life? Or are you still living under condemnation? Bible says in Romans 8.1, there is therefore now no condemnation. to them which are in Christ Jesus. Are you in Christ Jesus? If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature, the Bible says. Now, we know there's a lesson here for the unsaved, but what's the lesson here for Christian people? I mean, if you know the Lord, if you've been born again, what's the lesson here for us? There's a method here taught, a way for us to confront sin and to confront sinners and those who have messed up, and it's compassion, it's not condemnation. May we get this. God help us to get this. There are those who kind of secretly gloat when somebody messes up. Somehow they feel more spiritual being able to point a finger at that person. They almost delight in confronting wrong. That's the wrong attitude. If we ever delight in confronting wrong, there's something wrong with us. And I've seen some people, God bless them, but they almost delight in going around and straightening everybody out. Mr. Justice, or Mrs. Justice. Everything's just black and white, and they secretly gloat, and they found this, and they point the finger for that. They spill the beans on this. You know, let me just warn you, if you're of that way, if you're too strong in the justice department, God will teach you mercy and compassion if He has to beat it into you. A word to the wise is sufficient. Get merciful now. Get compassionate now. You don't want God to beat it into you. I don't know about you, Pharisees get on my nerves. Can you tell a little bit? Okay, maybe it's coming through a little bit here. But if we're going to confront somebody, it had better be in humility. It had better be in mercy. Like Jesus. Grace. Okay? Let's follow the example here. We find this restoration of dignity to this woman taken in adultery. He sets her back on her feet and he sends her back home and he says, don't do this anymore, okay? You're forgiven, but don't do this anymore. Now maybe you are saved and the lesson is not salvation. Maybe you are saved and others aren't beating you up. But maybe you're saved and you're beating yourself up. Yeah, you live with that shame. You live with that regret. You live with that past, if you will. Let me give you a verse. In 1 John 3 and verse 20, it says, For if our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things. If our heart condemn us, God is greater than even our heart. Our self-condemning heart. He can overcome that. 2,000 years ago, this loose woman is caught in adultery. The penalty is death. She's moments from it. She's moments from hell. I mean, think about it. She could have been in hell for the last 2,000 years, except for one thing. Christ came to her rescue. What a Savior, amen? You've been listening to Pastor Tony Skeving of the Fargo Baptist Church in Fargo, North Dakota. If you would like a CD of today's message, you can obtain one by sending a gift of $2 to Fargo Baptist Church, 3303 23rd Avenue South, Fargo, North Dakota, 58103. That address again, Fargo Baptist Church, 3303 23rd Avenue South Fargo, North Dakota 58103. We hope you'll join Pastor Skeving next time right here on Pulpit Power. Pulpit Power is a production of Heaven 88.7.