Stop Throwing Stones

Real life presents the Jack Kibs podcast with intention and boldness to proclaim truth, equip the saints and impact our culture. If you're living in a certain sin and you have come, listen, in your righteousness you have so mitigated it and you've so taken sandpaper and taken up your rough edges that people who do that are terrible people, but yours is different. You can get the outlines of this podcast by going to jackkibs.com slash podcast. Today if this podcast lifts you up and encourages you to live a more fulfilled life in Christ, then make sure you leave us one of those five star ratings. To us, that's like saying amen or yes, then that rating will encourage others to listen. Now open your hearts to what God's word has to say to you, here is Jack Kibs. In John chapter 8, begin in verse 2, you'll recognize it quickly in a moment. The Bible says there that now early in the morning he that's Jesus came into the temple. That's the temple precinct, the temple compound. And all the people came to him, isn't that beautiful? Listen everybody, if Jesus was so spooky scary and God is mean and ugly, then why did all the people come to him? I got a feeling wherever Jesus went, I mean this reverently, I do. Wherever Jesus went, I think dogs ran up to him because have you noticed dogs, no stuff? Have you? If your dog doesn't go to someone, you need to, there's something wrong with that person. Have you noticed little kids, little kids and dogs go to someone, that person's okay. If a little kid pulls away from somebody and the dog goes and puts its tail between his legs and gets away from the person, you better watch out. Something's up. Jesus shows up and everybody comes to him. And he sat down and he taught them, verse 3, and then the scribes and Pharisees, boy here comes the party poopers. They brought to him a woman caught in adultery, okay. Number one, watch this, Jesus is in the temple compound area in Jerusalem, the temple mount. It's in the morning, everybody's there, big crowd. The religionist drag a woman caught in adultery. And when they had set her in the midst, they said to Jesus, teacher, this woman who was caught in adultery in the very act, which I told you before, it must mean they were watching. Now Moses in the law commanded us that such should be stoned, but what do you say? This they said, testing Jesus, that they might have something of which to accuse him. But Jesus stooped down and wrote on the ground with his finger. And the last time that happened, God was writing with his finger on 10 commandments. As though he did not hear. So when they continued asking him, by the way, the word in the Greek is they answer us. Moses said, she's to be stoned, answer us. Answer us, Moses said, she's to be stoned, you know, you know, and I'm wondering if the mind of God, he just hears this, no wonder why Jesus acted like he didn't hear them. He probably just tuned them out. He raised himself up, Jesus didn't said to them. He who is without sin among you, let him throw a stone at her first. Verse 8, and again he stooped down and wrote on the ground. Then those who heard it, okay, that's weird. He was writing, but they heard it. Are you watching this? Being convicted by their conscience, oh now we know, he's writing in the dirt, but they hear it in their head. They went out one by one, beginning with the oldest, this is so Jewish. The oldest, even to the last of the youngest, the oldest left first, why? Because the person who lives longer has greater sin, more sin. In other words, their account is more overdue than the other than the young guy. The young guy hasn't lived long enough to rack up that too big of a bill, but the older guy has, and the older guy is going, yikes. And so, and the woman standing in the midst, and when Jesus had raised himself up, he saw no one but the woman, and he said to her, woman, where are your accusers of yours? Has no one condemned you? No, that's a funny thing, isn't it? They're all condemning her. And she said, and I wonder what this sounded like, no one, Lord? And Jesus said to her, neither do I condemn you, go and sin no more. That word is, do not practice sin any longer. Don't let it rule over you anymore. Then Jesus spoke to them again, saying, I am the light of the world. He who believes in me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life. Do you want to know why this is amazing? They brought the woman to Jesus against the law of Moses. They bring the woman to Jesus without the man, okay? Their intention was not to enforce righteousness like some rulekeepers. They were looking to set Jesus up, right? To pit him against Moses. Why do they do that? Because Moses was the stalwart of the law. He was the representative of the Ten Commandments. He was the one who issued from Mount Sinai the rules. And when you don't know God, you're all about rules. And they had the rules on their side. And they were going to nail Jesus, but they needed someone. And I think personally I'm making this part up now. Why didn't they bring the man? Because the man was probably hired to entice that woman into sin. Because according to the law, there's supposed to be her and him. And according to the law, they're both to be tried and stoned to death together. But this is not what's going on. In fact, how quickly the table's turned, it's beautiful. But not only that, listen, according to the oral law of the Jews, the priest was to go down into the ground and write, watch this, write the person's name and the accusation against them in the dirt. Watch. And when the sentence comes, are you listening? When the sentence comes, guilty. The priest takes his hand or his foot and he wipes out from the earth your name. You're removed. Think about it. That's your name. The Bible says all those whose names were not found written in the Lamb's book of life, but had been blotted out. It's that picture. The name is removed and you're condemned. That's what the priest was supposed to do. They should have stooped down in written her name, her sin, his name, his sin. And issue the condemnation, but something's wrong. It's interesting about this church, is that this issue takes place at the temple regarding this woman, the stooping down in the writing in the earth. The oldest to the youngest of the legalists is condemned in their conscience. They hear what he writes. When we read what God writes, we should hear in our hearts and our minds. It should convict us or encourage us, bless us, strengthen us, guide us, admonish us when we read it, we should hear it. But then Jesus follows up and says, on the light of the world, he says that, by the way, on the last, listen, all night long, the grand menorahs during the festival of lights at the temple had been burning. By the way, they're huge and they just lit up the temple mount. We're talking huge. Candolabras as it were. And they had just extinguish them. And then Jesus, no doubt he waited till they put out the lights. And Jesus says, I wish, I want to see this, Jesus must have motion toward those Candolabras at the temple mount. He must have pointed to them and said, I am the light of the world. Every Jew would have went, oh, they. The light went out, but he is something more than the light that just went out. This is the one who writes. Now, listen to this. What was going on? Jeremiah chapter 17, verse 13, remember the woman caught in the act of adultery, remember what the scribes and Pharisees are doing, writing in the dirt, they should have. Jesus assumes the role of being the priest that he is. He's the one who writes in the dirt, but he doesn't write anything about the woman. He writes about them, the religionist, the self-righteous, I'm better than you, individual, who thinks they're great with God and all is well. Jeremiah 17, 13 says, O Lord, the hope of Israel, all who forsake you shall be ashamed. The word is also translated embarrassed. Those who depart from me shall be written in the earth because they have forsaken the Lord, the fountain of living waters. Did not Jesus also pronounce that he was the fountain of living waters? Do you see what's going on here when God sees? He sees all. He sees the lost lonely, person consumed and sinned, and he sees the man who is deceived and wrapped in his self-righteousness, and God sees them equally lost. And we need Christ. And so we're looking at the fact that the Old Testament reveals the righteousness of God. That's what the Ten Commandments does. That's why, by the way, nobody wants to post the Ten Commandments in our nation's facilities or in our state facilities or schools. Listen, the reason why it's not a political issue, it's a spiritual issue, that's just that the politicians say, you can't put the Ten Commandments in the classroom. Even though it is probably the single most greatest and most famous bit of human history, you can't put it in there. Why? Because it makes us uncomfortable. Well, it would only make you uncomfortable if you're guilty of things on the list. And that's exactly what it was given for. But we can't have that. But it doesn't negate God's law. Verse 1 says, therefore, you are inexcusable. There's no excuse, oh man, whoever you are who judge. This is interesting. Watch this. For in what you judge another, you condemn yourself. For you who judge, practice the same things. I want you to make a note, write this, everybody, don't confuse this. According to the scripture, we are commanded, even by Jesus himself, to judge. Did you know that? Now listen, it's true. You say, ugh, but we're not supposed to judge. We are victims of the English language, okay? Our words don't have the technic color as the Greek or Hebrew or Arabic has. When the Bible here says that when you look to somebody and you say, oh my goodness, you should never cheat on your income debts. And then you cheat on yours, okay? That's wrong. This is what the Bible is talking about. If you're living in a certain sin and you have come, well, listen, in your righteousness you have so mitigated it and you've so taken sandpaper and taken up the rough edges that people who do that are terrible people. But yours is different. You are not to do that. This is the judgment that you are not to do. But when I say that we are commanded to judge, listen, didn't Paul the Apostle in Romans chapter 1 judge all those who are living abhorrent lifestyles? The answer is yes. Didn't Jesus say by their fruits? You'll know them. What was he saying? Watch someone's life. Okay, listen up. Usher's locked the doors. This is what Jesus is saying and James said the same thing. You can really, really know who or what a person really is, not by what they say they are, but watch them. And then you can conclude by judgments, you come to a decision, there's nothing about their life that's Christian. Do you see? This is very important. If we go no further today, this is what the Bible is teaching. Nobody is a follower of Jesus Christ by word only, by declaration only. I'm a Christian. I've told you before when somebody says, I am a highly full blown atheist. I don't believe in God. I have to tell you. When I talk to such people, I'm relaxed. You want to know why? If they say, I just robbed a bank, I just did this or that. I'm okay with them. I don't expect anything else from them. Now don't write me a letter and say, I pastor, you're so mean, I'm an atheist and I've never robbed a bank. Oh, listen, no kidding. But you get the point. If you're an atheist, you have no standard. There's no bar to live up to. There's no God to answer to. You can do whatever you want. It's the survival of the fittest. So you're cool. I'm cool with you. I'm not going to be surprised by anything you do. But the moment somebody comes along and says, I'm a Christian. Oh boy. Here we go. Do you see where I'm going with this? Now I got to watch you. If I say the same thing to you, look, if I meet you somewhere and you ask me a question or say, I'm a Christian, you should say, oh boy. Now I got to watch you to see if it's true. You made a huge claim. Big claim there. You declared to be a follower of Jesus, obedient to the Lord Jesus. He's your Lord. So now I got to watch you for the next 30 days. That's what James, that's what the book of James is all about. James, the book of James basically says to the believer, I'm going to move into your house. I'm going to watch you for 30 days and listen to you, see how you treat your husband, see how you treat your wife, your kids, see how you conduct yourself in your singleness. At the end of 30 days, I, me, James, will tell you if you're a Christian or not. Powerful, right? It's the world around us that can tell us if our Christians are not. If people hate us and people hate us, do they hate us because we're mean, rude and ugly? Or do they hate us because of what we stand for because what we stand for glorifies God? Big difference. None of us should be ugly or rude. But when we say this is what I stand for because God's Word says this, it's all together different. This Jack Kibb's podcast as well as all the broadcasts out reach opportunities are listener supported. Will you consider partnering with us through a special gift? Go to jackhibb's.com to learn more and stay connected.