Well, evening all, nice to be with you again. And we're going to read tonight in John's Gospel in chapter eight. Our subject under consideration tonight is the great subject of forgiveness. Now, it's very easy to say forgiveness, and it's relatively easy to spell, but it's somewhat harder to do. So tonight we're going to think a lot about forgiveness. We're going to look at three examples, and we're going to concentrate particularly on the one from John chapter eight. John chapter eight, verse one. Jesus went unto the Mount of Olives. Let's actually read the previous verse, I think it's very helpful. Chapter seven, verse fifty three. And every wa- man went unto his own house. Jesus went unto the Mount of Olives. And early in the morning he came again into the temple, and all the people came unto him, and he sat down and taught them. 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 roped on the ground, as though 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 first cast a stone at her. And again he stooped down and wrote on the ground, and they which heard it, being convicted by their own conscience, went out one by one, beginning at the eldest even unto the last, and Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst. When Jesus had lifted up her himself and saw none but the woman, he said unto her, 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. Now turn to Luke's Gospel, chapter twenty three, for one verse, verse number thirty four. Luke chapter twenty three, verse thirty four. Then said Jesus, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. And they parted his raiment and cast lots. Now turn to First Timothy, chapter one and verse twelve. First Timothy, chapter one and verse twelve. Remember, we're thinking about forgiveness tonight. First Timothy one and twelve. And I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who has enabled me, for he counted me faithful, putting me into the ministry, who was before a blasphemer and a persecutor and injurious. But I obtained mercy because I did it ignorantly in unbelief, and the grace of our Lord was exceeding abundant with faith and love which is in Christ Jesus. This is a faithful saying and worthy of all expectation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief. And we do look to the Lord to bless his word this evening. If I was to speak on the subject of forgiveness, as I intend to speak on tonight, if I was giving a sort of lecture, I suppose I'd take as one of my primary examples of forgiveness someone like Nelson Mandela. I think it's quite remarkable how that man in his life has found forgiveness for the people who imprisoned him probably for around about thirty years there in Robben Island in South Africa. I think he's an amazing example of someone in this earth who has shown great forgiveness. I thought of one who was a real childhood hero of mine, Elizabeth Elliot. And there Elizabeth Elliot there in Ecuador, she forgave the very people who had killed her husband, and she happily took her little daughter and herself and lived among these people. She forgave those who had murdered her own husband. And tonight we're going to look at the primary, the best example of forgiveness that we could ever find. The example of our Lord Jesus Christ. We want to look at how he can forgive. There's no one like him, the one who can forgive sins, the one who brings peace, the one who is the real forgiver in our lives. Now, the three things I want to look at tonight, first of all, in John eight, we want to see an adulterer who is forgiven, a woman who most certainly was sinful, and yet she was forgiven. We want to think briefly about murderers in Luke twenty three and thirty four, and they were forgiven. And then in First Timothy chapter one, a blasphemer. People wouldn't think that would be too serious, but he was forgiven. Wonderful to see the grace of God that these people were ever forgiven. Now, we really want to spend the majority of our time looking at John chapter eight. Sometimes when I speak, I give my three points, and the, the people are looking at the third point and wondering when I'm ever going to get there. Well, tonight, I'll just just tell you, put you out of your misery, we're going to concentrate mostly about the first thing. We're going to look at this woman, an adulterer who is forgiven. I don't know if you know this like me in chapter seven, I find it remarkable. Every man went unto his own house, and then chapter eight, verse one, and Jesus went unto the Mount of Olives. When the Lord Jesus came into this world, they said about him, the fox, he said himself, the fox have holes, the birds of the air have their nests, but the Son of Man hath not there to lay his head. He came into this world, and there was no home for Christ. I thought it was amazing. He's the one that made the sky, he made the trees, he made the grass, he clothed everything upon this earth, and yet for himself there was no home for our Lord Jesus Christ. So when they went out to the houses, he went there to the Mount of Olives, to the place where he would just rest, perhaps upon the mountain that day. But it says there in chapter eight that he came down, and very early in the morning he came again into the temple. And so the Lord Jesus comes early in the morning. One who rose up a great while for before day, says the scriptures about the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, I'm the opposite. I'm not one of these people who can get up in the morning and be fresh. I'm terrible in the morning, but I was hearing about someone the other day, and they're great at getting up in the morning. Well, good on them if they can get up, but here's our lovely Savior, and he gets up. What an example he sets. He gets up early in the morning, and he heads straight to the place of the temple. This Bible calls it my father's house. Our Lord Jesus goes straight to a place where surely he would be made most welcome. My father's house. He goes straight to the temple. I wonder what our first thoughts in the morning are, whether it's just that we can get on with the news, or whether we can just get our cornflakes and our milk and our frosties. I don't know what our first thoughts are in the morning, but here's a man, the blessed man, who rises up, and his first thoughts are towards his God and towards the people who needed to hear his word. And he comes early, and he comes into this temple, and the Bible says there, and all the people came unto him. I think it's lovely. Here's the Lord Jesus Christ, the most attractive person, oh, perhaps not physically attractive, but the most attractive person you could ever meet, and all the people came unto him. No wonder the Lord Jesus could stand up before the crowd and say, come unto me. Come unto the one who's attractive because he's a blessed man. He's a perfect man. He's the savior of this world. Come unto me. And all the people that day, they came unto the Lord Jesus. And I'll ask as a preacher tonight a very simple question and say, have you come to him? What a great day it was in my experience when I came just as a little boy, and I came to Christ. Oh, I came in my simplicity, and I simply called unto him that he might save me, and praise God, he saved me, and I came unto Christ, and I received eternal life. And there's the Lord Jesus there before the people, and they came unto him. But that's not the end of the story, of course. The people came unto him. Says elsewhere in the scriptures, the common people gladly heard him, but not now the common people coming to the Lord Jesus, but there was these people called Pharisees, and they came with a woman, and they brought this woman, a sinful woman, before the Savior, and the whole atmosphere was shattered. No longer were people able to hear of the Savior and his normal words, but they brought this woman caught in adultery right before the Savior, and the whole scene was changed in a minute. I think sometimes we're like that. We're so busy in our life that we, as it were, turn on the noise and switch out the Savior, and that's exactly what happened in this occasion. But praise God, our lovely Savior was powerful and mighty and able to save, and as we want to talk about tonight, he's able to forgive, and we're going to see quite a bit about that tonight. Now, we're going to notice three things about this woman. We're going to carefully study this woman, the first thing we're going to notice about her is she was caught. And then we notice that she was brought. And then we notice thirdly that she was taught. She was caught, she was brought, and then she was taught. She was caught. It was really undeniable. There were witnesses. It says that there in the scriptures. I think we notice that tonight. It says there she was taken in the very act. She was caught. It was a dreadful thing for this dear lady to be caught. It would have been an embarrassment for that dear lady to be caught. She was caught in a sinful deed. Now, I'm not going to gloss over it tonight. I'm going to say it's absolutely sinful, what this woman was participating in. You would say it was a victimless crime. This woman, she was caught in adultery. But no, it wasn't a victimless crime. They talk about robbing, robbing insurance companies as if it's a victimless crime. But what about all the people who work for the insurance company that lose their jobs? What about all the people who've got their investments, who lose their investments? There's no such thing as a victimless crime. And here's this woman, she's caught in adultery. I thought about the other woman who's not mentioned in the story. The wife of the husband who had been guilty in adultery, sitting at home, wondering why her husband no longer loved her, sitting at home wondering where her husband was, and all the time he was committing adultery with this woman. You see, it's a sinful deed. The standpoint of our world, it changes. The Georgians, they were very morably, mor- morally, uh, liberal. Well, they didn't mind sin, the Georgians. But then the Victorians came along, and they were very conservative as far as morals were concerned. They wanted to be more strict in their society. But it doesn't matter what man says. Some governments are strict, some governments are liberal, and the ones that we have nowadays, they just say anything goes as long as it doesn't hurt anyone. Yeah, that's not what God says. I noticed in Exodus in chapter twenty, it says these lovely words, these challenging words, these plain words, thou shall not commit adultery. Can it be any more plain than that? Thou shall not commit adultery. It wasn't written with a biro. It wasn't written with a pencil. It was written, as the book of Exodus says, written with the finger of God on tablets of stone. It was written on tablets of stone because stone lasts a long time, because this is God's perfect law, and God sets forth his law, and he says, thou shall not commit adultery. See, when a mother, a husband and a wife get together, they're to be together forever, until they die or until the Lord comes, they are to be together, and our Lord, he writes it with his own finger that thou shall not commit adultery. So, if this lady is breaking God's law, we have to say to this lady that she has a problem. She is a sinner. The Bible tells us about sin. We can't gloss over this, and it says very simply, sin is the transgression of the law. Sin is the breaking of the law. You're saying, what kind of law are you breaking? Well, you're breaking God's law. And the punishment for the breaking of God's law in this occasion was, listen again to what the scriptures say about this. It says the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death. Put to death. So if you break God's law, you have to bear the punishment of God's law. And in the case of adultery, the man and the woman were to be put to death. What an awful thing it was to break God's law. We gloss over it. We think we're going to get away with it. We live our lives to please ourselves at times, but God's holy law is unbreakable, and if we break God's law, we have to come into the judgment and the anger and the wrath of God. I was thinking about this. If I was driving between Perth and, eh, metal here tonight to get to meeting, if I put my foot down and drove at ninety miles an hour from Methil, from Perth to Methil, well, as one thing, you would be seasick because that roads are a bit twisty. But not only that, the police got me with a speed gun, I would be guilty. I had broken the law of the country. Sixty miles an hour was the speed limit on the single carriageway, and I would be guilty of breaking the law of our country. But one thing about breaking the law of the country, if the policeman got me out of the car, out of my car, got me standing outside the road, they wouldn't bend down and start to throw stones at me and to stone me and put me to death, because the punishment of our country for speeding is points in your license and a fine. You're not put to death for speeding in our country. But God's law is absolutely different. God's law was perfect. God's law meant that the person who had broken it had to bear the punishment, and the punishment on this occasion was nothing but the stoning of death. What an awful punishment it would have been for this dear woman. She was going to be stoned to death. She was guilty, and she deserved to die. You know, one of the things about these policemen, why they don't stone me to death, is because they themselves are guilty. Oh, I would imagine sometime when no one's looking, the policeman puts their foot down and they speed along the road, and they enjoy driving along fast. They're guilty. They've broken the same law. And that's one of the problems we're going to notice tonight in the passage. Those who sought to condemn this woman had also broken the law themselves. Maybe not that law, but they had broken God's law. And so, with the full authority of heaven, we hear these awful words. Thou shall not bear, thou shall not commit adultery, and adultery was bringing forth the punishment of the stoning. Do you know this though, when they brought this woman, who did they bring her to? They brought the woman to the Lord Jesus. I said I'd speak tonight on forgiveness. I think it's remarkable. A woman who's caught, a woman who's guilty, a woman who's facing certain death, and they bring her to the Lord Jesus Christ. Oh, they could have brought her to a priest, and he wouldn't have helped. They could have brought her to another one of the Pharisees, and he certainly wouldn't have helped. But they brung- bring this lady to the Lord Jesus, the one and only one who can forgive sins. If they brought them to e- if they brought the lady to anyone else, they couldn't forgive sins, but they bring the lady to the Lord Jesus Christ, and she, and he is able to forgive her sins. Notice not only was she caught, but we notice that she was brought, and she was brought right to the Lord Jesus Christ. I thought it was remarkable too that where they took her to, they took her to the temple. You wouldn't normally take something that was defiled into the temple place. I know in scriptures that you've got to be clean if you're going to go into the temple. There's to be cleansing, there's to be ritualistic cleansing to, before you go into the temple, into the house of God. And this dear woman in her sin, she's brought into the temple, probably the temple courtyard before the Lord Jesus Christ. Did you notice there was someone missing, though? The man. The adulterer and the adulteress shall be put to death. Where is the man? He's missing. It says here in the scripture she was caught in the very act. Therefore, they must have known who the man was, the man and the woman, and that teaches me something about man's judgment. Man's judgment is fatally flawed. Just a few years ago in Nigeria, they introduced what they call Sharia law, Sharia law. It's Islamic law, and in Islamic law, they have different rules than we would have in Western law. And one of the rules of that law is a person who's an adulterer is stoned to death. And they brought this woman who had been caught in the act of adultery, and they brought her in this place in Nigeria, and they were going to stone her to death. There was a public outcry, and it was simply this. Where was the man? There was no judgment for the man. They had cast a blind eye over the man's sin, and they didn't want to bring any judgment upon the man. And yet God's not like that. God's judgment and justice is absolutely perfect. There's no rough justice with God. There's no mistake with God. There's no double jeopardy with God. God's judgment and justice is absolutely perfect. And as we stand before God, he knows every single one of our sins and whether they're forgiven or not. And she was brought before the Lord Jesus Christ and says in the scriptures in Mark's gospel, there's nothing hid which shall not be manifested, which will be not brought forth. And so every single one of our sins are open in the sight of God. The little ones that you do when you're a young child, just a wee bit disobedience. The things you do as an adult, they're all known in the sight of God. Every one of our sins, and the Bible is said, I'm sure you've heard it here many a time, your sins are separated between you and your God, and there's that great barrier of our sins, and the sins are separating us from God. Here's a woman in her sins, and she's standing before the Savior. Praise God, she's standing before the one who can forgive sins. They said about the Lord Jesus, when he forgave people's sins, who can forgive sins but God? If we only realized the importance of the words that they were saying, they were testifying to the deity of Christ, that he is able to forgive our sins. And I'll take you back to that little room again in Perth, where my sins were forgiven. What a great day it was to get your sins forgiven. What a great experience to know forgiveness. Oh, I don't deserve to be forgiven. I've done many things wrong, many things that I'm ashamed of, but Christ, he forgives sins. Isn't it wonderful? The Lord Jesus Christ, he came into this world to seek and to save that which is lost. What about these Pharisees, though, that brought the lady to the Lord Jesus? Surely they were able to help the lady. Not at all, because they were in the same position as the lady. They were guilty as well. They were guilty in different things. Instead of obeying God's law, what they did was they added to it. Bible would strictly forbid that. They added all kinds of laws and all kinds of rules and all kinds of procedures to circumvent God's perfect standards. The Bible tells us that actually they were children of hell. Strong language. It tells if they made a person a proselyte, they were twofold more the child of hell than themselves. And the truth about these Pharisees is they were none better than this lady. They were on the way to hell, the judgment of God. Solemn and serious words that these Pharisees, they were as guilty as any. And sadly, in our world, there are all kinds of religious people who seek to help people, and yet, sadly, many are on the way to hell. Don't come to a religious figure like me. Don't come to a religious person like one of the chapels or churches in our society. Come to Christ, the one who stood before the lady, the one who's able and willing to forgive sins. You see, they brought the unforgiving people, the Pharisees, they were unforgiving, and they brought an unforgiven woman before the Lord Jesus, and they hoped at the end of it that she would still remain unforgiven. But praise God, the Lord Jesus had different plans. He saw a woman in her sin, and he wanted her to have all her sins, every single one of them forgiven. What a blessed Savior is our Lord Jesus, that he cares about our sins. The Pharisees came, and they looked and they thought they were okay, but in their own eyes there was big planks that were blocking their vision. The Bible says we should pluck it out, out of our own eye, take out that beam out of our own eye, that we might be able to see the true judgment of God. And so these Pharisees, who came before the Lord Jesus, and they were unforgiven themselves. But thirdly, she was taught. She was brought. She was, she was caught, she was brought, and then she was taught. Isn't it wonderful that she was taught by the greatest of all teachers in this world? She was taught by the Lord Jesus Christ. Some people called him teacher, others called him master, others called him Lord, others called him savior. He was the greatest teacher that's ever walked this earth. Oh, there's some been some great people in society. There's been all the American presidents, some of them are great, some of our great prime ministers, people like Winston Churchill, all great men. But here's the greatest of all teachers standing before this woman, and he's going to teach her an awful lot about forgiveness. I noticed that there was only four sentences. Audrey said to me last night, what were you laughing at? Well, I was looking through the scriptures here, and I, I found it really joyful that there was only four sentences, the short, one of the shortest sermons in history, and as a result of four sentences, the dear woman is forgiven. You see, it's not in the multiplicity of words that a person gets saved. It's in the power of God. The power of God, a person can be saved. And the Lord Jesus, he came down from heaven that sinners such as we could have eternal life, and he only speaks four sentences, and the woman leaves forgiven. She's caught by our blessed Lord Jesus Christ. Why is the Lord Jesus willing to teach this? Well, I'll answer it very simply with the words of scripture. He came to seek and to save that which is lost. There was a shepherd. He lost one of his sheep. He left his ninety nine in the fold, and he went hunting for that one that was lost. Why did he do it? Because he loved the sheep that was lost. And friend, he's the same for us today. Why did he care about the ones that were not forgiven? Why does he care about people in the sins? Because he loves us with an everlasting love. And he came down, and he sought the lost people, and he called them to himself. And here's the woman he had sought, the simple woman, and he sought that this woman could have her sins forgiven. I wonder if you notice in verse six too, perhaps one of my favorite verses there in this passage. But Jesus stooped down and with finger wrote on the ground as though he heard them not. He stooped down. The Lord Jesus stooped down from heaven. What a place it was to stoop down from. Have you ever contemplated heaven, the streets of gold, the sea of crystal, the throne of God, the place where there's no need for light, because the Lord God and the Lamb and the light. No need for hospitals or cemeteries, no need for tears. God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes. What a place heaven is, not a place of death, a place of life forever. No sin in heaven. Great worship and joy in heaven as we worship the Lamb forever. And he left it all behind. He stooped into the scene of time. You know, sometimes we go on holiday and we love it. We go to a place that's wonderful and maybe better even than home. But that wasn't the case in the case of the Lord Jesus Christ. He stooped into this earth. He chose one of the smallest countries in this world. He came to its dusty streets. He came to a land that was ruined by division and war. He came to a land which had long rejo- rejected God. And he came, as the scriptures would tell, to a place called Bethlehem, a very sad place if you even go there today. And he came there to those dusty streets, and he came to be the Savior. He came not to be a tourist, but he came to bear upon himself our sins, to go to the cross, to die in that place called Calvary, to bear away the sin of this world, to have his na- hands pierced through his nails, the crown of thorns upon his brow, his back like a plowed field. He went there, he stooped down. Isn't it marvelous that he stooped down? But that's not the end. Verse eight says it again. And again he stooped down. Just when we thought the Lord had stooped down lower, he went even lower, and he stooped down there at that place and wrote on the ground. Now, we can't tell what the Lord Jesus Christ wrote because it's never written in scriptures what he wrote down. But I just link it back there to Exodus chapter thirty, the finger of God. And here is the finger of the one who is God, God manifest in the flesh, the Son of God who loved me, and there he's writing on this ground with his own finger. Isn't that marvelous that he would ever do such a thing? Perhaps we wouldn't want to get dirty, but our Lord Jesus did. Remember another day he spat on the ground and made clay and anointed the eyes of the blind. He wasn't afraid to get dirty, and there he was, down in dust because he has stooped down to save us. And he wrote in the ground. Perhaps he wrote the law. Perhaps he wrote some of these words. Thou shall not covet. Thou shall not bear false witness. Thou shall not steal. And maybe one by one, as the people would look upon the scriptures upon the ground and the words that the Lord Jesus would speak, they started to realize that they were guilty sinners themselves. Listen to what the Lord Jesus says, the challenge that he throws out. He that's without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her. There's two ways the Lord Jesus teaches in this passage. He teaches, first of all, with his silence. Sometimes silence speaks louder than words. And then he teaches with his words, he that's without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her. And see the silence of the Lord Jesus, as though he heard them not. He was ignoring them. The Lord Jesus, who's over all things, knows how to deal with people. And then he speaks to these people and says, he that's without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her. And so our Lord Jesus stoops down again. He doesn't look them in the eye. He bows down. He lets them have their moment of privacy and contemplation, as one by one they start to realize that they're in the same boat as this woman. They are sinners. What about you? Trust you've considered your sin and come to the one that can forgive your sin, the lovely Savior, the one who died that our sins would be forgiven. And so there's the Lord Jesus Christ, and he rises up, and he looks around. He says to women, where are those that have condemned thee? Hath no man condemned thee? And there was none. What happened? Well, the Bible tells us that the oldest has stood up and gone away. Oh, the oldest had counted their sins. They had done more than probably the rest. They had lived a long life, and they had counted their sins, and then they disappeared. They couldn't throw the stone. What about the young ones, the ones that would be a bit more brash and bold? Surely they'd love to throw the stone at this here woman. But no, they realized they were in the same position. All the lusts and temptations of youth, and they were in the same position. They have sinned. So the oldest has sinned, the youngest has sinned. They were all guilty in the sight of God. In fact, you know what should have happened? They should have all been lined up, and the Savior should have picked up the stones and stoned them. They were all guilty. You see, that's what the Lord Jesus could do. And yet he didn't come to stone this world. He didn't come to condemn this world. He came that we might be saved. Isn't it marvelous that he came into this world to save us from our sins? What a lovely savior is our Lord Jesus Christ. We should get excited about him and all that he's done. He came to seek and to save. That was his loss. And our Lord Jesus lifts up himself up and see there is none to condemn this woman. Listen to his word of wonderful words of forgiveness. Neither do I condemn thee. Go and sin no more. This woman had never heard anything like it. If I had said these words to the woman, they would have no weight and no authority. But Christ can say them because he forgives sins. I'm going to tell you why he can forgive sins. I'm going to give you three reasons why our Lord Jesus Christ can forgive our sins. The one who forgives, I can tell you about him. I want to say, first of all, why he can forgive sins, because first of all, all sin is ultimately against him. If you came into my wallet pocket tonight and took out ten pounds, well, don't used to have ten pounds on me, but I do tonight because somebody gave me ten pounds. If you came and took out ten pounds out of my pocket and you ran away from me with it, and then you felt a little bit guilty, you picked up the phone and you phoned my mum and said, eh, could you forgive me for stealing ten pounds out of Adrian's pocket? My mum would say, no, I can't forgive you. You need get right to the person who you stole it from. You need to speak to Adrian and ask Adrian to forgive you. You see, all sin is not against me. All sin is against God. All sin ultimately against is the holy and mighty God, the one who wrote the law with his fingers, the one who made us, the one who gives us breath. That's why he can forgive sins, because all sin is ultimately against him. He is the one who you've offended. He's the one who you can be saved by. He's the wonderful savior of sinners. If your life is unfulfilled, is it because you've never had your sins forgiven, because you don't know Christ as your own Lord and savior yet? He can forgive sins. But secondly, the other reason why he can forgive sins and save with all authority before this woman that she she he she could be forgiven is very simply because the Lord Jesus bore away our sins. When the Lord Jesus said to this woman, neither do I condemn thee, go and sin no more, they were waiting words because very shortly our Lord Jesus Christ was up to bear away this woman's sins. The woman's sins were not cancelled in the sense that they were eradicated forever out of this world. No, they were transferred from that woman to our Lord Jesus. He became the sin bearer. And our Lord Jesus went outside Jerusalem, probably not far from where this took place, not now to a temple, but to a lonely hill there called Golgotha. And there upon Golgotha's rock, our Lord Jesus Christ bore away the sin of this world. They spat on him, they buffeted him, they plucked the hairs from his cheeks, and yet the Lord Jesus Christ still went there and bore away our sins, dying on that cross. It wasn't a cheap thing, it wasn't a light thing. The wrath of God was poured upon the Son of God. The wrath of God was poured upon him, and there our Lord Jesus can forgive sins because he bore away our sins. And so he took the sins of this woman, he placed them upon himself. He would die and bear away her sins, and so he did with me, that I could be forgiven, and so he can do with you. You can have your sins forgiven by simply receiving our Lord Jesus and all the work that he has done. I read three passages tonight. The second passage I read was a passage in Luke chapter twenty three, verse thirty four, and it said this: Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. Doesn't even name names, no names called that day. A multitude of people putting the Lord Jesus Christ to death, murderers, and they can be forgiven. And so perhaps two of the greatest things that our society think are sins, adultery and murder, can be forgiven in Christ. But he's a wonderful person, the person who forgives sins, the person who cleanses our soul, the person who gives us life, the lovely Lord Jesus Christ, the one who forgives sins. But then thirdly, he can forgive sins because he's alive, not dead. You can't go to Winston Churchill and ask for your sins forgiven, to be forgiven, because he can't help you. He's dead. He's absolutely dead. But Christ, he's alive. They put him in a tomb. They sealed the tomb with the seal of Rome. They guarded the tomb with soldiers. But the earthquake came, and they were like dead men. The stone was rolled away. The angels were there at the tomb. The disciples saw the Lord Jesus' grave clothes folded. And then they met the Lord Jesus, one who they supposed to be the gardener, and he was alive forevermore. He sits in heaven today, and what does he do in heaven? He has work to do, says the Bible, he ever liveth to make intercession for us. He wants to forgive sins. He loves, he loves the sinner, he hates the sin, and he wants you simply to have all your sins forgiven in Christ, the one who died that you might live, the one who's alive today that you might forever be with him. He can forgive sins because all sins against him. He can forgive sins because he died to forgive sins. He can forgive sins because he's alive and he's interceding for us. What a man is our Lord Jesus, the one who forgives sins. So what about this woman? What are we going to say in conclusion about her? Let's read this verse again, verse eleven. Neither do I condemn thee. Go and sin no more. She commenced caught, caught in sin, and now the Lord Jesus says, neither do I condemn thee. Surely there can be no greater words for that woman to hear than to hear those words of forgiveness of Lord Jesus. She wasn't condemned anymore. She could be delivered from her sins. She could be forgiven. She could be saved. She can go out and know Christ as our Lord. She can go to heaven because the Lord Jesus no longer condemns her. What about you? Has there been that experience in your own life where you've received the Lord Jesus Christ and are no longer condemned by your sin, but you're saved? There's a song, it says these words very simply. I'm saved and I know that I am. I hope you're saved, friend. I hope you know that that you're no longer condemned, that you know Christ as your savior and your Lord. I often use this as illustration, and with this I'll finish tonight. In my garden, I have three trees. We always go on holiday the first two weeks in August, and when we come back from our holidays, I go into my garden, it's almost the first thing I do when we come back from our summer holidays, and look at my trees. Why do I look at them in August? Because they're fruit trees. And I look at the lovely apples. Well, they taste more like lemons than apples, but I look at them nevertheless. I look at these apples, and I see that they're almost ready to pick. I can tell they're apple trees. It said in the shop when I bought them that were apple trees, but there was no evidence. But when I planted them, the evidence was there. This woman, the Lord says to her, neither do I condemn thee, go and sin no more. What would be the evidence that the work of Christ had been fulfilled in her life? Simply, she wouldn't go and sin anymore. And so in our lives, is there any fruit in our life that we've been saved? Is there any evidence that Christ has worked his work in our life? Is there any evidence, any fruit in your life that you belong to the Lord Jesus Christ? The woman came sad, unforgiven, condemned, facing death. She left forgiven because Christ forgives sin. May God bless you this very evening. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for this time. We rejoice in who the Lord Jesus is and what he has done and his wonderful person, and thank you, our God, that he forgives sins. We pray, Father, for thy parting blessing. Thank you, our Father, for the good attention, and Father, we rejoice in the loveliness of our Lord Jesus Christ. We pray that thou would bless the dear people here tonight and help them on their way home, help them to go home rejoicing in Christ the Savior. Father, thou art gracious. Think of a woman caught in adultery, but leaving forgiven. Thank you, our Father, for that. We thank you that thou hast forgiven our sins and made us clean in the blood of Christ. And Father, we thank you that the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanses us from all sin. We pray that others would even be forgiven this very night. Father, we give thanks now and ask for a parting blessing in our Lord Jesus' name. Amen. Well, thank you again for coming. We won't have a closing hymn tonight, but eh, trust that the Lord will bless you for being here this evening. Thank you.