It's always a great privilege
to be here and preach the gospel of Christ to you. Know that you
are, pray that God would make every heart ready to receive
and be refreshed by his gospel. It's my prayer. Matter of fact,
let's go to God in prayer before I begin. Gracious Father in heaven,
we bow for thy throne of mercy. And truly, Father, we seek mercy.
We ask for grace and power and strength, Father, that comes
from thy Spirit, that, Father, you would give me such liberty
and unction of thy Spirit to preach the word, that, Father,
you would open the hearts of your people, that they should
receive it as it is thy word. And, Father, I do pray that you
would even make the word distill as the dew in the gentle rain
upon the tender herbs that you would, Father, I pray, distill
it upon our hearts, that we might be refreshed, encouraged, strengthened. And Father, we should continue
to look by faith to Jesus Christ, and that by faith we should love
one another, even as you've given us commandment, I pray that you
would give us grace to do these things. We pray we, would worship
You and honor You and give You praise for all things that You
have done for us in Christ. Forgive us our sins. Cleanse
us of our unrighteousness. That Father, we may be thankful
and praise Thee and give glory to Thy name. In Jesus' name,
I ask. Amen. Now, if you take your Bibles
and turn with me to Luke, the Gospel of Luke chapter Luke chapter 23. I'll read these verses here down
to verse 43, and then we're gonna go back over this account. The scripture says, and one of
the malefactors, which were hanged, railed on him, saying, If thou
be Christ, save thyself and us. But the other answering rebuked
him, saying, Dost thou not fear God, seeing thou art in the same
condemnation? And we indeed justly, for we
receive the due reward of our deeds. But this man hath done
nothing amiss. And he said unto Jesus, Lord,
remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom. And Jesus said
unto him, Verily I say unto thee, today shalt thou be with me in
paradise. The title of the message is this,
The Confession of a Thief. the confession of a thief. Now, the first point I want to
bring out is this. All men by nature are represented
here by these two thieves. All of us. Now, this gospel account
of the crucifixion of Lord Jesus Christ and these two thieves,
I want you to know this is mentioned in all four gospels. This is
mentioned in all four Gospels, in Matthew 27, in Mark 15, in
John 19, and in this account in Luke 23. And Mark gives us
the reason as to why this was accounted in all the Gospels. Mark says this in Mark 15, 27,
he says, And with him they crucified two thieves, one on the right
hand and the other on the left, And the scripture was fulfilled,
which saith, he was numbered with the transgressors. This
account was to show the scripture was fulfilled. The prophecy in
Isaiah was to be fulfilled. And this is very significant,
a very significant event that the Lord was crucified with these
two thieves, these transgressors. Because again, these men are
a picture of all men. Tonight, I do pray that God would
show you that you and I are one of these two men. You and I are
one of these two malfactors, criminals. We are all born this way. We
are all born this way. We are all born thieves. Spurgeon
said this, he said, the closer we look at the cross, the more
attention we pay to the cross, the more vivid the picture of
God's salvation by grace. And the thing that's noted here
is this, that from the newest of infants to the most aged persons,
all of us are sinners. All of us are sinners. We are
all thieves by nature. Now this is very offensive. You
try to say this to a room full of mothers and the feathers get
all ruffled. That little children, that infants
are just as much thieves as the elderly. This is offensive to
the natural man. They say, well, surely, pastor,
the babies, they haven't had time to sin. They're innocent. It's not what God says. That's
not what God says. God said, for all have sinned. and come short of the glory of
God. From the smallest of us to the most aged of us, all of
us by nature have fallen short of the glory of God. And he goes on further in Romans,
that was Romans 3.23, but he goes on further in Romans 5 and
verse 12 to explain this. He says, wherefore as by one
man, sin entered into the world. And death by sin, and what was
the result? So death passed upon all men. Now here's the reason. For all
have sinned. All of us have sinned. And we
have all sinned in this, we all sinned in our Father. Adam was
a representative man. And therefore, when sin entered
into the world and death by sin, he as a representative passed
death upon all of us, for we all sinned in him. I'm gonna
show you that Adam was the first thief. He was the first thief. And when God made our father
Adam, he made him perfect, and the creation that he lived in
was perfect in every way. God said, thou mayest eat of
every tree in the garden. Now, this is astounding to me.
Do you realize that every tree produced fruit back then? Every
tree was fruitful. And God said, you may eat of
every one of them. Do you realize that even the
tree of life was not forbidden? Yet God had implanted one tree
that belonged to Him. One tree said, in the day thou
eatest thereof of this tree, this is mine. I give you everything
else, but this is mine. In the day thou eatest thereof,
thou shalt surely die. And you know a lot long, our
mother was deceived. Our mother was deceived. And you know that she did eat
of that tree. But you know what happened when
Eve ate of that tree? Nothing. Sin was not yet brought
into the world. She represented no one. But when
she gave it to her husband to eat, Adam was not deceived. Adam, in his heart, rebelled
against God and said, I will not have God rule over me. And he ate in utter rebellion. What'd he do? He became a thief.
He stole what belonged only to God. And as a result, we became
sin. Sin entered into the world and
death by sin. And this death passed upon all
men. And therefore, all of his race
are born thieves. Now, what is it that we steal?
You may have not tried to stole anything in your life. But I'll
tell you this, you stole from the glory of God. That's our
nature. Our nature is to rob God of his
glory. Adam tried to rob God of his
glory. He tried to overthrow the rule
of God. And this is what we do by nature.
This is clearly seen, especially in religious men. You put any
name you want to on the door. But if any man supposes to be
accepted of God based on the work of Christ plus his obedience,
plus his work, what has he done? He has robbed God of his glory. The scripture says this, salvation
belongeth unto the Lord. Now, to whom does salvation belong?
To whom is it the right to give or to withhold salvation? It is God's salvation. He has
the right to give it or the right to withhold it. And yet men take
it upon themselves to rob him of it, his glory. If they add one thing to be accepted
of God, they have robbed him. Jesus said that, if any man come
in any other ways, and I'm the door, If any man come in another
way, he is a thief and a robber. Now you got a door to your house.
You see somebody climbing in the window, you know something's
wrong. That guy's not welcome. He's
coming in another way. He doesn't come in by the door.
And so it is with religious men, we are by nature, if we're trusting
in our obedience to the law, our obedience to ordinances,
and even trusting the will of man to make salvation effectual,
then you are doing nothing but robbing God of His glory. That's all it is, is robbing
God of His glory. And I want you to see this, that
as both of these men hung there, they were guilty. There was no
difference in these men concerning their sin. They were both thieves,
they were both condemned. And so it is with all men by
nature, we are all by nature sinners condemned. Now, the second
thing I want you to see is that both of these men railed against
Christ. Both of these men railed against
the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, both of these were condemned
to die at the most cruel method humanly known to man, crucifixion. Now, these men were not purse
snatchers. He's me. I thought about this
you realize that crucifixion was not an easy job It took a
lot of work to crucify somebody I mean, if Romans wanted to just
kill somebody, they could have just chopped off their head and
that would have been done, been fast, it would have been over.
No work. But they did this because they
wanted to deter anybody from rebellion. These men were insurrectionists. These men were rebels. These
men were murderers. This was reserved for the worst
of criminals. And you remember there was one
criminal that should have been there that wasn't, Barabbas. He was probably ringleader of
all three of these men. You remember how Christ took
his place? Well, that's another picture
of the gospel, isn't it? Substitution. Yet even though both of these
men were facing death, I want you to know what the most important
thing for these men were, to hate Christ. Isn't that something? I mean, you'd think that they'd
be feeling sorry for themselves and that they'd be crying because
of the pain. The pain, it didn't bother them
so much, but what they did is they read, look at Mark. Look
over at Mark. Look at Mark's account in chapter
15, sorry. Mark 15 in verse 32. This is
the crowd speaking, they said, Let Christ, the King of Israel,
descend now from the cross that we may see and believe. That's
what the crowd was saying. That was the ones that weren't
being crucified. But now listen to what the ones
being crucified said, and they that were crucified with him
reviled him. Can you believe that? They were dying, they were going
to die at any moment, but the most important thing in their
mind was to rail against Him. To rail against Him. Friends,
this is man's nature to revile the Lord Jesus Christ. Even when facing the coming judgment
of God, their hatred for Him was evident. even when their sin and guilt
were exposed, yet they still would not bow to Him. This is
proof of man's utter depravity. I come to you with a message
of mercy and grace. I come to you with a message
of peace with God that Christ Himself has accomplished. And
you know what you're required to do? Nothing. It's a message
of this, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shall be
saved. And yet men still refuse. They
will not let go of their self-righteousness. They will not let go of their
religion. It's proof of man's depravity.
If you will not let go of your self-righteousness, that's just
proof. It's proof of our depravity that all men have set themselves
against the Lord and against his anointed. The apostle in
1 Corinthians chapter 2 says, the natural man receiveth not
the things of the Spirit of God. It gives two reasons. First of
all, it's foolishness. You that will not receive this,
to you, this is foolish. You're just foolish. You keep
preaching the same thing over and over, just foolish. Listen to this, neither can he
know them, Why? He's spiritually condemned, judged,
dead. That's why. You can't know these
things. These two men, they railed against
Christ. You know why? That was their
nature, just like it was everyone else. They set themselves against
the Lord and against his anointed. In Romans chapter eight, it tells
us that the natural mind, he says in Romans eight and verse
seven, he says, the carnal mind is enmity against God. It's the most natural thing in
the world to hate God. That's natural for us. The carnal
mind is enmity against God. Here's proof, for it is not subject
to the law of God. You've been subject to the law
of God, anyone? Anyone, not me. You've been subject to the law
of God? No, and I can't be. Neither indeed can be. And so this is true of us as
it was both these thieves. We were thieves by nature, robbing
God of his glory. We were thieves in that we railed
against Christ and against his gospel. But now Luke gives us
something that the other accounts do not give that somewhere in
this a distinction is made, a difference All of a sudden, two of them
were railing against him. Two of them were thieves and
haters of God. Then all of a sudden, one of
them believes and the other one continues on in his unbelief. Something took place. A distinction's
now made. They were both guilty, both facing
death, both despising Christ, both a picture of all Adam's
race, and their time therein was sure. Yet Luke gives us this account
of a clear distinction between the two, and I want you to see
this. This is very important. Who made
the difference? What changed in the one thief,
and why did it change in the one thief and not the other? Why did one thief believe and
receive a blessing of Christ of paradise while the other continued
in his sins? The simple answer is this, God
made the difference. God made the difference. Now, according to the Word of
God, according to the Word of God, we know this, that God has
from eternity, Chosen a people from among thieves God has set his love upon some
sinners and Has purpose to save them And we all know this in Ephesians
1 is the clearest, and we say this a lot because it's so clear.
It's so plain that it's irrefutable, according as God had chosen us
in Christ before the foundation of the world, that we should
be holy and without blame before him. That's the whole reason
he did it. He said, I'm going to choose
them, and I want to purpose this. They're going to be holy. They're
going to be without blame before me. Here's my motivation, in
love. That's why I did it, because
I love them. I love them. Ain't nothing in them to love,
but I love them. In love, having predestinated
us under the adoption of children. And this is how I'm going to
do it. I'm going to do it by Jesus Christ. I'm gonna do it by Jesus Christ.
And by that, I'm gonna bring them to myself. To what? To the praise and the honor and
glory of my grace. I'm gonna do it so that they
praise my grace. God has chosen some thieves. Now we're in 2 Thessalonians,
let me see, 2 Thessalonians chapter two. I remember talking to a man on
telephone one time. He said, you show me where scripture
says election is unto salvation and I'll believe it. Okay, I
took him here and said, we are bound to give thanks always to
God for you, brethren, beloved to the Lord, because God hath
from the beginning chosen you to salvation. Click, he hung
up. Well, I love it. I don't know what he's talking
about. I like it. Chosen you to salvation, here's the means,
through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth. God hath from the beginning chosen
one and left the other. This is a purpose. Over in Romans
chapter nine, you also know this one, in verse 11, the children
not yet being born, Jacob and Esau, in the womb of their mother,
twins, in the womb of their mother, the children not yet being born,
either having done good or evil. Here's the reason I'm gonna do
it. That the purpose of God according to election might stand. Not
of works, but of him that called it. He said to her, the elder
shall serve the younger, as it is written, Jacob have I loved,
but Esau have I hated. Why did God leave one thief and
save the other? Because he loved one and hated
the other. Now you'll say, that that's not
right. Is there unrighteousness with
God? Paul anticipates the question because that's a question we
all get every time. That's just not fair. That's
just not right. God's not right to do that. No,
listen to what God says. God's just, God's right. God
forbid you say that. For he said to Moses, I will
have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion
on whom I will have compassion. So then, here's the conclusion
of it all, it's not of him that willeth. Mercy doesn't come by will of
man, does it? Nor him that runneth. Mercy does
not come by the work of man. Not of him that willeth or him
that runneth, but God that showeth mercy. So what made the difference
between the two? The only answer is God made a
difference. God made the difference. Now, if all men were righteous
and God did that, surely God would be unjust to do it. But because all men are thieves
and deserve the punishment of God, what has God done unjustly
to the other man? Nothing. If he leaves you to
die in your sin, what has God done unjustly to you? Matter of fact, he's just giving
you what you wanted. But this is my hope that Jesus
Christ came not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance. One
thing about all God's people is that we know who we are. We
are sinners. We are sinners. Jesus came for
the purpose of dying on the cross to save his people, sinners,
from what? Their sin. Jesus came to die
and redeem the sins of the thief on his right hand, but not the
one on his left. He came to bring division. He
came to me and said, I came to bring, not to bring peace, but
to bring a sword. Division. And he does make a
division among men. And I tell you this, one day
when Jesus Christ returns, he will make a final division. He shall separate the sheep on
his right hand, the goats on his left. He shall say to his
sheep, come you blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared
for you from before the foundation of the world. And he'll say to
those on his left hand, depart from me, you that work iniquity.
Listen, I never knew you. That's going to be a great distinction.
But listen, before that distinction is made, there is a distinction
made here. Just as there was a distinction made that day between
these two men, there is always going to be a distinction made
among his people in this world. Now look back at your text. Look
back at your text. And verses 39 and 42, we're gonna
see both these men wanted to be saved. Both of them wanted to be saved.
The one on his left hand wanted to be saved from the cross. He wanted to be saved from his
physical pain. He wanted to escape physical
death. He wanted to be saved. Tell you, there's a lot of people
who want to be saved from their consequences of sin. They want
to be saved from sickness. They want to be saved from sorrow.
They want to be saved from grief. They want a good family. They
want a good marriage. They want good finances. They
want to be saved from any type of pain possible. What this man
did not have any desire for is to be saved from his guilt. from the guilt of his sin. Look
at verse 39. This is the one that was left
to himself, one of the malefactors, which were hanged, railed on
him, saying, if thou be the Christ, save thyself and us. This man had no idea what salvation
was or what it took. If he understood what salvation
took, he would have not asked Christ to come down off that
cross, because that was the only way a sinner could be saved.
You know, Peter had the same thought process, didn't he? When
the Lord says, I'm going to go to Jerusalem, they're going to
crucify me and kill me. And what did Peter say? Oh no,
be it far from you, Lord. Don't go and die. If you're the
Christ, you don't die. And what did he tell Peter? He
said, get thee behind me, Satan, for thou savest not the things
that be of God. Everyone who wanted him to come
down off that cross didn't have any idea what it took to save
a sinner. Matter of fact, they were adversaries
of Christ. What they wanted was a bloodless
offering. A bloodless offering. Any offering
to God that is bloodless is not of God. Any offering for sin
that is bloodless is not an offering of God. Why? For without the
shedding of blood is no remission. Blood must be shed. But the thief on the right, he
wanted some kind of different salvation. He started out despising Christ,
but something in this man changed. Something in this man, there
are three things that changed. First of all, he had a change
of mind. When we say a man has a change of mind, that is what?
Repentance. When a man has a change of mind,
that's repentance. This man had a change of affection. Things in this world didn't matter
much to him. He was worried about the kingdom
that is to come. He had a different affection.
And thirdly, he had a change of will. Whereas once he was
railing against Christ, now he ceased to believe on him. He believes on him. And we know
this, who made the difference? God did. The Apostle Paul said,
who maketh thee to differ from another? You that are saved,
you know the answer to that. It's God that made the difference.
Salvation is only by the sovereign will and power of God in giving
the center spiritual life and faith in Christ. And if any will
be saved, he must be saved by the same power and mercy of God. Remember that leper came to Lord
Jesus Christ. He came to him and said, Lord,
if you will, you can make me whole. You see, he came with
a mind that he knew salvation, cleansing belonged only to this
man. only belonged to him. And he
came seeking mercy. And anybody who comes to Christ
by the power of God is going to come seeking mercy. And what
would this man thou confesses is the confession of every believer,
everyone saved by the power and grace of God. Now, how did this
change come about? Well, first of all, this man
had to hear something. This man had to hear something.
Now his salvation did not come by an angelic revelation or a
flash of brilliance in this man. No, he came to believe on Christ
by the same means we all do, by the hearing of the gospel.
Faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God. Now Calvin said this, he said,
this is the greatest instance of faith in all scripture. Now
get the picture. This man is being crucified next
to another man who is being crucified. And somehow during this exchange,
this man that is looking at this other man that's being crucified
trusts him to save him. Why, how did this come about? How did he, well, first of all,
he heard the gospel by the lips of Jesus himself. Look at verse
34. Look at what Jesus said. Now listen, this guy's listening,
he's hearing this. Listen to what he hears. Jesus
said, Father, forgive them. He didn't say, Father, will you
please forgive them? He said, Father, forgive them.
They know not what they do. And they parted his raiment and
cast lots. Now, consider this. Imagine the
surprise of this man to hear this other crucified man saying
to God, God, I command you, forgive them. He wasn't asking. Why? He had every right to demand
of the Father forgiveness because he was paying for it. He was
paying for it. This man obviously knew this,
only God can do that. Only God could forgive. Remember
that paraplegic, the sick of the palsy, they lowered him down
and Jesus looked at him and said, son, thy sins be forgiven thee.
They all knew this, only God could do that. That's what this
thief heard. He knew a man that could forgive sins right here.
This man could forgive sins. Secondly, you know that, look
at that, and they parted his raiment and cast lots for his
vesture. Let's see over in Matthew 27
verse 35. He explains this, and they crucified
him, and parted his garments, casting lots, that it might be
fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet. They parted my garments
among them, and upon my vesture they did cast lots. What, look,
he sees this, this man can forgive sins. He looks down, look, they're
doing exactly what Isaiah said they'd do. They parted his garments,
casting lots for his vesture. That's exactly what the scripture
says what he would do. Next, look at this in verse 35
of Luke. He said, and the people stood
beholding him, and the rulers with him derided him, saying,
he saved others. Hmm, this man could forgive sins? This man could save others? Let him save himself if he be
the Christ, the chosen of God. Well, they're saying he said
he's the Christ, the chosen of God. And the soldiers mocked
him, coming to him and offering him vinegar and saying, if thou
be the king of the Jews, save thyself. King of the Jews, this
guy can forgive sin. This guy can save people. He's
the Christ and he's the king. And then, to top it all off,
look at this, and the superscription that was written over him in
letters Greek, Latin, and Hebrew said, this is the king of the
Jews. So he looks over, sees the man,
looks up, sees it, hey, he's the king of the Jews, and it's
written over the top of his head. Friends, this man heard the gospel.
He heard the gospel. He heard who this man was. And so he sees the sign over
this man, king of the Jews. No, that's not what they wanted
to be written, right? You know, they wanted to say he said he
was the king of the Jews. They made a big deal about that.
And Pilate said, I've written what I've written. You know,
God said, I've written what I've written. Behold, the king. And notice
this. Now, by the power of the Spirit
of God, he makes this confession. He confesses the confession of
every saved sinner. Look at verse 40. But the other answering rebuked
him, saying, Does thou not fear God? Does thou not fear God? Is that the most astounding thing that you can possibly read
because he's talking about the man crucified next to him. Dost
thou not fear God? Don't you know who that is? You gotta understand that Christ
himself was marred beyond recognition. This man was bloodied from the
top of his head to the bottom of his feet. crucified with Him,
and yet this man recognized who He was. This man confessed this. This man's God. This man's God. Matter of fact, John in 1 John
chapter four says, every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ
is come in the flesh is of God. You see, we believe He has come
in the flesh because He always was. He always was. Jesus said, if you believe not
that I am, you shall die in your sins. What did He mean by that?
I am. Every Jew knew exactly what He
meant by that. That one speaking to Moses in
the burning bush said, I am that I am. And so when Jesus said,
if you believe not that I am, you shall die in your sins. If
you do not believe that that is God manifest in the flesh,
you will die in your sins. This man believed he was God
manifest in the flesh. That was his confession. Secondly,
he confessed his own guilt. Dost thou not fear God, seeing
thou art in the same condition? And we indeed justly, for we
receive the due reward of our deeds. But this man hath done
nothing amiss. This thief understood something
about sin and condemnation. He said to the other thief, what
we get is exactly what we deserve. This man knew of his own guilt. When God comes to the sinner
and exposes his sin, this is what we know, that if God leaves
me to myself, he's just right. Look, I know God's sovereign
in salvation. And I know this, if he leaves
me right here and die in my sin, he's right. Have you ever felt that hopeless
condition? Have you ever been helpless? Because man, when God
exposes you to sin, you are helpless. You have no hope of ever pleasing
God. And you know this, that salvation
belongs to Him. He can give it to me or He can
leave me, but whatever He does is right. I remember Donnie Bell talking
about a man, an old farmer, and he, man's man, never cried a
day in his life. And Donnie met him out there
at the barn. This man was weeping his eyes out. And he said, I'm
a sinner, Donnie. I don't know what to do. I got no hope. And Donnie said, well, look to
Christ. Look to Christ. And the man said, I can't, I
can't. And then Donnie left, went around the barn just smiling. Why? That's where God brings
a sinner. If he's ever gonna save you,
he's gonna bring you to nothing first. That's what this man was
brought to. He was dying, there was no hope
of him getting down, no hope of his being saved by works.
What could he do? If Christ commanded him to do
anything, what could he do? Listen, you're not being crucified,
but I'm gonna tell you this, you can do nothing to earn God's
salvation. You are just as helpless as if
you were crucified on a cross. This man understood his guilt
and confessed his iniquity. And then he confessed this, this
man had done nothing amiss. Even the enemies of Christ recognize
his righteousness. When Pilate, I've read this account
over and over this week. You know what? It astounds me
how many times Pilate tried to let him go. He said, look, don't
you understand? I've examined him. Herod has
examined him and we ain't found nothing. We ain't found nothing. He's done nothing amiss. Why? Because the scripture says they
will hate me without a cause. There was never a time when Lord
Jesus Christ was not the spotless Lamb of God. Therefore, we know that He is
the sinner's substitute. We know what He was doing there.
I know what He was doing there. Christ was bearing our sins in
His own body on that tree. He who knew no sin, did no sin,
must have hung there and died as the sinner's substitute. After this confession of the
thief, you know that the sun was darkened. This is not eclipse. This was not an eclipse. They
schedule eclipses. You can schedule that. You read
on your calendar and know when the eclipse is coming and expect
no eclipse. The sun was darkened that day
because there was a transaction that no man could fully understand. God made him to be sin for us
and still he knew no sin. That we might be made the righteousness
of God in him. And there in that transaction,
God charging him with our guilt and our sins, he bared them in
his own body and suffered the full measure of God's wrath.
How could Christ save this thief next to him? Only by dying for
his sins. That's what he was doing. He
was dying for him. And notice this, he confessed
him to be king. Look at verse 42. And he said
of him, Lord, Remember me when thou comest
into thy kingdom. Who has a kingdom? Only kings
have kingdoms. This man confessed him to be
king. He confessed Lord. And that's
the same thing as a public enemy. Lord, be merciful to me, the
sinner. That's what he was asking. Lord,
remember me, be merciful to me, be propitious for me. When you come into your kingdom,
there is no true faith unless Christ is both Lord and Savior. Listen to me, if he is not your
Lord, he is not your Savior. Everyone who comes to Christ
for salvation will confess that he is king and they do bow to
him as this thief First Corinthians 619 what know you not your body
is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you which you have
of God How'd you get that? How'd you get that? How Holy
Ghost come to you It's of God I don't know what else to tell
you. Ain't no other reason why I should be here. And you are
not your own. You are bought with a price. Therefore glorify your God in
your body and your spirit, which are God's. Believer, we are not
the Lord of our lives, but Christ is. We do not determine our destiny
or our circumstances or our providences. He does. Everyone who bows to him bows
to him as sovereign Lord. And we know this, that he is
the king of God's kingdom. When thou comest into that kingdom,
he knew that there was a kingdom yet to come, the kingdom of God. And Jesus Christ was the sovereign
ruler of this kingdom. And so this thief did not have
any affection for this life. All of his affection now was
set on that life. And so it is with every one of
us. This is why we're exhorted, set not your affection on the
things of this world. Why? These things are fleeting.
These things are passing. We are to look for a city whose
builder and maker is God, and who sits on the throne of that
city? Christ. Christ. And he says, this is
the cry of every believer, Lord, remember me. Lord, be merciful
to me. Lord, have compassion on me.
Isn't this our constant cry? I've never stopped asking for
this, Lord, please remember. Be merciful to me. Lord, forgive
me of my sins. Pardon me of my iniquities. Cleanse
me of my unrighteousness constantly. And so then notice now the confession
of the Lord. Jesus said unto him, verily,
truly, I say unto you, listen to this, today. Today, you will be with me. in paradise. This is the promise of God to
every believing thief, that the moment we leave this life, the
instant we breathe our last, we are in his presence forevermore,
in paradise. But I want you to see something,
this thief, must have had a great trial because the Lord died before
he did. I imagine he had lapses of faith
in those few hours he had left. The suffering and the pain to
look over at his Lord and see he died. We as believers do often face
the same troubles, the same difficulties as we travel through this life. Our circumstances don't seem
to match the promises that God has given. Wait a second. I'm an elect child of God. I
have been redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ. I have been
given a new and a holy nature to reside within me, and yet
it seems everything in the world is against me. I read that proverb that the
servants are riding the horse and the princes are walking.
Isn't it backwards? Well, that's exactly how it feels
to me. Everything seems to be backwards. We're the princes,
and yet we're walking. And the fools are riding. And oftentimes our faith is tried,
just like this thief. But I know this, that thief has
been there for over 2,000 years in paradise with Christ. And I know this, every thief
that God saves has this same promise, this same hope of eternal
life and peace with God. And all who confess the confession
of this thief have this hope. We believe that Jesus Christ
is God manifest in the flesh. Is that your confession? Do you
know that? Do you confess your guilt and
just reward of condemnation? Do you confess Christ as a sinless,
spotless Lamb of God who bore away the sins of the world in
His body? Do you confess that Jesus Christ
is King and only by this bleeding man can I be saved? That's the
confession of a thief. If you have that confession,
you have the same hope as this thief, that you too will be in
paradise. Why? Because as Peter said, we're
kept. That thief was kept for only
a few hours. They came and they were gonna
break their legs. They saw the Lord's already dead
and they broke their legs. You realize that was a mercy
to that thief? That was a mercy for them to
break his legs. Why? Man, it wasn't long, he
was in paradise. And all that hours, I know this,
he was kept. That's the same with us. We are kept by the power
of God under salvation, ready to be revealed at the last time. I pray this is your confession.
If you are a thief and a robber, I pray that you'd come in by
the door, that you would believe on Christ and be saved. I know
this, it takes the power of God to do that. Why, I'm a thief. This is my confession. I pray
God will bless this to your heart.