No doubt about that. This being the one hundred and eleventh sermon And the Gospel of John requires me to say a few things about this kind of long term study, an exhaustive, extensive study before we continue. I want to begin by saying that I truly believe that I am blessed to have a group of people who do not complain about turning to the same book of the Bible almost every week. May God bless you for your keen interest. and what the Gospel of John and the Scriptures teach about the God-man Jesus. In mentioning the God-man Jesus, I think back to yesterday afternoon. No, it was late morning. I was just heading out to take a walk, and I was met at the door by two people in suits and ties and literature in their hand. And so as I opened the door, I saw them. I couldn't hide. I couldn't. I could not answer the door. They saw me. And so I said. I didn't give a chance to talk. I said, I don't mean to be rude, but I'm the pastor of the church next door and I believe that Jesus is God. They didn't run. They didn't run. They tried talking. And I said, thank you, but unless you want to talk about Jesus being God. And we have really not much more to say about and they were polite and I was polite and they went their way and I went my way down the road. The Bible teaches and we are embracing And your presence here week by week by week by week in an extensive long term study by this shows that you embrace it, that Jesus is God. You cannot believe otherwise and be saved. It's that basic. It's that simple. And so keep on believing. I follow that up by saying this. My original intention in preaching through the Gospel of John was to keep Jesus on the front burner of our hearts and minds. I think we have seen thus far that it would be impossible not to do that since every page of this gospel has yet another truth about Christ for us to see and therefore savor. I have no idea how many more sermons will share from this eyewitness account. from the pen of the disciple whom Jesus loved. But I do know that as long as God wills it, you will keep hearing me say. Let's all turn. To the gospel of John. If you're not there. You see, I have in my notes, I have my notes. Once everyone gets there, then pray. You're already there. So let's pray. Amen. Father, I thank you for. The scriptures, I thank you that they are reliable, that they are trustworthy, that they are solid, that they are infallible, inspired, inerrant. I thank you for that authority that we have in a world that doesn't want to believe in authority. I thank you for the absolutes that we can learn and live our lives by in a world that wants to deny any absolutes at all. I thank you for the change that you have brought in us through Christ that would make us receptive. To the truth of the scriptures, this self-revelation from God to man. And so as we approach them week after week, let it be done in submissive and in humility and in dependence upon you, upon the spirit to open our eyes to these truths so that we might live them out in our lives so that, yes, we might be the light that shines. Jesus. No more of ourselves, God, no more of other things. But let us reflect Christ, I pray. And so, Father, bless this time, do the work in us that only you can do, be glorified, be exalted and receive everything in a spirit of meekness, in a spirit of love and gratitude, because we are we aren't here truly. We are truly here, truly worshiping. Without Christ. And as that time of year approaches for us in about four weeks. The resurrection of Christ from the dead. His proclamation on the cross, it is finished. Oh, the rich victory that we have in Jesus. Well, let us let us ponder it and let us share it with all around us. For Jesus is coming back. The mockers, they can mock, but we stand upon the scriptures. He's coming. And so, Father, send him soon, I pray in Jesus name. Tangent. Talking with now, Danelle shared it with me. She was reading something online and I don't know. I don't know the whole of it, but because I've spoken out against it, I have to speak out. Um, right now as well, as we all know, maybe some of you have heard this already, but I share it with you so that you do know and you can research the particulars if you would like. Uh, we have in the past warned against, uh, Harold camping's predictions, uh, for the return of Christ, the three that he's made or whatever over the years and they've come and gone. Apparently there has been a retraction, uh, from family life radio and from he himself saying that he was sinning when he did that and he was wrong. Um, That's all I know about it right now. And that's certainly a step in the right direction. I pray that it's true repentance and remorse. And there has been a great change there. But it's fair to say this since we have blasted before the false prophecy. OK, so I want to I want to give that to you. Now we can do this. You're in, John. We need to be at the end of Chapter seven right now. We have a bit of a dilemma as we approach the transition between John chapter 7 and 8. If your Bible has any kind of headings in it, you've probably already noticed or you will notice now that there is a manuscript issue. For example, in the ESV between chapter 7 verse 52 and actually chapter 7 verse 53, there is this insertion. The earliest manuscripts do not include John seven fifty three through eight eleven. Obviously, this must be addressed before we can go any further. What does it mean for the Gospel of John and what does it mean for the Bible as a whole if this text really does not belong here? Those are valid questions that can be answered in a way. that leaves the integrity, the authenticity, the veracity, the infallibility and the authority of the scriptures intact. And I say that based upon this one statement. God would not allow anything to be in the Bible that would discredit the Bible. I'm using that statement as my main point right now, because I believe that faith in God requires us to believe that he would never purposely allow any uninspired writings as part of his inspired writings that would nullify his absolute holiness and perfection. And that is an impossibility. Having said that, we still need to come to grips with this text that most likely does not belong here. So I'm kind of giving you my conclusion before I get there, but I'm going to give you reasons why I got there. I give credit to two people, especially a man by the name of Bob Utley and his commentary on the Gospel of John and also Dr. John MacArthur. We have two things that we need to do today. We need to make this transition first. And so the first point of the sermon is going to be this. What about the woman caught in adultery? What about this text? After that, we are going to answer the question, where do we go from here? So what about this text? What about the woman caught in adultery? And then where do we go from here? As we are looking about now, number one, what about this text? Turn back a few pages to Luke's gospel chapter 21. OK, Luke 21. So what about this text about the woman caught in adultery? What do we do with it? Well, I've already kind of shared with you a basic conclusion that these verses probably don't belong here, but. We need to know why, and then we need to make a proper conclusion. So as the scriptures retain their infallibility and authority and what else did I say? Veracity and authenticity and integrity. There's internal evidence that suggests that this text does not belong here, and there's external evidence that suggests it. And this is the reason why I'm indebted to guys like Bob Utley and Dr. John MacArthur and the others that I kind of looked at and gleaned a few things from. This is all scholar stuff. OK, so I'm just skimming through the main points for you. I am in in no way, shape or form a scholar on the level of these guys. And so I am indebted to their studies and the abilities God has given them so that we can glean from them. As far as internal evidence is concerned. Number one, there's three parts to this. Number one, the flow of the text is interrupted if John 7, 53 to 8, 11 are inserted here. I'm going to show you that in a few minutes when we go back there. OK, I'm going to show you some verses that show that we're going to talk about that in a couple of minutes when we answer the question where we're going to go from here with it. So just for now, understand that the insertion of this big text of Scripture here breaks the flow of the text from John 7 into John 8 where it picks up in verse 12. Number two. There are no less than five other places in the Scripture, some in the Gospel of John, where scholars would place this text of Scripture. One of them is here in Luke, and this is why I want you to see it. Luke chapter, what did I say? Luke chapter 21, right? Verses 37 and 38. And every day he was teaching in the temple, but at night he went out and lodged on the Mount called Olivet. And early in the morning, all the people came to him in the temple to hear him. Now, the reason I share this text with you is that of all those texts where scholars say this passage might go, this is probably the best one, because if you go back to John seven and eight, you will see in John eight, verse one, a mention of the Mount of Olives. There's a mention of the Mount of Olives there. Understand something, flow of the text being interrupted. Other places like Luke, because of now the third reason, the vocabulary in John 7, 53 to 8, 11, the vocabulary suggests it goes somewhere else because of this mention, especially in the Mount of Olives. Nowhere else in John's gospel does he mention the Mount of Olives. And yet we have at the end of Luke 21, a mention of Jesus at the Mount of Olives and then teaching people After he spends the night there. Also, there are some who do place this text in John in Luke, because the rest of the vocabulary through this text is more like the way Luke writes. And even some of the other gospel writers, right? There's a phrase in this text in verse three of chapter eight describes in the Pharisees describes in the Pharisees. This would be the only place this text in the Gospel of John that he put that wording together. We've seen chief priests and we've seen Pharisees. We've seen him talk about Sadducees, but never does John you scribes and Pharisees, whereas Luke does in the other gospel writers do. And so as far as internal evidence goes for this text. It doesn't really look like it belongs in the Gospel of John, because of the flow of the text, these other places where it could go, and the vocabulary itself. We transition now into external evidence. We already know from what's written in the ESV that the earliest and most reliable manuscripts do not include this text of scripture. Number two, those manuscripts that have been found that do include this text here in John Mark it just like it's marked in our translations. As to the questionable nature of its placement, so even if there's a manuscript that exists that includes it here, it still marks it with an asterisk of sorts questioning whether or not it really belongs. In this place, number three, just like we do today, we translate the Bible into other languages. They translated the Bible into other languages way back in the day. There is no translation into another language that includes this text here. Number four. We talk about the early church fathers sometime, those guys that date back to 100, 200, 300 A.D. out of all of the early church fathers that have done an analysis of the Gospel of John in a verse by verse fashion. They don't include this text. OK, it wasn't until something like the 14th century that somebody did. Internal evidence and external evidence points to the fact that John 753 to 811 probably doesn't belong here, but what's the conclusion? If it doesn't belong here, what's the conclusion to that? Do we have to say the whole Bible is now questionable? No. If you come up with that answer, oh, man, I haven't done my job today. Absolutely not. This is inspired and infallible. So the only other conclusion to come to is your bulletin quote. Did you read a bulletin quote yet? If you don't have it, then you can listen to this because I'm going to read it now. And this is what this is. This was John MacArthur's conclusion. which is what I also believe in large part because of what he said. But still, I share his words. This passage then was most likely not part of the original text of John's gospel. And then he quotes from a guy by the name of Westcott, Greek scholar who said this. It is beyond doubt an authentic fragment of apostolic tradition that describes an actual historical event from Christ's life. And then he'll go on to describe how it does not contradict any other portion of scripture. There is nothing in John 8, 7, 53 or 7, John 7, 53 to 8, 11, that contradicts anything else. But what it does is show us this great savior, Jesus. And how he forgives sin. And so what we have then is and for what reason, I don't know. An inspired text of scripture. But just put in the wrong place because of the reasons that we've seen, and so because it's inspired and remember my fallback position anyway, right, God would not allow anything to be in the Bible that would discredit the Bible. We can't say this is uninspired. Or else that would discredit the rest of the Bible because we couldn't trust anything else in it. And so this is inspired. I don't know who wrote it. Maybe it was Luke. It doesn't matter to me because God knows and he included it in our in our translations. And so we will study it eventually, and I'll share with you in a minute that it's going to be after we finish John, chapter eight, because now we go right to that, right to that. The next the next point of the sermon, right? Where do we go from here, then? If this text is inspired and it needs to be studied and it will be studied, where do we go from here? Well, from here we go with the flow of the text. And I want you to see that now. John, chapter seven. I want you to see these two verses. John, chapter seven, verse thirty seven, on the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, if anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Last day of the feast, right? Feast of Booze, that great commemoration for Israel. If you jump over now to chapter eight, verse 12, because remember, in going with the flow of the text, we skip over the woman caught in adultery and we see the very first word in verse 12 of chapter eight connects us to chapter seven. Again, Jesus spoke to them, saying, and what does he say here? I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life. That word again shows a close continuity to what's coming before it. And as I will share with you. The Feast of Booths, Tabernacles, right? Remember, I told you last week that that water pouring ceremony was a gigantic part of it. And so when Jesus says, I am the one that will quench your spiritual thirst. It was symbolic of what was going on at the feast. The other great symbol represented at the feast were menorahs that were lit the whole time. Of the Feast of Tabernacles in the temple, and so when Jesus says, hey, you're thirsty, come to me and drink, he's pulling off of the Feast of Booth's water ceremony that was every single day, seven days of the feast, they did this. And he's also now pulling immediately then from the great light display. Because that light display for the Feast of Booths reminded the Israelites that God was the one who. What through the wilderness, right, they followed him, the pillar of cloud by day and fire by night, he was their light. And so, John, 753 through 811, It it breaks that flow, because I think Jesus goes right from this declaration. If anyone thirst, let him come to me and drink right to you see these menorahs in here, too. I'm the light of the world. He is the fulfillment of all of those Old Testament things, and what this will now allow us to do as we focus now on chapter eight for a few minutes is this. Grow toward a deeper, understanding of Christ. That's what is going to be the result of going with the flow of the text, coming back later to study the woman caught in adultery. And we will study it. We need to. It's a great text of scripture, great text of scripture. Just not yet. Not yet, because we need to go with the flow of the text that Jesus is talking about. And so for today, because of time constraints, having to do everything else we've done so far, I want you to Mark the prologue of John's gospel, stick something back in John chapter one. And we're going to go to other texts of scripture as well, because as we go with the flow, we're now growing toward a deeper understanding of Christ. I want to give you the fourfold breakdown of John 8, 12 through verse 59. We're not going to read all these verses. I'm going to cite a few verses from the prologue, because remember, when we studied the prologue to the Gospel of John, we said John is saying things here to prepare us for stuff later. And the four main points of John 8, 12 to 59 can be drawn right out of the prologue. So I'm going to show you from the prologue something. And then we're going to turn to another text of scripture to see it, because the breadth of the Bible teaches these things about Christ. There's four parts to it. The first part is what he declares in verses 12 through 20 at the very beginning. I am the light of the world. And then we're going to see this about him, where he says in verses 21 to 30, I am not of this world. And then in verses 31 to 47, we're going to highlight him saying, I am here because God, my father sent me. And then we'll wrap it up in verses 48 to 59 with a very simple declaration that he makes when he says to them, I am. And so we see how John chapter eight. As we grow toward a deeper understanding of Christ is all about him. I purposely picked all of these items out of the text. They are all in here. Where he says, I am the light of the world, I am not of this world, I'm here because God sent me here and I am. So as far as I am the light of the world, I want you to see it in the prologue, because John prepared us for this a long time ago. John, chapter one, verses four through nine. In him was life. And the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not comprehended it. There was a man sent from God whose name was John. He came as a witness to bear witness about the light that all might believe through him. He was not the light, but came to bear witness about the light, the true light, which enlightens everyone was coming into the world. Go to Second Corinthians, chapter four. Second Corinthians, chapter four. Suffice it to say for right now, I'm barely introducing you to what Jesus means when he says, I am the light of the world. Next week, we'll cover it in much greater detail, and we probably won't even get past verse 12 in the text. This great I am declaration of Christ. and all that it teaches us and implies for our very own lives. But for now, I just want to see the plain and simple declaration that he has made that John prepared us for. It's elsewhere in the scriptures. Second Corinthians four, six. For God, who said, let light shine out of darkness, has shown in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. See him. As the light of the world. He dispels your darkness. He shatters the darkness. He's the most brilliant light you could ever imagine. You know, you can't look directly at the sun. I'm not as you went. I can't look at it. This was to look at it might blind you, right? I was about, I'm embarrassed by this, but I was really young. I was under 10 years old and there was going to be an eclipse, right? Solar eclipse. And they were like, don't look directly at it. Well, when the time came for that, I was hiding under pillows on the couch because I was afraid if I even got touched by it or something, you know, I'd go blind because of this light. What a goofy kid. No comments, please. Imaginable. The most spectacular light imaginable. Because what did we see in First John this morning? Jesus is God, too, right? God is light, and in him is how much darkness? None. There's a double negative in the Greek there in First John. No, nothing. He's perfect in his being light. Back in the prologue now to John's gospel, we're going to also learn from John chapter eight that Jesus says, I'm not of this world. I think the prologue prepared us for that because of the first two verses of the book. John one, one and two, most of you have this memorized in the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God. He was in the beginning with God. Turn to Hebrews chapter one. Hebrews chapter one. I am not of this world. As God being with God from eternity past, he's from heaven, and what this text in Hebrews displays for us is even Jesus power in the creative act from the very beginning of time as we know it. This description in verses 10 through 12 that I want to read for you is prefaced by verse eight, but of the sun, he says in verse 10 and you, Lord, laid the foundation of the earth in the beginning and the heavens are the work of your hands. They will perish, but you remain. They will all wear out like a garment, like a robe. You roll them up like a garment. They will be changed. But you are the same. And your years have no end. I'm not of this world. I'm God. We're going to get to that part, too, in the I am statement at the end of all of this. I'm not from here. Third thing, as we go back to the prologue that we're going to learn in Johnny, Not only is he the light of the world and not of this world, but he's here because the father sent him this great verse, John 1, 14, and the word became flesh and dwelt among us. And we have seen his glory. Glory is of the only son from the father, full of grace and truth. And about the timing of all this turned to Galatians, chapter four, if you would. Just want to show you in all these other scriptures, the same truth that John is stressing about this God, man, Jesus Galatians chapter four. Jesus is here because the father sent him relations for four, puts it this way, but when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his son born of a woman born under the law to redeem those who are under the law so that we might receive adoption as sons. I'm here because the father sent me. I'm going to redeem the ones that are under the law. I'm reading this book in conjunction with reading through the Bible again this year, and it's called the subtitle is my paraphrase title is basically reading the Bible through the Jesus lens. So what the author does, and I think I shared this with you before, there's like four pages that he writes up on every single book of the Bible and I see Jesus in it. And I started Deuteronomy this morning, so I read that chapter in that book before starting to read Deuteronomy. And the author pointed to the absolute, absolute perfection of Christ to keep the law of God. Because Deuteronomy is just the rehearsing of the law to the Israelites. What human can do that? No human can do that. But who did? Jesus. And so when you read about the law in Deuteronomy, you see Jesus. Because he fulfilled the law's demands. In every aspect for us. So don't throw away the Old Testament. Jesus is in every single book. As you go back to John's prologue, as you have it marked, We're actually going to go all the way back to Exodus as well. Jesus is the light of the world. He's not of this world. He's here because God sent him here, and he will make this statement specifically to those that he's speaking to in John 8. He says to them, I am. And you all know that that is that expression that you find in Exodus chapter three. Verse 14, the encounter that Moses had with God in the burning bush. And Moses says to God, you know, he's trying to squirm his way out of this thing. And then he says, well, OK, who am I supposed to say sent me that? What was the answer? Verse 14, God said to Moses, I am who I am. And he said, say this to the people of Israel. I am has sent me to you that self existent name of God. That's what Jesus says to his Jewish people in John 8. And again, I say for those people who want you to believe and teach that Jesus nowhere ever called himself God are wrong. That's why they wanted to kill him, not only because he healed on the Sabbath, according to John 5 18, but because he made himself equal with God. As you already know, the Gospel of John is all about Jesus as God. He will say to them, I am. That will cause a response. In his Jewish listeners. In John, chapter eight. I'll wait to tell you what that response is when we get to that part of Johnny. For now, I want to conclude this morning by saying that there's two things that emerge from the sermon this morning. The first one is this. Even when we don't have all the information that we would like to have when it comes to a situation with a text like the one about the woman caught in adultery, the Bible is still to be trusted. God would not allow anything in the Bible that would discredit the Bible. There's a similar situation in Mark 16, right? You've seen that before when you've been reading through your Bibles, there's an extended text there with the same exact the same exact wording between versus the following versus probably not in the earliest manuscripts. If I ever preach of the Gospel of Mark, we'll deal with that one there. And so there are other cases, not just this isolated one with big text of Scripture. Well. I fully believe that it would be an affront to his own holiness and perfection for God to include in the Bible anything that was not inspired. I fully believe that because it would discredit the rest of the scriptures, and that's an impossibility for him to do. And so I say to you, read your Bible, believe your Bible, trust your Bible and live by your Bible. Second thing that comes out of this is that Jesus Christ is to be trusted. He is to be believed in continually. If you're thirsty, come to me and drink your spiritually parts. You come to me and drink. I'm the only one that can satisfy that thirst. I'm the light of the world. We're going to see in the weeks ahead as he makes that declaration. You're in darkness if you don't know Jesus. He's the light that can shine on He is the only light that can shine to save you, as Paul said to the Romans, and there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved. Or like Peter said in his first epistle to the exiles that were in the dispersion, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled and unfading, kept in heaven for you who, by God's power, are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. You could preach a month on that verse alone. I could probably stretch it into a year. Without any problem. And so I say to you today, come and eat of the bread of life, drink of the water offered and see the light of the gospel in the face of Jesus Christ. Father, I thank you and praise you for the clarity of the Scriptures, that there is salvation in no one else and no other way but Jesus. Strip us of everything that we think that we need to have or that we think that we need to do in order to have redemption. It is all about Christ. It is being stripped of ourselves. It is being debased before you, recognizing our utter sinfulness and rebellion and receiving the sovereignty of rotation. To believe, to eat, to drink, to see. And so do your sovereign work, then, father, so that people might see and drink and eat. That they might be satisfied in Christ and in him alone, and that we believers. Please cut our attachments from this world. And all this materialistic junk that we've gathered to ourselves. Strip us of that fodder, I pray, God, and keep us hungering and thirsting for righteousness. Help us not to be so glutted on the things of this world that we have lost our savoring of Christ. And so give us back our taste buds this morning, God, I pray. I pray in Jesus' name. Amen.