Know The Truth

John 8:20-36 11/9/25 a.m. “Know the Truth”

The 8th Chapter of the Book of John is a well known Chapter because of the way it begins. In Verse 3, a woman is brought to Jesus accused of Adultery. We all know the story right? What do we do with her Jesus? Kill her? Let her go? Well, Jesus stoops down and begins writing in the sand and eventually they all leave.

Now we don’t know what Jesus wrote.

Maybe He wrote names of people that these men had wronged.

Maybe He wrote THEIR NAMES and begin to list THEIR SINS.

Maybe he wrote the names of different women these men had had affairs with themselves. We don’t know, but whatever He wrote, I can guarantee you it was TRUTH.

Jesus didn’t make up false allegations against these men.

TRUTH was important to Jesus and TRUTH should be important to ALL of us.

ILLUS: Nan Britton is a name most of you have probably never heard. I hadn’t until I read this story. Nan first met Warren G. Harding when she was 13 years old. He was a newspaper publisher. A politician. And ... 31 years older than her. He was handsome and kind to her and so she developed an adolescent crush. She hung his picture on the wall. Wrote him fan letters. And in 1917, when she was 20 years old, she went to visit U.S. Senator Warren G. Harding in Washington D.C.

That’s when the alleged affair started. Nan gave birth to a little girl in 1919. According to Nan, Senator Harding supported her and her daughter and promised to always take care of them but he refused to publicly acknowledge them. He knew it would ruin his political career. Nan said the affair even continued, IN THE WHITE HOUSE, after he became President of the United States. But in 1923, tragedy struck. President Harding died suddenly of a heart attack. Nan now had no way to support herself and her 4 year old daughter Elisabeth, so she went to President Harding’s family. His wife Florence denied that the child was from her late husband. She would not support Nan or Elizabeth and so Nan did what she felt like she had to to do. She wrote a book. “The President’s Daughter” It was a self published book because NONE of the BIG NAME PUBLISHERS of the day would touch it. The book tells the story of how she met Warren Harding, the affair and the birth of Elisabeth.

The book was published in 1927.

The Harding family was outraged. They called it fiction, slander, the lies of an opportunistic gold-digger.

The press crucified her. Newspapers called her a prostitute, and a woman of “questionable morals” trying to cash in on a dead President's name.

Bookstores refused to stock it. Libraries banned it. Reviewers called it “trash.”

But people bought it anyway.

"The President's Daughter" became a bestseller. People love a SCANDAL.

But when Nan sued for support, the courts refused to give any credence to Nan’s claims and she never received a penny from Harding’s estate.

Nan Britton struggled financially but survived by working odd jobs. She raised Elizabeth alone. Most didn’t believe her story. She never married and died in 1991 at the age of 94. Her daughter Elizabeth went on to marry Henry Blaesing and they had 3 children. She seemed to have a happy life and died in 2005. Nan said it was TRUTH but no one believed her.

This morning I want us to look a little further down in John Chapter 8. I want each and every one of us to Know the Truth. Let’s begin reading at Verse 21 and we’ll read through Verse 36.

“These words spake Jesus in the treasury, as he taught in the temple: and no man laid hands on him; for his hour was not yet come.

21 Then said Jesus again unto them, I go my way, and ye shall seek me, and shall die in your sins: whither I go, ye cannot come.

22 Then said the Jews, Will he kill himself? because he saith, Whither I go, ye cannot come.

23 And he said unto them, Ye are from beneath; I am from above: ye are of this world; I am not of this world.

24 I said therefore unto you, that ye shall die in your sins: for if ye believe not that I am he, ye shall die in your sins.

25 Then said they unto him, Who art thou? And Jesus saith unto them, Even the same that I said unto you from the beginning.

26 I have many things to say and to judge of you: but he that sent me is true; and I speak to the world those things which I have heard of him.