The Finger Of God – Part 2
It is hard for us to imagine such power in a finger. The picture to the left says it all. There the point is that God can cause the sun to set with His finger of omnipotence easier than we can submerge a beach ball. Don’t reference or look at your own finger, that scrawny boney little thing, for that is like lighting a candle to the sun. God has infinitely more power in one finger than all of the nuclear weapons and bombs in the world going off at once. Pale and impotent stuff compared to the omnipotent God.
Remember the words of Isaiah 40:15,17–
“Behold, the nations are alike a drop from a bucket, and are regarded as a speck of dust on the scales; behold, He lifts up the islands like fine dust. All the nations are as nothing before Him, they are regarded by Him as less than nothing and meaningless.”
I mean, how can you compare nothing to everything? And did you notice that it says that God lifts up the islands like fine dust. I wouldn’t doubt for one second that He does that with one finger. Man has his imaginary super heroes such as Superman. May I introduce you again in this two-part series to Superfinger – the Superfinger of Almighty God!
1. GOD’S FINGER OF WARNING
You and I know the story quite well. King Pharaoh, the King of Egypt, who had enslaved the children of God for 400 years, hardened his heart against God. God’s man Moses was commanded by God to go to hardhearted and hotheaded Pharaoh, and in no uncertain terms command him in the name of God as we read in Exodus 6:11,
“Go, tell Pharaoh king of Egypt to let the sons of
Israel go out of this land.”
Moses reluctantly did as he was commanded, but King Pharaoh treated Moses’ words like so much mumbo jumbo and summarily dismissed Moses and his fiat. So God commands Moses to go to Pharaoh again with the same words only this time with an “Or Else,” as we read in Exodus 7:16-17,
“And you will say to him, ‘The Lord, the God of the
Hebrews, sent me to you, saying, ‘Let My people
go that they may serve Me in the wilderness.’
But behold, you have not listened
until now.’”
“Thus says the Lord, ‘By this you shall know that I
am the Lord” behold, I will strike the water that
is in the Nile with the staff that is in my hand,
and it shall be turned to blood.”
Moses thereby did two things:
“WITH HIS COMMAND AND WARNING. HE DID WHAT ALL
TRUE SPOKESMEN FOR GOD MUST DO – EXALT
GOD’S AUTHORITY AND SPEAK GOD’S
MERCIFUL WARNING.”
Pharaoh is not listening, and the plagues that Moses warned him about kept on coming one after the other upon each Pharaoh refusal. Every plague was preceded by a merciful warning from God. Each time the merciful God was spurned, and the command of God was defied by King Pharaoh, another warning came true.
In fact, the plagues were God’s mercy, though mercy in reverse. Each disaster was the finger of God’s pointing to what would come upon Pharaoh and the Egyptians if they persist in their rebellion against God. Each plagued proved that the finger of God was still pointing and extending itself in mercy. Severe mercy, but mercy nonetheless.
There is nothing weaker and more undermining of authority than a warning not followed through on. Warnings given and enforced do have great power. I am reminded of the story of little Bobby, who was picking up the toys which he had scattered about the room. The visiting pastor commended him for it. The pastor inquired, “Did your mother promise you something Bobby if you picked up the toys? Bobby replied, “No, sir, but she did promise me something if I didn’t.” And he knew that she would.
It’s like the old, tough cowhand who sauntered into a saloon and began drinking whiskey by the bottle. The more he drank, sure enough, the more belligerent and unruly he became, shooting holes in the ceiling and the floor. Everybody was afraid to take on the old cowhand.
Finally, the town’s little, mild-mannered storekeeper walked up to the unruly cowhand and said, “I’ll give you five minutes to get out of town.” The old cowhand holstered up his gun, pushed the whiskey bottle away, and briskly walked out, got on his horse and walked out of town. When he left, someone asked the storekeeper what he would have done if the unruly old cowhand had refused to go. The storekeeper said, “I think I would have extended the deadline.” “How long?” he was asked.” His response, “Indefinitely.”
God followed through on His warnings though He did mercifully extend the deadline 10 times. Ten plagues!!!!!!!!!! Not just local or regional plagues, but plagues that covered the entire nation – bloodied drinking water, frogs, lice, flies, locust, disease among the livestock, boils on man and beast, thunder and hail, locusts, darkness for three days. I suppose God could have made it even worse with skunks over the whole land. And finally all of the first born of the Egyptians died.
Notice the last one – the killing of their oldest children. God saved the worst until last. I can’t imagine the number of funerals and wailing in Egypt. God went from Provoking God 101 to Provoking God 107 Advanced. We hear the phrase over and over again coming from the mouth of God in the Old Testament:
“PROVOKED ME TO ANGER.”
(Isaiah 65:3, Jeremiah 7:19 and so on) And frankly, that is the last thing we should ever do, let alone doing it over and over again – provoking God to anger.
“To Provoke” means an insolent and daring resolution to disobey and offend God. “To Provoke God” is not a verb chiefly used for a single act of defiance and disobedience, but rather for defiance and disobedience that repeats itself over and over again. Ten times over!!! In fact, what is happening here with Pharaoh is this:
“PHARAOH BY PROVOKING GOD OVER AND OVER AGAIN IS
DARING GOD TO STRIKE, AND TO AVENGE THE
REPETITIOUS AFFRONT TO DIVINE HONOR.”
If you will:
“KING PHARAOH WAS ASSAULTING GOD UPON HIS THRONE,
GRABBING AT GOD’S SCEPTER,AND MOCKING HIS DIVINE
ROYALTY AND SUPREMACY OVER ALL PHARAOHS
AND ALL KINGS OF THE EARTH.”
This is not going to stand!!!
THE STAFFS AND THE SERPENTS
Now we must go back to a pivotal point in the story, that we find earlier in the flow of all of this. It has to do with Pharaoh’s Court Magicians. He has his own private stock of witchcraft wizards. Do you remember them? When Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and commanded him to let the sons of Israel go out of Egypt, Pharaoh demanded that they show him a miracle, just as God said he would do.
And then Aaron threw down his staff and it became a serpent, just as God said it would. We know these stories all too well. It astounds me to see the Finger of God getting a snake from a staff. My, my, I can’t even extract the end of a drawstring that has been accidentally pulled too deep into a sweatpants.
Pharaoh called in his magicians who also threw down their staffs and in each case their staffs became serpents too. The room became a veritable snake pit. With however one little zinger in Exodus 7:12 that Pharaoh seemed to ignore:
“But Aaron’s staff (serpent) swallowed up
their staffs (serpents).”
Suddenly Aaron’s staff-serpent like an anaconda swallowed the court magician’s staff-serpents like worms. What a sight to behold!!! Goodness Pharaoh, doesn’t this make you even a little nervous? Guess Who is going to have the last word in all of this! Aaron’s staff went from staff to serpent to staff, while the court magicians staffs went from staffs to serpents to snake stew. The Finger of God turned the magicians serpents into finger food.
Nonetheless, the magicians staffs to serpents is how Satan works in the dark arts to confirm Pharaoh in his defiance of God. The devil prejudiced Pharaoh’s heart against God from the very start. He fights like the devil to stop people from bowing down to Jesus Christ at the earliest point possible. Poison them early, and he has them for the rest of their lives. The enchantments and lying wonders of the magicians were all done by the devil to entrench Pharaoh in his viper pit of deception and rebellion.
Take heed and hear what the Holy Spirit is saying about the evil spirits, wizards, and witches:
“SATAN AND HIS DEMONS CAN AND DO PRODUCE WONDERFUL AND
AMAZING EFFECTS THAT WILL AMAZE KINGS AND COMMONERS
WHO DO NOT HAVE THE HOLY SPIRIT’S DISCERNMENT
INTO THE CAUSES OF THEM.”
GOD’S FINGERPRINT RECOGNIZED
We then read about those same magicians in Exodus 8:16-19 who were outgnatted by the Lord through Aaron who stretched out his arm with his trusty staff and struck the dust of the earth, which dust everywhere then became swarming and biting gnats over all men and beasts. We have been swarmed by gnats on the beach of Lake Michigan while camping. Nasty! The court performers were over-matched and outdone by the Lord of the gnats, and when they realized they could no longer compete, they said to Pharaoh in Exodus 8:19,
“This is the finger of God.”
Come now, what did they know about God, let alone His finger?! Why not say, “This is the hand of God, or, this is the arm of the Lord, or, this is the foot of God.” Why designate God’s finger, one of the smallest appendages that wouldn’t be the first to think about? It was a Divine revelation about God’s Almighty finger that now was up to some devastating stuff. The Lord is up to His finger action again. The magicians somehow knew about the finger of God.
The court magicians also knew that their fingers, by sleight of hand, could not do this. Anyway, their own fingers were too busy scratching their furious itch and swatting the swarming invaders. They were now way out of their league. God simply by stirring His finger stirred up all of nature. Time after time God pointed His finger and turned nature into a monstrosity. Time after time, God did this as a MERCIFUL FINGER OF WARNING to Pharaoh to spare him his ultimate and eternal destruction.
The ancient pagans often sensed more than the modern religious do. All of nature in America, as in Egypt, has become a monstrosity as well. Have you noticed? For the last several years now, in unprecedented ways, ways that are surely unnatural in nature, America is burning up, America is drying up, America is being blown up, and America is being flooded and swept away. On and on it goes, as God is mercifully pointing His finger at this fallen and wicked nation to warn and humble her and call her back to Himself before He must rain ultimate destruction upon her.
There are just too many catastrophic things happening again and again and often all at once. This is not just an out-of-sorts Mother Nature playing America for a chump and fiendishly putting her through a sick festival of pain. Why can’t America recognize the Finger of God?
And does America dare to keep on sinning against and shrugging its shoulders at that power that is continually confounding and throwing nature into chaos after chaos and catastrophe after catastrophe? Yet like Pharaoh, she continues to kick dust in God’s face and laugh at His finger of mercy, as I just read that the city council in Tulsa, Oklahoma has invited an atheist to give the invocation at the next council meeting. I assure them and warn them on the authority of the Word of God:
“THERE IS A DIRECT RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN ATHEISTIC
INVOCATION AND DIVINE PROVOCATION.”
Listen! It amazes me to see God’s finger stirring and throwing man and nature into catastrophic upheaval. It gives me goose bumps! It gives me cold chills up and down my spine when I really see what happened in Egypt and what is happening here. And to think that a king and his whole nation could harden his and their hearts and ignore God’s almighty, devastating, warning power. Astonishing!
There is something else we should know. Pharaoh and his people were in an awful state of pagan idolatry. You see, the Egyptians worshiped many gods. Their chief god however was Re – the sun god. The Egyptians thought that their kings descended from their god Re, and that their kings became gods once they became rulers. And so they followed after a king who not only defied God, but thought that he himself was a god. That is where Pharaoh got his defiant god complex from.
It only bears out the following:
“THOSE WHO BELIEVE A LIE WILL BE BROUGHT AT
LENGTH TO LOVE IT, AND AS A CONSEQUENCE
WILL PERISH BY IT.”
THE FINGER OF MERCY STOPS POINTING
Finally the finger of God stopped warning, stopped pointing. Baddest of news! When a person or people are in a state of defiance against God, as long as God’s finger is still pointing at him/them, there is still hope, for it is a mercy point. And God will do what he must to get that person’s/people’s attention, to call him/them to confess Jesus Christ as his/their Lord and Savior, and to love God and serve Him. Pharaoh would not! Now Pharaoh is gone and his choice stands forever.
Listen now:
“THE REBELLIOUS PERSON OR NATION OR PEOPLE THAT ARE THE
RECIPIENTS OF GOD’S MERCIFUL FINGER POINT, ARE STILL
OUT OF THE REACH OF GOD’S ULTIMATE AND
FULL WRATH.”
However:
“THE REBELLIOUS PERSON OR NATION OR PEOPLE THAT ARE NO
LONGER THE RECIPIENTS OF GOD’S WARNING POINT, NO
LONGER HAVE THE PROTECTION OF GOD’S MERCY.”
Pharaoh, after his ten-time rejection of God’s merciful warnings, became the recipient of God’s wrath as He was drowned with his armies in the Red Sea. Why? Simply because:
“GOD IS INCREDIBLY LONG-SUFFERING, BUT REPEATED SCORNING OF
GOD’S MERCY WILL FINALLY PROVOKE GOD TO UNRESTRAINED
WRATH, FOR NOW THERE IS SIN THAT HAS
GONE BEYOND MERCY.”
You see:
“GOD’S MERCY SHOWN AGAIN AND AGAIN IS GOD’S
LONG-SUFFERING(PATIENCE) DRAWN OUT TO
A LENGTH THAT IS ONLY POSSIBLE IN GOD.”
But:
” THERE IS A LIMIT, AS PHARAOH AND THE EGYPTIANS IN
THEIR CASE HAD DRAINED THE DIVINE TREASURIES
OF DIVINE MERCY, AND EXHAUSTED THE DIVINE
RESERVOIRS OF DIVINE PATIENCE.”
If you will:
“PHARAOH HAD REACHED THE POINT OF SIN THAT
HAD GONE BEYOND SIN, AND GOD HAD COME
TO THE POINT OF PROVOCATION BEYOND
PROVOCATION.”
I am reminded of the child who asked her Daddy, “What is the sun made of?” Her Daddy replied, “I don’t know honey, but it is on fire.” Then she asked him, “Daddy, what is hell made of?” Again Daddy said, “I don’t know honey, but it is on fire?” I can only conclude like that Daddy, whatever Pharaoh was made of, he is now on fire.
2. GOD’S FINGER OF JUDGMENT
Babylon!!! A diamond shrouded in black velvet! A scintillating jewel! The city of cities! The world’s focal point! The world’s commerce center! The world’s trade center! The world’s learning center!
Babylon!!! Her walls towered into the sky. They were so thick that you could ride several chariots at the top of those walls side by side. Huge brass gates, a hundred of them, on every side of the city that were winched down every night and winched open every morning for the traders. Folks would pass through those gates by the thousands day in and day out.
Babylon!!! This capital city of the Babylonian Empire was many hundreds of miles in circumference. So huge was it that whatever happened of great significance on one side of the city took three days to be reported to the other side of the city.
Babylon!!! Vast gardens and woods planted upon the battlements of towers, and trees that stood fifty feet high. The city was so grand that historians both Greek and Roman have reported its grandeur down through the ages.
Nebuchadnezzar!!! King Nebuchadnezzar!!! All of this was his work! So King Neb vaunted himself upon the sight of such a splendid metropolis. So we find him in Daniel 4:30 walking on the roof of his palace and taking for himself all the praise and the glory in his words:
“Is this not Babylon the great, which I myself have built
as a royal residence by the might of my power
and for the glory of my majesty.”
Listen:
“KING NEB THOUGHT HIMSELF IN A STATE AND STATURE
TO RIVAL AND EVEN SURPASS HEAVEN, AND ABOVE
THE REACH OF ALL HARDSHIPS AND CALAMITIES.”
The next thing we know is that King Neb with these puffed up words in his mouth was driven by God from his palace, and he ended up mind you with the beasts of the field as his companions and his dwelling place. He ate grass like the cattle, and his hair had grown like eagle feathers, and his nails like bird claws. There he is foraging for food like a common herbivore.
Neb suddenly becomes like that toy cow that says moo when you turn it upside down. Part man – part beast – yet something strange and bazaar in between. You won’t find this creature in any zoo. He looked like something Frankenstein would have concocted. Neb looked like a lab experiment gone bad. You can’t make up things like this unless maybe if you have an imagination like Stephen King. But even he is a raw amateur compared to God when it comes to far out science non-fiction.
Hear it:
“GOD WILL TAKE A PERSON/POTENTATE, PEOPLE IN THE
HEIGHT OF THEIR PRIDE AND SELF GLORY, AND
HUMILIATE THEM IN ORDER TO BRING
THEM TO EXALT IN GOD AND
NOT IN THEMSELVES.”
Belshazzar!!! Belshazzar is now king. He is the son of Neb. During his reign, other nations and peoples are coming on the scene. In fact, the Medes and the Persians are now swarming like locusts over earth’s landscape. They now surround King Belshazzar and Babylon as far as the eye could see with their swords and their spears. The enemy pranced back and forth day after day like the Mexican armies around the Alamo, and the people of Babylon were becoming worried and their morale was sinking. Their world seemed to be falling into a very unstable orbit.
So, King Belshazzar throws a big party. That is how the pagans always handle threatening times – let’s party. This was no block party. We read in Daniel 5:1,
“Belshazzar the king held a great feast for a thousand
nobles, and he was drinking wine in the
presence of the thousand.”
THE FINGER PARTY-CRASHER
Party Time At The Palace!!! It was the talk of the town. King Belshazzar was the big time hero and party king. This was a who’s-who palace party. Not unlike those in the White House today. A thousand lords and ladies came to the palace in beautiful garments. Historians tell us that the royal ballroom was big enough for a jumbo jetliner. It was the biggest ballroom in history. They drank and laughed and danced and celebrated, as the booze began to flow, booze pulled in by trained peacocks on wine carts. A nice touch, don’t you think? Wine on wheels! See it all!
Belshazzar!!! In his midnight drunkenness Satan put a blasphemous thought into Bel’s blitzed mind. Yes, a thought intended to mock the God of Israel, this God that the Jewish slaves talk about – that Jahweh. So in his blitz, Bel calls for the sacred vessels which his grandfather King Neb had taken out of the temple of Jahweh when he sacked Jerusalem, destroyed the temple, and slave-marched the beaten Jews to Babylon. The king and the nobles and their wives took the holy vessels of Jahweh and drank wine from them as they praised their idol gods. It was an open invitation to tragedy!
GOD!!!!!! GOD!!!!!! GOD!!!!!! His finger is twitching again! I can hear Him say, “THOSE SACRED VESSELS ARE MINE FOR MY HOLY GLORY.” Their unholy pleasure at the expense of His sacred and holy majesty caused Him violent pain and wrath. This was not a small party misdemeanor. This was a blasphemy so devilish that God’s finger did more than twitch, it now began to burn with holy anger.
The Finger of God knows how to break up pagan parties. It now goes to such a party to which “It” had received no written invitation, and begins to write all over a wall of the royal ballroom. The Finger of God literally steals the show. We read in Daniel 5:5-6,
“Suddenly the fingers of a man’s hand emerged and began
writing opposite the lampstand on the plaster of
the wall of the king’s palace, and the king
saw the back of the hand that
did the writing.”
“Then the king’s face grew pale, and his thoughts alarmed
him; and his hips went slack, and his knees
began knocking together.”
Hear it:
“THE SINNER’S FACE, HIPS, AND KNEES ARE THE BEST EXPOSITORS
OF THE MIND OF GOD WHEN THAT SINNER SENSES HE
IS UNDER DIVINE JUDGMENT.”
I mean look at the guy, face like gray paint, his hips went numb, and his knees are knocking together like bass drummers. I can see people rubbing their eyes in terrified disbelief of what they were seeing.
Hear it again:
“ONLY A HOLY REVERENCE FOR GOD WILL ALLOW A
HOLY CONFIDENCE BEFORE GOD.”
That all reminds me of those who do not reverence God in the house of worship on a Sunday morning, and I have seen it again and again. They come into God’s house slowly, sit in God’s house uneasily, and depart quickly. That is until the last decade, for now there is not enough holy awe and reverence in the feel-good and fun-time worship of the modern church to make a demon squirm even a little, or a church mouse to wet his pants.
MENE – MENE – TEKEL – UPHARSAN
The wall finger-writing!!! The finger of this huge, mysterious hand began to etch words on the wall. Being written before the gala ball that is suddenly not so gala, are the words revealed to us in Daniel 5:25,
“MENE – MENE – TEKEL – UPHARSAN.”
Belshazzar, now limp as a dish rag, calls for his wise men, psychics, and soothsayers. So they came, and all that we have now is a chorus of knocking psychic knees and palpitating soothsayer hearts. They could not help Bel, because while psychics can interpret Satan’s work, they cannot interpret the mind and the message of God.
Queen Belshazzar!!! The wife of Belshazzar said to her husband, “Honey, get Daniel, that old Jewish prophet of God, the prophet of Jahweh. Yes Daniel, the spokesman of the Jewish God, get him in here quick.” So they get the elderly prophet, hair probably white, now over 70 years old. His face was wrinkled with pain as he has lived through 3 dynasties of godlessness as a captive in Babylon. But he knows God, and they found him praying to his Jahweh.
Daniel was brought to Belshazzar who said to Daniel, “Tell me what the wall-writing means, and I’ll make you third ruler in my kingdom.” Daniel refuses the offer of rule, and says to Belshazzar this is what it means:
MENE MENE – YOUR KINGDOM IS FINISHED.
TEKEL – YOU ARE WEIGHED IN THE BALANCES AND FOUND WANTING.
UPHARSIN – YOUR KINGDOM IS DIVIDED BETWEEN THE MEDES AND THE PERSIANS.
Well Bel, when was the last time your ballroom wall was turned into a blackboard? When Bel was the last time your palace was turned into an Etch-A-Sketch? When Bel was the last time you saw a huge hand take over as the Lord of the Dance? When is the last time Bel that you have been MENED AND TEKELED AND UPHARSINED in front of your nobility? Bel, does it even slightly occur to you that this is much more than your average big-shindig entertainment? And Bel, does the meaning of the words even come close to getting your undivided attention?
My God man, you are being plastered all over the walls in the most threatening and terminal supernatural revelation possible. Don’t you see it, you have been weighed in God’s perfect balance and found wanting, because your whole weight is on the side of yourself and Satan, and not not on the side of God? Shouldn’t you Bel humble yourself before the FINGER that is already writing your epitaph for all to see?
We read in Jeremiah 36:3 for instance what God’s purpose is when He threatens judgment like this,
“Perhaps the house of Judah will hear of all the calamities
which I plan to bring on them, in order that every
man will turn from his evil way; then I will
forgive their iniquity and their sin.”
Nothing!!! All that Bel does is to dress up Daniel in royal garments so as to appease Daniel and his God. God shakes His finger like a sword over Babylon and Bel, and there is no humbling or repentance. Bel is now getting his bell rung for the final time, and he doesn’t so much as hear one gong which was tolling out for him the judgment – gong – gong – gone.
And that very night, the Medes and the Persians dried up the water supply into the city of Babylon, diverted water, came into the city like pouring water themselves, and Belshazzar that night was killed and his kingdom taken from him. It all happened just like that because he had been divinely fingered. And what God’s finger writes always comes to pass.
Bel went to Hell with the memory of that last fling haunting him. The laughing, drunkenness, debauchery, and blasphemy ringing in his ears and the handwriting of God’s finger forever burned into his eyes.
3. GOD’S FINGER OF MERCY
There is only one way to escape the finger of divine judgment, and that is through Jesus Christ. We must hear this:
“JESUS CHRIST IS THE ONLY FINGER OF
GOD’S MERCY.”
Do you remember the story in John 8 about the woman taken by the Pharisees in the act of adultery, and then she was cast by them at Jesus feet? The Old Testament law said, “Stone her!” What will Jesus do?
Harold M. Paxton III in his blog “The Great Separation” writes so insightfully in his article entitled “Sand Writing” the following about this, “Just what did Jesus Christ write in the sand? The Pharisees brought the adulteress to Him on the temple steps. Maybe they sought to probe His knowledge of the Law of Moses with the hope to entrap and accuse Him of some wrong before His followers. Perhaps some even questioned how far the forgiveness He spoke of went. Surely they were seeking to tarnish the image that the masses had of Him. Instead of answering quickly, Jesus knelt down and just wrote in the sand.”
Jesus did two dramatic things on this unforgettable occasion. John 8: 6 tells us that with His finger He wrote something on the ground. But when they insisted on His answer to their lawful stoning question, He also did this in John 8:7,
“But when they persisted in asking Him, He straightened
up, and said to them, ‘He who is without sin among
you, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.”
Paxton continues, “Just what did Jesus Christ write in the sand? Perhaps no one saw the writing in the sand, perhaps only the woman could see the writing, or perhaps Christ only doodled. Personally, I think everyone caught a glimpse of what He wrote and it shocked everyone so much that…all were shamed when the light of that sand writing exposed their own guilt. Whatever He wrote, it had a profound effect because it’s hard to believe that His statement alone would drive the self-righteous, pompous, white-washed Pharisees away. In truth, these people were no different than us today.”
Whatever Jesus wrote, hear this:
“AS LONG AS JESUS IS WRITING IN THE SAND,
THE SANDS OF TIME ARE STILL AFFORDING
US THE OPPORTUNITY TO BE SAVED BY
GOD’S MERCY IN JESUS CHRIST.”
Paxton concludes, “Just what did Jesus Christ write in the sand? The adulteress stayed back on her feet, probably in a state of shocked disbelief, looking at Christ writing in the sand. When He finally stood, He looked about and asked, “Woman, where are thine accusers? Hath no man condemned thee?” She muttered in reply, “No man, Lord.” And Jesus declared, “Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more.” Strange, Christ, the only person there without sin, would have been justified under the law to stone her. Instead, He forgave her. Why?”
“I think He forgave her because Christ sees the person first and the sin second. He sees beneath the actions to the heart and He knows the heart’s worth. Why else would He be willing to suffer and die on the cross for the purpose of reuniting man with God? Man must be worth something great and unfathomable.”
“It’s difficult for me to comprehend such love, but somehow I’ve gained an inkling of it, a blurred image in a mirror. However, it must not be forgotten that Christ did not just forgive her, but that He also gave her the command to leave her life of sin. Christ gives that command to us too. Paul addressed this in more depth in Romans 6:15-16, “What then? Shall we sin, because we are not under the law, but under grace? God forbid. Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?”
Yes indeed, John 8:11,
“THE MERCY OF GOD – NEITHER DO I CONDEMN
YOU. THE CONDITION OF MERCY – GO
AND SIN NO MORE.”
All taken together, here is what I see!
Jesus’ finger writing, whatever it was:
“MADE THE GROUND LEVEL – ALL HAVE SINNED AND COME
SHORT OF THE GLORY GOD – ALL ARE IN NEED OF
THE MERCY OF GOD. EVERYONE THERE
WAS LEVEL-GROUNDED”
He who is without sin throw the first stone:
“THEY ALL DROPPED THEIR STONES BECAUSE EVERY STONE
SUDDENLY BECAME TOO HEAVY TO LIFT LET ALONE
THROW – EVERY STONE ACCUSED EVERYONE
OF THEIR OWN SIN AND GUILT.”
Neither do I condemn you:
“I (JESUS) DID NOT COME TO CONDEMN BUT TO
SAVE AND FORGIVE – BE TOTALLY FREE OF
YOUR GUILT AND CONDEMNATION.”
Go:
“YOU ARE FREE OF YOUR PAST, NOW WALK INTO
YOUR BRAND NEW FUTURE.”
Sin no more:
“DO NOT NOW GO OUT AND SIN AGAINST
YOUR ONLY AND LAST HOPE – THE
MERCY OF GOD.”
Or again:
“DO NOT SIN AGAINST DIVINE MERCY, FOR THEN
WHO WILL BE LEFT TO STAND UP FOR YOU?”
I guess there is a lot of truth and substance in the old saying after all:
“DON’T BITE THE HAND THAT FEEDS YOU.”
He that goes on to sin against mercy either thinks that God does not know it and so He will not punish Him, or that God has such an undisciplined mercy that He will not mind the repeated sin. Jesus is saying that after mercy, we should never take mercy as a license to abuse mercy.
Friends:
“JESUS IS THE FINGER OF GOD’S MERCY TO SINNERS.
HE IS NOT THE FINGER OF GOD’S JUDGMENT,
FOR HE DID NOT COME TO JUDGE
BUT TO SAVE.”
Jesus, the finger of God’s mercy, is pointing to you and to me, motioning to you and to me, saying to you and to me, “Come to Me, and I will give you complete forgiveness and eternal life. Come to Me, and let Me embrace you with My perfect love, joy, purity, and peace.”
CONCLUSION
How astonished and grateful the adulterous woman must have been. I am reminded of the story of another woman in the Bible. Robert Falconer was once witnessing among the destitute people in a certain village. He read them the story of the woman who wiped Jesus’ feet with her tears and hair. While he was reading that story he heard a loud sob and looked up at a young, thin girl whose face was disfigured with smallpox.
After Robert Falconer spoke a few words of encouragement to the girl, she said to him, “Will He ever come again, the One who forgave the woman? I have heard that He will come again. Will it be soon?” Falconer said to her, “Yes, He is coming soon.” After sobbing again uncontrollably, she said,”Sir, can’t He wait a little while. My hair isn’t long enough yet to wipe His feet.” Amen!