He Knows You

Transcript

Alright, thank you very much. And hello again, radio friends. How in the world are you? Yes, this is your friend, Bob Cook, and I am interested in how you are. And I pray every time I go before these microphones that God may have some special word of help, an encouragement, an inspiration for you, my precious friends.

We’re looking at the Gospel of John, we’ve come now to chapter eight. The story of our Lord’s response to a cleverly laid trap which was facing him, the scribes and the Pharisees brought unto him a woman taken in adultery. And they said, “Now, Moses said that a person like this should be stoned. But what do you say?” “This,” they said, tempting him that they might have some way to accuse him. You get the idea, I’m sure, do you not? If he said, “Do not stone her,” he was violating the law of Moses. If he said, “Yes, stone her,” he was violating the law of Rome, and they could accuse him either way. “With that, now we’ve got him.” Small thought here. Have you ever noticed how hard people work to oppose God and to do the wrong thing?

I would suppose that your average thief or pickpocket or robber or mugger or criminal of any kind ends up working far harder at his or her nefarious trade than the rest of the people who are engaged in honest pursuits. We work very hard to do wrong. “The way of the transgressors is hard,” the Bible says. And there’s never been any change to that truth uttered as it was thousands of years ago. Well, they thought they’d lay the trap for him. If he said, “Yes, stone her,” he was upholding Moses but violating the law of Rome. If he said, “No, don’t stone her,” he was violating the law of Moses, so they thought they had him. He said they continued asking him, harassing him, “Come on, come on. Give us an answer. Come on, now.” He stooped down and with his finger wrote on the ground as though he heard them not. I don’t know what he wrote. This is the only occasion on which the Lord Jesus Christ has said to have written anything. His life and his ministry had a much greater effect than anything that he would have written.

But now, he’s writing on the ground and there’s all sorts of conjecture. Some people think he wrote Scripture, passages that had to do with this. Someone else has suggested that he began listing the personal sins with the names of the people standing before him, an interesting concept if indeed it happened. We don’t know what he wrote, but they kept on asking him. And so, he stood up again and said, “He that is without sin among you, let him first cast the stone at her.” And again, he stooped down and wrote on the ground, and they which heard it, being convicted by their own conscience, went out one by one, beginning at the eldest even unto the last. And Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst. When Jesus lifted up himself and saw none but the woman he said, “Woman, where are those thine accusers? Hath no man condemned thee?” She said, “No man, Lord.” He said, “Neither do I condemn thee, go, sin no more.”

Our Lord Jesus… Oh, there’s a couple of thoughts here that just popped out at me. One is, our Lord Jesus is aware of everything about you, beloved. David Morken said to me one time before we started a prayer session together, just the two of us, he said, “Bob, God is not gonna discover anything about you between now and the time you say Amen. He knows it all.” “Our Lord Jesus did not need that any should tell him a man,” as we read earlier in the Gospel of John here, “for he knew all men.” When people were grumbling in their own minds about him, he said, “Why murmur ye in your hearts?” He knew what they were thinking. And so as this eager crowd of conspirators stood before him, he knew their secret lives, he knew what they had been doing and saying.

Tell yourself again, beloved. God knows it all. You see, the essence of confessing your sin is not simply revealing it, but agreeing with God who already knows about it. There was a witness on the stand years ago, who steadfastly denied any wrongdoing in a court out in California. “No, I’m clean. You haven’t got a thing on me.” And then, someone brought into the courtroom and placed as an exhibit in evidence, a recording. What had happened was that they had placed a microphone in the limousine owned by this witness so that the conversations that were held in that car, presumably quite private, were all recorded and were now brought into evidence. And they began then to play back this recording of conversations that had been held in the privacy of that black limousine. And at first, the witness’ face was flushed with embarrassment and then drained of all color as he realized the gravity of his situation. And finally he lifted his hand and he said, “Turn that thing off, I’m guilty.”

When we confess our sins, it’s not telling God anything he didn’t already know. It’s agreeing with him. The essence of the word ‘confess’ in the Greek verb is homologeo, which means to say the same thing. If we say the same thing about ourselves as God has already been saying, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Would you dare, therefore, today to be brutally honest with God about yourself and your needs? The first step toward changing your life and lifestyle is not to move away and get into a different environment, or different circumstances, or even a different job, or a different wife or husband. That is not the way to change your problems. The root of your problems, beloved, is inside of you.

Now I know some will disagree and say, “You don’t know my husband. You don’t know my wife. You don’t know my boss. You don’t know my neighborhood.” And you’re right ’cause I don’t live inside of your skin. But I have to tell you that everybody lives at sometime or other in circumstances that are not what we wish they would be. It is not the circumstances that determine your destiny, but the person you are inside. “Guard thy heart with all diligence,” said the wise man, “For out of it are the issues of life.” That word ‘issues’ is our idea of the brakes, the good bakes, and the bad brakes in life. Guard your heart, make sure your heart is right with God because the brakes in life depend upon the kind of person you are inside. “Out of the heart, the man speaketh,” the Bible says.

Now having said that, let me just remind you that if you will, beloved, be real honest with God about the kind of person you are, and the needs that you have, and the failings that soil your life’s record. Bring them all to Him. He will cleanse, and He will forgive, and He will give to you a fresh page of life upon which He with the nail-pierced hand will begin to write a story of grace and glory. Let Jesus take charge because He knows it already.

There’s another thought here that occurred to me as I read one of the commentators, and I hadn’t really thought of it that way. No doubt this dear woman was terribly embarrassed and afraid as she was dragged into the presence of the Holy Son of God. Face to face now with Him. And after that little interlude when He had been writing on the ground and had said, “He that is without sin among you let him first cast a stone at her,” and all of the accusers left. Now it says, the woman was left alone with Jesus. Jesus was left alone and the woman standing in the midst, just the two of them there, face to face. And this commentator that I was reading, just this morning actually, in going over all of the things that I want to say about this, reminded me that you never need to fear a direct confrontation with the Lord Jesus Christ. There she was with all her sin, and need, and embarrassment, and shame face to face with the Holy spotless sinless Son of God, but He didn’t condemn her. He sent her out to a new life. “Go,” said he, “and sin no more.”

You never need to be afraid of bringing your life in direct contact with Jesus Christ. Most people are. The fear of a confrontation with God, with the Lord Jesus is innate in everyone of our fallen, sinful hearts. Adam said, “I was afraid, and I hid myself.” Why? Because he was a sinner. And so, the fear of meeting face to face, so to speak, with God is there. You don’t have to be afraid. Jesus said, “Come unto me all ye that labor, and are heavy laden and I will give you rest. He that cometh unto me, I will in no wise cast out.” And that verse that we just looked at in John 7, “If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink.” See, our Lord Jesus welcomes you with your need, and with your embarrassment, and with the record of your shortcomings, and failures, and mistakes. He doesn’t ask you to be any different from what you are. When you come to Him, he makes the difference. Said he to this woman, “Go and sin no more.” Would you let the Lord Jesus start to make a difference in the inside you? The real you that lives inside that body, would you let Him start to make a difference there? So that your relationships in life will be transformed as a result? I hope you will.

Another thought here. These are not in the nature of exposition. You people who are Bible expositors, don’t hold me responsible for any given outline of thought here. These are just things that hit me as I read and study the Word of God. People who are eager to criticize usually have something to hide themselves. I think most of us who have lived awhile have discovered that a person who criticizes others vigorously generally has something in his own life that needs cleansing. Be careful of criticism. Be careful of censoriousness. Be careful of that vindictive something that wants to condemn others. “Judge not,” says the Bible, “that ye be not judged.” Well, we get at this passage again the next time we get together.

Dear Father today, make us like the Lord Jesus. I ask in His name, Amen.

Till I meet you once again by way of radio, walk with the King today and be a blessing!