It seems to me that we live today in a “party” culture. It seems every place you turn there are people who’s only purpose for living is a good party. Actually, this is not just a current philosophy of living; it took place in the first century also. During a major feast like the one we are talking about, there would be a great deal of drinking and visiting among friends. When we let ourselves go and overindulge a bit, some of our social inhibitions tend to go right out the window. Such was probably the case in the events we will talk about today. We are in John 8: 1-11 and will be talking about the woman who was caught in the act of adultery.

We are told that after a time of quiet prayer on the Mount of Olives, Jesus had reappeared in the temple courts to teach the people. The Greek word used in the first verse is in the continual tense, so as to give the idea that the people kept on coming to Jesus. While in the midst of His teaching, the Pharisees brought in a woman who had been caught in the act of adultery. Now why they didn’t also bring the offending man has been a subject of a lot of debate. I think you have to understand why the Pharisees brought the woman in the first place. They wanted to trap Jesus. If He directed them to let the woman go, they could naturally accuse Him of being a lawbreaker and not worth the public’s attention. If He directed them to stone the woman, then public opinion would be turned against Jesus, who was known for His compassion for people. They were putting Him in a classic “no win” situation.

The Law in question can be found in Leviticus 20: 10. It says, “If a man commits adultery with another man's wife--with the wife of his neighbor--both the adulterer and the adulteress must be put to death.” There is no a lot of room for leniency in those words. Jesus has no choice but to agree to sentence this woman to death. I’m sure the woman could begin to feel the stones as they struck her. Yet Jesus gives a different twist to the situation by directing that the person in the crowd without any sin in his life be the first one to throw stones. He then dropped back down to His knees and resumed writing in the dirt. One by one, the crowd dispersed. Finally only Jesus is there with the woman, who no doubt could start to breathe a bit easier now. Rather than condemn this woman, He directs her to change her lifestyle.

There are a lot of practical applications that one could glean from this area of the Bible, but I want to delve into the most important of them. Did this event actually happen? If you take a look in the liner notes in your Bible, you should probably see words that read something like this, “The earliest manuscripts and many other ancient witnesses do not have John 7: 53 – 8: 11.” In other words, let’s say you were to take a look at Bible texts from the 2^nd century and these verses are not written, and compare them with text written in the 4^th century that include these verses, you have to assume that they were added at some point. If you also look at the writings of the early church fathers, from the 1^st and 2^nd century, and no one recounts this story, you have to assume that John never wrote these verses. Who wrote these words and when is one of the great mysteries of the Bible. The event they describe could very well have happened and was passed by word of mouth until someone later added them to John’s gospel. The truth is that we just don’t know.

The reality is that the Bible has been demonstrated to be the most reliable book ever written, but there are a few places where small bits of it are in doubt. This is one of those places. It is plainly marked so that no one can misunderstand. There is no attempt to hide a questionable section of the Bible. So what do we do with this story? In my opinion, we read it and we enjoy it. It is even possible for us to take some lesson out of it for our own benefit so long as any lesson we take can be backed up by other, more reliable, sections of the Bible. Since that it a good idea for any lesson we take out of the Bible, it shouldn’t be a big problem.

Day 2 – Light of the World

John 8:12 (NIV) When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, "I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life."

We come now to the second and final speech that Jesus gives while attending the Feast of Tabernacles. It is contained in the entire rest of the 8^th chapter of John. If you read the entire discourse, you will spot a number of famous verses that have been memorized by countless Christians over the ages. This is their home. In this section, you can see them in their context, as they were actually spoken by Jesus.

As we gather in the presence of the Master, we are standing within the treasury of the great Temple in Jerusalem. Though the exact location of the treasury is unknown, most feel that it was located within the colonnades surrounding the Court of Women. That’s where all of the almsgiving took place as it was the most attended place in the Temple by Jews.

Jesus opens His speech by alluding to one of the great ceremonies held during the Feast of Tabernacles. Every night of that week, the Court of Women was brightly illuminated. This was called “The Joy of the Feast.” The origins of this ceremony are obscure, but it is felt that the light symbolized the great hope that occurs each year when the harvest comes in. Of course, the harvest referred both to the crops that Israel grew, but also to a great spiritual harvest that would take place among the Gentile nations when the Messiah came. The Pharisees could not help but to understand the implications that were behind Jesus’ words. That is why, with the very next verse, they begin to attack Jesus’ credibility and His claims.

This is not the first time Jesus had used the illustration of darkness to describe the normal state of man. He used the same language in the 3^rd chapter of John during His discussion in the upper room with Nicodemus. It is man’s normal state to be stumbling around in darkness. Think about most of the people you come in contact with on an every day basis. They are living out their lives trying to have an impact in this world but don’t include God in any of it. They try this and they try that in a constant search for some kind of meaning to their very existence. There are even some who philosophize that there is no meaning to it all, and abandon themselves to a sense of emptiness. Such it is when you stumble around in complete and total darkness; you tend to fall a lot. You tend to bump into things.

To those who join Him, Jesus promises two things that will help to solve the darkness problem. First, He promises a light so that you can see where you are going. When the light comes on, suddenly, there is a clear path on which you can safely navigate your life. Each one of the pits and obstructions can be easily avoided; even the roots growing through the path can be seen and stepped over. The second thing Jesus promises those who follow Him is the light of life. At the end of all things, He promises life. The man stumbling in the darkness lives an average of 70 years and then he dies. The one who follows Jesus obtains the light for all eternity.

One final thing you need to understand, the word Jesus’ uses for “follow” in the Greek language is in the continual tense. That means you have to keep on following. Even if you have a relationship with Jesus, you have to follow Him on a day by day basis in order to stay in the light. It is possible for the Christian to wander away from the light and back to a life of stumbling and bumping into things. Perhaps you are in a period of time where the darkness seems to occupy too much of your existence. You need to get back to following Jesus. You need to pick yourself up, dust off and head back into the light. That means there is much confession and redirection that has to take place in your immediate future. I’m sure you would agree it is a lot surer and a lot less painful to stay on a lighted path. Why not make this a time of self-reflection on where your life is headed right now?

Day 3 – Testimony of Two

In every year since I can remember, there has always been at least one show on television that dealt with the legal profession. I don’t know why we find lawyers so fascinating. In all of the time I have spent in courtrooms, I tend to find them to be largely boring and repetitive. I say this having two good friends who are attorneys. It’s just how many different ways can you ask the same question? Just ask a lawyer. The other reason that I mention this is because the Pharisees present at the time brought the subject up. We will be taking a look at John 8: 14-24 today.

After Jesus made His great statement claiming to be the light sent to remove the darkness from our world, the Pharisees sought to dismiss His claims by using a simple legal argument. In an Israeli court of law, it took the testimony of two witnesses, agreeing together about the truth of a matter, to bring about a solid conviction. These Pharisees start our discussion today by seeming to demand that He present a second witness to validate His claims. Now they weren’t looking for just anyone here. Jesus had twelve men standing with Him that would have gladly testified on his behalf. Obviously that was not what these Pharisees had in mind. Their request was one that Jesus had heard before. They were looking for Him to provide for them a sign that came directly from heaven that would validate His claims once and for all.

The problem with Jesus doing just what the Pharisees wanted would have been that He would have reduced His message to a mere external one. It’s the same temptation that Jesus faced with Satan in the fourth chapter of Matthew. If He had thrown Himself off the pinnacle of the temple, angels would have appeared to set Him down gently right in the middle of the Court of Israel. With today’s temptation, the Pharisees present were looking for some spectacular sign from heaven in order for them to believe Jesus’ claims. The problem was that would have resulted in them being outwardly convinced while inwardly still wallowing in their sin. The whole point of Jesus’ life and ministry was to take care of the sin issue and reconcile the creation back to their creator, God. It was not to convince some hard-headed Pharisees of what they already should have known.

Jesus’ response to their request was to point them back to the Father. His second witness was Israel’s God as written within the entire Torah. All these men had to do was to read God’s word with an open mind and an open heart and they would have understood exactly who Jesus was and the truth of what He said. The difference between the two groups in our story is that they start from different places. As Jesus explains in verses 23 and 24, they are separated by the very nature of their beings. The Pharisees came from that which was below and Jesus came from above. In other words, their origins came from completely opposite directions. Everything these Pharisees believed came from man. They had taken what God had given them and had added so much of man’s thoughts and traditions that one couldn’t see God because of all of man’s crust that covered Him.

So many times in this work, I have attempted to draw a distinct line between faith in its purest form and religion. Too many times I have seen a person reject God because of something that has happened to them that came from a man-made religion. The two are not the same. If you ever want to get an earful, just ask someone about their spiritual background. They will tell you how their church let them down, or didn’t live up to all of their expectations, so they walked out and never intend to come back. If these Pharisees had their way, empty religion is all there would be in this world. Thankfully, Jesus refused to give in to their demands and stayed true to His mission. I have never met a single person who had sought Jesus with an open heart and an open mind only to walk away without any change taking place. Jesus demands that you cast off all of your external forms of religion and focus on what He has to say. This is especially true of those who attend church regularly. We get so hung up on “doing church” that we sometimes forget the relationship that we are supposed to have with our creator. Is today the day when you will finally get “real” with God?

Day 4 – Children of Abraham

The story is told of a soldier in the army of Alexander the Great, who was brought before the great world-conqueror for court-martial. When the emperor had listened to the charges and the evidence, he turned to the soldier facing condemnation, and said, "What is your name?" "Alexander!" was the reply. Again the emperor questioned, "What is your name?" And the second time the soldier answered, "Alexander!" With a cry of rage, the emperor roared, "I say, what is your name?" And when the soldier answered for the third time, "Alexander!" the great general angrily replied, "You say your name is Alexander? You are found guilty of your crime as charged, and now you must pay the penalty. Either change your conduct or change your name, for no man can bear the name of Alexander, my name, and do the things that you have done."

In the first century, a name was not just something that identified you. It also described you. That’s why a guy by the name of Simon would also be known by the name of Cephas and Peter. If they had birth certificates back then, Peter’s would say Simon, son of Jona. All you would have to do is to spend some time with Peter as he is described in the Book of Acts to realize that he was a rock on which one could build a church. The same thing is true in the negative sense with the idea these Pharisees had that they were descendants of Abraham. We are in John 8: 31-41. You might want to read this section of the Bible through a couple of times in order to solidify in your mind what Jesus is talking about.

You can almost see Jesus shift His eyes to the disciples in the crowd when He uttered verses 31 and 32. Henry Blackaby in his book, Experiencing God, forever changed my view of verse 31 when he talked about Jesus’ claim in John 14: 6, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” He said that truth is not a concept or an idea. Truth is a person. Keeping that thought in your mind reread John 8: 32 substituting the word “Jesus” for the word “truth.” “And you shall know Jesus and Jesus will set you free.” Do you see now the entire verse changes its meaning? It was Jesus’ intent to fortify within the hearts of His followers that the truth that they sought could only be found in whom they followed. They were at yet another spiritual crossroad were they could easily be swayed by these unbelieving Pharisees. Yet the Pharisees would not let Him take the focus off of them for even a brief moment as they interrupt His thought by claiming their descendancy going back to Abraham.

Jesus goes on to point out the difference between doing the things that Abraham did and believing the things that Abraham believed and merely having Abraham as a great grandparent. In Genesis, we read that Abraham believed God and actually changed the course of his life based upon that belief. As a result, he was credited by God as being righteous. It didn’t matter what church he came from. It didn’t matter who his parents were. All that mattered was that he believed, and he acted upon that belief. The Pharisees in that crowd claimed to be related to Abraham all the while they were plotting to murder God’s son. Do you see the disconnect there? Jesus’ only crime was that He taught them the things that He had heard directly from God. When Abraham heard God, he obeyed. When these Pharisees heard God, they rejected. That’s because they were more in tune with a different father, about which we will spend more time tomorrow.

In looking back at the story that we began today with, Alexander the Great was greatly distressed when he came in contact with a young man who bore the same name as him, but did not act like that name meant anything to him. We Christians do that all the time. We think that by attending a church and mouthing the right words, we get to use the name, Christian. Believers were first called Christians in Antioch because their behavior, their beliefs and their lives were like Christ. When people saw them on the street, they knew they were Christians right away. It showed up as a natural result of what had occurred inside their hearts. Will the people that you run into today see Jesus Christ or will they just see you?

Day 5 – Who’s Your Daddy?

Oh, my job keeps getting’ easier

As time keeps slippin’ away

I can imitate the brightest light

And make your night look just like day

I put some truth in every lie

To tickle itchin’ ears

You know I’m drawin’ people

Just like flies

‘Cause they like what they hear.

Oh, heaven’s just a state of mind

My books read on your shelf.

Oh have you heard that God is dead

I made that one up myself

They’re dabblin’ in magic spells

They get their fortunes read

You know they heard the truth

But turned away

And they followed me instead.

By Keith & Melody Green (1977)

What stands above is a rather old song from one of my favorite singer, songwriters. The song is called “No One Believes in Me Anymore” or “Satan’s Boast.” The entire song is written as if Satan is telling us all of the strategies he uses to trick and deceive people into passing on one of the greatest gifts that could ever be given to humanity. The reason I bring this all up is that we are at the place in Jesus’ great discourse given at the Feast of Tabernacles where He really tells it like it is. Join with me in reading John 8: 42-47.

We sometimes misunderstand exactly why these Pharisees had such a hard time in believing in the message and the mission of Jesus Christ. Well in these few verses we are given the exact reason. These Pharisees were following the wrong daddy. There was a reason that they could lie to Jesus when they disavowed any knowledge of a plot against His life. There was a reason that they could plot to murder in innocent man simply because He didn’t fit their mold of what their Messiah would be. It is because lies and murder are as natural to their daddy is breathing is to mine. In fact, Jesus says, “You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father's desire. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.” They couldn’t hear what Jesus was saying to them because they were morally incapable of hearing it.

The Pharisees felt that they had already dealt with the whole sin issue. They were the most righteous people the world had ever known. After all, they spent their every waking hour obeying even the smallest part of their rules. That should be good enough. It’s too bad they had left God out of the equation. The fact that they could even consider it a possibility for a human to be morally perfect, when the entire Old Testament told them otherwise means that they had bought the line that had been fed them from the very pits of hell, itself.

When you read your newspaper about the murder and the mayhem that goes on daily, it is easy to believe that you are really not that bad after all. Unfortunately God doesn’t use the common, every day axe murderer as the standard you have to beat in order to get into Heaven. The standard God uses is Himself, the perfect and holy God. When compared to that standard, every person who ever lived falls a way short. The Pharisees bought Satan’s lie that they would be all right on their own merits. It might not be wise for you to make the same mistake.

Day 6 – I Am

I can remember a number of years ago there was a gathering of “Biblical scholars” in Northern California. At the end of their time together, they came out with one of the most outlandish statements that I have ever heard. They announced to the press that they had just discovered that Jesus never claimed to be God. They said that it was the disciples who came up with that idea and that Jesus would be quite embarrassed if He knew that He was being made out to be God. Since that time, I have come to realize that there are a lot of people in the world who truly believe that Jesus never claimed to be God. If you are one of those people, or have entertained any thoughts like that, today is for you. I would like you to turn in your Bibles to John 8: 48-59 as we close Jesus’ second teaching during the Feast of Tabernacles.

This section begins with the Pharisees delivering one of the foulest racial slurs that they could possibly muster; that Jesus was demon-possessed and a Samaritan. The charge was that Jesus was full of Satan, Himself, and His only motive was to lure the People of God away from their true religion and to go after the false religion of the Samaritans.

Jesus’ answer to that slur was to ignore the racial part of it and answer only the charge of demon-possession. He teaches that the final judgment of God is the only opinion that will matter. Man can say all he wants, but it’s only God’s view at the end that is important. He also finishes the argument that we talked about yesterday in that He calls God, “My Father”, to differentiate God from the father these Pharisees followed. Jesus tells these doubters that His Father will be the one to Glorify Him. He then proceeds to make a truly unique claim, that those who keep His word will never see death.

Do you notice how these Pharisees immediately jump on that argument? You can almost hear the venom in the words, “Who do you think you are?” Their mind drifts back to the man from whom everyone in that crowd traced their origins, Abraham. Could this man possibly be claiming to be even greater than the founder of our way of life? Abraham was considered by all those present in that crowd to be a man of God, yet he had died, as had all of the spokespersons of God who came after him. Yet this man has the audacity to claim that His followers would not die. How ridiculous.

What these men didn’t understand was the fact that Abraham’s mail claim to fame was that he believed God. He believed God when he went from his own home to a part of the world that knew little of God, the creator. As he lived in the land of Canaan, Abraham was that light that God used to influence those around him to look to the one, true God. It was to Abraham that God had promised an everlasting covenant. It was to Abraham’s seed that God had granted permanent ownership of the land they now stood in. Jesus is using Abraham’s life as a laser pointer that was directed right back at Himself as the fulfillment of all that Abraham was. Of course the Pharisees missed the point. That almost seems inevitable after the way this argument has been going. Yet what the Pharisees said is true, Jesus had been alive and Abraham had seen him. If you doubt this take a look at Genesis 18 as God in human form visits Abraham at Mamre. Who do you think that was?

We will close today by taking a look at one of the most extraordinary claims ever made in the Bible. Take a look at John 8: 58. In this verse, Jesus is claiming to be the great “I Am.” It is the same name that God called Himself in Exodus 3: 14. If you have any doubt of what Jesus is claiming just take a look at the verses that follow and look at the reaction of the Pharisees present. They knew what Jesus had said and exactly what He meant. Since they didn’t believe it, they were getting ready to stone Him to death for His claim to be the God of the Universe. That ‘s why I had a really good laugh when I read about those Biblical Scholars who tried to sell the idea that Jesus never claimed to be God. He did so right here in the section of the Bible we talked about today. The real issue, however, always comes back to you. The entire issue about Jesus’ claims to being God is settled right here, right now. It now comes down to what you believe. If you believe that the life of Jesus Christ, the things He did and the things He said, are the things that God would do and say, then all that is left, according to Roman 10: 13 is for you to call upon Him and be saved. If you don’t believe that He is God or the things he did and said came from God, then you might as well join these Pharisees and start collecting rocks.

Day 7 – Who Sinned?

Is there a direct correlation between sin in a person’s life and the bad things that happen to us in life? I don’t know about you, but I have always tended to think so, at least in my inner thoughts. When I do something that I know I shouldn’t do, I almost expect God to punish me. While I know this feeling isn’t scriptural, sometimes my feelings haven’t read the Bible. There are times when I believe that the opposite is also true. After spending my time doing some service for God, I am also disappointed when something bad happens to me. I somehow feel that God must not appreciate my efforts or else why would this happen to me? Have you ever felt this way? If so, today’s discussion may be of help.

We have arrived at the 9^th chapter of John and the entire chapter is all about a man, blind from birth, who was healed by Jesus. The timing of this healing was perhaps on the very next day after the discourse that we have been talking about prior to this. It was, at most, the very next Sabbath. The place of the healing must have been just outside the temple grounds. I say that because that was where beggars came each day to solicit charity in order to survive.