*Jesus Christ, Our Saviour.
Service Sermon 25-26 Mar'06Preacher: Pastor Kong Hee***
Jn 8: 1-12The story begin here where Jesus was preaching and many people were crowding around Him to listen.
Along came some Pharisees with a woman caught in the act of adultery, creating a din and attracting attention to themselves.
First of all, who are the Pharisees?
They were the religious leaders of the Jews during Jesus' time. They were the priest of the Temple of God, the upholder of the Laws and the political leaders of Israel.
However, throughout the bible, we learnt that the Pharisees were corrupted. They cheated the poor, the needy and the widows. They created their own laws and called them "God's Law", they did not do what they preach and had many underhand dealings with the authorities.
They led the people by religious fear and lift themselves up in the presence of the people.
They were hypocrites. The people hated them, yet they fear them because they hold great religious and political powers.
The Pharisees symbolize modern day religious leaders who are often quick to condemn than to forgive, who try to justify their deeds with religious rules, instill fear in their followers in the name of religion and deny people the grace of God.
So back to the story.
Jn 8:4-6The Pharisees held a grudge against Jesus as He had exposed their sins publicly many a times. They also saw Jesus, who claimed to be the Son of God, mixed around with sinners, which they thought was very wrong for God to do.
The Pharisees then tried to trap Jesus by bringing the adulteress to Him. They quoted the Law of Moses, saying that an adulteress must be stoned to death.
The trap lies here, if Jesus allowed the adulteress to be stoned, He will acknowledge the authority of the Pharisees and promoted their power over the people. However if He refused the adulteress to be stoned, the Pharisees could accuse Jesus of breaking the Law!
Jesus knew it was a trap, He kept quiet and start writing on the ground.
Jn 8:7-8When Jesus didn't answered, the Pharisees thought He wasn't listening and repeated themselves again, demanding Jesus to decide the fate of the adultress.
Jesus told them,
"That whoever is without sin can cast the first stone at her." He then continued to write on the ground.
Jn 8:9At that moment, the conscience of the people were pricked. The oldest among the accuser left first, followed by the younger ones.
Even though the bible did not say what was Jesus writing, many theologians believed that He was actually writing the Ten Commandments. If anyone wanted to pick up a stone from the ground, they would have to look down and they will see what Jesus was writing.
As no one is without sin (
Rom 3:23), the word spoken by Jesus and the Commandments written by Him would remind them of their sins, making them guilty. Thus, when everyone felt they were unworthy and when guilt and shame overcame them, they left. The longer one live, the more sins they would have commited, thus, the older ones left first, followed by the younger ones.
Whether we like it or not, we are all guilty of sins before the Holy God. Big sins, small sins, we are all guilty.
Jn 8:10-11The only person who was worthy to throw the first stone that day was in fact, Jesus! Who is truly without sin.
When everyone who was unworthy had left and when Jesus was alone with the adulteress, He choose to forgive the adultress instead! The forgiveness of Jesus set the woman free of her sin!
However, sins cannot go unpunished. While Jesus had forgave the adultress, He was still under obligation to fulfill the Law.
God can never close His eyes to sin beacuse sin had costed him to lose this beatiful world He had created, sin had seperated the fellowship of God and man and sin had cost the life of His Beloved Son.
In order to fulfill the Law, Jesus will have to die in the place of all the sinners in the world. He is able to do that because He Himself is without sin, thus, He need not have to die because of sin but it give Him the right to die on the behalf of all the sinners.
Jesus forgave the adultress because He knew that He was already on the way to die on Calvary for all sinners.
***
Friends, Jesus died for you and I on the Cross of Calvary 2000 years ago. His love and His sacrifice is still remembered today. This Salvation is still available to all of us today. Big sinners, small sinners, Jesus already paid for the price. You need not feel condemned or guilty any longer. Jesus was resurrected and is alive today, to embrace you and wash you clean of all of your sins.
All it takes for you and I to recieve this gift of Salvation, is to believe Jesus had died for us and made Him our Lord and Saviour.
If you have yet to recieve Jesus, you may want to make a decision today to recieve Him. If you had once attended church but no is longer on fire for Jesus, you may want to rededicate yourself to Him once again.
If you are a believer, never forget the first love you have for Jesus and love others just like Jesus loves you.
If you decided to recieve Jesus, you can make a simple prayer to welcome Him into your heart:
"Dear Jesus, I know I am a sinner. Today, I welcome you into my heart. Wash me clean of all my sins. I thank you for the scarifice You made on the Cross. From now on, You are my God and my Saviour. Amen."GOD IS GOOD.
