By Ven. Henry Adelegan
That life is fraught with accusers, is a truism; that the world is rife with false accusers, is neither strange nor new; that people concoct damaging stories to smear the image of the innocent and drag them in the mud, is common, and that lots of stories and messages being bandied in the social media are fraught with evil intentions, false, malicious and wicked, is incontrovertible. In a lot of cases, it had been noted with alarming dismay that either the wrong or right accusers are engaging in same or similar offences but theirs are still covered and yet to be exposed.
From the passage picked as our text, the Pharisees and Scribes came to Jesus Christ in the temple, after returning from the Mount of Olives, with stones in one hand, the constitution of Moses in the other hand and screams on their lips. They brought a woman who had been caught in adultery and were quoting sections and sub-sections of the constitution which stipulated that whosoever committed such an offence must be stoned to death and they wanted Jesus Christ to validate what the constitution had said to enable them stone the woman to death (Lev. 20:10; Deut. 22:22). Besides the fact that they wanted the woman to be stoned, their demand was also a ploy to set a theological trap for Jesus Christ.
Beloved in Christ, kindly note that human beings in their desperate bids to bring to fruition their diabolical plans and satanic aspirations will stop at nothing to bring a child of glory down from his/her divine Olympian height but our position as children of God is not to stigmatise but to show empathy. Just as it was done to our Lord Jesus Christ, people will set booby-traps to ensnare, kill, steal and destroy children of glory. My prayer is that the Almighty God will deliver you and your loved ones from every trap set by agents of darkness at home, work and commission to bring down your glory was manifesting and that they shall never be able to pull you down from the high pedestal which God has placed you, in Jesus’ name.
If Jesus Christ had given the Pharisees and Scribes the go-ahead to stone her, they would have accused Him of violating the Roman law under which the Jews were, as Palestine, a part of the Roman empire and under that law, because capital punishment could not be exercised for such an offence. Conversely, if He had said that the woman should not be stoned, they would still have accused Him of violating the Old Testament law.
For the fact that the accusers failed to bring the man that committed the act with that woman for punishment, according to the law of Moses, might suggest that the accusers could have set the woman up with the sole aim of putting her to death. It may not be unlikely that the man who committed the act with the woman was a part of the frame-up as conspiracy theory had always been a part of history. An example was King Ahab who coveted the little vineyard of Naboth and when all attempts by the King to take Naboth’s inheritance from him failed, Queen Jezebel wrote letters in Ahab’s name to the elders and the nobles to “…Proclaim a fast, and set Naboth on high among the people: And set two men, sons of Belial, before him, to bear witness against him, saying, Thou didst blaspheme God and the king. And then carry him out, and stone him, that he may die” (1Kings 21:8-10). Naboth was accused of what he didn’t do and he was killed for an offence he never committed while the masterminds of the false accusation took over what rightly belonged to Naboth – what a life!
The same thing played out when David after he had slept with Bathsheba, wife to one of his soldiers; Uriah – a man of high integrity and unimaginable sense of duty, and put her in the family way. David tried all he could to cover his sin by forcing the pregnancy on Uriah but when all his attempts failed, he returned Uriah to the battlefield and wrote a letter that the commanders should “Set ye Uriah in the forefront of the hottest battle, and retire ye from him, that he may be smitten, and die” (2 Samuel 11:15). Uriah was setup in battle, he was killed before his time and David took over Bathsheba, his wife.
Joseph too had same experience in the hands of Potiphar because he refused to commit adultery with her. She turned the accusation on Joseph which sent the innocent young boy to prison for a crime he never committed (Genesis 39:1-29). Jesus Christ was not spared of this illegal setup in the hands of the Chief priests, elders and all of the council in their determination to put him to death. They, “…sought false witness against Jesus, to put him to death; But found none: yea, though many false witnesses came, yet found they none. At the last came two false witnesses (Matt. 26:59-60). With the words of false accusers, the innocent one and Saviour of the world was nailed to the cross.
Jesus Christ, who knows the inner recesses of the heart of man and does not need anyone to testify of man to Him (John 2:25 cf Jeremiah 17:9-10), saw through the hearts of the accusers of the woman ‘caught in the act’, He stooped, started to write something on the ground but when they persisted with their demand, He confirmed the validity of the law being quoted but added that, “… He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her” (John 8:7). All the accusers left one by one, beginning from the oldest.
It is curious to note that all her accusers were not spared of sin either (Romans 3:23; 1John 1:8); and by implication, all of them qualified to be stoned in accordance with the constitution according to Moses. When Jesus Christ raised His head, He asked the 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” (John 8:10-11).
Brethren, what Jesus Christ demands from us as His children is to show understanding for those that are yet to be delivered from sin and provide support to anyone that has sinned or sinning through our prayer of intercession and not join hands to discuss, malign and cast stones forgetting that none is immuned against being stoned, if the law of Moses were to be implemented to the letters.
It is therefore our responsibility as candidates on our way to heaven to bring sinners to the knowledge and saving grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. We have an obligation to de-populate hell and enlarge heaven through the support we provide for drug addicts, prostitutes, drunks, adulterers, thieves etc. Jesus Christ who saved Saul on his way to commit a more heinous crime against His disciples and changed him to Paul is a God that will not cast stones, will never support stone casting of whatever sort, will never bear offences or hold anything against anyone (Acts 9:1-19). He was the one that saved Mary called Magdalene “…out of whom went seven devils” and adopted her to the household of faith (Luke 8:2); He does not write anyone off, no matter the sins that have been committed. Jesus Christ has a large heart to bring sinners home, provided they confess those sins and pledge not to return to the path of sin again (Isaiah 1:18).
Jesus Christ did not come to implement the stone casting law neither would he cast any stone Himself. He “…came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance” (Luke 5:32; 1 Timothy 1:15; Matthew 15:24; Luke 19:10). During this time of lent brethren, let this same mind be in you, stop throwing stones or joining the league of ‘stone-throwers’, stop judging others consequent on their misdemeanours, show empathy to people with the pandemic Coronavirus or HIV/AIDS cases, provide support to the people that are down, intercede more for people you know that have erred from the path of truth and pray that God will bring them from utter darkness into His marvellous light, in the name of Jesus.
Prayer: Father, during this time of lent, give us grace to work worthy of you, not to join the league of ‘stone-throwers’ but rather to bring sinners to your light, in Jesus’ name.
