Message of the Latter Rain - Kelvin M. Duncan

simple but legalistic sparring match the most fundamental issues of the great
controversy between Christ and Satan were being arbitrated. The enemy of
souls had claimed that God could not be just and merciful at the same time.
He had sought to set at variance the very elements of God's nature. Thus, the
accuser charged this woman with violating the law of both God and Moses.
The question was a simple one to understand. Yet it posited a profound
dilemma. Is it possible for Christ to uphold the law and at the same time save
the sinner, the transgressor of the law?
Jesus apparently ignored the scribes and Pharisees. The Bible says that
He stooped down and began writing in the sand, "as though He heard them
not." What a scene of grace! The accusers are demanding "justice"--
demanding that this woman receive what she deserves, what the law
demands, but Jesus begins writing in the sand as though He does not hear.
He writes in the sand as though He does not care. He writes in the sand as
though He does not understand. The accusers wait, and the woman also
waits--breathless, nerveless, and hopeless.
In each of our experiences are times when we seek the Lord in prayer.
We call upon Him to honor the promises recorded in the Word, and it seems
that He ignores us as He stoops to write in the sand. It seems He is writing in
the sands of time, as though He does not hear, but He hears.
It seems that He is writing in the sands of time, as though He does not
care, but He cares. It seems sometimes that He is writing in the sand as
though He does not understand, but He understands! "No one understands
like Jesus." These moments of divine silence, these moments of apparent
neglect, these moments of celestial apathy--these are moments of mercy.
Sometimes, no doubt, the accuser demands that we be destroyed according to
the letter of the law, and heaven is mercifully silent, seemingly inattentive,
apparently uninterested. Yet the purposes of grace are steadily being
fulfilled.
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