John 8:1-11 – Every Soul’s Story – Bible study

John 8:1-11 Every Souls Story The sermon that I will preach today is universal. It fits everyone. It could be taken and applied to several dozen Bible characters. It would fit if I were preaching about Cain, Jacob, Korah, Nadab, Abihu, the nation of Israel, Nebuchadnezzar, Paul, Felix, Festus, or many other Bible personalities. But is also the story of every human soul, saved or lost, historic or presently living, male or female. It is your story and it is mine. We will turn to several Bible passages but keep your place in this text if you would for I plan to return to it several times. I. The direction of every soul is down. A. This text gives us the story of one woman. 1. Her name is not mentioned, neither are all the details of sin or her life. 2. The one thing we are certain of is that the direction of her life was down. 3. Down as in away from God. Down as into rebellion. B. \#3\ The Bible indicates that she was an adulteress. 1. I do not want to dwell on her sin, but on the direction her sin took her. a. It took her down. b. It took her away from God. c. It took her into rebellion against God. 2. I do not know how long she followed the pathway down. a. The Bible does not give the impression that this was this womans first act of this kind. b. The Bible does not state it and I will now dwell upon it, but the impression is that this was this womans chosen profession. c. She was a repeated adulteress. C. Every human being knows some things to be right and some things to be wrong. 1. Every human being knows right from wrong because God wrote right and wrong in their hearts. Romans 2:14 For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves: 15 Which shew the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the mean while accusing or else excusing one another;) a. \#14\ "Gentiles" – Those who are not Jews. Those who did have the Old Testament Law, whose parents did not have the Old Testament Law, who were not raised with Bible teaching or Bible preaching. b. Yet, Paul was saying that these Gentiles can know by naturewithout a Bible, without a godly home, without Bible teachknow right from wrong. c. How? \#15\ Because the law is "written in their hearts." (1) What is the law? It is the general understanding of right and wrong. (2) Who wrote the law into their hearts? God did. 2. I say again, every human being knows right from wrong. a. It is the worlds notion, not Gods, that people are confused about sex today. (1) It is the worlds notionnot Godsthat our children do not know that adultery and fornication are wrong. (2) It is the worlds notionnot Godsthat they cannot help themselves. They have to sin. (3) It is the worlds notionnot Godsthat boys are trapped in girls bodies and girls are born in boys bodies. (4) It is the worlds notionnot Godsthat every body is doing it. (5) It is the worlds notionnot Godsthat it does not matter. All of these values are man-made. b. It is the worlds notion and it is killing our children. (1) With the rise in sexual activity among our children has also come the rise in suicide. Study links teen sex to depression, suicide Printed by the Washington Times on June 3, 2003. No author was given. Teens who have had sexual intercourse are more likely to feel depressed and suicidal than teens who have not become sexually active, says a new study from the Heritage Foundation. Early sexual activity, in addition to causing teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases, is a substantial factor in undermining the emotional well-being of American teenagers, said the study written by Robert Rector, Kirk A. Johnson and Lauren R. Noyes. Using data from a national survey of 6,500 teens ages 14 to 17, researchers found teen girls who had sexual intercourse were three times more likely to be depressed than girls who had not. Similarly, sexually-active boys were twice as likely to be depressed than peers who had not had sex. Suicide attempts also were significantly more common among sexually-active teens than their chaste peers. (2) If it doesnt matter, why are suicide rates going up? (a) Because it does matter. (b) Sin matters to every human being. (c) We all know right from wrong. (d) God wrote it on our hearts. D. When people repeatedly violate the conscious that God has given to them, the direction that they are going is down into sin, down into rebellion, down in guilt, down into heartache. E. This woman was not the only person whose direction was down. 1. The Bible gives us the story of man who we refer to as the Demonic of Gadara. Mark 5:1 And they came over unto the other side of the sea, into the country of the Gadarenes. 2 And when he was come out of the ship, immediately there met him out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit, 3 Who had his dwelling among the tombs; and no man could bind him, no, not with chains: 4 Because that he had been often bound with fetters and chains, and the chains had been plucked asunder by him, and the fetters broken in pieces: neither could any man tame him. 5 And always, night and day, he was in the mountains, and in the tombs, crying, and cutting himself with stones. a. As with the woman we just read about, the Bible does give us this mans name or his complete story. (1) The Bible only records the direction he had gone. (2) Down into sin, down into rebellion, down into grief and heartache. b. The Bible will tell us that this man was not just demon possessed but DEMONS possessed. (1) \#Mk 5:9\ He had a legion of demons within him. (2) The size of a legion varied throughout history but most sources say between 1500 and 6000. c. I do not think this condition happened to this man overnight. (1) Demons do not just rush into a human host. If they did, wed all be demon possessed. (2) Demons are invited into humans. (a) You do not have to give them a written invitation. Just make your body a place where they feel comfortable. The more demons you make comfortable, the more demons you are inviting to inhabit you. (b) The places you go, the music you listen to, the movies you watch, the tattoos you were, the church you miss, the Bible you wont read, the sermons you will not hearthese all give demons their invitations. (3) What kind of a life had this man lived to bring so many demons into his body? (a) I do not know, but I do not the direction of the life he lived. (b) He went down. 2. It is not just lost people who go down. Saved people can go down too. King David, one of Gods greatest servants, went down into sin and rebellion against God. 2Sam 11:1 And it came to pass, after the year was expired, at the time when kings go forth to battle, that David sent Joab, and his servants with him, and all Israel; and they destroyed the children of Ammon, and besieged Rabbah. But David tarried still at Jerusalem. 2 And it came to pass in an eveningtide, that David arose from off his bed, and walked upon the roof of the kings house: and from the roof he saw a woman washing herself; and the woman was very beautiful to look upon. a. Most people say that if David had been in the battle field where he belonged, he would not have been on the roof to see Bathsheba. b. Could I also point out that it is possible that he was not in the battlefield where he belonged because he had already been on the roof? (1) We do not know the order in which things happened. (2) But I am convinced neither of these two just happened into this act. (3) Ive heard some attempt to make Bathsheba innocent by saying that woman often took baths on their roofs due to the hot weather and limited space. (a) Hogwash. No lady is going to take her clothes off outside without knowing who can see her do it. (b) Neither is a married lady going to run off with another man on the his first invitationeven if he is the kingunless she wanted to go. (4) But David was not innocent either. (a) If a woman is visible from a mans roof and he doesnt want to see it, he will do something about itespecially if he is the king. (b) c. The truth was these were two adults who knew what they were doing and knew where it was going and continued on their pathways, the pathways down into sin and down into rebellion against God. I. The direction of every soul is down. II. At the bottom of every down is a thud. John 8:3 And the scribes and Pharisees brought unto him a woman taken in adultery; and when they had set her in the midst, 4 They say unto him, Master, this woman was taken in adultery, in the very act. A. Did you hear that thud? It was the sound of this womans world collapsing on her. 1. This woman knew what she was doing was wrong, but she kept doing it until her down hit bottom, until her world hit bottom. a. Everyone knew what she did, but now she is caught doing her sin in the very act. That must have been embarrassing and humiliating. b. Then she is arrested. Adultery was not just a crime against an unseen God. It was a crime against the laws of the land of Israel. c. Then she is drug across town, put on display, publically charged with her sin, and her fate seemingly placed into one Mans hands. 2. Thud. She had hit bottom. a. Were her parents alive to see this day? b. What of her friends, some going back to her childhood days? Did they see the depths to which she had fallen? 3. Well, while that may have caused more shame, it really did not matter. a. What mattered was that God had seen her direction and her bottom. b. She may have committed her sin behind closed doors, but she always had an audience. c. God watched her. 4. As God watched the demonic entertain demons and David entertain Bathsheba. Pro 15:3 The eyes of the LORD are in every place, beholding the evil and the good. B. The bottom is not just a single platform. 1. The bottom is just another floor in your souls trek downward. 2. Some of you know what I mean. a. You have hit bottom time and time again, each time reaching a new low, a new level of sin, debauchery. shame, guilt, and regret. b. This was not this womans first bottom. (1) The first time she ever committed adultery was a bottom for her. (2) The first time someone gave her cash for her sin was a new bottom for her. (3) The first time she solicited cash for her sin was a new bottom for her. (4) And on she downward she had gone. c. David committed adultery many times. (1) David had multiple wives and many concubines. (2) The bottom here is that he took another mans wife, a friends wife, a dedicated soldier in his own armys wife! 3. Many people today are crashing through bottoms like they are made of tissue paper. a. They are not just spiraling down. b. They have jet packs on at full throttle hurling themselves down, but with every new bottom, at least for a moment, there is that thud. I. The direction of every soul is down. II. At the bottom of every down is a thud. III. With the thud, there was Jesus. A. Notice, I did not say "With EVERY thud, there is Jesus." B. The truth is that there can come a time when even Jesus leaves you. Ge 6:3 And the LORD said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years. Isa 63:10 But they rebelled, and vexed his holy Spirit: therefore he was turned to be their enemy, and he fought against them. 1. It takes a lot to get God to give up on you, but it can be done. 2. America and Americans are doing just that in this age. C. But for this woman, at her bottom was Jesus. John 8:10 When Jesus had lifted up himself, and saw none but the woman, he said unto her, Woman, where are those thine accusers? hath no man condemned thee? 11 She said, No man, Lord. And Jesus said unto her, Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more. 1. This womans direction was down and her down bottom with a thud, but when the door opened, there was Jesus. 2. All she had to do was let Jesus take her off the downward path and put her on the upward path. 3. Let me make that very simple: a. She had to turn her back on her sinful life and let Jesus take control. b. That is called repentance. c. Too many are preaching a repentless gospel today. (1) They say you can have your sin and salvation too. (2) You cannot. You must turn your back on your sin and your rebellion. (3) You must both believe and surrender to Jesus. This womans whole story is not given. What brought her to this point in time is not given in the Bible and what happened after this point in time is not given. I do not know whether she got off the downward elevator or not. I believe she did but the Bible does not say. From our perspective, it does not matter. She lived and died 2,000 years ago. The story that matters to me and I hope to you is your story. What will you do today?