Transcription
[Music] Chapter 8 of the Gospel of St. John, verses 3 through 12. Glory to God! If it had not been for the Lord that was on my side, where would I be? Lord, we think.
And the scribes and Pharisees brought unto him a woman taken in adultery. And when they had set her in the midst, they say unto him, Master, this woman was taken in adultery, in the very act. 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. And so he heard them not. So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself, and said unto them, He that is without sin among you, let him cast a stone at her. And again he stooped down, and wrote on the ground. And they, somebody say, they which heard it, being convicted by their own conscience, went out one by one, beginning of the eldest, even unto the last.
And Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst. When Jesus had lifted up himself, and saw none but the woman, he said unto her, Woman, where are those thine accusers? Have no man condemned thee? She said, No man, Lord. And Jesus said unto her, Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more.
Then Jesus said, speak Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of Life.
I want you to look at this from a different perspective. In verse 3, it says, "The scribes and the Pharisees brought unto him a woman." This crowd of people that thereafter is referred to as "they" and "them." They and them, as always. Have you noticed that? That it's always a "they" and a "them."
I want to talk to you this morning from the subject, "Don't Run With The Herd." Don't run with the herd. Don't run with the herd.
Let's pray for a moment. Father, I thank you for what you're about to do in the midst of your people. As I've opened up the book to share with them what you have planted down inside of me, let the word be made flesh while it's being preached today. Let it give seed to the sower and bread to the ingester. I thank you here in advance for what you're going to do. In Jesus' name, we pray. Somebody shout, "Amen!" You may be seated in the presence of God. Yeah, let's go to work.
I want to take just a moment and begin this sermon this morning by talking about what a hard job it is to be a mission, to be a bishop, is to be a pastor of pastors. I thought that pastoring pastors might be easier than pastoring people, but little did I realize that pastoring pastors is often more difficult than pastoring people. Because when people have problems, they have it unto themselves, and it's generally a family matter or a personal issue or a struggle that they have that only their kin come in contact with. But when leaders have problems, you have to deal with "they" and then "them." And "they" and "them" are really hard to deal with.
I stepped into a particular situation where a pastor had fallen into error. It's not error, but sin, and made a mistake. And I came into the room with the leadership of that church, and they were upset. They were really upset. They were hurt, and they were angry, and they were upset. And I pulled up a chair and sat in the front of the room and let them talk. And they talked, and they cried at me. First, because, see, there is a mechanism that is natural for the parent to correct the child. There is not a mechanism that is natural for the child to correct the parent. So, so there's chaos that breaks out. And part of the chaos is due from the fact that we deify leaders, robbing them of their humanity. We expect them to be more than us. We build them up to a high place and then kill them for not living up to the place we put them, not realizing that they are but clay like us. That's why you ought not let people worship you. They can appreciate you and admire you, but don't worship you, because we're not God.
Finally, after about an hour or so of going on, maybe longer than that, and by this time people were falling out and crying and grabbing my leg and tearing on. I said, "Wait a minute. I understand the trauma. I understand being hurt. I understand being upset. I understand the young people being hurt and disappointed because they haven't lived long enough to understand life. I said, but some of you are gray as me, and it is impossible to get this gray and not encountered failure." And then I went on and said, "Look back, old man. You owe now, but look back." Look back. It's funny how we, we, we judge people but vindicate ourselves. And, and I want to talk about that for you to begin to think about what happens. It's, it's, it's a, what sociologists call a herd mentality. That when people start reacting in a certain way and it gains some momentum, other people just jump on. Facts become irrelevant. Truth becomes a sad object out of the way. People just get on. You see it on social media all the time. You get people furious. Don't even know what we're furious about. This tweeting, and all of a sudden it's trending on Twitter. That's trending here. It's trending. It's trending. It's a mob. And you can jump in a mob real quick. You can become a part of a herd real quick.
Because I want, I want to show you, because I know you think you're an individual and unique, and that you never get caught up in herds or posses or gangs or groups. But there are all kinds of little herds that exist in your office. There are herds. Yeah. In fact, if you don't join the clique, the club, the herd, sometimes there are little ways that they have what we would call "throwing shade" at you because you are not one of "they" or "them." They'll punish you for thinking, for having your own mind, for having your own opinion. They'll punish you for waiting on the facts. They'll punish you for waiting to know the truth.
A case came up recently, and everybody was in an uproar about it. And I happen to know somebody who was investigating the case from the inside. And I talked to them. I said, "How much of what we read in the press is true to the evidence you have gathered?" I think they said something like 60%. I said, "Well, I think I'm gonna wait before I jump into that. I want to see what that other 40% might be." But there is a tendency to be quick and jump in "they" and "them." That's what's wrong with our, our media today. Give me just a moment. I'm gonna get there.
See, when we used to have the six o'clock news, you had 24 hours to better the story. But now that we got a 24-hour news cycle, it's a race to get the story out there quicker than the opposing news group. And so sometimes, in the process of being the first one to get it out, you don't get to vet it. And once you didn't vet it, it has already infected the public. And then you have what is called a senior editor who is deciding what stories are going to be published, and what's not going to be published. And whatever gets the highest ratings gets the coverage. Any time you see the news stay on a particular subject, it is because the ratings are up. If the ratings would drop, they would change that story right away. And so, in the process of getting the ratings high, give me a minute, so that they can charge more for the advertising time, we are constantly being infected and affected to be at war with each other. And, and each group is telling the other group how they are. And pretty soon, we jump on the bandwagon.
This is not new. This, this is a human proclivity. And it is rooted in the fact that that we all want to be accepted. We all want to fit in. We all, it is a natural proclivity to want to belong, to be a part. It's not, it's not natural to like to be disconnected. We like to be liked. We like to be included. We like to belong. And so, even though peer pressure is a term that we use for young people, peer pressure continues all in your life. If you know, if you don't say this, you're not truly conservative. And you don't say this, we're not gonna let you be a liberal. If we don't say this, you, you're not really truly Baptist. If you don't say this, you're not really truly Pentecostal. If you don't do this, it's a real Catholic. We all want to belong. If you don't say this, it's not really black. You're black, but you're my black. You know, we'll burn your black card every minute. I don't know about other races. I don't know whether they put y'all out. They will put us out.
This, this propensity to, to, to give in to "they" and "them" has led to the suicide of children, the bullying of kids till they kill themselves because a bunch of posse got together and started attacking a child they don't even know, don't have the facts, don't know the person. It just becomes popular to dislike Susie. And now we find Susie dead with the belt wrapped around her neck because "they" and "them." And you can't always get to see who "they" or "them" are, because sometimes they will call you like their concern. [Applause] John-Michael, talk to me. But in reality, they just want to get the scoop so that they can take everybody. Yeah, I got the facts. I'll talk to it myself. Better than so you don't know because "they" and "them" have spies. [Applause]
Everybody from Sigmund Freud all the way to contemporary people have talked about this propensity to do this. I mean, Sigmund Freud to Malcolm Gladwell. Malcolm Gladwell's our generation. Sigmund Freud is quite a bit before me. All of them talked about this. This is not new. My couple Gladwell talks about it. It's a book called "Tribes." They have new names for it, but being a part of the herd is not new. Sigmund Freud talks about how we want to belong and we need a sense of family because we were birthed into a unit, a group of people. With that, that longing for inclusion drives us to become a part of a gang, even if it means apartheid, even if it means slavery, even if it means the Holocaust, even if it means snatching a woman out of the bed. They say she was caught in the act of adultery. And I thought, how did this many people? I mean, I'm a grown man. I understand why a lad of three what that is and how that might look like. I just wondered, all these people got in the room. They emphasize, it's not just that we heard why she was caught in the very act. And by the time they bring her to Jesus, a mob of people have interrupted Jesus' service to break in and say, "We caught this woman in the very act of adultery. We did! We, we, we caught her in the act of adultery. What are you going to do about it?"
Now, most of the time, we focus on the woman. And there's a lot to be said about this woman because my second question is, come on down with your bro. Come on down with ways to bang. If we're going to be just, if we're going to execute justice, why is it that we have one standard for the woman and another standard for the men? I'm not gonna get into that. Y'all tell y'all don't want to talk about this. This ethic way in which we handle genders is interesting here because she was caught in the act. The brother was released. "Boys will be boys." But the woman is held to another. It's hard to be held to another standard. It's kind of unfair when two people do the same thing, but one person is handled differently from the other person. That's what scares me about people. I would rather fall into the hands of God than to fall into the hands of people. Because at least God has mercy. Once people decide that they're going to stall you, very seldom will they turn by. Once they decided they don't like you. [Applause]
So whoever caught her in the act and snatched her out, all of a sudden our herd is building. And I wondered, while I was preparing this message, if there was anybody else in here that could relate to being attacked by a herd? People attacking you. You don't even know why they're attacking you. You just look around and you got a whole gang of people to fight, and they don't even have all the facts. See, the hard thing about being me is sometimes I will have facts because I know the inside story, but I can't defend myself because if I defend myself, I had to divulge classified information. So my integrity necessitates my silence, and the herd gets to speak. And I have to be disciplined enough to hold my peace because if I lose my integrity, I can win the fight. But if I lose my integrity, or y'all don't hear what I'm saying to you. Tax evaders say, "Don't run with the herd."
The herd made their mistake is that they brought her to Jesus. If they wanted to be successful, they should have just told her where they found her. But they and them got together, the scribes and the Pharisees. They and them got together and brought her to Jesus. This of us agree me to Jesus. Bring me to Jesus. Don't just bring me to church. Bring me to Jesus. And concern today, brother, I'm concerned because a lot of people today don't know the difference between church and Jesus. They think conversion is coming to church. They came to church, but they never come to Jesus. So they never really have a real relationship with Jesus. They're just having an experience with them. And they don't raise their hands because they love the Lord. They raise their hands because everybody else is. They don't say Hallelujah because they're grateful. They say Hallelujah because everybody on the row is. [Applause] [Applause] That they need to belong. So they learn the lingo and they learn the language. Dr. James, and after a while, they shout like I said, they move like us, and they wave like us. But down on the inside, they are none of us. Paul said, "They came out from us, that it might be revealed that they were not of us." For had they been of us, they would have continued with us. Over here. Well, said some people leaving you is a favor, because it is possible to be with us and not be of us. And eventually, if you're not really of us, you will give up on being with us because you had a hidden agenda all the while. And as soon as I don't do what you want me to do, now you leave. You're not leaving because I didn't do it. You leave because you were not of us. Go ahead. You better love us. No doubt. You would have continued. My God, I'm gonna get to by c/d myself. Are you hearing what I'm saying to you?
They brought this woman into it, down at the feet of Jesus, and said, "The law of Moses says that anyone caught in the act of adultery should be stoned." Not all of you that keep rightly saying, "We are under the law." [Applause] If we are still under the law, you're asking for forgiveness is not enough. Give me a rock. Let me bust your head open. Because if you really believe that, you need to eat up some of these rocks. I'm getting ready to throw. Because the law of Moses said, "Oh, you're quiet this morning." [Applause]
This, they said, not because, not because they were so moved by the atrocious behavior of the victim. No, no, no, no, no. They were just using her to tempt Jesus, to see if they could trip him up. Do you not know that people will kill you after somebody else that's got nothing to do with you if you fool around and get in the wrong? This woman is laying naked on the floor, clothes ripped and shredded apart, covering herself as best she can, humiliated and disgraced, scandalized by self-righteous, indignant people. She dolls at any moment the rocks are going to come sailing at her head. She is not oblivious to the fact that the customs of the times allowed for stoning. Imagine being stoned. Imagine people throwing stones at you, lacerating your skin and your flesh, and blood coming down out of your forehead until they finally knock you down unconscious and continue to throw rocks until they can't see you anymore. Rumors are rocks. Rumors of rocks. And if enough people throw them, after a while, they can't see you anymore. All they can see is what they heard about you. And every time you spread the rumor, you have joined the herd. Every time you retweet it, repost it, text it, you have joined the herd.
They brought her to Jesus because the law condemned her to be stoned. If Jesus says no, then he has not respected the law, and we are scale up under the law in the Gospels. We can't be up under grace because the New Testament cannot be enforced until the testator dies. The testator's are not dead, so we can't have a new covenant. So once again, the enemy is trying to trap God using God against himself. I wish I had time. This is not a new trick. This is an old trick that goes back to the Garden of Eden, where Satan gets Eve to take of the fruit and give it to Adam. And now what God hates and what God loves is fused together. If he saves what he loves, he'll save what he hated. If he hates what he hates, he'll hate what he loved. Salvation is always God's deliverer. The enemy cannot create anything because he's not a creator. So everything he's doing to you has been done before. And now the pain is added again. Don't run with the herd. This time, if Jesus says Moses was wrong, they'd say, "Gotcha." And if he agrees with Moses, the woman is dead. That's, that's what leadership is. Hard decisions faced with two opposing ideas. If I do this, I'm gonna have this problem. If I do that, I'm gonna have that problem. And many, many times, you have to find that narrow alley in between the two to survive. Write that down because you're gonna need that. You got, you, you gotta get past there and get past them without killing you. That's not always easy. That's not always. People always will tell you what to do about the situation, but it's not always easy to be you. That's why you can't listen at your girlfriends got your girlfriends to lead you wrong. All your little single girlfriends tell you, "You ought to leave." You ain't got my back, no way. Shut up. Everybody knows what you ought to do about your situation, and they can't fix their own situation. Don't run with the herd. I will get good in a minute.
And when they brought in Jesus, and they brought in there and said, "What says?" Now, what's so cool about Jesus is that he didn't say nothing. He didn't say anything. Instead, he stooped down and started writing in the dirt. And he's doing it again. He's doing what the Father did in the creation. The first time we see God doing anything in the creation, he is writing in the dirt. He has stooped down and started playing in the dirt. So when they think they have Jesus trapped with their old trick, he uses his old tricks. He says, "How you want to play the whole game? He said, "I'm gonna play the old game too." And he doesn't answer them a word. He stoops down and starts playing in the dirt. Just playing in the dirt.
The power of the text, it's not in the words of the text. It is in the silence of a master. It is, it is his refusal to play their game. It is his courage to be different. It is his ability to be an individual and not succumb to the requests of the herd. It is his ability to stand apart from the rest and dare to be different in the face of criticism. And his, his silence that screams the loudest at me, that sometimes the best thing you can say to an enemy is nothing at all. His silence speaks to me. But his stooping blows my mind. Because if his silence is powerful, his stooping is even more powerful. Because I mean, a God that can stoop. He stooped down to something that couldn't come up. His stooping says to me, how far God is willing to go to get me. That when I couldn't get up to him, he came down to me. And he stooped down. Whoa! Thank you for being the kind of God that against your hands dirty. You're surrounded by all these holy people, but their God is getting his hands dirty. You're surrounded by all these righteous people, but Jesus has got his hands. He stooped down from eternity into time. He stooped down from the celestial to the terrestrial. He stooped down from angels to be born in a manger. He stooped down from his omniscience and his omnipresence down to be a man wrapped in a clay bodyguard. Stooped down is the Gospel story. That's why everybody who's ever been in adultery, had ever been in sin, or ever been high, or ever been drunk, or ever been nude, or ever done something indecent, that's why you ought to be shouting! [Applause] You ought to be shouting! You ought to be shouting because we're not sagging a God just so high that he won't stoop. You ain't got to tell your business, but touch your neighbor and tell him, "He stooped down for me." He stooped down for me. He stooped down. He stooped down for me. He stooped down for me. He stooped down for me. He stooped down for me. He stooped down for me. When I was in trouble, he stooped down for me. When they were trying to kill me, he stooped down for me. When I was killing myself, he stooped down for me. That's why I praise it. That's why I rejoice. That's why I give him the faith. That's why [Applause] I couldn't reach him. I couldn't reach him. I couldn't reach higher. I didn't live good enough. I couldn't pray long enough. I couldn't walk straight enough. I thought I'd never be able to come up to your standard of holiness. And he said, "Don't worry about it, boy." And he just [Applause] tell you later. We got a stooping Jesus here. He'll stoop Jesus. He'll stoop down for you. He'll stoop down for you. He'll come where you are. He started. He started writing in the dirt. I could, I could close right there without a word. He preached without a word. He arrested the enemy without a word. He rebuked Satan without a word. He stopped this seller without a word. He did it all in his silence and his stooping. And his silence, he refused to join the herd. Thank the Lord for not joining the herd, for not playing the game, for not meeting the vidiians so bad that you want me. You could have rocked me because I was wrong. See, I can't, I can't say I wasn't wrong. I can't say I didn't do it. What they said about me is true. You, you couldn't, you could've thrown me. But just stooped down. See, we've lost the gospel. We still got chance, but we lost the gospel. Now we got people praising God about cars and stock market, said new hacks and new coal. Used to be, we had people praising God because he stooped down and he looked no and he saved me and he washed me of the blood that is daddy's. Sigasi. You hardly ever get a primer questioning more from some mother praying that her son would be saved. What happened to us? Oh, they want prayer. We need about to go to jail. He's in trouble. Something like it. They don't want prayer bad enough to bring them to church till they get in trouble, 'cause that's an inconvenience. Now they're getting ready to go to jail. Now they want a letter from me, a letter written about a child I have never seen because you didn't want to wake Jimmy up. [Applause] Now they're gonna wake him up every morning at five o'clock. They're gonna tell him when they eat. They're gonna tell him when to go to the bathroom. They're gonna tell him when he can have a shower. They're gonna tell him when he can see daylight 'cause you didn't want to get him out of the bed. Come on, somebody. Stats say that children who are raised in church are 70% more likely to become Christians when they're adults. But if you act like it wasn't important when they was little, now don't quote all in scriptures now that they go into jail. Why would you scriptures before? [Applause] I don't care how other people are raising their kids. [Applause]
So Jesus, he didn't break the law. He didn't tell him the law wasn't good. He didn't say the law wasn't right. He didn't say that the law was abolished or that the law was over. He just said he added an addendum to the law. And he said, "He that is without fault, throw the first one." There's an important thing here, because if you stop the first one, you stop it all. So he put the stipulation on the first one. "He that is without fault amongst you, cast the first stone." And if they can't get the first one, you can't get to the second one. He didn't put a stipulation on the second or the third. It's on the first. So if you stop it at the first, you all have to deal with the second or the third. "He that is without fault among you, let him cast the first stone." And then it gets good. That's, that's when it really gets good. Because there are four points that leapt out at me. One, they had convicted her without a trial and brought her up under condemnation. But they brought the condemned woman to Jesus, in whom there is no, there is no condemnation. In Jesus, so they're bringing condemnation to no condemnation. He didn't come to condemn. He came the same. They came to condemn. They came to kill and steal and destroy. That's what they came to do. But he came that you might have. And when Jesus stood up and said, "He that is without fault among you, cast the first stone," and didn't even wait for them to respond, stooped again. Because once you plant the seeds, you gotta let the seed work. And the Bible says the next two words I'm going to use is, "They were convicted." They were convicted. While he's writing, because he made them stop and think. The difference between intelligence and ignorance is thinking. The one thing the herd will never want you to do is think. They want you to follow, but they don't want you to think. They want you to him and take them, but they don't want you to think. They don't want you to think. They want you to obey, but they don't want you to think. They don't want you to think. And Jesus gave them time to think. "He that's without fault among you, let him cast the first stone." And then they started remembering. See, that's what I meant when I was telling old men, I can understand the young men being hurt 'cause you have lived long enough to see enough failure not to be critical of judgment. Oh, you think you know everything, but ain't no way you gonna hit this gray and you ain't done some stupid. You know, I wish somebody over 50 would make some noise at me. To this age without doing something stupid. Now, you won't fall out on the floor and act shocked like you have never seen what you have likely done. If you didn't do it, you did something like it. [Applause] And that's what I don't understand about church people. How quickly we forget that the same mercy that you needed to talk to me, the same grace that you needed, the same master you needed for your child, I need it for my child. The same grace you need it for your life, you can get caught up in a mob and forget. Can I go deeper? I was riding in a taxicab in South Africa with a man seven years after their apartheid. And, and he was a white South African. Apartheid was brutally about race. And I was asking him, I said, he was telling me how hard apartheid was on him and how he lost everything and was starting over again. Now he's driving a taxi. And how difficult it was. I had sympathize. My heart went out for that man. Do you realize? Do you realize that your success was built on someone else's soul? And, and, and he said, he said to me something that was life-changing. He said, "I didn't really see it. He said, "I didn't really see it. I was in it. It looked natural." [Music] And, and instead of condemning him, I wanted to understand him. Because anything that we don't understand will repeat itself again. He said, "It wasn't my normal. Everybody was doing it." He was running with the herd. It is easy to run with the herd. Everybody have herds. Rich folks have herds. Poor folks have herds. Hip-hop artists have herds. Preachers have herds. Doctors have herds. It all. You said everybody got herds. Black folks got herds. White folks got. Everybody got herds. But you gotta be careful 'cause a herd will run you into destruction. You, you remember when the demons got in the pigs? And the Bible says it's a herd ran into the water and drowned. Following the herd will get you killed. Following the herd will get you shot before you're 30. Fall into herd will in your life before it begins. Following the herd will make you hurt people not because you're a bad person, but belonging to the herd becomes more important than using your common sense. And Jesus spoke to him and said, "Can I preach this?" Jesus says to him, "He that is without fault among you, let him cast the first stone." And he stooped back down and went to write. And left them to do something that I am challenging you to do in this room: to think for yourself. And they said, "We were convicted." We were convicted. That's a word that has left the church. We used to come to the altar and pray for conviction to fall. And when conviction failed, revival. The game. Now we think revival is having a big-name preacher. I don't care who's named preacher you bring. If there's no conviction of your own, there can be no revival in your life. Conviction brings transformation. As long as you have no conviction, you will have no lasting transformation until you get sick of yourself. Everybody else can be sickly you, but until you get sick of yourself and say, "Wait a minute, I'm better than this. I could do better than this. I could be better than this. I could live higher than this." They were convicted by their own conscience. This wasn't even a conviction of the Holy Spirit. This is a conviction that came to thinking, "I made mistakes too. Stoning her is stoning me." You see, she might get stoned, but it won't be my rock. It won't be my rock because I am conscious of my vulnerability and conscious of my humanity. I am conscious. And in that, what being spiritual is all about? Didn't the Bible say, "If a brother be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual restore such a one in the spirit of meekness, considering yourself"? So every time you get ready to say something about somebody, you got to be conscious of yourself. If you're conscious of yourself, self will make you shut your mouth. Self will make you apologize. Self will make you give people another chance. Self will make you proud. For my sake, considering yourself. No, the spiritual people had something to consider. Because I thought if you were deeply spiritual, you were deeply holy. If that means you never did anything, and you had them to consider. But the Bible says, "If you are really spiritual, you have something that you are conscious of that you consider in how you treat other people." [Music] [Applause] So being spiritual, it's about squint your eyes and say, "[ __ ] other than any other lady. She did get a shot at that." Eh, TT. [Applause] That's, that's not spiritual. Being spiritual is being fair. Being spiritually scream. Just being spiritual has been aware. Aware. Aware. Aware. Aware. Conscious. They were convicted by conscience. "Ye which are spiritual, restore, not kill, not main, not stone, restore such a one in the spirit of meekness, considering yourself." And Jesus is back down there in the dirt. And one by one, they dropped their rocks. I don't know who it is, but you got some rocks to drop. No, no, no, no, no. Way. I know you feel justified. I know they were wrong. I know they betrayed you. I know they never paid you back. I know they cheated on you. I know they broke your heart. I know they were wrong. But I also know you've been wrong too. And when you get spiritual enough to admit your kinship to the one that you're getting ready to kill, that daughter that you aren't speaking to, you are only angry at her for acting like you. You got old and got amnesia. You don't remember. But let me people to go back. Old man, go back. So you pray for now. You prep some now. You'll be a great man of God now. Now, this message is really good. It will not result in shouting. It will result in dropping. To not take advantage of somebody who's in a vulnerable situation just because you have a rock doesn't mean you have to throw it. Just because you have a rock doesn't mean you have to throw it. Personal story. I'm driving down the road. I'm in Charleston, West Virginia. And I'm giving God the blues about this, this, this preacher that's getting on my nerves. And I'm just turning. He's just so arrogant. It's just disgusting. He makes me sick. I don't want to be bothered with him. I don't want to talk to him with him. He gets on my nerves. He said, "So-and-so, can you believe that?" And driving down the road, and the Lord said, "If he were guilty of doing what you are guilty of doing, you would have mercy. But the moment I bring somebody into your life that is weak where you are strong, now you want to condemn them." The problem between you and him is your fault because you ought to be strong enough to bear the infirmities of the weak. Drop your rock. Drop your. You just happen to be strong in an area of his weakness, but you got your own stuff. Drop your rock. Who you should hear it in the spirit? In the spirit. In the spirit. Right now. Rocks are dropping. Rocks don't drop easy. Rocks don't drop easy because once you've gotten caught up in the herd of a way of doing things, they don't drop easy. Rocks don't drop easy because some of you came from families that were rock throwers. You have a pathology of throwing rocks. Rocks don't drop easy because you write the press. You read so you have been watching the news that agrees with you. Rocks don't drop easy when the truth is distorted by the author. [Music] Rocks don't drop easy. But one of them, and they dropped the rocks. What is fascinating to me about the text is that the text takes the time to tell us not only that they dropped the rocks one by one, but from the eldest. Come on here. Since you better, you better preach with me this morning. From the eldest to the young age. Plays a factor in rock dropping. You have to live a while. You have to live a while. You have to live a while. You have to live a while. I'm not throwing off on young people, but understand with you, young. You got a whole lot of ideas of how things ought to be, and it ought to be like this, and it ought to be like that. It ought to be like that. That don't make no sense. In my father's house, done. And my mother said and done. Yeah. And then you get up some age. [Applause] And now you got baby mama drama. [Applause] Age will make you drop children. The Bible says from the eldest to the youngest, one by one, they drop their rocks. Jesus got up and he asked the woman a question. Always be careful when God asks a question since he knows the answer. Don't think that you're getting ready to inform him. The question is rhetorical. Can I go deeper? Cleve, let me in there. Let me in there. Let me in there. Do you really think that Jesus didn't hear them dropping the rocks? I mean, even if he wasn't walking in his divinity, in his humanity, you can hear rocks drop. And Jesus is omniscient. He knows all things. He says, "Woman, where are that accusers?" I think this question might be the biggest point in the whole story. Listen real good. In this, after you have been attacked a long time, you will still react as if it is still going on after it's over. Post-traumatic stress disorder makes you keep reliving something that's over. To all of you, they can't forgive. And all of you, they can't let go. And all of you keep bringing up the past. And all of you, they keep talking about what happened ten years ago and five years ago. Do you not know you have PTSD? You have post-traumatic stress disorder. It was traumatic. It was painful. And you are still living it. And it's gone. You are like a Vietnam vet who hears a boom and jumps up under the bed. Triggers. Triggers. And when it triggers, you explode. Yo, Gonkai told me, "You left me." You was good with the rocks, but when I got to the triggers, you come again. What is triggering you to live as if you still have accusers? Why would Jesus ask her, "Woman, where are that accusers?" when he knew they were gone? He wanted her to know they were. That's what deliverance is. That's what deliverance is. Deliverance is awareness that what was against you. [Applause] This woman has been terrorized. She's been embarrassed. She's been really. She's been brought in public shame. This traumatic psychology teaches that the worst trauma is trauma that goes on in public. This woman has been traumatized. And Jesus says to her, before he releases her, he says, "I'm not gonna release you still reliving the past. He says, I'm gonna help you to get over this because I want you to acknowledge that it's over." It's not over to you. Say it's over. It's not over to you. Say it's over. It's not over to you. Say it's over. It's not over to you. Say it's over. It's not over to you. Say it's over. It's not over to you. Say it's over. It's not over to you. Say it's over. The present could be gone. They can be dead. And you'll still be living in it until you say it's over. Let me hear you shout, "It's over!" "Your accusers?" She says, "I have none." Oh, God. Oh, yeah. I'll be praying for me because he's still talking to me. He said, "I want my people to know that there's nothing holding you. That you are free. The two are loosed. That you are liberated. I want you to stop living in the falls. I want you to understand that he whom the Son has set free is free indeed." My God, I want you to shout 'cause you're free. Yeah! Praising cursor, free. Praising cursor, he'll pray because their whole present question. Deliver. Praising because nothing is holding you. You can run through truths. You can leave on the walls. You can be anybody. You can do anything. Don't daddy ain't holding you. Yo mama ain't holding you. [Applause] [Music] I feel the power. The Holy Ghost is the devil is frustrated right now because he wanted to keep you laying on the floor. But somebody's about to stand up in the power of the living. [Music] [Applause] Stand on your feet. Jesus says, and this, this is the killer point, because if all of them had left, and he stayed and condemned her, she would still be lost. So there's two things in his pronouncement that liberates this woman. One is the awareness that I have no accusers. God, I wish I could preach good enough to make them hear it. Can you hear it? Please hear it because it would drive me crazy. When I get the car, ain't nothing holding you. Do you hear it? Do you hear the power of what I'm saying? Nothing is holding you. It's a deception. It's a lie. They're gone. The rocks are gone. It's over. He said, and as soon as you stop reliving the terror of what you've been through and recognize that you have no accusers, then the second thing he said, "I want you to know is I'm not against you either." So he said, "Woman, where are those accusers?" And he's waiting on her to answer because it's her answer that says you're free. It's not his question. It's her answer that says her face. She says, "I have none, Lord." Uh-huh. "I have my Lord. I have none. I have no accusers. I have nobody stopping me. I have nobody holding me. I have no accusers. I have no accusers." And then he says, "Neither do I condemn thee." So I don't have to keep begging him to forgive what is forgiven. He says, "Neither do I condemn thee." My God, can you feel what a clean slate feels like? I think it was Hezekiah Walker wrote this up. Won't it make you clean inside? This one. That's what I want this word to do this morning. I want this word to give you a shower inside. I want this word to wash away the PTSD of whatever you've been through, the lingering traumatic stress disorder of whatever happened to you. "I have not, Lord," said, "I have not, Lord." Then he says to her, "Point to, neither do I condemn me." And then, "Point three, don't you do that again." [Applause] See, we like one and two, but we don't say that in about three. "Go thy way and sin no more." Come on. I want you to get wiser. I want you to get better. I want you to be free from the herd. Now, I know being a Christian is becoming increasingly unpopular. Society has gone in another direction now. If you type what you believe, they say you're old-fashioned. You're old fuddy-duddy. You have some sort of phobia. They don't, they don't, they don't agree with us at all. And you got pressure on you, job, and in your family, and over the holidays, you will have pressure to confirm, conform to what the rest of your kin folks are doing so that they won't think you changed. So they won't say you're acting funny. And they're coming in town. Your cousins are coming over. The cousins who remember your childhood stories are coming over. And now how are you a deacon? And now how are you an elder? I remember you. They're all coming over. You're going to your mother-in-law's house, and you know she doesn't like you. That's what the holidays are going to be. Sitting at the table, grinning at somebody who hopes you chose. Happy holiday. That's what it is. The child that ain't speaking, but came over to eat. The loved ones will never bring nothing, always take everything. That's what happy holiday. Happy holiday. Am I telling the truth? And if you're not careful, you're going to, you're going to become one of them and you'll flip out and act just like a write in the language of how you used to be. But the Lord told me to tell you this morning, don't run with the herd. [Applause]