It was no accident that the Lord
of glory was crucified between two thieves. There are no accidents
with God who governs this world, and especially on this day of
all days, in this event of all events. A day and an event at
the very center of the world's history. You see, God was presiding
over Calvary's scene. God was there. From all eternity,
He had determined and decreed when and where and how and with
whom His Son should die. God's amazing grace can most
clearly be seen in the salvation of this wretch who hung on the
very verge of hell on the ledge of the pit of destruction. You
see, this thief had no moral life before his conversion. He
respected neither the law of God nor the law of man. After
his conversion, he died without having opportunity to engage
in any type of service to Christ. The dying thief had no good works,
either before or after conversion. Thus, if saved at all, he was
certainly to be saved by sovereign grace. His conversion occurred
at a time when, to all outward appearance, Christ had lost all
power to save either himself or others. Being a thief and
robber, it is highly probable that this was the first day he
had ever set his eyes on the Lord Jesus. And now that he did
see Him, it was under every circumstance of weakness and disgrace. How
can we explain the fact that this dying thief took a suffering,
bleeding, crucified man for his God? How do you explain that?
That this guy hanging on the cross, said, remember me when
you come into your kingdom. You see, it must be divine intervention.
Divine intervention is what you and I needed as well. A supernatural
operation, a miracle of God's grace. This thief cried, Lord,
remember me before the supernatural phenomenas of that day. Surely
this thief is a representative of sinners in all ages. Prior
to the time when this thief repented and believed, there was no essential
difference between the two thieves. Both of them were thieves. There
was no difference. And the scripture says in Matthew
27, the thieves also, which were crucified with him, cast the
same in his teeth. Both the thieves at one time
on the cross were mocking Christ. If you be the Christ, come down
off the cross, save yourself and of course us along with you. You see, there is no difference.
You are a sinner and no better than the person sitting next
to you. You are not better or worse. You're a sinner in
need of a supernatural work inside of you, in need of redemption
and salvation. Romans 3, 22 and 23 says this,
For there is no difference. For all have sinned and come
short of the glory of God. I hear people all the time, for
50 some years I've heard people declare, I'm different. Oh, I
smoke a little pop, but I've never used heroin. You know, I've been drunk a few
times, but I've never used hard drugs. You know what they're
trying to say? I'm different. But you're not. You are a sinner
and are going to perish in your sins. unless Jesus comes where
you are and does for you what you cannot do for yourself. These
men in their dying hours derided the suffering Savior. What a
demonstration of human depravity. In their worst moment, hanging
on the cross, they derided Christ. Some of you sit here, service
after service, and you make fun of me preaching, you make light
of the gospel or religion, you wish you weren't here. See, you're
no different. You're just like these thieves.
In fact, there is no difference. Say, well, I'm converted now.
Pastor, I don't do that at all. I know. But who makes you to
differ from another? That's the big question. If you're
different now, you're converted now, who was it that did that?
I want you to say, it was grace. It was God's amazing grace that
I'm still not out there. And that's what it's going to
take to bring you to the foot of the cross. This one thief
said, does not thou fear God, seeing thou art in the same condemnation? Well, now that's strange. A few
minutes before that, he was making light of Christ. And now he is
saying to the other thief, we're both here in condemnation and
we're guilty. Don't you fear God? You see,
it's not until our desperate condition is realized that we
discover our need of a divine Savior. You don't know how rotten
you are. Once you find out, the first
cry of your heart will be, Oh God, I need a Savior. Help me, save me. You see, we
must be a base before we can be exalted, and that's what God
does. At some point in time, if God's going to convert you,
He's going to bring you to the end of your own way. You're not
going to have any trust in yourself. No trust in yourself. We have
to be stripped of the filthy rags of our self-righteousness. You know, I am pretty bad, but
I can tell you right now I'm not as bad as a lot of people. Same old stuff. No, you're not
there yet. It's not until you come to see
that you're worse than most people. Because you don't see other people.
You only see you and your depravity and your sins. See, you come
to God as a beggar. Not telling God what He ought
to do for you. Nothing in my hands I bring,
simply to Thy cross I cling." You come to God empty-handed.
A sinner must come to the end of himself before he can be saved. We must not only see ourselves
lost but undone, and that we can do nothing to help ourselves.
We must see that we are beyond human repair. You are not going
to make it right. You have nothing to work with.
Nothing at all. We're without strength. That
means you're impotent. You're without any strength to
save yourself. Man must look outside of himself
for salvation. And surely this thief there on
the cross did just that. You see, he could not walk in
the path of righteousness because his feet were nailed to the cross.
He could not perform any good works, for there were nails through
his hands. He could not turn over a new
leaf and live better, because he was dying. The sinner must
be cut off from his workings and be made willing to be saved
by Christ alone. And that's what I attempt to
do here, with the help of the Holy Spirit, to cut you off. To tell you to shut up. Shut
your mouth and quit talking about how good you are or how better
you are. Cut you off till there's nothing
left. But Christ alone, be merciful
to me, the sinner. And then conversion comes.