The Wicked Flee When No One Pursues - 4

The Scriptures once again choose the gospel of John. The third chapter as we consider this evening. The account of what is often referred to as the woman taken in adultery and the title for tonight's message. The wicked flee when no man pursues many of you will recognize comes from Proverbs the 28th chapter the first verse which says the wicked flee when no man pursuant but the righteous are as bold as a lion to our elementary chapel to students from that text last spring and ask them at the beginning, if they could identify the two animals in that verse of Scripture.

Well, there is a bald lion and there is a wicked flee the wicked flee when no man pursuant what is not exactly biblical talking, but nonetheless gets them involved in what's going on in the fact is what we find in this passage is the lion of the tribe of Judah as bold as bold can be. And we find the wicked, the religionists of the day should've been setting things in proper order. Fleeing from the presence of the one who knows their hearts and who knows your heart and impress that upon our hearts this evening.

There is one who knows you better than you know yourself and it is before him that we must one day stand and give an account. As we look at this passage together, we are considering conversions under the ministry of Christ, conversion, salvation, people being saved from their sins, not simply from the penalty of sin gas that is well, but from the very power of sin saved from their sin. The apostle Paul wrote to the Galatians concerning the Lord Jesus Christ and said he gave himself to deliver us from this present evil world that salvation from sin is not simply a fire escape from hell. It is deliverance from eternal damnation, but it is also salvation from our sin here and now and what we find. Before us in this passage is an account that evokes deep pity that evokes anger, righteous indignation and one bear that the one who is righteous and there is only one who is righteous, had such compassion upon the sinful woman but that is what he is, Christ is the very embodiment of compassion of on those who vowing to him and those whom he saves.

So we come to this account that most of you no doubt have been very familiar with for many years. Jesus is in Jerusalem is coming to the temple in the early morning and he is teaching and there is a considerable assembly of people gathered around him and as he teaches there comes into that assembly. Rather conspicuously, a group of men who are ushering in a hostage of sorts.

A woman in their midst. I have no doubt that the woman they bring there did not come of her own accord.

She did not want to be there.

They brought her there for their own purposes because they report that she had been caught in the very act of adultery and this was a golden opportunity for them to use her for the advancement of their own antichrist agenda and before we go any further, let us pause to recognize that organized religion and its hierarchy of clergy has been the greatest enemy of souls, and has done more to deal with real those who might be on the pathway of truth than to lead them to the one who is true, here is this woman who should have been receiving spiritual guidance and counsel closed in compassion from these men.

The priests and the scribes. Instead, she was to them nothing more than a tool to be used in the furtherance of their personal vendetta against Jesus Christ and is not the case.

Throughout history that religious establishments make use of their parishioners to advance an agenda of the hierarchy rather than the good of the soul.

Many of you have come from backgrounds where that is the case, the church of Rome stands forth as a conspicuous illustration of that very thing you consider the horrible scandals that have enveloped that church throughout its history, people are a means to an end, not an end in themselves to be recipients of the gospel and so is Jesus is teaching the assembled multitude. The assembly is interrupted by the arrival of this group of men who are bringing into their midst and unwilling woman there bringing her in. In order to accuse her of adultery before Christ. Not that they cared anything about adultery, but because they were looking for a means to halt Christ in his teaching and his work. He was a threat to them. They were seeing their crowds diminished, but they come that morning upon a crowd that is assembled around him and hear him willingly and wonder and marvel at the authority with which he teaches in authority they have never had his jealousy the drives that it is a rage to overcome one who has appeared recently on the scene, whom they see is nothing more than a competitor may want to put them aside.

Ultimately, they will not be happy until he is crucified and then they will be happy because he comes from the grave alive and ruins it for them permanently. I have great sympathy for the woman involved here before I go into the sympathy. Let it not be assumed that it is a softness on the sin of adultery for adultery is a sin, and the woman, it would appear was guilty of adultery and, although Christ had compassion upon her. It is not because he in any way condone what she was guilty of his word to her was go and sin no more. Adultery is a terrible sin in preaching from this passage I would not do it justice. If I did not first and assembly of this size make the point very clearly. For it is entirely possible that I am speaking tonight to a man or to a woman who is engaged in an adulterous relationship and if that is you.

You know it and make the spirit of God cause you to know it more powerfully than you've ever known it before that you might repent and forsake. Adultery is a sin that we might say is of magnitude above other sins of me explain what I mean. Yes, it is a violation of the law of God, thou shalt not commit adultery. There it is. You need no exposition of that text to know what it is saying, thou shalt not commit adultery with the New Testament adds this additional matter with regard to adultery, that he that committed fornication. Sin is against his own body and so there is an element of injury to the person in committing adultery that may not be there and telling a lie or in stealing adultery crosses a boundary that is of special sanctity before God and once one has breached that boundary and broken it through.

It becomes all the easier to go through the breach again.

Once one has violated that commandment, he sets himself all the more vulnerable to continue in that violation and emotion, along with all the other passions of humanity take control of and for those reasons and others. He has truly sinned against his own body and when one considers the health consequences that have arisen out of immorality.

One learns even more about that morning. He that committed fornication. Sin is against his own body and if you are here, and engaged in such hear me and take heed on these relevant matters. In yet another matter with regard to adultery that I think makes it worse than many other sins. Is this if you wish to steal. You can secretly go and steal the item and you have done so, you are guilty. But you cannot commit adultery without dragging another human being into the transgression with you and in so doing, there is multiple defilement not simply in you, but in the illicit partner as well. Adultery is 18 sin which expands the magnitude of the offense.

They brought this woman who was professed to have committed adultery, and in the hearing of all of those who had come to hear Christ. They say to Jesus, this woman was taken in adultery, in the very act. How would you like it if a mob of self-righteous men took control of your morning in order to parade you in front of an assembled crowd in order to name aloud before them. Some sin you had committed. There was not a fighter of mercy in these men and the poor woman stands there now exposed to all of the crowd that's assembled and what's more, the crowd that is assembled, had tribes come together in order that they might hear the teaching of the most righteous man who is ever live, the one whose righteousness is absolute and impeccable forever. He never sinned and so not only before this crowd is. She paraded as guilty and defiled before this clergyman who is truly of highest reputation and worthy of highest veneration before him. Her sin is laid out what must her heart have been doing in her chest as she endures the indignities heaped upon her. And those indignities to which she absent is subjective only reinforce and accentuate and enter condemnation that she is experiencing deep deep down within every woman, even those who have lived wickedly and lose. I believe there is something that tells them that they are more than simply a body and a toy. There is a dignity of life which one violates when he indulges or she indulges in adultery. And though no one else may know that it's been done except the illicit partner is known in their own heart and their own heart accuses. This is why they generally keep it secret. This is why they hasten to hide what they've done and although even the most wicked open blatant and public adulterers and harlots may give the appearance of being brazen and uncaring that I cannot but think of that proverb that says such is the way of an adulterous woman. She and Mike with her mouth and say if I have done no evil. In other words per adulterous conduct is so common to her that it's little different from eating. And yet it is in the fact that she says I have done no evil only bears evidence to the inner accusation that she experiences in no and surely this woman has experienced the inner condemnation for God has given us a conscience that happens strangers in it to be in agreement with the 10 Commandments. Even though we violate that when we violate then we know we have and she knew it and now is put is a public spectacle before those who have come to hear righteous teaching, accused by the religious big shots of the city. The priests and the scribes and accused in the presence of the one man who never said and she doubtless is acutely aware of the circumstances and the accusers think they can ensnare the Lord Jesus with his and their words and thus advance their calls for. In fact, Moses the Old Testament Scriptures had indeed instructed that an adulterer adulterous is to be stoned to death, but by the days of Christ's ministry, the people of Israel. Evidently were not stoning adulterers they would stone a preacher who exposed them. Stephen would be the first and that number just a few years later, but they have Jesus on the spot so they think if he says stone her to death with a cruel and heartless man he is, how can we say that he is a man of compassion and grace when he will have this woman stone.

If he says let her go. What kind of a man is this who would thus violate the law of Moses. He certainly cannot be of God or he would agree with Moses of old and say stone her to death, and so these characters coming with this pitiful woman have the scheme all worked out in their mind they presenter they asked Jesus the question. And we know the fascinating story he doesn't say a word instead he leans down and with his finger begins writing in the dust of the ground there. He sets a message before all of those who are watching. I have to think that the air was tense. The multitude who have seen the spectacle paraded before them are all eyes and ears. What will he say what will he do what is it that he is doing bending over these writing in the what is he writing in the dust of the ground and is all standing there awaiting.

He lifts himself up enough to say to the man.

Let him that is without fault cast the first stone that he resumes writing in the dust. The account tells us the accusers began to drift away.

Suddenly Lynn had been taken out of their sale. Suddenly they realize they could make no more progress in their charge, and in fact my lingering there, they might suffer something else may be of the sort they had heaped upon the woman and so our Lord writes in the sand beginning with the oldest all the way down to the youngest one by one the men drift away and disappear crowd. They had come to Jesus making an accusation against the woman for having violated the law of God, and they were endeavoring to ensnare Christ in a transgression of that law, but they were heedless of a certain fact centuries before as Moses was up on Mount Sinai.

He received that law of God from God himself. We read in Exodus 31. The God given to Moses when he had made an end of communing with him up on Mount Sinai. Two tables of testimony, tables of stone, written with the finger of God.

They were coming to the one who now was writing in the dust of the ground, but the very finger with which she was writing in the dust of the ground is the finger that had engraved the law upon the stone they were coming to the lawgiver heedless of the fact that he was the one who laid down the precept. Thou shalt not commit adultery. And here they are endeavoring to befuddle the lawgiver with the very law that he has given, and so on Sinai God with his own finger in graves in the stone.

His law you consider the fact that that was the beginning of the Scripture very first words of Scripture written were written with the finger of God in stone up on Sinai, Moses would not begin writing the first five books of the Bible until after the law has been given. God introduces his word with the 10 Commandments that began thou shalt have no other God before me and the men coming with the accusation by their very actions are exhibiting that they have another God before then. Not only had that finger engraved in the tables of stone, the law of God, there was another occasion when Bill Shasta, the king made a great feast in the days of Daniel and as he feasted in this banquet with 1000 of the Lord's the rumors of his vast expansive kingdom. He had had much wine as there was plenty of it.

For all of them and in the drunken event. He summonsed his servants to bring into his banquet hall. The vessels of gold and silver that his father Nebuchadnezzar had captured from the temple in Jerusalem vessels that had been made for the worship of Jehovah and into the banquet hall came the cups and chalices of gold and silver in order that Val Shatzer and his men might drink themselves drunk with these vessels dedicated to the worship of Jehovah and they even acknowledged holding them in their hands, their gods of false gods of the kingdom, and as the noise of the drunken bandwidth continue suddenly hush a startled hush falls across the banquet hall, possibly the sound of vessels being dropped to the floor by people who in their frightened terror cannot hold on to them for the fingers of a man's hand appear and began writing in the plaster on the banquet wall mainly mean the technology of forests, a message which Val Shatzer could not understand it would have to be translated for and after a bit of time Daniel is brought in, and he interprets what has been written on the wall.

Your kingdom is weighed in the balances and found wanting to NIAID it will fall to the needs and the Persians, and indeed, that night the music stopped and Bill says is been all is his needs took up the rhythm where the orchestra stopped off and he trembled in the presence of God and saw the prophet of God, but was lost and do the finger of God had written his contamination and judgment upon the wall of the benefit all. Even as the finger of God had written upon the tables of stone, thou shalt have no other gods before me. Thou shalt not commit adultery. And now the very finger that wrote in the stone and on the wall is writing in the dust of the temple court of Jerusalem and the men who have come their accusations are evaporating like gasoline spilled on a hot summer day in our Lord raises up from his writing and asked the woman, where are thine accusers.

Are there any that continue.

She says no there not what had Jesus written in the dust.

It is suggested that in order of the age of the accusers he wrote their name and perhaps their illicit made or the sin of which they were guilty. We don't know what he wrote and it doesn't matter what he wrote as far as we consider concern if it did, the spirit of God would have told us we don't need to know what this is what we do know what he wrote in the dust was and is the inherent, infallible word of God and it is little wonder that the accusers fled because the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and it is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart hear me this evening. The word of God which we look to deny is a searcher of the heart, and as the accusers of the adulterous woman had their hearts exposed before God. So tonight in the hearing of the word of God. Your heart is laid bare before the one is the job for all things are naked and open to the eyes of him with whom we have to do Christ could see to the very heart of every accuser, even as he could see the heart of this repentant adulterous and his word smoke them in the heart. May it be that his truth this evening comes with the scene piercing penetrating smiting power to every one of our hearts, for there is none righteous, no not one. All we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned every one to his own way our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away in our heart is deceitful above all things. It's been desperately wicked who can know the word of God ever have that penetrating and exposing effect upon each of us whenever we hear it whenever we read the woman answers his question, where are thine accusers has no man condemned the answers no and we are brought to the recognition of what we are told in the Romans. Romans the eighth chapter where the questions asked who Shelley anything to the charge of God's elect is obvious in this passage that Jesus receives this woman that she is saying that her sins are forgiven. Otherwise, he would not say, neither do I condemn the if her sins were not forgiven. She would be condemned, but her sins are forgiven, which signifies that she indeed was, and is among the elect of God, and who Shelley thing to the charge of God's elect. It is God justifier and before us in Rome and in John eight. We have an example of that very thing taking place. The lawgiver who is exposed. The accuser has said the accuser on flight and receives the guilty sinner who Shelley anything to the charge of God's elect, is justifier. Who is he that condemn if it is Christ that died gay, rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God who maketh intercession for us and there that day. Christ exhibited himself as the one who forgives sins takes away the sin of the world as he refuses to condemn or we cannot recall the words of John chapter 3. For God sent not his son into the world to condemn but that the world through him might be saved.

And this is the condemnation, that light is come in the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds are evil describes of the Pharisees that day coming to Christ with that woman were instruments of the kingdom of darkness they were advancing their wicked hearts desires of envy against Christ. But when the light shone forth as it did when Christ wrote on the ground they fled. This is the condemnation light is coming to the world, but men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. Whosoever love at the light, to it. They would not come to the line. They were the ones condemned the woman was converted and saved forever.

Jesus said to her, neither do I condemn the process of said he exhorted her go and sin no more. Conversion salvation is not simply deliverance from hell it is that. But as we've noted on earlier messages.

Those who are truly saved our chain.

That's why it is called con version. They are change, if any man be in Christ he is a new creature and they go forth, having been converted longing to sin no more. When they do sit they are troubled by. They know it in their own hearts. Is this woman that day had to know it in her own are they go to sin no more. And that's instruction Christ gives wonder where you are this evening with regard to the salvation of your soul. If you know what it means to be converted.

If you know with certainty by the spirits witnessed your own spirit. Christ would say of you neither do I condemn know him as your Savior as your Lord shall bow together as we pray our God and our father in heaven.

Again, we thank see that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners that he didn't come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. And we thank see that all of those who come to Christ.

Not one of them will be cast out, that Christ receive if sinful men and women. We thank you for this example of Christ's saving power as he brought a wicked woman unto his own mercy and salvation. We pray that this truth might be carried by your spirit deep into everyone's heart and mind assembled here this evening and made it please you, oh Lord, to call us all that is dead in his sin unto life in Christ thou art able thou art good grant that each of us seek the Lord while he may be found, and call upon him while he is near. We pray in Jesus name, amen