John 8 — Damian Kyle

John's Gospel, chapter 8. The context of chapter 8 begins a little bit with verse 53 of chapter 7, where, as Jesus was ministering there in the city of Jerusalem, the opinions concerning Him divided the people.

Some believed Him to be the Messiah, believed Him to be who He said He was. Others rejected. The religious leaders, of course, rejected. Nicodemus comes along and says, wait a second, we can't reject a man without giving him the ability, under the law, to defend himself.

And they squashed whatever kind of thing he was trying to say to them. And then we're told in verse 53 that everyone went to his own house, but Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. And from the temple to the Mount of Olives, it's just a stone's throw distance.

And it is separated by a valley known as the Kidron Valley. They talk about mountains in Israel and this kind of thing. You go over there and you look at them and say, ah, looks like a hill to me. But it's a mountain for them.

So they talk about a valley and you look at it and you go, this looks like a little wide spot here. I don't know that I'd call it a valley, especially when you live in the big valley. Try not to bring that up when I'm over there.

It's a source of pride for me, one of many. But it's just a little old narrow valley and Jesus goes across the Kidron Valley to the Mount of Olives. And this last time when we were in Israel, every time you go, if you get a different guide, they kind of show you different things that you haven't seen before and that's what's kind of neat.

And then each guide tells you a bunch of stuff that you're not interested in either, but it all evens out. But on this last trip, Mickey took us into the Mount of Olives area and he took us into a cave.

We'd never been taken into a cave in the area of the Mount of Olives down by where the Garden of Gethsemane was. And inside this cave was an olive press and this is the time of the year that's going on here where they would have been bringing in the harvest and all the last time we were in Israel was about this time of the year and so they were harvesting the olives.

It was fun to see as we drove by the countryside. But he contended that it was very, very possible that Jesus and his disciples would, when they were at the Mount of Olives, spend the night in one of these caves.

It was a place to find shelter out of the cold and of course this time of the year there in Israel, very much like California, a little cool to be out right on the mountain there in the evening. But I think it's a beautiful scene to me.

Just very poignant, beautifully poignant. Here everybody goes to their own home and Jesus goes to the Mount of Olives. I can just see him walking there. And as Jesus said, you know, the foxes have their holes, the birds are there, they have their nests, but the Son of Man, he has no place to lay his head.

And so he goes over to the Mount of Olives and early in the morning, that next morning, he came again to the temple. Again, a short distance for him to travel. And all the people came to him and he is in the court of the women there in the temple area.

And early in the morning, people that were interested in religious instruction, they would go to the area of the temple and these different rabbis would set themselves up and a crowd would gather around these favorite rabbis, and they would sit and listen to the teaching of that particular rabbi.

Jesus comes to the court of the women and he kind of sets up the place where he's going to teach. And it's interesting, everybody came to his. How would you like to set up your shop, you know, 15 feet down from Jesus?

Well, that's fair competition, wouldn't you say? And so they all come to him and he sat down. Again, sitting down, he took the position of a teacher in that ancient day and he began to teach them. And the scribes and the Pharisees, the great zealous religious leaders of their day, they brought to him a woman caught in adultery.

Now, adultery under the law of Moses, that was a capital crime. Under the law of Moses, you were to be stoned for adultery under that law. And they come in, they interrupt his teaching and when they had set her in the midst, they said to him, Teacher, this woman was caught in adultery in the very act.

So they come dragging this woman in and they throw her into the middle of the class, intent upon disrupting everything that he's doing. Because they're not only after him, but they're after his disciples.

They want to interrupt him, they want to trick him and in tricking him, they want to do it publicly so that he'll lose the broad base of support that he has. The common people heard him gladly. And so they bring this woman in, they throw her in the midst.

Now, there's some people, and it's certainly open for speculation, the condition of the woman when she came in. There's some who believe that she came in as this kind of hussy, fighting them every step of the way.

I don't believe that. It may be true, but I don't believe it. I'm inclined to believe that this is a woman who is terrified for her life. If you watch what would happen in the Middle East today, where religious leaders don't have an understanding of the heart of God, they don't have an understanding of grace or mercy, she knows what the sentence is for what she's been caught in the middle of.

And I think she's thrown in the midst and she is terrified at what it is that's going to happen to her. And so having made this grand entrance into Jesus' teaching here, they said, Teacher, this woman was caught in adultery in the very act.

Now Moses in the law commanded us that such should be stoned, but what do you say? Now, we know immediately, and we're going to know for sure in verse 6, because they did all this testing him. They have no concern for the law of Moses.

They have no zeal for God or for holiness for the land. They don't have... None of that is motivating them in any of this. And one of the things that exposes the fact that they are not interested in justice or in the law of Moses being kind of brought to play into the situation is that they only bring the woman.

Now, when you catch a woman in the very act of adultery, you have a fair understanding of who the man is. He's right there. So by virtue of the fact that they have let the man go and they have only brought the woman, they're not interested in justice.

If they were interested in justice, they would have brought both of them there. And so they pose the question, Moses in the law, and so here what they're doing is they're building this thing where they've got Moses in the law on one side over here.

They commanded us that such should be stoned, but what do you say? And they're trying to make it appear... They're trying to divide Jesus' support, His popularity among the common people. And so they're trying to put Jesus at odds with the law and of Moses.

And so it's very clever, really. I don't know which one of them thought it up, but I hope they repented of it. Because I know they're someplace other than on earth at this point in man's history. But here's what they think.

If he says, stoner, then the first thing that they're going to do is run to the Roman officials and say, there is a Jewish teacher on the temple area who is telling the Jews to do something which is contrary to Roman law.

Because the Roman officials had long ago taken away the right of capital punishment away from the Jews. So if he answers, go ahead and stoner, then he is in trouble with the Romans. If he says, no, the law is wrong and Moses is wrong, she isn't to be stoned, then he's at odds with the law of Moses and that entire assembly of people that are standing before him as he's teaching, they would melt away.

It is a lose-lose situation, no matter what he says here. So that's the deal that they're doing here. What do you say? And this they said, testing him. That was their motive behind it, that they might have something of which to accuse him.

But Jesus stooped down and he wrote on the ground with his finger as though he did not hear. And notice their response to that. And so they continued asking him the same question. Now, this is interesting, isn't it?

It's the only place in the Bible, by the way, that we see Jesus writing anything, right here in this scene. So he is in the position of the teacher sitting, and then he stoops down and he begins to write on the ground.

That's his response to their question. Now, they evidently think that they've got him, that he is writing on the ground because he is trying to buy time to figure out an answer to a very clever trap. Now, that would work for me.

That's something that I would do. So I'd start to write on the ground, Oh, Lord, help me, help me, Lord, help me. A little whimpering, you know. And if you're anything like me, you figure out the snappy comeback about three days later.

I'm so sharp, long after the situation. And so Jesus is here, he stoops down and he begins to write, and he ignores them as if he didn't hear them. They think they've got him and that he's buying time, so they continued asking the same question.

And so he raised himself up and he said, He who is without sin among you, let him throw a stone at her first. And so Jesus's response to them is what you might expect. It's absolutely brilliant. He doesn't violate the law of Moses.

In essence, what he communicates then is, yes, she deserves to be stoned according to the law of Moses. But I have but one request. Let the first stone be thrown by the accuser who is without sin. Now, under Jewish law, when a capital crime had been committed and you were the witness to the crime and the judgment of death was passed down on the basis of your eyewitness, you had the responsibility to throw the first stone.

It was a deterrent to false testimony because if you testified falsely, you knew you couldn't slink away. You had to throw the first stone, that sickening thud against the head or against the body and then to know that was the beginning of the end for that person.

So he said, You guys, whoever is without sin here, you go ahead and throw that first stone. Then we'll be on with it. Now, on the basis of that, of course, no one had a right to throw a stone in that entire scene except Jesus, and he doesn't throw a stone at her.

Now, this verse is quoted all of the time. It's one of those verses that people who want to live after the flesh and don't want to be bothered by convicting things that Christians might say to them, they memorize this one.

He is without sin among you, let him throw the first stone. They stop right there in verse 7 as if there's nothing more in the passage. There's quite a bit more to the passage. Jesus isn't here playing fast and loose with sin.

And so he stoops down again and he wrote on the ground. Then those who heard what he had said, being convicted by their conscience, went out one by one, beginning with the oldest of the scribes and the Pharisees, even to the last in order.

And Jesus was left alone and the woman standing in the midst. Now, no one knows positively what it is that Jesus was writing on the ground at that particular point in time. And so it's led to some speculation.

And I think to some sanctified speculation. He isn't doodling on the ground. I don't think so. And the reason I don't think so is because of the reaction of the religious leaders. They don't leave as a mob.

They don't leave, you know, randomly. They leave from the oldest to the youngest. Now, to me, something has to produce that. And I'm inclined to believe that Jesus, as he was writing there on the ground, he began with the oldest that was there, and he wrote down that scribe or Pharisee's name and then began to publicly expose their sin.

You bring this woman in and you publicly expose her sin, not out of a zeal for God, but for your own game playing. He says, well, others can do this also. Begins to write down. And I would go so far as to say that it wouldn't surprise me if he wrote down their own involvement with the same sin.

Perhaps with the same woman. I mean, they knew it was a setup for her. And so whatever it is, he begins to write, and from the oldest to the youngest, they feel conviction over what it is that's happening, and so they leave in that order.

And then Jesus is left with this woman, and again, I think she's in a terrified condition. She knows that her greatest danger has left in the form of these men. But she has no idea what Jesus is going to do to her at this particular point, and Jesus clearly is greater than any of them.

And so Jesus speaks to her. He's left alone, excuse me, in verse 9, with the woman, the woman standing in the midst. And when Jesus had raised himself up and saw no one but the woman, he said to her, woman, where are those accusers of yours?

Has no one condemned you? And she said, no one, Lord. And Jesus said to her, neither do I condemn you. Go and sin no more. Two things he says to her. I don't condemn you, but I don't want you to keep living the life you're living.

Go and sin no more. I think there's a great tendency in the body of Christ to think of the grace of God solely in the context of God's forgiveness. And it is a wonderful thing about God that he is a forgiving God.

There is not a single sin represented in this room that God will not forgive tonight. He is not interested in condemning you or me. He could do it readily. All of us are deserving of condemnation. But he didn't come into the world to condemn the world.

He came into the world to save the world. And the reason he didn't come into the world to condemn the world is because we are already in a condemned condition. So he said, neither do I condemn you. Forgiveness.

But then, still in the vein of grace, he says, go and sin no more. And just as wonderful as his grace is manifest in forgiveness is his grace to live a holy life. I am so thankful to be a forgiven person by God.

But I am thankful that God's grace also takes the form of giving me the power to live a different kind of life. How inferior to the life that I have would it be if Jesus was just a forgiving God? And here he would forgive me every day, but I live in the same scum every day.

And I knew it was scum by the time I came to know him. And I am so thankful, not only that he has forgiven me, but that he has given me the ability to live a different kind of life, and he has even given me the will to live that kind of life, because he has come into my life by the Holy Spirit.

And if you haven't experienced that tonight, the Lord will do that in your life tonight. Not only will he forgive you, but he will come into your life and give you the ability to live a different kind of life.

And the desire to live it, he will provide everything. And so Jesus in this passage, he is not soft-selling sin. I drive on North McHenry, and I see the homosexual support group PFLAG with a big banner up there.

And, of course, the great cultural war that's being fought over homosexually in this country right now. And it says, unconditional love. But it's not love. It's not real love. To make someone comfortable in something that is destroying them in this life and will lead them to destruction in the life that comes.

I've mentioned it before, astonishing statistics that the average homosexual male in the United States of America, life expectancy for a male in the United States is about 76 years. The life expectancy for a homosexual male in the United States of America is 40 years old.

You have a lifestyle that is carving 35, almost 35 years of life off of their lives on average. You say, that's AIDS. No. When they're infected with AIDS, the life expectancy without AIDS, 42, with AIDS, 40.

It is not a loving thing. And I don't care, take it anywhere you want. Take it to adultery. Take it to drunkenness. Take it to anywhere you want in terms of sin. It is not a loving thing to make a person comfortable in that.

And so Jesus does it. He forgives. He gives hope in the situation. But then he offers a way out. And you notice what he kind of elaborates on as he speaks to this woman. And now he's kind of done with the woman.

I think she's clutching clothes around her and all kinds of things. When you've been caught that way, and they're grabbing her, they don't say, you know, get your makeup on. We're going to take you. And then he spoke to them again, saying, his class, I'm the light of the world.

One of the great I am statements of Jesus in the gospel, according to John, I am the light of the world. And he who follows me will not walk in darkness, but have the light of life. Now, during the Feast of Tabernacles, that's the time of what's going on here.

Josephus tells us that one of the things that the Jews did is they had this gigantic candelabra there in the area of the temple. And they would take the used garments of the priests and they would use them as wicks, put them in the oil in this gigantic candelabra, and they would light the candelabra.

And what the candelabra represented in association with the Feast of Tabernacles was God's faithfulness to the children of Israel during their wandering in the wilderness. And how he was to them by day a pillar of cloud and by night a pillar of fire.

And when he was that pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night, that pillar represented his presence in their lives. God with us. Emmanuel, and Jesus is declaring here, I'm the light of the world.

All that that pillar was, that's what I want to be in your life. I want to be present in your life. And the children of Israel would never move until the pillar of fire moved or the pillar of cloud moved.

In other words, those two things represented the desire of God not only to be present with his people, but the desire of God to lead his people. And Jesus is explaining to these people in imagery that they could understand that that is what he wants to do in a human life, to be present, God present with a human being.

And then he desires to lead a human life. And he gives you two promises. If you'll take him up on it. He gives me two promises and the promises are right there in verse 12. If you follow him, he'll never lead you into darkness and you'll have a light of life.

He'll never lead you into darkness. He'll lead you out of a dark life and into a light life, a life that looks like his. And the Pharisees therefore said to him, when you bear witness of yourself, your witness is not true.

And so the rabbis taught that if a person spoke and they spoke, how shall I say, glowingly of themselves, that it was self-exaltation and so they didn't have to take it seriously unless there was a second witness.

So Jesus declares himself to be the light of the world. They say, we won't believe it on your witness. You've got to provide a second witness because under the law of Moses, a fact had to be established under the witness of two eyewitnesses.

So they said, we don't have to believe your witness as the light of the world unless you provide a second witness. And Jesus answered and said to them, even if I bear witness of myself, my witness is true.

Jesus is going to provide them in a moment with a second witness. The greatest second witness you could ever provide, the Father Himself. But He's going to tell them ahead of time that listen, I'm different from anyone else that you've been dealing with.

And my witness alone because of who I am is satisfactory to establish a fact. Even if I bear witness of myself, my witness is true for I know where I came from and where I'm going, but you don't know where I come from and where I'm going.

And so He talks about why is His witness to be accepted though it is a lone witness? Because of where He's come from? Heaven. And where He's going? Heaven. He said, you judge according to the flesh, I judge no one.

They were judging Jesus superficially. They weren't judging Him deeply. And Jesus says, I don't judge anyone superficially. There's a sense in which Jesus judges no one and will not judge anyone. At the great white throne judgment, at the end of the age, it's a terrible judgment because all that is meted out at that judgment is condemnation.

It is a resurrection of the unjust to eternal damnation. And those that are brought forth are those that have rejected salvation in Jesus Christ. And on that scene, Jesus will pass sentence upon each person that comes before Him.

But in a very real sense, He isn't passing the judgment. He is simply confirming the reservations that that person has made for themselves for eternity on the basis of what they've done with the Lord.

And so Jesus says, listen, I judge no one. I don't condemn anyone. And yet if I do judge, my judgment is true for I am not alone, but I am with the Father who sent me. It is also written in your law that the testimony of two witnesses are true.

And so He says, all right, I understand in the law that it says that something needs to be established on the basis of the testimony of two. And so He said, I am one who bears witness of myself, witness number one.

And here, drum roll, dale, dale, dale, dale, dale. He said, witness number two, and the Father who sent me bears witness of me. Rocky, watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat. They couldn't believe what He came up with for a second witness.

And so Jesus says, there's your two witnesses. Then they said to Him, where is your Father? You talk about your Father who is a witness to you. Where is your Father? And Jesus answered, you neither know me nor my Father.

If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. Jesus is declaring, He says, listen, you think that you're a great expert on God the Father, but you're ignorant of me. But you can't reject me without rejecting the Father.

And you cannot be ignorant of me without being ignorant of the Father. And the words that he brought were one and the same. These words Jesus spoke in the treasury as He taught in the temple, and no one laid hands on Him for His hour is not yet come.

And John writes as he writes over and over again that nobody laid hands on Him because His hour was not yet come. He repeats it again and again. And I think one of the things that he repeats here is that there in the area of the treasury, on that temple area, there were just literally less than a stone's throw away from the meeting place of the Sanhedrin where the Pharisees and the scribes hung out.

In other words, He is right in their backyard. It's their position of strength to just go out and arrest this guy. But even there, they don't have the ability to do it because they're not in control of the situation.

Heaven's in control of the situation. And then Jesus said to them again, I'm going away, and you'll seek me, and you'll die in your sin. And the word sin is singular. The one sin a person never wants to die in is the sin of having rejected Jesus for the forgiveness of their sins all of their life.

That's the one sin there's no forgiveness for. But He knew how hard-hearted these folks were. And He said, I'm going away, you'll seek me, you'll die in your sin, and where I go, you cannot come. He said, I'm going, and He's speaking of His ascension into heaven.

And so the Jews, they said, will He kill Himself? Because He says, where I go, you cannot come. Now, this kind of seems kind of weird here. Is He going to kill Himself? What are these guys? How strong was their coffee that morning or what?

What does this have to do with anything? Well, the rabbis taught in those days that for a Jewish person to commit suicide would cause them to go into the deepest part of hell. And so they knew they weren't going there, or at least they thought they weren't.

And so the only way Jesus could go someplace that they weren't going to go and to have contact with one another in this life or in the life to come would be if He committed suicide and then He went to the deepest part of hell because they considered the fact that they were going to be in heaven, and Jesus, He clears all of this up for them.

He said, you're from beneath. You think I'm going to hell, and you're going to heaven, and that's going to be the cause of our separation. No, no, no, no. It's exactly the opposite. You're from beneath, I'm from above, you're of this world, I am not of this world.

I'm going up, you're going down. Not me going down, you're going up. Therefore I said to you that you will die in your sins, not me, for if you do not believe that I am, and notice the word he is in italics, it is not there in the original, if you do not believe that I am, you will die in your sins.

And when he declares himself to be I am, Jesus is using the name from the Old Testament for God. When Jehovah or Yahweh met with Moses there at the burning bush in Exodus chapter 3, and he commissions Moses to be the deliverer of his people from the bondage of Egypt, Moses says, well, listen, you've got a card or something, because I've got to know your name, because I'm going to go tell the people that you're going to do this, and the leaders, and I need to know what your name is.

And the Lord spoke to Moses, and he said, I am who I am, thus you shall say to the children of Israel, I am has sent me to you. I am is a name for God, for Yahweh, God of the Bible. Now, when I was just out of high school, I used to read a lot of goofy books.

And I read a book that was written by a guy that was on death row. I mean, talk about a total waste of time. What am I going to learn from that? And he was unrepentant. But one of the things as I read through the book that was interesting, is that when he would sign his letters, he would sign his letters, I am, and then his name.

And I thought to myself, that has kind of a cool conciseness to it. I am Damian Kyle. Yeah. So, I was waiting for some friends to come over and go to play some basketball, and I had to go and do something, that they were coming back and all, so I pinned the note to the door of my apartment, be right back and everything, signed it, I am Damian Kyle.

I mean, God is gracious. And one of my friends that came over, he was a Christian, and he handed the note to me when I got back, and he said, do you understand what I am means? Yeah, it means I'm Damian Kyle.

He said, no, that's a name for God. You're declaring yourself to be God. Listen, I was a good basketball player, but I wasn't anything approaching. So that was the last time I did that, but it was like, for the rest of my life, I understood that you don't sign anything, I am, it's a name for God.

And here is Jesus, he is declaring himself to be God, and you notice he says, therefore I said to you, that you will die in your sins, for if you do not believe that I am, that is, that I am God the Son, and the Son of God, you will die in your sins.

It is a clear claim to deity. The Jehovah Witnesses teach that Jesus never claimed deity for himself, that that was ascribed to him by other writers and this kind of thing. Here you have, in this verse, Jesus clearly declaring himself to be God.

And this is where Christianity parts with every other religion in the world. Because there are other religions in the world, the Jehovah Witnesses, for instance, they believe that Jesus was an angel, there are religions that believe that Jesus was an angel, there are religions that believe that Jesus was a good teacher, that he was a great prophet, that he was a wonderful example.

You can believe all of those things about him and die in your sin. It is not enough to believe that he died on the cross for my sins. I need to believe fully in who it was that did die on the cross for my sins.

I need to accept the truth that he has taught about himself and that is that he is divine. You know, when I talk with Jehovah Witnesses on my doorstep, I never talk about blood transfusions or can you be in the military, can you celebrate birthdays?

I mean, come on. I always talk to them about Jesus Christ. But I already gave you my spiel when we were in John chapter 1, verse 1 and 2, as I remember, concerning witnessing. But so often when I end that time, I come back to them here in chapter 8, verse 24, and I read this to them.

And I say, unless you believe in his divinity, you'll die in your sins. And any other belief about him that is lower than the fact that he is God the Son and the Son of God, you'll die in your sins if you believe anything less about him.

Listen. If Jesus was willing to say it because it's the truth and willing to incur not the wrath of the average man, but to incur the wrath of religious men, then what in the world are we doing soft-selling him before those religious communities?

This is either true or it's not true. If it's true, then we have an obligation to proclaim him. Not to say, well, you know, everybody, well, at least they think that he's a great prophet and all of that, and I mean, we'll take that.

That's not enough. It doesn't matter whether a person misses heaven by six inches or by six miles. It's still to miss heaven. And so Jesus speaks here clearly concerning this. And they said to him, Who are you?

And Jesus said to them, and his patience is astonishing. He said, Just what I have been saying to you from the beginning. In other words, I've been telling you this now for several chapters. I have many things to say to you, to say and to judge concerning you, but he who sent me is true, and I speak to the world those things which I heard from him.

In other words, there are so many other things that I could say to you and even judge you. I've written your sins in the dirt. There's so much more that I could do, but I have told you what the Father has told me to tell you, and what the Father has told me to tell you is enough to believe in.

They didn't understand that he spoke to them of the Father, and then Jesus said to them, When you lift up the Son of Man, now he prophesies concerning his death. He said, Then you'll know that I am. How so?

Because of the miracles associated with his death on the cross, the darkness for the three hours, the earthquake, the veil that was rent, his resurrection, and that I do nothing of myself, but as my Father taught me, I speak these things.

Now remember, the accusation that they've made against him is that he has said these things about himself in order to gain a following. It's self-serving. It's for self-glory. And Jesus said, I'm going to the cross, and when you see me on that cross, you will know that every accusation you have made against me, that I am in this for my own gain, and not for the gain of the glory of God, has been false.

That's what he's saying to them. And he said to them, and he who sent me, Jesus said, verse 29, is with me, and the Father has not left me alone, for I always do those things that please him. Now who else in the world could say that?

I do always those things that please him. That's quite a statement to make. I'm full of self-seeking and all of this kind of stuff, self-serving, selfishness and all, but Jesus said, I do always the things that please the Father, and as he spoke these words, many believed in him.

They're waiting to hear the truth, and they're waiting for someone to stand up to those other folks, and Jesus said to those Jews who believed him, if you abide in my word, then you are my disciples indeed, and you shall know, and the word know is gnosko, it's a knowledge by experience, you shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.

If you abide in my word, obey my word, continue in my word, then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free. And so you have the continue, know, made free. Continue, know, made free. And as a person continues, and here he's speaking to them, it's a hostile scene, isn't it?

Jesus is on one side, the religious leader is on the other side, Jesus is once again going to give them a practical thing from their own life to verify the truthfulness of what he said. You obey my word, and you will have a knowledge that comes from experience that this is the truth of God, and as you gain that knowledge, you'll be set free.

And then as you're set free, and you continue to give yourself an obedience to the word of God, then you'll have greater knowledge of the fact that this is spoken from God, and you'll be set free. And it's this glorious cycle that goes on from just simply obeying the word of God.

And they answered. And they said, we're Abraham's descendants, and we've never been in bondage to anyone. How can you say that you will be made free? And so they're there, and they said, listen, you're speaking to us as people that need to be set free, so we've never been in bondage to anyone.

And yet, all around them were Roman soldiers. They were an occupied land by Rome. They'd been in bondage to the Egyptians, to the Grecians, to the Assyrians, to the Babylonians. Now they were in bondage to Rome.

They'd been in bondage to a lot of people. So they said, how can you say, you know, and they paid taxes to Rome, and of course, the lesser pays taxes to the greater. It was an evidence of the fact that they were in bondage.