Join us as we explore one of the most profound stories in the gospel – the woman accused of adultery. Ronald L. Dart provides a compelling commentary on how Jesus’ words and actions revealed the heart of God, full of mercy and forgiveness. You’ll also gain insights on the symbolism of ‘living water’ and how believers are meant to become channels of God’s Spirit to the world.
The CEM Network is pleased to present Ronald L. Dart and Born to Win.
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I think we have discovered why Jesus was often obscure in the things he said. Deep into the years of his ministry, there were so many people laying wait for him. And I don’t mean just laying wait to trap him in his words or try to embarrass him. They were looking for an excuse to kill him. So he often spoke in riddles and allegories, which he later had to explain to his disciples. And even when he’s not using riddles and allegories, some of the things he says are so elliptical that so much is missing that you really wonder what exactly he’s driving at. I don’t think he was really afraid. He would repeat, I’m sorry, my time has not yet come. At the Feast of Tabernacles, that is the last Feast of Tabernacles that Jesus attended, he went there secretly, and he didn’t even begin to teach at all until the feast was half over. And you might wonder how he managed that, but with the hundreds of thousands of people in Jerusalem to keep the feast, he just blended in with the crowds and didn’t say very much. Now, about the middle of the feast, Jesus went up into the temple and he began to teach. This is found in John 7 and verse 14. And the Jews marveled, saying, How does this man know letters, having never learned? In other words, he sounded to them like a scholar. He knew the things that scholars knew, but everybody knew he had not gone to school like they had. Jesus answered them and said, My doctrine is not mine. It’s his that sent me. That’s an interesting statement all by itself, because he’s here saying the reason why I, as he seemed to know letters to you, is because I didn’t come here with my own ideas. I came here with the doctrines of him that sent me. Now, I have to stop here and take note of a theological doctrine that Jesus and the Father are co-equal from eternity. I’m not exactly sure the line of reasoning that comes to that. In fact, that line of reasoning is probably a little beyond most of us. But the average reader, in making his way through the four gospel accounts, will naturally and easily assume that the Father is greater than Jesus. Did you notice what he said? My doctrine is not mine. It is his that sent me. I’m a messenger. Somebody gave me this and sent me here. Now, generally speaking, we think that one is sent is not as great as the person who sent him. Now, there’s no simple way of getting around that fact. And the message that Jesus taught originated with the Father. Now, if that’s not enough for you, consider what Jesus will later say to his disciples in John 14 and verse 28. He said, You have heard how I said to you, I go away and I come again to you. If you loved me, you would rejoice because I said I go to the Father, for my Father is greater than I. So consequently, we might not be too inclined to think that Jesus and the Father are just co-equal from eternity because of what Jesus himself said. Now, the most natural way to understand Jesus is that he didn’t think that he was as great as the Father. Jesus and the Father are two separate and distinct persons, one on earth, the other in heaven, one greater, one lesser, one the sender, and the other the one sent. Now, I’ll leave it to you to work that into your ideas about God. But Jesus went on to say, if any man do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God or whether I speak of myself. Now, Jesus said something like this before. What he said is that if you are a person who does God’s will, you will immediately know whether I’m telling you the truth or not. How did that work? Well, you don’t need credentials or long, convoluted explanations if you have been a habitual reader of the Old Testament. In other words, if you read the Old Testament, the Scriptures, and if you live by them, if you’re actually a person who does the will of God, and someone else comes along and teaches you something from God, you’re going to know whether it’s true or not. People who had studied and lived the Old Testament would recognize immediately that Jesus’ doctrine was true. because they had a standard to go by. And while I’m on the subject of doctrine, you know, it seems to me that Christian churches have entirely too many doctrines. Let me explain to you what I mean. Imagine that there’s a church somewhere that holds very strictly to four and only four doctrines. It doesn’t matter which four doctrines they are for the sake of our argument. What matters is that these four are doctrines and belief and practice that they feel are absolutely necessary for full membership in their church. Let’s imagine this is a big church, got a lot of members. Now let’s imagine that the ruling body of this church decides in the course of time that it must add a fifth doctrine to the required set of four. Mind you, everyone has been happy with their four doctrines, but now they have to make a decision about a fifth. What do you think the consequences of this will be? Well, human nature being what it is, you can be sure that you will shortly have two churches where you before had only one. The first church will hold to the original four doctrines and will have added and said yes to a fifth. The second church will have held the original four and said no to the fifth. They will be holding, as they would put it, to the faith once delivered to the saints. They don’t want to go changing things. And you’ll have two churches that are essentially in 80% agreement. But because they’re required to believe these things and practice these things, well, they can’t meet together anymore. Now let’s follow through with the inevitable. Let’s add a sixth doctrine to the mix upon which everyone has to decide yes or no. The result? Four churches. Oh yeah, four, not three. Because the two churches we now have will each split along the lines of the new doctrine. These churches will be in two-thirds agreement. But that one-third that they disagree on is enough to keep them apart. Every time you add a new doctrine that’s required for faith and obedience, you will double the number of sects. Sit down and do the math. It won’t take long for you to come up with a reason why we have hundreds of Christian sects and denominations and more coming along, it seems, every day. Now the superficial reader will assume that Jesus came bringing a new doctrine. But that’s not what Jesus did. What Jesus was doing was stripping away all the doctrines the Pharisees had been building up for generations. Jesus was simplifying and narrowing the doctrines that a person has to believe. Now, none of what I am saying is to say that we should not follow our conscience and believe about God those things that we know to be true. But when we make them official for other people to observe, when we require them as matters of faith and obedience for the church, we are going to split the church wide open. Now, Jesus went on to talk about these things and said, He that speaks of himself seeks his own glory, but he that seeks his glory that sent him does not. The same is true, and there is no unrighteousness in him. Didn’t Moses give you the law? And yet you people don’t keep the law. Why are you going about to kill me? Now, that statement should have dropped like a bombshell in the middle of that crowd, because these people were sitting here listening to him, and there were men in that crowd who knew that their purpose in being there was to kill him. It was a real zinger. Now, Jesus knew it, and they knew it. Many of the people in the crowd must have been amazed by that statement, looked around and said, I wonder who it is. But the people answered and said, you have a demon. Well, just translate that as saying, you’re crazy. Who’s going about to kill you? And Jesus said, I’ve done one work, and you all marvel. Now, what they were marveling about was the fact that he knew. He dropped this zinger among them. He said, some of you here want me dead. You’re trying actually to kill me. And they didn’t know that Jesus knew that they were there trying to kill him. He said, I’ve done one thing. I’ve told you this one thing, and you’re all amazed. Moses, therefore, gave to you circumcision. Jesus continues. Not because it’s of Moses, but of the fathers. And you on the Sabbath day will circumcise a man. Now if a man on the Sabbath day receives circumcision so the law of Moses would not be broken, are you angry at me because I have made a man every whit whole on the Sabbath day? Don’t judge by appearance. Judge righteous judgment. So the issue was still that Jesus had broken their rules against healing on the Sabbath day. You know, any time you have a religion that has rules, you just can’t make enough rules to cover every circumstance. And sooner or later, two of your rules are going to come into conflict. Now, the law of Moses required that every man, every Israelite, had to be circumcised on the eighth day. But the fourth commandment said that no work could be done on the Sabbath day. So if that eighth day fell on the Sabbath day, we have a problem, don’t we? Circumcising a child is deemed to be work. Surely that would be true. If healing is work, then that’s got to be work. And so Jesus says, look, the decision you people have made is that you will go ahead and circumcise a baby on the eighth day in order not to break the law of Moses. How is it that you can make that decision and we can’t make the decision that it’s perfectly all right to heal a sick man on the Sabbath day? Jesus has to continue walking this tightrope, as it were, between the men who want to see him dead and the obligation of continuing to teach. We’ll talk more about this when I come right back.
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Will God heal the sick today? Really? We know he can heal the soul, but what about the body? And when you have prayed and have not been healed, is it because you have no faith? Write for a free copy of a presentation called Does God Heal Today? Write to Born to Win, Post Office Box 560, White House, Texas 75791. Or call toll free 1-888-BIBLE44. Jerusalem must have been a hotbed of rumors about this time.
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And the talk about Jesus went far and wide. Some people said, isn’t this the guy that they’re trying to kill? But look at him. He’s up here speaking boldly. They’re not saying anything to him. Do the rulers know indeed that this is the very Christ? It was a question people wanted to know. Inquiring minds wanted to know. How be it? They went on to say, we know this man where he comes from. But when Christ comes, no man knows where he comes from. I don’t know where they got that, because there were many reasons to know where the Messiah would come from. But that’s what they thought, and that’s the kind of talk that was going on in the streets. Then cried Jesus in the temple as he taught, saying, You both know me, and you know where I’ve come from. I’m not come of myself, but he that sent me is true, I guess whom you don’t know. It’s fascinating listening to this and hearing the cadences of it. If you’ve noticed as we’ve made our way through these gospel accounts and the words of Jesus, when we come to John, John has his own interesting cadence in the way in which he puts these here. It would trouble a person, I would think, who believed in the word-by-word dictation of the Holy Spirit to these men. Because, in fact, they didn’t have tape recorders. And they didn’t sit there with shorthand taking down every word of Jesus. They listened carefully. They remembered what he said. And later they sat down and did the best job they could, with the help of the Holy Spirit, in writing down the message of Jesus and doing so honestly. But it would be a mistake to assume that they got him word by word. In truth, as you read them, you actually feel the style, the vocabulary to some extent, and even the sentence syntax of the evangelist coming through. But the words of Jesus here are true enough. There’s no chance of us mistaking that. But Jesus said, I know him. I am from him. He has sent me. And we’re right back here again. I didn’t come of myself. He that sent me is true. Jesus was sent by the Father, who was greater than he. And about that time, they really wanted to take him bad, but nobody laid hands on him because his hour was not yet come. You know, it would be hard to overstate the fever and the ferment that Jesus caused at Jerusalem at his last Feast of Tabernacles. And people would go up, and they would be of a mind, they would try to jockey around for position to take him. but they just were afraid to do it. Remember, there were hundreds of thousands of people here, and they were afraid of an uproar. And many of the people who listened to Jesus believed on him, and that was inevitable too. Because here he was, speaking the truth, and gathered all around him were people who loved God, who loved the law, who believed God, who obeyed his law. And when they heard Jesus speak, their heart burned within them, and they said, When Christ comes, is he going to do more miracles than this man has done? And when the Pharisees heard that the people were talking like that, they sent officers to arrest him. Jesus then continued to talk to the people around him and said, Yet a little while I am with you, and then I am going to go back to him that sent me. You will look for me, and you will not find me, and where I am, there you cannot come. Now, that’s a strange statement, and it seemed very obscure to his listeners, because they said among themselves, where is he going to go that we can’t find him? Will he go to the dispersed among the Gentiles and teach the Gentiles? What manner of saying is this that he said, you shall seek me and shall not find me, and where I am there you cannot come? I think John is digesting here all the different kinds of things that people were saying in the crowd around Jesus. Now, the last day of the Feast of Tabernacles was a kind of water festival. The place all around the temple was almost awash with water. There’s nothing in the law about it, but it was a custom that they had at the time. And Jesus used that custom as a kind of springboard because as it was going on in the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood in the temple and cried, saying, “‘If any man thirst, let him come to me and drink.'” He that believes on me, as the scripture has said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. But this, John, he spoke of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive. For the Holy Spirit was not yet given because Jesus was not yet glorified. Now, John inserts a little theology in here. He’s talking about the Holy Spirit, which would fall on the church in power on the day of Pentecost. And he tells us that the reason why the Holy Spirit was not given was because Jesus was not yet glorified. And elsewhere, Jesus will seem to say that he has to be glorified, he has to be at the Father’s right hand in order to give the Holy Spirit in power. But what is truly astonishing about this statement is that Jesus is not merely suggesting that the believer would receive the Spirit. Everybody knows that. What he is saying is that the believer would become a source from which the Spirit flowed. Notice he didn’t say, he that believes on me, that the Spirit shall flow into him like rivers of living water. He said, out of his innermost being shall flow rivers of living water. Which means that those who believe in Jesus, those who have received the Holy Spirit, can actually be a source of power in the world that can affect the lives of people who are around them. Many of the people, when they heard this saying, said, of a truth, this is the prophet. Now, there’s an Old Testament prophecy that says that, you know, God will send a prophet like Moses. Him shall you hear. They said, this must be that man. Others said, this is the Messiah. But some kept saying, the Messiah is going to come out of Galilee. Give me a break. Don’t the scriptures say that the Christ comes from the seat of David and out of the town of Bethlehem where David was? if they only knew. That’s where he came from. So there was a division among the people because of him. Some would have taken him and arrested him, but nobody was willing to do it. Then came the officers to the chief priests and Pharisees, and the chief priests said, Why didn’t you bring him? I thought you were out there to arrest him and bring him back. And the officers said, We never heard a man speak like this man. Then answered the Pharisees, Are you all so deceived? And they used the oldest ploy known to man, I think. Have any of the rulers of the Pharisees believed on him? But these people who don’t know the law, oh, they’re just rabble, they’re cursed. They just appeal to authority. Have any of the chief people believed on him? Well, then how could you possibly believe on him? Standing among this group was a man named Nicodemus, the same Nicodemus that had come to Jesus by night back in John 3. And he said to the group, Does our law judge any man before it hears him and knows what he does? It’s interesting. Here’s Nicodemus who actually has met Jesus. He’s talked to him privately. And he’s trying to slow this thing down. And they turned on him and they said, Are you also out of Galilee? Search and look, for out of Galilee arises no prophet. What they mean is, look to the Scriptures. Prophets don’t come out of Galilee. Well, Nicodemus couldn’t say much. I guess because the emphasis had not been laid or that they didn’t really know that Jesus was of the house of David and had been born in Bethlehem. Not that it would have made any difference. And every man left and went to his own house, and Jesus went out to the Mount of Olives. I guess there’s a point in all the confusion and disagreement where you just throw up your hands and go home. And that’s what they did. The very next morning when Jesus returns to the temple, one of the most encouraging, uplifting, profoundly moving events in Christ’s entire ministry takes place.
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I’ll tell you about that when I come back after these words. For a free copy of this radio program that you can share with friends and others, write or call this week only and request the program titled The Words of Jesus, number 27. Write to Born to Win, Post Office Box 560, White House, Texas 75791. Or call toll-free 1-888-BIBLE-44 and tell us the call letters of this radio station.
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All night long, the scribes and the Pharisees had been planning their next move. And so when Jesus came into the temple very early the next morning and all the people gathered around, he sat down and began to teach. And then the scribes and the Pharisees came into the midst, making quite a bit of noise, and pushed into the middle of the crowd a woman who had been taken in adultery. And when they set her in the midst, they said to Jesus, Master, this woman was taken in adultery, in the very act. What he says is, we’ve got witnesses, we’re not guessing. Now Moses in the law commanded us that such should be stoned. What do you say? This they said, tempting him that they might have to accuse him. But Jesus stooped down and wrote with his finger on the ground as though… He didn’t hear them. He pretended not to hear them. Now, I think that’s utterly fascinating. Several times in Jesus’ ministry, he will tell us that he and the Father are one, that if we’ve seen him, we’ve seen the Father, and that he is a manifestation of the mind and the attitude of the Father in heaven. It makes one wonder that whenever Satan, who’s the accuser of the brethren, comes before God to accuse us, if God tries in every way he can not to hear him. Now the Pharisees felt on this occasion that they had Jesus pretty well on a bind because he was already well known as a merciful and compassionate person. And yet they felt that since the law required this woman to be stoned, that Jesus would have to say, yes, let’s stone her. Or if he didn’t, well, they could accuse him of that. But you know, it’s amazing to me how little these men really understood about the law of Moses. Because you see, in order that someone should actually be stoned to death for committing adultery, somebody had to want to do it. Somebody had to bear witness, and somebody had to actually want to kill her, had to follow through with it. They pressed Jesus, and he lifted up himself, and he looked around at them and said, whoever there is without a sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her. And he stooped down and wrote on the ground and ignored them again. We can do this, he said. But basically, if you’re going to follow the law of Moses, someone out here has got to pick up a stone and throw it at that woman. They’ve got to want her dead. And I’m just saying, whichever one of you has no sin, you go ahead, you start the ball. And when they heard it, being convicted by their own conscience, they started leaving one at a time. Began at the oldest, which makes a certain amount of sense, and went all the way to the last. And Jesus finally was left alone and the woman standing in the middle. And when Jesus lifted up himself and saw no one but the woman, he said, Woman, where are your accusers? Where are they? Has nobody condemned you? And she said, No man, Lord. And Jesus said to her, Neither do I condemn you. Go and sin no more. What I find profoundly encouraging about this passage here is that it reveals that God is not interested in hurting people. The woman had already wrecked her own life. She’d already made a mess of things. And she’d done enormous amount of damage to herself. And God was not the least bit interested in making it worse. Jesus, with all of his grace, did not condone what she had done, but he didn’t condemn her to die for what she had done. The legalistic approach would have said, we’ve got to kill her. But the merciful approach would have said, no, we don’t. Let her go and encourage her not to do this anymore. Then Jesus spoke again to the crowd, saying, I am the light of the world. He that follows me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life. You know, knowing the truth and walking out in the broad daylight instead of skulking around in the dark is a wonderful way to live. In the Old Testament, it tells us that the Word of God is a light to our feet, a lamp to our path, so we don’t stumble over things. And Jesus said, I’m light. You follow me. You’re going to be able to see where you’re going. The Pharisees couldn’t stand it, though, and they would not leave him alone. They said, you bear a record of yourself. Your record is not true. And Jesus answered and said, Though I bear record of myself, my record is true. For I know where I came from, and I know where I’m going. But you, you don’t have a clue. You judge after the flesh. I don’t judge any man. But if I do, my judgment’s fair. The reason it’s fair is because I’m not alone, but I and the Father that sent me will judge it. You know, it’s written in your law that the testimony of two men is true. Okay, you like the law, I’ll give you the law. I am one that bears witness of myself, and the Father sent me, he bears witness of me. That’s two witnesses. And they then came right back. Where is your father? And Jesus said, you don’t know me, and you don’t know my father. If you had known me, you would have known my father. These words spake Jesus in the treasury as he taught in the temple. And nobody laid hands on him because his hour was not yet come. He continued to say, I go my way and you’re going to look for me and you’ll die in your sins. Where I’m going, you can’t come. And they sat there trying to make sense of what Jesus was saying. They said, well, was he going to kill himself because he said where I’m going, you can’t come? And he said to them, You are from beneath, I am from above. You are of this world, I am not of this world. And I said therefore to you, You’re going to die in your sins. Because if you don’t believe that I am he, you’re going to die in your sins. They just couldn’t stand it. They said, Who are you? And Jesus answered, I am the same that I said to you from the beginning. I’ve got a lot of things to say to you, but he that sent me is true, and I speak to the world the things that I have heard from him. You know, through all of this, it tells us they never figured out that he was speaking to them about the Father. It’s funny, isn’t it? Here we are, nearly 2,000 years later, and we know who he was talking about. Until next time, this is Ronald Dart. And you were not born to lose.
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You were born to win. The Born to Win radio program with Ronald L. Dart is sponsored by Christian Educational Ministries and made possible by donations from listeners like you. If you can help, please send your donation to Born to Win, Post Office Box 560, White House, Texas 75791. You may call us at 1 888-BIBLE-44 and visit us online at borntowin.net.
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Christian Educational Ministries is happy to announce a new full-color Born to Win monthly newsletter with articles and free offers from Ronald L. Dart. Call us today at 1-888-BIBLE-44 to sign up or visit us at borntowin.net.
