Telling the Truth for Women

Jill Briscoe: I'm continuing in the study in Women in the Life of the Lord Jesus. Today, we're going to think about sexual women. We've thought about sinful women, and we took as a model the mother of our Lord Jesus because there are good sinners. Even though Mary of Nazareth was by far the most marvelous woman—a good woman, the best woman that ever lived—she still needed a relationship with her Son, as she said, her Savior, to take her into the presence of God. Then we thought about sick women and how the Lord Jesus ministered to sick women. We've thought about other types of women, all shapes and sizes, that Jesus loved because Jesus had a heart for women.

Today, we're going to look at three women who we would probably say were really sinful women. We all struggled with the thought that Mary of Nazareth would be considered a sinful woman until we realized that being less than divinity, less than perfect, is sinful. But now, we wouldn't have any trouble at all saying the woman at the well, the woman taken in adultery, and the sinner of the village, the sex symbol of the village that came and poured out her little alabaster box on the feet of Jesus, surely needed Christ.

How did He deal with that? You've got to realize that Jesus was God, and God made rules about sex and about sinful sex—sex outside the boundaries that He had created for sex. For sex inside the boundaries He created is not sinful. It's pure, it's good. God thought about it, He thought of it, He created it to enhance a relationship. But once we go outside the boundaries that God set for that sexual expression of our love, then we get into all sorts of trouble. Here was God Himself walking around in a Jewish body—the God that had made those rules, that had made those statements, that had told us what He thought about stepping outside, for example, into adultery—facing an adulteress. Literally, face-to-face with an adulteress. What did He do? How did He react? What did He say? Those are some of the things that we're going to be thinking about.

I think the study that I have today is going to be very relevant not only for our own hearts and lives, but also perhaps as mothers and certainly as Christian women in the day in which we live. Would you open your Bibles to Romans Chapter 1. I'm reading from Phillips' translation. This really lays it out as I'd like it to be laid out at this point. It's talking about people that say that they would rather not retain God in their knowledge. They would rather know the things of the world, they would rather follow the role models of the world, they would rather do the things of a world that has rejected God.

This is what Romans 1:25 says: "These men deliberately forfeited the truth of God and accepted a lie, paying homage and giving service to the creature instead of to the Creator, who alone is worthy to be worshipped forever and ever. God, therefore, handed them over to disgraceful passions. Their women exchanged the normal practices of sexual intercourse for something which is abnormal and unnatural. Similarly, the men, turning from natural intercourse with women, were swept into lustful passions for one another. Men with men performed those shameful horrors, receiving, of course, in their own personalities the consequences of sexual perversity."

It goes on and explains in Romans that people have exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and they worship the created body or image more than the one whose image we should worship—that of God Himself. Make no mistake about it, our media and Madison Avenue create the image. That's the created image that people model after today and worship. It's a lie. The Bible says that's a lie. If we worship something God has created rather than the Creator Himself, we have turned the truth of God into a lie. It's a love lie, and our children are being fed a love lie every day of their lives.

Eros is God. That's what the world says. Eros, the erotic side of love, the sensual, sexual side of love. Of course, the world is very explicit in its images. You open a Playboy magazine, you can't get more explicit than that. You see the image you have been fed being worshipped, being adored, being bowed down to—the image of sex itself, sex without God. Eros defined, Eros defiled, and Eros deified. I well remember my husband being on a university campus once, and a young man giving him some hassle. At the end of it, this young man said, "But if it feels good, it must be right. Who are you to tell me that it can be wrong? If it feels so good, it must be right. How can something feel so right and be wrong?" Yet, as my husband said to the young man, you, young man, have the capacity to populate a small village and feel good doing it. Is that right?

Obviously, sex must have control, or none of us would have much food left to eat before the end of this century, and there is doubt about it anyway. Eros has to be controlled by a greater than itself. Even if sex is explicit and sex is thrown at us, and the body beautiful is worshipped, we have to realize that the Bible too is explicit. The Bible too is very, very explicit indeed. We will see that in a minute because the love truth against the love lie is that Agape love, God's sort of love, has been defined.

I'd like you to turn to see that definition in John 15:13. "Greater love has no man than this, that one lay down his life for his friends." Our media would have us believe greater love hath no man than this, than sex, than Eros. There is no greater love than Eros. But Jesus said there is no greater love than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. God's sort of love says, "I am primarily concerned with the other's well-being irrespective of the cost to myself," which is a very different thing from lust. For lust says, "I want, and give me," and God's sort of love says, "You must have, and I will give to you." God so loved the world He gave. He gave. He didn't come to take; He came to give.

The love truth is that God's sort of love is one that always thinks of the other's well-being. Therefore, if a young man is taking a young lady out on a date and he is exhibiting the highest love, the love truth of God, then he will never force that girl to do something she would not wish to do sexually. For he is primarily concerned with her well-being, irrespective of the cost to himself of controlling his own passion. Therefore, he would not want her to overstep the bounds that he knows in his heart, whether he admits it or not, the boundaries that God has set around sex.

God's sort of love is not only defined for us in the Scriptures and the life of Christ, but it is also demanded. Look at verse 17: "This is my command: Agape each other." The sort of love that God has in mind is a love that blossoms into marriage—Christian marriage where two believers get together and commit themselves to each other. Then within the bounds of that marriage, all their other loves—their Phileo, their human friendship love; their Eros, their sexuality—take their rightful place. They are kept sweet, they are kept in control because God is in control. That's the birth of a marriage indeed.

I was just thinking about marriage as God intends it to be. I was thinking one day a marriage was born. My new husband said to me, "We'll take care of our marriage, nursing it when it cries, feeding it when it's hungry, cradling it when it's frightened, growing it up till it develops muscles and it's time to send it out to walk this warped and wounded world of woes where other people's marriages are hobbled with suspicion, or paralyzed by pride, or ripped apart by hate. We'll teach our marriage manners and send it to the highest place of learning: God's school. One day when it graduates, we'll be such proud parents, knowing our beloved marriage is ready to serve its world, leaving it a far, far better place." That's what I see as a picture of Christian marriage. What a wonderful thing God has in mind. Within it, sex is safe, sex is protected. Sexuality is simply an expression of the whole of our being given to the one that we are totally committed to till death us do part.

So if the world is explicit with its sexual images, so God's Word is explicit. So God's Word lays it out. That's why it's important for our young people to be in the Bible. It's important for you, Mom, Aunt, and Grandma, to be in the Bible, so that when the kids are around the house and they say, "Who says it's wrong? Where does it say in the Bible?" you know. Do you know where to turn? Do you know what it says? It's very important that you can back up your Christian beliefs with something from the Scriptures.

For example, let me show you how explicit it is where, for example, adultery is concerned. Turn to Hebrews 13:4. "Marriage should be honored by all. The marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral. Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have." I don't think it's a mistake, incidentally, that that next command about money follows the command about keeping your bodies pure. Sometimes the two seem inextricably bound up. What can this man give me that my husband can't give me? I've just been in an awful marriage counseling situation where the young woman went after a wealthy married man even while she was still in her own marriage because the money would give her what she didn't have in her own marriage. So much of that happens because again the image is there. It is a false image. It is a lie. For money does not bring us happiness and satisfaction, just as sex outside the bond of marriage cannot bring us lasting satisfaction. It can be the pleasure of sin for a season, but the seasons change. The season of stolen things like that will always change on you and you'll find yourself in a very deep winter, a winter of the soul.

The Bible is explicit. Marriage and chastity should be respected by all of you. God Himself will judge those who traffic in the bodies of others and defile the relationship of marriage. God Himself will judge those who traffic in the bodies of others and defile the relationship of marriage. When David committed adultery with Bathsheba, the Bible says God was displeased. There it is, laid out for us.

If you really want to get explicit where adultery is concerned, you turn to Proverbs 5. Let me read it for you. "Let your fountain flow for yourself alone, let a young wife be your joy, a lovely hind, a charming doe is she. Let her breasts give you rapture, let her love ever ravish you. Why be ravished with a loose creature and embrace the bosom of another woman?" Do you want to be explicit? The Bible is explicit. You want to talk about sex? The Bible will talk about sex. None of us need be in any doubt about where God stands on the subject. That helps because the Bible doesn't fuzz itself around and say, "I don't know," or "I've changed my mind." It is here for all times. The Bible, of course, is relevant for all times. This was not just for David and Bathsheba, this was for you and I in Christian America, where we are fed with a love lie, the love lie being sex must be worshipped and that's the role model that we would have as women and for our children.

So what did God—who laid down this Bible, who said in the book of Leviticus and Exodus, "Thou shalt not commit adultery"—do when we see this God walk this earth? Let's look at the three women that He faced. Let's turn to John 4 first of all and just dig around a little bit and see how He dealt with this woman. We know the story well. Jesus, it says, needed to go through Samaria. Now, Samaria was the sort of place that no Jew must needs go through if he could help it. In some of the books of the Jews, we read this about the Samaritans: "He who eats the bread of a Samaritan is he who eats sinner's flesh. No Samaritan shall be made a proselyte." They couldn't even become a Jew if they wanted to be. They have no share in the resurrection of the dead.

The Jews hated the Samaritans. Where had all this come from? Back in history, in 2 Kings 17:21, Israel had been taken captive by Assyria. They had been colonized. That's where the trouble all began. When they came back from that captivity, we see that there was a falling out of the pious Jews with the impious Jews, the ones that wanted to mix the world in with their religion, the Samaritan party. They built their own temple and started to worship Jehovah their own way on Mount Gerizim, while the pious Jews sought to restore the Temple of God.

When Jesus meets this woman, she begins arguing the toss. "Our fathers say that we should worship on this mountain." They've done that ever since they fell out right in the Old Testament times. Their roots were the same, but there was a deep-bred hostility. Yet Jesus Himself was accused of being a Samaritan. That was about the worst thing that the Pharisees could think to say about Him. They said, "You're demon-possessed and you are a Samaritan." That was two nasty things they thought they could say about Him. Yet Jesus Himself spoke kindly. He loved the Samaritans, as we will see in this story. He told a parable about the good Samaritan. Do you remember that? Everybody else that thought they were good didn't show up very well in that story. He healed a Samaritan leper one day, and He used a very strong language to rebuke His disciples who wanted Jesus to call down fire on a Samaritan village that hadn't treated the Lord Jesus very hospitably. You can understand why they hadn't treated the Lord Jesus and twelve Jewish disciples following a rabbi around very hospitably when you realize the roots. They were not going to receive them into the village. Jesus, knowing all things and judging it right, said they really don't know I'm God, they haven't had a chance to understand it. They are embroiled in this bitterness that has gone on for centuries. Where is your love and compassion, my dear friends? I will not call down fire and destroy them all.

When Jesus Christ was dealing with the Samaritans, we see a great sense of love and compassion. But here is a woman of Samaria. A man should not speak to his own wife in public if he is a rabbi. He must not speak to her the words of the law. They should rather be burned than be taught publicly to a woman, they said. That's written down in their books. Here is Jesus, if you like, a teacher, a rabbi. Here are His disciples coming back from trying to find some food because Jesus is tired and He sits on the well and they go into the city, and they come back and find Him talking not only to a Samaritan but to a woman—publicly! No wonder they said to Him, "What do you want from the woman? What on earth are you talking to her for?" Not only is she a woman, and you're teaching her publicly and everybody's looking and watching. Jesus wasn't sitting there in glorious isolation. The well was in the middle of the village. People are watching you talking to this woman. She was *the* woman of Samaria, the sex symbol of the village. She was known for that.

Jesus begins to deal with her. What a wonderful story it is. Remember the story, how He says, "Give me to drink." She gave Him to drink. She didn't need to. She did say, "How come you, being a Jew, ask drink of me, being a Samaritan?" But she still did it. If you give a cup of cold water in His name, you will in no wise lose your reward. She gave the cup of cold water not in His name, but to the one whose name she did not yet know. Jesus Christ received from her the water and offered the unspeakable gift of Himself to that woman. "If you knew who you were talking to, young lady, who it is that saith to you give me to drink, you would have asked of me, and I would have given you living water so that you would never come hither again to draw."

She gets a bit embarrassed and she moves back and she says, "Our fathers said we should worship over here and your fathers said you should worship over there." She begins to argue religion. He cuts right through that and He says, "Why don't you go and bring your husband?" She said, "I haven't got a husband." He says, "You're right. You haven't got a husband. You've had five, and the man you're now living with isn't your husband." Who are you? she thought. He begins to explain Himself to this woman and deal with her in love and compassion and grace.

She ends up leaving her bucket. I love that—the symbol of her thirst. Five men and still not satisfied. Five marriages and still empty. Here is one that said, "Your thirst is deeper than the physical, erotic sensations you crave. Your thirst is spiritual, and I'm the only one that can satisfy you." She comes to know Jesus, and she runs back to the men in her village, leaving her bucket behind her, and says, "Come and see a man that told me all things that ever I did without me telling him. Is not this the Christ?" They all come out. Jesus lifts up His eyes and He says, "Look at the fields, they're white unto harvest." A spiritual harvest, of course. Even though the fields were white unto harvest at that time, He was talking of something much deeper and much greater. For His meat was to do the will of Him that sent Him while it was day. Even though Jesus grew weary *in* His work, He never grew weary *of* it.

He had a heart for women, and He had a heart for sex symbols, and He had a heart for women who had swallowed the lie—the love lie. He said, "If only they could come to know me, what women they would be because what women they are already." Jesus sees potential. In every person, Jesus sees it. That woman was the result of turning the whole of the village around. When Philip in the Book of Acts visited Samaria, there was a revival there. I'm absolutely sure that woman was the first on the front row. She was organizing the counselors and getting the choir together for Philip to have his meetings in town. What a wonderful thing it was when Jesus dealt with the woman of Samaria.

The next incident I want to look at is in John Chapter 8. God Himself met in human flesh, face-to-face with a woman of human flesh, who had literally been dragged out of bed with a man. The Pharisees who dragged her there in front of Jesus said, "This woman was caught in the very act." They were proud to deal with harlots. They considered themselves custodians of public morality. They treated sinners with sanctimonious contempt. It was sinful to be touched by a woman like this, but they still dragged her in front of Jesus. It's interesting to wonder: where was the man? For in the book of Leviticus 20:10, it says very explicitly both must be brought. Both must be brought. Was it a Pharisee? Who knows? We don't, do we?

But we do know one thing: they didn't care about the woman. They were simply using her as a trap to get the Lord Jesus into trouble. They dragged this woman in front of Jesus and they made her stand before the group. They said to Jesus, "Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. Now in the law, Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?" They were using this question as a trap in order to have a basis for accusing Him. But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with His finger. When they kept on questioning Him, He straightened up and said to them, "If any of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her." Again He stooped down and wrote on the ground. At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left with the woman still standing there. Jesus straightened up and asked her, "Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?" "No one, sir," she said. "Then neither do I condemn you," Jesus declared. "Go now and leave your life of sin."

Neither do I condemn you. There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit, Romans 8 tells us. Jesus, having been on the Mount of Olives, was faced with this particular situation. Casting the stone—we are not to cast the stone for we are not the judge. The stone has been cast; it is written in our Bible. Adultery is outside the boundaries that God has set around sex. Immoral living, extramarital sex, sex before marriage is outside the boundaries. Perversion, homosexuality is outside the boundaries that God has set around sex to keep it pure and safe and sweet.

We so often cast the stone. Jesus stones the cast. "He that is without sin cast the first stone." He picked up the biggest stone of all and used a word to decimate those who judged and those who condemned. What did Jesus write? Have you ever wondered? We don't know. I wonder if He wrote one of the Ten Commandments: "Thou shalt not commit adultery." One ancient, very ancient translation says He wrote the sin of each of them. I like that; I think I'll choose that one. He wrote the sin of each of them. That would make them go out one after the other. "What's he writing? Why isn't he answering us? Here's the woman! We asked him to say something." Jesus bends down and He begins, possibly, to write the sin of each of them in the sand so everybody can see. They try to put their feet and cover it up, and the oldest one disappeared hurriedly because they realized they were facing a man—more than a man—who knew, who was telling them everything that ever they did. Even as He knew the woman had had five husbands though He had never met her before, He knew the sin of each of us.

As Romans 2 says, "Thou art inexcusable, oh man, whoever you are that judge, for thou that judgest doest the same things." God knows that in our heart we have in our lifetime lusted after someone or desired someone we shouldn't have or overstepped in our mind the boundaries. So we are not to be the judge. But that does not mean that we can say nothing.

The third incident is the one that we touched on before in Luke 7. The woman who was a sinner, the sexual sinner, the sex symbol of the village, came to Jesus. She stood behind Him, knelt at His feet, brought the box, the alabaster box. I'm sure it was bought with her ill-gotten gains. She brought the symbol of her life, her sinful life. She broke it in front of Jesus and she poured it on His feet. She knelt down, she cried, she wiped His feet with her hair. The Pharisee's house, in whose Jesus had gone, was sitting there judging, condemning. "If he knew what sort of a woman this was, he would not allow her to touch him, for rabbis do not allow sex symbols to touch them." Jesus not only allowed this woman to touch Him, but He wouldn't allow anyone else to touch her. He protected her. He said, "She's been forgiven much, therefore she loves me much." This woman knows what bent knees, wet eyes, and broken hearts are all about. Simon, you old Pharisee, you don't know any of those things. You don't know what it is to have bent knees and wet eyes and a broken heart because you don't think you need to be forgiven anything. You are condemning, and it is not your place to condemn.

So Jesus dealt with three sex symbols in love. That comes to the application of this story—the disciples of love. John 14:21 and 24: "Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he it is who loves me. He who loves me will be loved by my Father and I too will love him and show myself to him." We see this woman, this woman of sin, this sexual sinner, kneeling at His feet. That's the first thing I want to say. Those of us, any of us, that are in any sense guilty—if in any sense you know that you have sinned and nobody's got to convince you of it, you just know it—if that is the case, then there is somewhere to go. There is someone to go to. You can kneel at His feet. We can kneel at His feet and say, "I have sinned and I know it and I know you know it. Forgive me." Jesus says, "She shall be forgiven. Go in peace. Your faith has saved you. You are forgiven." When you're forgiven much, you'll begin to love much. You'll love much, and you are accepted of the Father. It doesn't matter what you've done; your sins are forgiven. That's the first thing we need to know—our response to this lesson.

Then we are to live as He lived in response to other people who are living as they shouldn't live. How did He live? He was separate from sin but not separate from sinners. He didn't withdraw Himself and say, "I'll have nothing to do with you because you're sinning." He was there. He must needs go through Samaria. He made sure He sat on the well and was there at just the right time when the woman came along. I believe we need to be there just at the right time when the woman comes along—that you and I as believing women can reach out and be able to reach across that barrier that separates us, the different philosophies of the life that we're living. Like this person did, she came to know that there was love there, that there was concern for her there.

We are to live as He lived. We are to be separate from sin ourselves because we are to live as He lived. But we are also to love as He loved. Love as He loved. Keep touching, keep teaching, keep telling the world. Keep in touch as we're touching. We are not to condemn. That's the secret. But while we do not condemn, we can keep teaching. We can keep proclaiming. We can keep saying, "I am not your judge, but I want you to know that this is against what God lays down. The reason God lays these good rules down is because He loves you and He knows the very best thing He can do for you is to guard your sexuality and keep it safe and sweet and wonderful so that you can be the woman that He knows you can be and enjoy all these good things within the boundaries that will keep it safe." You can proclaim what the Bible says about sex, about marriage, about Christian marriage, and about adultery and about perversion. Romans Chapter 1 is a huge passage on all of that.

We are not to condemn, but we can keep teaching. Now this, I know, is going to engender a lot of talk. A friend of mine said, "My kids are coming back from college and, much to our distress, even though our daughter knows better, she went up to college and she began living with her boyfriend. She told us that she was, and we told her that we did not approve of it. We didn't want it to happen. We didn't think it was the thing that she should be doing from a Christian perspective, but it made no difference. Now she wants to come home for the weekend and bring her boyfriend with her." She rang up and they were very delighted. They wanted to meet the young man, obviously, and they were delighted she wanted to come home and bring him. But then she said, "Don't worry about another bed, Mom, we'll sleep in my room." Now what would you have done? Would you say, "You're not coming under my roof," or "Don't bring the young man," or "Don't come home"? Or, "All right, maybe we'll get a chance to speak to them. They're doing it at college, what's the difference if they do it here?"

In the end, my friend very wisely said, "We want you to come home and we want you to bring the young man. We cannot stop you doing what you're doing at college, but this is our home and we live according to a different set of rules. While you're in our home and under our roof, you will not be sleeping together in the same bed. So bring the young man, he will sleep on the couch, and you will sleep in your room. If you will come on those terms, we can't wait to have you and we're going to have a marvelous weekend."

I'm very thrilled that that young couple did come because sometimes it doesn't always work out like that. But this time they did. The funny thing was he was a lot more open than the daughter was—a lot more open to the things that the parents began to share. Eventually, the young man came to Christ a long time before the daughter ever came. The young man came to Christ. You never know. But that's a Jesus story. I think it's what Jesus would have done. We have to grapple with it. We have to make our statements. We have to live as He lived ourselves. We have to love as He loved and keep touching, keep teaching, keep telling the world: "Come see a man that told me all things ever I did. He's told me what's right, he's told me what's wrong." He expects me to leave my bucket, to leave my little box. As He said to the woman taken in adultery, "Go and leave your life of sin." That has to be spelled out. We can expect change, we can hope for it, we can pray for it.

We can stand on the rooftop and we can look down that long road that perhaps our children have gone along. We know they're sitting in a pigsty as far as what we have taught them back home all their lives. They are far away from their heritage. We do not need to run after them and drag them back because it wouldn't work anyway; they're probably bigger than we are. We haven't the strength and energy to do it and they wouldn't come. But you can stand on your rooftop. You can stand your ground and you can watch and you can pray. As soon as you see your child come to themselves—for they will if you pray, I believe it—then you take the first step towards them and you get yourself down that road. You gather them in your arms and you welcome them home. Nothing has changed. You have not compromised. You have not gone and sat in the pigsty with them and said, "Well, it isn't such a bad pigsty. I'll just try and get used to this sort of living." You have stayed where you are, which you must. You have stood your ground, for you're a Christian woman. But you have kept touch with those you love. You've loved them and you've prayed for them. This, I believe, is one of the lessons from the way that Jesus dealt with sexual women.

Let's pray together. Heavenly Father, we thank you for your Word. There is so much in our world that is explicit. There are so many images that are put out for role models for us, and it's a love lie. It's an Eros lie. We know that you thought of Eros, erotic, sensual love, and you put it within the control of Agape, and you built loving walls around it and you said, "Now that's for marriage." That's where it belongs. That's where it can blossom and function as I intended it to be. Lord, we have taken and prostituted it and wrecked it and ruined it, and we ask you to forgive us. We ask that we may know what the Bible says very clearly about marriage, about adultery, about perversion, about sexual immorality, and that we may be able to teach and tell it with an attitude that is in no wise condemning but simply proclaiming what you say. That the love truth may go forth in our world from Christian women, that we may teach to our children the truths you give us to teach, that we may be as explicit as you are about the boundaries you set. And that we may always, in love and compassion, knowing that we ourselves are guilty of the same sort of thoughts, knowing we ourselves are guilty of the same sort of ability to overstep the bounds, may we humbly be able to reach across the bounds to those who are living outside your boundaries and tell them about Jesus—a man who knows all things that ever they did, and yet weary with his journey though he was, made sure he met a woman, touched her life, turned her around, so that she was never the same again. Lord, make us like you. Help us to live as you lived and to love as you loved. We ask it for your sake and in your name we pray. Amen.