TD Jakes - Caught
Get your Bibles, if you would, and join me in the Gospel of Saint John, chapter 8, verses 1 through 11. Pay attention to verses 1 through 11, the Gospel of Saint John, chapter 8. And when you have it, stand on your feet as we read from the Word of God. Glory to God! Everyone’s standing, if you’re not incapacitated. Thank you, Jesus! Isn’t it a blessing to be able to stand? Glory to God! Yes, that’s good! Even if your feet are sore, stand up. Thank you, Jesus! Ain’t nobody ever died from a core; the thought of it made me think I was gonna die. Oh, Hallelujah! What’s the continuity of this story? Closely, it is only given to us once; it is not discussed in Matthew, Mark, or Luke.
John takes us into this traumatic moment—this episode—that only becomes real if you put yourself in the place of the character. If you stand outside of the text and watch it like a boy watching a film, then you can remain detached and uninvolved. But if you become the character, this is one of the most traumatic and humiliating moments in Scripture for an individual to face in a crowd. So much has been said about Will Smith and Chris Rock, but most of it is only said because it happened in a crowd. When people get to see our humanity, they get to have an opinion about our humanity, and our opinions can be weapons. We can be cruel, vicious, and mean because it’s not us. But I did an interview yesterday, and I told her, I said, «If somebody followed all of us around with a camera, we would all shut up.»
Because all of us have had those moments that didn’t get printed in the paper, weren’t on the six o’clock news, and weren’t on TMZ. But we have all had those moments when we have not been our best selves, and to display your worst self in front of people can be humiliating. I have never read a bad resume: «Quit my job, I’m unstable, I’m a liar, I can’t get along with anybody, but I need a job.» No! We always present ourselves as flawless and perfect, and then you hire them, and you see the reality. You don’t hear what I’m saying. This is real; this is real about humanity. It’s real about life; it’s real about the struggle between the spirit and the flesh. It’s real about what crowds can do when your future is turned over to men. It is a dangerous thing.
Jesus went unto the Mount of Olives, and early in the morning He came again into the temple, and all the people came unto Him. He sat down and taught them. And the scribes and the Pharisees—they’re always around—brought unto Him a woman taken in adultery. Bear in mind, this is a crowd. The scribes and the Pharisees brought unto Him a woman taken in adultery. Amen! Not suspected of it, not accused of it, not allegedly; they snatched her right here in the act of adultery. And when they had set her in the midst, they said unto their Master, «This woman was taken in adultery in the very act. We caught her red-handed. Now Moses in the law commanded us that such should be stoned, but what sayest Thou?» This they said, tempting Him that they might have to accuse Him. But Jesus stooped down and with His finger wrote on the ground as though He heard them not. You know, God is an actor.
So, when they continued asking Him and kept on relentlessly, He lifted up Himself and said unto them, «Go ahead! He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.» And again, He stooped down and wrote on the ground. And they which heard it, being convicted by their own consciousness, went out one by one, beginning at the eldest—the old folks left first—until I see when you get older, you know, «Well, I’m not gonna…» And Jesus was left alone. And Jesus was left alone. «Leave me alone! Leave me alone, Lord!» Jesus was left alone and the woman standing in the midst. When Jesus lifted up Himself, He saw none but the woman. He said unto her, «Woman, where are those thine accusers? Hath no man condemned thee?» She said, «No man, Lord.» And Jesus said unto her, «Neither do I condemn thee; go and sin no more.» Can you say Amen? I want to use a one-word subject for this message, and the word is «Caught.» Have you ever been caught? The word is «Caught.» Somebody shout, «Caught!»
I feel that the Living God falls fresh on us now as we endeavor to extrapolate from the text those things that you have commissioned unto us. We thank you for your power, we thank you for your anointing, we thank you for your glory, we thank you for your unction, and we thank you for being the God who intervenes when all hell breaks loose. Minister to the needs of your people, great God that you are. In Jesus' name, we pray. Amen.
You may be seated in the presence of God. This question arises whenever we find ourselves in a compromising situation: are you sorry that you did it? Have you ever heard that, or are you truly sorry for the illicit act, or are you really sorry that you got caught? Now, this implies the choice of either being sorry because you did it or being sorry that you got caught. Often, this is a false choice; one feeling is not mutually exclusive from the other. In reality, it is possible to be sorry that you did it and sorry that you got caught, sorry that you allowed yourself to yield to your foolish, fleshly side, and sorry that it ended in such a debacle. You can feel sorry for both.
In fairness, you can also feel sorry for neither. There are some people who aren’t sorry about anything; they aren’t sorry that they did it, and they aren’t sorry that they got caught. But there are some who are sorry for everything. In fact, it is possible to be sorry that you allowed your impaired judgment to create the situation, while also being sorry that your secret sin has been exposed—leaving your sin not just in the hands of God, where it belongs, but in the hands of men. David said, «I would rather fall into the hands of God than to fall into the hands of men,» and it seems like a strange statement for David to make; that he would rather fall into the hands of God, because God has all power, and because God is holy, and because God is pure, and because God has given us the laws, and God has given us the commandments and the mandates. The Pharisees quote the word of God about what God has said concerning the law, yet still David said, «I would rather fall into the hands of God,» not because of His laws, but because of His character. His character can often supersede His commandments; that is to say, He can be merciful to whom He will be merciful, and He can be gracious to whom He will be gracious.
The truth of the matter is that you missed a shouting moment because everyone here is present because God overlooked some iniquity in your life for you to be here. You shouldn’t leave me out here by myself, especially when you know—when you know—you’re online, and you know the goodness of God we just sang about was not about your goodness. If God had dealt with us according to our sins, we would have all been destroyed. So our backup logic tends to assume that God exposes your sin to teach you a lesson. That’s the other comment we get: «God exposes your sin to teach you love.»
Now, certainly, this is possible. There are times, according to Romans 6:1, when God grows weary of our continuous habits of sin—you just wear God out. Romans 6:1 says, «Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? God forbid! How can we that are dead to sin continue therein?» Today, nobody talks about sin; sin can drape itself in church clothes and finery and point its fingers at others without accusation because the church has muted its voice about sin—lest conviction come too close to home. But you don’t get taller by lowering the ruler; the standard is what it is, and if anything, you have to be willing to say, «I fell short of it,» not that «I lowered it.»
Today, we have arranged our theology to fit our predicament; it’s quite evident that what we believe about God has been tailor-made to fit our reality. In fact, God is God, and He always will be God, and He will never change. It is not within our power to bring God down to our dysfunction; it is God who calls us up, to rise to His requirement. It is what it is. The culture may change, society may change, and times may change, but it is what it is. We have been warned and then ignored the warning. We have been nudged and ignored the nudges; He has whispered to us, «You’re going too far; you’re getting out of line; you need to get yourself together.» Yet we ignore it because we hear God when we want to.
When you tell the church to praise God, the whole church will blow up. But when you ask the church to give, people will start looking the other way. We hear God when we want to hear Him, but we think that God is a god of our convenience—yet God is still God. There are many instances when God’s judgment is not so much to destroy us; eventually, worse than destruction, God will give us over to ourselves. What the Bible refers to as a reprobate mind is to have your conscience seared with a hot iron: to reach a point where wrong doesn’t feel wrong.
So we’re living in a day when we call wrong right and right wrong, and instead of having to defend your wrongness, you often have to defend your rightness. If you say what is right, it’s now wrong; if you say what is wrong, it becomes right. Y’all don’t hear what I’m saying to you. This, however, is not an example of either situation: it is not about God being weary of this woman’s hardened heart or her rebellious disposition. It is not about God bringing her to open shame and humiliating her because of her repetitive, obnoxious behavior. This woman is not even a prominent figure; she has not written books of the Bible. She is not said to be a leader or teacher, and she does not exalt herself above measure. She is not even given a name; she is simply referred to as «a woman caught.»
I wish I could ask if there are any women in here who have ever been caught. The woman caught; maybe it wasn’t adultery, but maybe caught with the IRS about your taxes, or caught going too far in how you handle your children, or caught cursing at your husbands, or caught yelling. She is the woman caught in the act. To be caught in the act is a grievous thing—not just for a woman, but for anyone; to be caught is painful. The feeling of being trapped is a painful thing. Psychologists teach us that the most humiliating trauma is public trauma. All of us have gone through private trauma—trauma that remained in the house. Most of us from my generation were raised in a time that taught us, «What goes on in this house, stays in this house.» Whatever it was, they wanted to keep it contained within a range they could manage before it was left to the court of public opinion. Because once it reaches the court of public opinion, there is no end to the ridicule you can receive.
Have you ever been caught? I started to tell a story about myself, and I’m still deciding whether or not to do it. I was a young man in a grocery store, and they had a family pack of pork chops. I can’t explain why I did it; I’d like to say I was starving and broke, but I wasn’t that broke. So, I just decided to take the pork chops. I didn’t know that the mirror overhead allowed the manager to see me. The manager caught me, and when I realized I had been caught, I had to decide between fight or flight, and I couldn’t choose; so I did both. I hit him with the pork chops until I knocked him down to the floor, and then I ran. I did a lot of running, I should tell you, but in a moment of weakness, I just fled.
Just because I didn’t get caught doesn’t mean I was innocent. When I go into prison ministry, I don’t go in with my nose up in the air, because by the grace of God and some heavy, one-and-a-half-inch-thick pork chops, I could have been locked up too. Yet the pork chops were thick enough to hold him long enough that I didn’t end up in cell block B. I can’t even explain why I did it; I can’t justify it, except that I was around people who were doing it. When you surround yourself with those acting out in certain ways, to be accepted as one of them, you start acting in kind. They dared me, and I wanted to show them I had just as much courage as they did, so I stole the pork chops. I still didn’t even get to eat them because I had to drop them to run.
Human depravity escapes no one; it reaches everybody at every level. But imagine, if you will, if you have ever been caught wrong. If the IRS has ever caught you, or if your boss was waiting at the door when you came in at ten o’clock instead of eight, you know how your heart begins to race in your chest because you’ve been caught. Anytime you get caught doing something perceived as wrong, there’s a certain amount of anxiety involved. In this particular case today, this is magnified to an extreme degree. One moment she’s in the embrace of her lover, loving him, and there they are intertwined in the ultimate expression of intimacy, enjoying their debauchery. Then she is snatched from the euphoric feeling of sexuality and thrust into the degradation of being exposed, nude, and captured.
If being captured were not enough, she must pull herself from the thrill of intimacy only to run into the terror; yanked from one state to another with no preparation, no warning, no chance to get ready, no plea. Have you ever had life yank you? I didn’t expect to get many amens because I know you can’t blow your cover; it’s important for you to protect your image. But there are many people in this room who have had to flee out of a window, or run out of a door, or dash down the back steps, or delete a text or hide a memo. Oh—oh, no, not you; you’re too holy. But I’m talking about that one over there, that one over there in the balcony where nobody is sitting—that’s why I’m addressing those invisible people. There are many who understand the terror, the emotional trauma that comes upon you when you are caught, especially when you know you’ve been a fool and brought it upon yourself.
Whenever you are caught, you don’t get into a police car feeling cool and comfortable. You don’t put on handcuffs feeling good about yourself; your heart is racing, your pulse is beating, and your mind is berating you. You wonder, «Will I ever get out of this?» Especially when you realize not only have they caught you, but they caught you nude. At least let me get dressed; at least let me cover up. Even though I’ve been exposed, if I have on covers, I don’t feel as exposed as I do when I’m out in the open. Now imagine what this woman feels in this moment. According to the law, they catch her, but notice the injustice; they only caught her.
When it comes to men, we can be right and still be wrong. It is wrong what she did; what she did was wrong when she did it. But it is an absolute fact that she couldn’t do that alone. They caught the woman in the act of adultery, yet she has to suffer the injustice of being brought to open shame, with the man given a free pass. They presented her story without allowing her to speak for herself. It’s a terrible thing to believe what you read about someone without understanding the extenuating circumstances that created the dilemma. We live in a society where some make a living catching you wrong, and it’s not hard to catch you wrong. It’s just hard to catch you wrong in church, but if I followed you around long enough, if I bugged your house and put cameras in, I’d tell you—there wouldn’t be so much dancing going on if we started playing videos of moments in your life.
Oh, I know some of you have gotten too old now; we can’t follow you around now, but if we go back far enough—Bill Cosby—if we go back far enough, not a single person in this room has lived through a moment that, if it appeared on the screen, you wouldn’t want to be seen because you don’t want me to witness you in the light of your worst moments. You want me to see you in the light of your best moments. What do you do when your worst moments go public? When your most private, vulnerable human proclivities are exposed for public scrutiny, and everyone knows?
Got an opinion about yourself after I told you? I told you you wouldn’t know. I never did believe he was good; I knew it all the time and everybody was running. I thought I’d tell you not to marry him. I tell you, he was a dog. All of his dogs, girls—all of them. Excuse me, who was that? Jeep, with it. It is true we are living; we are living when we’re living in the scriptures. We’re living in a misogynistic society that tends to have a sliding scale of justice—one for the man and one for the woman. But we are also living in a society today where it has become popular to ridicule the man and let the woman go free. In fact, you can sleep with the man and testify against him as a victim. I keep wondering, how do you get to be the victim?
Oh, they aren’t saying much now. Jesus, I’m not talking about rape; I’m not talking about abuse; I’m not talking about Trump. I’m talking about stuff you willingly did, then changed your mind about it and decided to play victim. You saw Me Too, and you wrote Me Too when you know you instigated the situation and then tried to benefit from it. Justice left to men is often unjust because, depending upon where we are in our sociological evolution, what we call right at one moment we locked you up for at another. My grandmother got married when she was somewhere between 13 and 15 years old, and it was right. The same thing today is wrong. I noticed that Congress is considering legalizing marijuana. Okay, but what about all the brothers and sisters who are locked up in jail right now for smoking a joint? When you change the law, does that exonerate the person? We still have people in jail for laws that have now changed and they’re still caught there.
There she is; her hair is all over her head, her makeup is smeared, she’s lost in the earrings, she’s trembling with fear, tears are running down her face. She’s humiliated in disgrace; she is traumatized in a way for which it will take years, if ever, for her to recover from the humiliation. She can’t go into the grocery store anymore without people saying, «Yeah, that’s her—that’s the one right over there—good-looking, got the mirror looking for some green beans.» I wish she would come in here. You know how we do when we get some dirt on people; whenever we see them, we won’t let them grow beyond what we’ve known. She is put in a place where, for the rest of her life, she has to build the inner fortitude to live with the whispers of men. But that is not the immediate problem; the immediate problem is, according to the law, she was to be stoned. Can you imagine? This woman went from being kissed to being stoned, from being loved to being hated. That’s the way life is—one moment you’re feeling one thing, and one text, one phone call, one statement, one picture, one moment, one quote, one mic left on, and all of a sudden you’re in crisis mode.
Is there anybody in here who has ever been in crisis mode? You don’t even have to say what it was about, but if you’ve ever been in crisis mode, stand up and clap your hands. Crisis mode will scare you to death. Crisis mode will take away your appetite; crisis mode will make you stop eating or drinking. Crisis mode will rob you of your sleep at night; crisis mode will make you hypertensive. Crisis mode does things to your body, not just to your mind, for which you do not easily recover, and some people never recover. Crisis mode—if you survive the stones—will leave you cutting yourself. Crisis mode will take away your self-esteem; crisis mode will leave you with a feeling of unworthiness. Crisis mode will knock you down to your knees; crisis mode will make an atheist break out in a prayer that says, «Lord, if you could hear me, if you get me out of this….» Or you’ve never prayed that prayer? Let me talk to the real people. Love, love—just get me out of this.
We don’t know whether the woman was married or the man was married, but one of them was married in order for it to be adultery. Let me just use my imagination. What does she say to her daughter? What does she say to her son? How do you tell your mother, «Will I live to make amends?» And everybody in the crowd has their rocks. Isn’t it amazing how quickly we will get our rocks? And he said, «Oh, basically, get out of here. Come on now, Bishop; we don’t stone anymore.»
Twitter is a rock; the comment sections at the bottom of an article are rocks—rocks that do damage. Because when you are in crisis mode, you have a tendency to read the comments, looking to evaluate the damage, being hit by the rocks of people who are just as guilty about something as you are. But, because they have not been caught, they join the lynch mob and begin to attack you, when, in reality, this is not about a crime; it’s about a sin. And none of us can say we have no sin—not one. And yet you have sinners ready to stone a sinner, stoning her in the midst of the knowledge of their own guilt. It is barbaric; it is terrible; it is traumatic; it is disturbing. I would think it was ancient had I not been to a particular country where the president of that country told me that in their culture, if a young girl loses her virginity before she gets married, they throw her in a well.
There are people today that they will love you until they get something on you. And if they get anything on you, whether they saw it or not, if they just heard about it. See, the crowd didn’t see her; the crowd didn’t catch her. The Pharisees caught her. But the people who stoned her were ready to stone her over what they heard about her. Have you ever had anybody stone you over a rumor? It is interesting, as we become more civilized, that our ways of responding to crime and sin have evolved. In the early days, they would bring you before the guillotine and shoot you in front of a firing squad. Earlier still, they stoned you, which means she died rock by rock.
They stoned the Apostle Paul. That means that Paul was only guilty of preaching. People stone you because they disagree with you or bring you before a guillotine and a firing squad because of the uniform you wear or the skin you’re in, and you didn’t get to pick the skin you’re in. Later, we started hanging people, and if we caught you wrong, we would try you right there on the spot—no jury, no judge, no laws; we just hung you. And it is just in the last month or so that lynching has become a crime. Can you believe that we’ve been to the moon and lynching was still not a crime? Can you believe that we’ve got phones that operate like computers but lynching was still allowed?
Do you see how far behind the law is on life? I can quote several laws that are on the books in certain states that are reprehensible. Looking at a woman, especially a white woman, caused Emmett Till to be killed. I’m talking about when justice falls into the hands of wicked men. You could die for something that the woman who accused him, on her deathbed, said, «I was just joking.» And I believe he was 13—a 13-year-old boy is now dead over a lie. The dangerous thing about taking a life is that you can’t give it back if you find out you were wrong. They were going to kill this woman. We’ve gotten better now; we went from hanging people to the electric chair so you could fry, and then we decided we would be a little more humane and put you in the gas chamber so you could choke. And now, in most places, we inject you with serum if you get caught. So that means whether you do anything or not, you live your life with the looming hovering possibility that you could be caught, and that is stress in and of itself.
I belabor the point because I want you to understand that stress doesn’t always come from what you did. Stress comes from what is possible. Anxiety is to worry about something that has not happened. Anxiety not only affects you psychologically; it affects you physiologically. So that your body goes out of whack, your immune system goes down; you are prone to more diseases. You can get more infections just because of what is possible to happen to you if you get caught. All of that is alive in this text, and they’ve already picked out their rocks. It is almost the kind of feeling, the kind of exuberance that comes from mob mentalities. I don’t have it in my head right now, but there’s a term for how we will act in a mob in a way that we would never act as individuals. We will burn, loot, kill, shoot, climb, and destroy because everybody else is doing it. We will climb up the walls of the White House; we will do all kinds of stuff; we will burn down stores that we would never do as individuals. But in a mob, a mob mentality takes over, and people start doing things because it is part of the mob.
And it is true of the church; there are people who only praise God because other people are praising God. They would never praise God alone, but when they see other people praising God, they praise God. There are people who do not praise God because the person sitting next to them is standing there like a mummy, and they’re afraid of being rejected by them. So even though God is nudging you to your feet for a praise, you won’t give God a praise because you don’t see anybody else giving God a praise, and the mob is stifling the move of the Holy Ghost.
That is what is happening. Glory to God! But look at somebody and say, «I ain’t gonna let you worry me.» That’s not good English, but it’s a good attitude. I’m not going to let you worry me. You can sit there with your nose in your hand, your legs crossed, and act important, but if I get ready to praise Him, I’m going to praise Him. If I get ready to lift Him up, I’m going to lift Him up. If I get ready to clap my hands, I’m going to clap my hands. I don’t care if you can’t see around me. I don’t care if I make you nervous. I don’t care if I get on your nerves—you can move if you want to move, but you can’t stop me from praising God. I’m not going to let you mob me into not praising God. He’s been too good!
I want to see some people that are independent enough to resist the temptation of the mob, coming to God. I feel the Holy Ghost moving in this place! I feel the Holy Ghost moving in this place! One of the things that I enjoyed the most about our International Leadership Summit was that I didn’t know how it was going to work. I had CEOs and billionaires and millionaires in the room with church folks, saints, elders, bishops, and archbishops. But when the Holy Ghost hit that place, you couldn’t tell the billionaire from the pauper. Everybody was laid out; everybody was crying; everybody was crawling across, because when the Lord gets ready, you’ve got to move. You may be high, you may be low, but when the Lord gets ready… yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes! I feel some independent people in this room. I feel the spirit of independence in this room. I’ll run if I want to run. I can’t help it that you don’t run. If I’m a runner, I’m a run. If I’m a clapper, I’m a clap. If I’m a leaper, I’m a leap, because I’m not going to let you intimidate me with your funny-looking stares from doing what I do, like I do, when I do it! Because nobody can do what I do like I do it, because I’m a person; I’m an individual; I’ll stand by myself.
They brought the woman to Jesus; the Pharisees and the Sadducees brought her to Jesus to tempt Him. Wait a minute—you thought when I said caught, I was talking about her, but I wasn’t talking about her being caught. This text is not in the Bible about catching a woman in adultery; this text is in the Bible because they used the woman to try to catch Jesus. It is not really her sin that is on trial; it is His wisdom. If He said, «Don’t stone her,» He would have spoken against the law. If He says, «Stone her,» He would have defeated His purpose for coming—He didn’t come to stone the sinner; He came to save the sinner. He didn’t come to annihilate the sinner; He came that the sinner might have life and have it more abundantly. It’s not the woman that they’re trying to catch; it’s Jesus that they’re trying to ensnare.
They are interested in your human struggle because they want to use you as clickbait. They weren’t fishing for the woman; they were fishing for Jesus. They caught the woman like you catch worms to go fishing. She was bait, and they asked Jesus, «What saith Thou?» Am I in the word of God? What saith Thou? Because we gave you the bait, and the bait is laying on the floor trembling, and the rocks are in the hands of the crowd. You let us stone her and honor Moses, or do you discredit Moses, whom God sent? See, the whole Bible is built, and the Bible stories begin with Satan’s desire to catch.
God in a trap—that’s how sin entered the world in the first place. Satan in the garden spoke about no forbidden fruit. Satan didn’t care about no apples; he didn’t care anything about your behavior. He was just trying to put God into a position because God hates sin and loves man. As long as they’re divided, God has no conflict. But when you put what God hates into what God loves, now God is in a problem because hell is trying to catch Him. That’s how the book starts. Press three people and say, «Don’t be debased, don’t be debased, don’t be debased.»
I know you’re human, but don’t be debased. I know you get weak, but don’t be debased. Don’t be debased, don’t be debased, don’t be debased, don’t be debased. Don’t be debased; it’s not about your ex-husband, it’s not about your wife, it’s not about your children. Hell is trying to find something they can use against God to put Him into a dilemma. But let’s say God saves what He hates or God kills what He loves. That’s how the story starts. It is the law of first mention, and since it is the law of first mention, and since it is in Genesis, in His expression, Jesus started doing what God was doing in Genesis. He stooped down. «Shut up, I’m our Sunday!» said the Messiah.
Can I teach this word of God? They said, «What do you say?» He said, «Oh, so you gonna use old tricks? I’m going to use old answers.» And He stooped down in the dirt. When we first met God, He was playing in the dirt. The first time God was playing in the dirt, shaping man from the dust of the earth, breathing into him the breath of life. And since Satan wanted to take it back to the first fight, Jesus stooped down and started playing in the dirt again. All of this is acting out in front of you, boomeranging, mirroring what happened in the book of Genesis: guilty man, glorious God, and the glorious Creator of the universe—the CEO of heaven, the executive of the angels, the head magistrate of the celestial, stooping down. That’s what the Incarnation is all about. When God came in the form of Jesus, it was God scooping down.
The Bible said He poured out of Himself His glory and His honor, and He came down to His lowest common denominator, that through His poverty we might be made rich. He stooped down and acted as if He did not hear them. How do you get the God as a doctor? God is always active; He is like a mighty rushing wind. He appeared like cloven tongues of fire. Oh, y’all don’t hear what I’m saying. On the road to Emmaus, He made it as if He would go further. God is always acting; sometimes God will act to see your reaction. Jesus acted like He was going to keep on walking to see if they would invite Him to come in. God is always acting. He acted like He was going to pass by the woman with the blood because since she had enough faith to chase Him, I wish I had some God-chasers in this room. You’re not going to walk past me and not give me what I want this Sunday morning. If I had to crawl through all of the dignity, I’m going to touch the hem of His garment. Somebody give me 30 seconds of crazy praise!
Here is the dilemma: sit down; I’m going to go further. Can I go further? Here is the dilemma in the text: the text is written in transition. Even though it is divided in your Bible as the New Testament, it actually occurs under the Old Testament because the book of Hebrews says that the testament is not enforced until the testator dies. So Jesus couldn’t operate upon the New Testament theology because it occurred under the Old Testament law, and they were trying to get Him to break the law when He came to fulfill the law, not break the law. If He broke the law, He wouldn’t be the righteous Lamb that was slain for our sins because they would have grounds against Him, and they sought to catch Him.
So, He stooped down. I feel like preaching now. He stood down on the ground as if He did not hear them. How can a God who knows your thoughts from afar not hear your words up close? Now, there are two people on the ground: thank you. The woman is already on the ground, and when Jesus stooped down on the ground, He came down to her level. He knew she couldn’t come up, so He went down. That’s why I’m praising Him today, because when I could never come up to His standard, He came down to where I was. He said, «If you’re going to be on the ground, you ain’t gonna be on the ground by yourself. I’m going to stoop down on the ground where you are.»
I would rather be on the level of the adulterer than be on the level of the rock drawer. And so, Jesus stood down, and now we have two people on the ground. And like Christ being on the cross, He exercises the power of silence. Silence is powerful; you don’t have to answer every question. You don’t have to absolve every curious bystander. Stop making it your mission to change the mind of your accuser. Jesus did the same thing on Calvary when He got ready to go to the cross; He answered them not a word. Sometimes your greatest strength is in your ability to shut up. You don’t have to get them told; you don’t have to get them straight; you don’t have to get even; you don’t have to respond to everything they say. Sometimes you just don’t say anything at all.
I was reading through the comments about next year’s ILS being in Orlando, and we’ve got about 24, I think 48 hours for a reduced rate on next year’s registration. Down in the comments, somebody was saying, «When are you coming to Boston?» I explained to them that this is not a regional meeting that travels from city to city; it’s an international annual meeting that happens once a year. We would love to have you come. I went on a little further, but I was losing patience when I saw somebody from Miami say, «When are you coming to Miami?»
Now, maybe you don’t know much about Florida, but the distance between Miami and Orlando is close enough that if you had any real hunger, you could get in your car and drive down the road to Orlando. But because you’re so lazy and you don’t value God enough to go out of your way to get it, I decided to act like I didn’t read it, so I didn’t answer it at all. So, if you’re screaming, the reason I didn’t answer is because the Bible said to avoid foolish and unlearned questions, for they do gender strife. So I acted as if I didn’t see it. I can’t tell you how many times I asked my mother a question, and she said nothing at all. I pressed the issue, and all she could do was look up and say, «I heard you,» which was her way of saying that was stupid.
So Jesus acted as if He didn’t hear them, which was His way of saying that was stupid. But they pressed it and pressed it, and people will press you and press you and press you. You’re trying to be nice; you’re trying to be Christian; you’re trying to be loving; you’re trying to act like the Bible tells you you have to act. It ain’t true; you acted because if you came out of your shell and gave them you, you would pull your earrings off your ears and shake your head out and say, «Girl!» or pull your jacket off and say, «You want some of that?» But you got to act; you got to act right even when you don’t feel right. You got to act nice even when you don’t feel nice because I’m trying to let this mind be in me which was also in Christ Jesus. But there’s a war going on in my mind; one part of my mind is quoting scriptures, and the other part of my mind is cursing you out.
And so, I’m not going to say anything because I don’t know which one of these Wonder Twins is going to leap out of my lips. So thank you; y’all ain’t going to let me preach in here. I need some real people this morning; I don’t want to talk to no church people—I need some real people in this room. I need somebody to help people in this room. And then Jesus stood up. Watch this; they thought they had caught Him, but Jesus used the greatest weapon you can use against an enemy, and I am going to give it to you, and I want you to write it online. I want you to remember this; I want you to keep it in your head. The greatest weapon you can use on an enemy is wisdom. It’s not knowledge; it’s wisdom. Jesus said, «Okay, stoner, just he that is without fault cast the first stone.»
Now there’s a crowd around this woman, and then He got back down on the ground with her. Thank you, Lord! I want to thank Him; I want to thank everybody. I want to thank Him; anybody? I want to thank Him. Thank you, Lord! Thank you, Lord! Thank you, Lord! Thank you, Lord! Thank you, Lord! Thank you, Lord, for coming down where I’m at. Thank you that if I’m going to be humiliated, You’re going to sit in the humiliation with me. If I’m going to be in pain, You sat in the pain with me. If I’m going to be weeping at the tomb of Lazarus, You’re going to come in and weep with me. Why did Jesus cry at the death of Lazarus when He already knew He was going to wake him up? Because we have a God who will have koinonia with you, fellowship with you when you are in pain.
And I want to say to every person who’s in pain, who’s in humiliation, who’s in struggle, who’s in agony, if everybody’s standing above you ready to stone you, look for Jesus to be sitting down in the dirt with you. Look to yourself—not by yourself. I don’t know how this is going to turn out, but I’m not by myself. My heart is racing, but I’m not by myself. I’ve lost all the color out of my skin, but I’m not by myself. I’m biting my fingernails, but I’m not by myself. I’m in grief over my mother, but I’m not by myself. I lost my child, but I’m not by myself. Because when I’m down on the ground, so is He. Thank you, Lord, for not leaving me by myself. Thank you, Lord, because You said, «Lo, I am with you always.» Thank you, Lord, for being with me.
Anybody can be with you when you’re on the mountaintop, but I need a God that will be with me when I’m in the valley. I need a God who’ll get down in the dungeon with me. I need a God that’ll go into the jail cell with me. I need a God who’ll go into the courtroom with me. I need a God that’ll go into the hospital with me. I know it’s visiting hours over, but you can’t stop Him from being in the hospital with me. I have a God that’ll go into the emergency room. I have a God that’ll go into the operating room. I have a God that’ll go into the courtroom. I have a God that’ll go into the welfare office. I don’t have to face it by myself. I have a God that’ll go into the divorce court with me. I have a God that’ll go into counseling with me. I have a God that’ll go into therapy with me. He got down where she was.
Now when He asked them, «He that is without fault, cast the first stone,» it only left one person eligible to stone her. Watch this, He never said another word. He never looked up again. He went back to playing in the dirt. You don’t understand the power of this; this is Satan trying God on His turf because Satan is the prince and the power of the air and the earth. So he said, «I couldn’t defeat you in heaven; I got cast out of heaven. I couldn’t defeat you in the garden; maybe now I can defeat you in this place.» And Jesus is down there writing in the dirt. I don’t know what He was writing; it could have been, «My sweet love.» But now, I am fine; words, bad thoughts, my heart to be, and grace, my fears release. If it was me, I would have been writing through me.
Everybody has been through some dangerous situations. I dare you to think about it; if it was me, say, «Far whatever, you’re worried about, grace will lead me.» You don’t believe me? Now, the Bible doesn’t tell me what position the woman was in, but she had to be down here like this because she wasn’t looking up, and the Bible said He wasn’t looking up. But when He stood up, He had to touch her and said, «Woman, where are your accusers?» She was waiting on the rocks. Somebody in here has been waiting on rocks, but God sent me to tell you, the rocks ain’t coming!
Slap your neighbor and tell him the rocks ain’t coming! I know you’ve been worried about the rocks, but the rocks ain’t coming! I know you saw the rocks in their hands, but the rocks ain’t coming! I know you prepared yourself and covered your head, but God said your rocks won’t come. They meant it for evil, but they will not come to destroy you! But they will not come. He had to tap her on the shoulder, so He had to tap on the shoulder, he had to tap some of you on the shoulder. Some of you are so ready for the worst that God has to tap you on the shoulder and ask you a question. The reason He has to ask you a question is that everybody else is gone. Watch this: the Bible says immediately they began to drop the rocks—not just what they dropped, but why. It’s their conscience because everyone in here has something that, if you remembered it, you would shut up.
Sometimes God has to do something to make you remember. The elders, the folks who are supposed to remember, remembered the best—from the eldest to the youngest. The old people thought about something and said, «Well, it ain’t that bad.» Another one dropped the rock. God is a God of second chances. Another one said, «He will have mercy on whom He will have mercy.» When the young people saw the old people dropping their rocks, they remembered a lot, and they said, «Well, I ain’t going to say nothing either because I don’t want Him to tell my business and get stoned.»
What measures you meet will be measured unto you. Remember that what judgment you give out will always come back to you. It never fails. I’m almost 65 years old, and I have never seen a time when someone who went after someone didn’t end up being gotten. You’re going to get God; you’re going to get got. You rock me today; it’s going to be you tomorrow. That’s why I’m rocking nobody. I pray for everybody. You can never say you heard me rock anyone. Glory to God, because blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. If you want mercy, you have to learn how to give mercy. Glory to God! I’m scared of judgmental people. I’m scared for you because whatever you send out against me, it will come back to you, baby. It will come back to you, brother. It’s going to come back to you. It’s fun when you throw it, but it ain’t fun when you receive it.
The only one left who could throw a rock was the one in whom there was no sin. He said, «Where are thy accusers?» She looked around and said, «My God, I have none, Lord.» Then He said, «Neither do I condemn you.» Now watch this: in the Old Testament, they said if they caught you, they would stone you. But in the New Testament, in Galatians 6:1, it says, «Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, you who are spiritual restore such a one in the spirit of meekness.» Meekness—not arrogance, meekness, not self-righteousness. Wait a minute—remember yourself! Consider yourself, baby. Then He told her, «Go your way and don’t sin again. Go your way and learn from this how to be better. Go your way and learn not to be bait for the Pharisees to use against me. I got you out of it; that doesn’t mean I approved of it. I got you out of it; that doesn’t mean I condone it. I didn’t let them kill you; that doesn’t mean you weren’t guilty. Learn from this. Go thy way and sin no more.»
Stand to your feet, whether you’re watching online or in this building. God wouldn’t have had me preach this if you didn’t need to hear it. Whether you are a person living with the threat of what somebody wants to do to you—help me judge this—what is that they call it when somebody threatens to exploit you? Exploitation! When maybe you’re living under a cloud of words from an enemy or under the shadow of a memory, or maybe, every so often, you get a threatening text or word that obliterates your peace and sends terror through every fiber of your being. Maybe you’re living your life faking a smile to hide the fear that at any moment everything you have could vanish away. Satan is the accuser of the brethren, and maybe you have lived your whole life tense and bowed over. Or maybe you have lived with someone who will never let you forget what you did while they have amnesia about what they did. All your life, you’re coiled up in the corner.
First thing: you aren’t there by yourself; Jesus is with you. Second thing: whoever’s trying to stone you has a secret too, and you don’t have to live your life like that. You don’t have to spend the rest of your life in shame, humiliation, and disgrace. Even though you were wrong, you don’t have to spend the rest of your life afraid to come outside, be around people, or move to be your better self just because somebody said, «I’m going to stone you if you go up.» I want to minister to people dealing with the threat. It had happened, but it’s a threat hanging over your life. «You’re going to go back, bro; you ain’t going to ever have anything; you’re not smart enough to be in that position; you don’t deserve what you’re asking for; you filthy, slimy thing! How dare you try to be happy? You called somebody misery, and now you want to be happy?»
And the threat is hanging over your life. No matter what you wear, what you do, or where you go, there’s always somebody bringing you back to the act they caught you in. When Jesus said the Spirit has come upon me to set the captive free, today is your day of liberation! I am not—I cannot and will not—condone sin. Sin is sin, but it is not incurable; it is not everlasting; it can be washed away. «What can wash away my sins? Nothing but the blood!» «O Jesus, what can make me whole again?» Look at that picture of the woman crossed out. What can make me whole again? You see her? Your soul looks like that, and you’re wondering if you can ever be whole again. Wait a minute; your soul looks just like that. Your emotions just look like that. Your rest looks just like that. You can’t sleep at night because of that.
There’s some antagonist, some extortionist who seeks to stone you for doing something that they are guilty of, one way or another, and today, this Sunday, God doesn’t want you balled up in a knot. He didn’t tell her to stay in a knot; He said «Go!» You haven’t been able to go; you haven’t been able to enjoy; you haven’t been able to be free; you haven’t been able to be whole because you’re guilty. You had a baby out of wedlock; you had an abortion; you’ve done some illicit things, some wrong things, some perverted things, some illegal things, some inappropriate things that haunt you. People don’t know that you have to fake your smile every morning and say, «Good morning,» while down on the inside you look just like that!
If this position looks like your soul about something you did or something that was done to you, and if this position looks like how you live your life, it will affect your relationships because you will always be attracted to somebody to save you from the agony of your history. If this message is reaching out to you, Jesus did not die and shed His blood for you to stay in a crouched position waiting for the next rock to hit you.
In fact, the Bible said, «Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication make your requests known unto God.» He does not want you to be anxious; He doesn’t want you to have anxiety. Yes, you were wrong; you were wrong as two left shoes; you’re guilty as hell! I’m not trying to change your guilt; I’m not trying to rewrite the script. I’m not trying to change the Bible, but you can be guilty and not be condemned. There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
I want to pray with you as your pastor. I want to pray with you because I understand what it feels like to be balled up in a knot. Every time I drove past that checkpoint, I thought that man was going to get me until I made peace with him and with God and with myself. Because I cannot live my whole life like that—sitting at the Thanksgiving dinner table feeling like that, driving down 30 feeling like that, going to college feeling like that, trying to start a business, but inside I feel like that. Because if you feel like that when good things come, you will self-sabotage; because if nobody else rocks you, you will rock yourself.
I want to talk to some people. I want some people on this altar who have been stoned by yourself. It’s not that God hasn’t forgiven you. It’s not that people haven’t forgiven you. You have not forgiven yourself. And every time anything good happens, you feel too filthy to receive it. And they’re teaching you that you have a lack of faith. No, you have a lack of forgiveness, and I want you to receive forgiveness and be made whole. Anyone else? If you’re coming, don’t just stand there undercover, worrying about your image. Step over what people think and come get what you need!