When you live in a glass house, don't throw stones...

       The adulteress represents all sinners (see John 8:3-11). We all have secret sins, desires, temptations that may be brought to light. The devil is just looking for an opportunity to expose us, to destroy us. He can only do that if we give him the opportunity to do so. He is the accuser of the brethren; but it is better to be falsely accused than rightly accused. He wants to make God look bad  because this battle is really between him and God; we are just pawns in the battle. When the woman was presented before Jesus, it wasn't about her and what she had done, it was about trying to destroy Jesus. Ironically, these religious men were not really interested in obeying Moses' law as much as they wanted to destroy Jesus. They were just as much sinners as this woman was. Similarly, the devil is just as much a "sinner" as we are. It's kind of like the pot calling the kettle black. Both are pretty much in the same boat. We though have salvation as our way out, the devil has nothing!
       When someone falls, everyone becomes judge, juror and executioner. Somehow that person's sin looks worse than our own but in fact it is not. In God's eyes sin is sin. We are the ones who like to categorize it. God's ideal is that we confess our faults to one another, to help one another. Instead, we expose and talk about and thus condemn one another. Ironically, we condemn our own selves, because while we accuse another we ourselves have sin in our lives. That's why the bible says to cast out the beam from our own eyes before we deal with the spot in our  brother's eye (Matthew 7:5). We can't "see" clearly with sin in our lives . Sin mars our perspective so that we cannot see as we should. In fact, condemning someone else may seem to help us deal with or even come to terms with our own sin. It is, however, NOT the way to deal with our sin. We need to acknowledge and confess our sin to God, forgive ourselves and move on. Then, instead of condemning others, we can help them, we can pray for them, especially leaders whom we hold in high esteem. Rather than condemn them when they do wrong, we need to pray for them because they are human just like us and need our prayer even more so because they are a prime target. Once the enemy strikes them, he can scatter the sheep. We are less condemning of others once we can see our own sin in our lives. Being honest with ourselves and acknowledging our sin keeps us from condemning others.
       Note well though that when Jesus dismissed the woman, He told her to go and sin no more. He didn't condemn her yet it was not an excuse or opportunity for her to continue in her sin. She had to stop! She had the ability to stop.

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