Luke 23. And let me thank you
all. I'm so thankful that I've been
here. This has been, oh, one of the
best weekends I've had in a long time. And I appreciate Gabe and
Caleb. Gabe, I think Caleb and Bonnie. Bobby. I've got. Boy, you have to forgive me.
I'm bad for stuff like that. Caleb and Bobby, y'all been so
good, and your kids. And Rob and Lisa, oh my goodness. If you need a place to vacation,
go to their house. I'm telling you, we've enjoyed
it. Thank you all for opening your home to us. It's just been,
and thank you for this incredible gift. Thank you so much. I mean, you
just, y'all have made us feel like we're somebody. And I really
appreciate it. I really, really truly do. But I'm going to read here in
verse 33 down to verse 37. And when they were come to the
place which is called Calvary, there they crucified him in the
malefactors. one on the right hand and the
other on the left. Then said Jesus, Father, forgive
them, for they know not what they do. And they parted his
raiment and cast slots, and the people stood beholding, and the
rulers also with them derided him, saying, he saved others,
let him save himself if he be Christ, a chosen of God. And the soldiers also mocked
him, coming to him and offering vinegar and saying, if thou be
the king of the Jews, save thyself. I want to get my subject there
in verse 34. Father, forgive them. They know
not what they do. Father, forgive them. Our Lord
had seven sayings on the cross. And this is the first one. Father,
forgive them. They know not what they do. The
last one, of course, is it is finished. But without this one
here, as he prays, our Lord had been apprehended. He's in the
Garden of Gethsemane, sent over 500 people to get one man. They must have thought he must
have been some kind of a real criminal to take that many people.
But our Lord Jesus Christ, they come and got him, and they led
him out of that garden. They didn't take him, they led
him. But he said this, if you get me, you gotta let these go. If you have me, you can't have
them. And so they had apprehended our Lord, and they brought him
to the high priest, and they put on a mock trial there. They
slapped him there. They mistreated him there. Then
they took him to Herod. Herod put him on trial. Herod
and his people put a purple robe on him, and they put a crown
of thorns on his head. And they bowed to him and said,
hail, king of the Jews, mocking him. And then they took him to
Pilate. And Pilate said, oh, listen,
I find no fault in this man. There's nothing this man has
ever done. that he should even be here.
Said, I'll scourge him and let him go. And oh my, that's, and
they, Pilate willing to please the people, took him. And here he is, they've took
him outside Jerusalem, on a hill. And they nailed him there to
a cross, and two men on either side of him. And there was a
howling, screaming mob, had been after him, screaming at him,
hollering at him, mocking him, derided him. And here he is hanging
between two common thieves, one of them even a murderer. And
they spat on him, ridiculed him. And I'll tell you this much,
I know human nature, that there were lots of people there enjoying
watching him suffer. Could you imagine enjoying watching
somebody suffer like that? But I also know this. If I'd
have been there, I would have been one of those mobs that's
cried at, you know, cried crucify him. I would have been one of
those there that would have spat at him. I heard somebody say one time,
if I'd have been there, I'd have stopped it. Oh, no you wouldn't. Uh-uh. No, no, no, but I know
if I'd have been there, I would have been one of those screaming
mobs. I'd have been one of those derided him, mocking him, and
I would have been one of theirs. And there was people there really,
really enjoying to see our Lord suffer. And after being seated
so cruelly by the high priests, by Herod, by Pilate, by the Jews,
you would think When our Lord did open his mouth, he would
have pronounced a curse upon him, a curse upon him. Now I
want you, now here, you gotta understand, when our Lord's hanging
there, you see these pictures, they don't, our Lord was bloody
from the top of his head to the sole of his feet. The scripture
says that his bones were showing in his back. I mean, blood was
coming down his forehead into his eyes. I mean, he was beaten
bloody. Our Lord Jesus Christ, you know,
and here's the thing, it's not how much blood that was shed
on the cross, but it was whose blood that was shed on the cross.
It's not how much suffering he did, it's who did the suffering. And that's the thing. But he's
hanging there, he's bloody. He's nailed, blood's running
down his arms, running down his legs, you know, and he's bloody. And you'd think as he hung there
that, you know, he would, after the way they treated him, I'm
going to curse him. I'm going to cause the earth
to open up and swallow him like they did Korah and Dathan. But oh no, when he speaks, is
he going to cry out for pity? No, you know what he says? Father,
forgive them. They know not what they do. Father,
forgive them. They know not what they do. And
look what's going on at the foot of the cross. When he said, Jesus
said, Father, forgive them in verse 34, they know not what
they do. And the fellas at the foot of
the cross, they're gambling. throwing dice or whatever they
did for His garments. And He said, Father, they didn't
pay Him. And our Lord Jesus Christ here is praying for His enemies,
praying for His enemies. The first saying of our Savior
from the cross is a prayer. And when our Lord opened His
public ministry, He opened His public ministry with a prayer,
being baptized After all many were baptized, Jesus was baptized
praying. He opened his public ministry
with a prayer and he closes it with a prayer. Father forgive
them, they know not what they do. And in praying for his enemies,
let's not forget this, that no one, absolutely no one is beyond
the reach of prayer. Nobody is. Not a child, Not a
friend, not a neighbor, not an enemy. Nobody is beyond the reach
of prayer. And I'll tell you what, beloved,
and his prayer, I'll tell you something else about our Lord's
prayer when he prayed. His prayer was effectual. It
was effectual. And it was effectual that day,
right then and there, there was a thief that was saved that day
on that cross. And then, On the day of Pentecost,
there was 3,000 saved, and many of them had been at this crucifixion. And then there was the centurion
that said, truly, truly, this was the Son of God. And I'll
tell you, Paul, when Peter preached, he said, I know that through
ignorance, what, through ignorance, you crucified the just one. And I'll tell you what, and our
Lord prayed, this is the last prayer, And our Lord prayed in
John 17. He said, I pray not for the world.
But he said, you know who I pray for? I pray for them that God
thou hast given me out of the world. And I pray, Father, I
pray for even them, them that's gonna believe through the word. He prayed for us before we ever
believed. Prayed for us. And let me give
you just a few things about this Father forgive them, they know
not what to do. This first saying, Father forgive
them, is a fulfillment of prophecy, of prophecy. Now you keep this
and look with me in Isaiah 53. Look in Isaiah 53. If somebody asked me, you know,
what my creed is, I would say Isaiah 53. I'd say that'd be
my creed. This is what I believe, this
would be my creed. But look what he says down here in verse 12.
This is a fulfillment of a prophecy. Verse 12, therefore will I divide
him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the small
with the strong. And this is what I want you to
look at, because he hath poured out his soul unto death. He was
numbered with the transgressors. And there he is, he's numbered
with these two transgressors. Numbered with us, we were transgressors.
And then it also says that he bared the sin of many. But this
is what he did here. He was numbered with the transgressors.
And here's the thing, he made intercession for transgressors.
And that's what he's doing here. Father, forgive them. They know
not what they do. And that's what he's doing. He's
intercessing for who? Transgressors. Transgressors. If you're a transgressor, he
prayed for you. This very Psalm of Isaiah 53
said he was despised and rejected. A man of sorrows acquainted with
grief, that he was to be wounded. He was to be bruised. He was
to be chastened. He was to be led as a lamb to
the slaughter. He did it without resistance.
He poured out his soul unto death. He was buried in a rich man's
tomb. And the last word is this, and
he made intercession. Now all that was in Isaiah 53,
and the last words were he made intercession for the transgressions. And here's the fulfillment of
it. Father, Father. My Father, the Father who loved
me, the Father who sent me, The Father who made my soul an offering
for sin. My Father who called me to be
the Lamb of God. My Father. Forgive them. Forgive them. They know not what
to do. And he thought of his murderers. And that's what these people
were. They were murdering the Son of God. And he pleaded for
those who crucified him. Father, forgive them. They know
not what to do. He's praying for his enemies,
praying for his enemies. And I tell you here, we also
see Christ identified with his people, with his elect, for his
people, people for whom he died. Father, forgive them, forgive
them. You know, they said there, and
look what it says there in verse 35. It says in Luke 24, 33, 35,
he saved others. He saved others. Let him save
himself if he be the Christ. And oh my, he forgave others. Why can't he save himself? You
mentioned it the other day, you know, that man that was paralyzed
and they, Tore the roof off of the house to get him to Christ
and let him down in the midst of him. And Christ looked at
him. And I mean, there's a whole crowd of people in that house.
And Christ looked at him as he's laying there right in front of
him, held down with ropes. Christ looked at him and said,
son, be of good cheer. What have I got to be happy about?
They had to let you down through ropes to get you here. They had
to tear a roof off a house to get you here. What in the world
ought not to be a good cheer about? Your sins are forgiven
you. That's what our Lord said here
about that. Oh, Simon, Simon the Pharisee invited the Lord
Jesus to dinner one night, to supper. That's what it is, people
say dinner, but down at home, I've always called it supper,
but I've got to where I even call it dinner. It changed me. But anyway, he invited her to
dinner, and then this woman came in, Mary was her name. She had real long hair, and she
came in, and she got down beside the Lord Jesus Christ, and she
began to cry. And oh, tears came so profusely
that they fell all over our Lord's feet. And Simon thought within
himself, if this man were a prophet, he'd know what kind of person
this is, that this woman is a sinner. And he dried them with her feet,
with her hair, and he said, Simon, And oh, which is greater, if
a man owed 500 pence or 50, 500 or 50? He said, oh, he that owed
50s. He said, but neither one of them
had any way to pay. He said, they both frankly forgave
them both. He said, this woman, this woman
right here, her sins are many, many, but they're forgiven. Many, oh my. And I tell you,
he's, oh, and then forgiveness of sins. And let me tell you
this, it's God's prerogative to forgive sins. When our Lord
forgave that man down in that room, in that front room that
day, he said, who can forgive sins but God only? I tell you
something, God's the only one. He's got the prerogative whether
to forgive you of your sin or not. He don't have to forgive
you of your sin. Would you forgive a man that
walked up and beat your wife to a pup or beat your son or
daughter to a pup and just beat them and mangled them and stomped
on them and beat them to where they was in the interior of their
life? Would you forgive them? That's what our Lord said. Oh, that's what our Lord said,
oh my. Who can forgive sins but God
only? It's up to God to forgive sins. And I remember, I don't
wanna take too long this morning, but I remember, I remember when
I was really, really, really got lost. I mean, I was lost. I was the awfulest man that ever
drew a breath. And I remember praying. And I
said, Lord, and I mentioned, this is exactly how I said it.
I said, Lord, I'm such a sorry, sorry dog. I lived in Ohio. I said, I'm such a, I was in
agony. I said, Lord, I'm such a dog
that you don't even have to do anything for me. You don't owe
me nothing the way I've lived. But if you would, if you would,
would you please, please have mercy on me That's all I asked. He didn't owe me nothing. And
I knew it, and I knew it then. And I tell you right now, that
anything I've ever got in this world, God himself gave it to
me. Oh my. And I tell you what, I
thank God, oh, I thank God every day. Thank God that he crossed
my path with the gospel. And I tell you, if God ever crossed
your path with the gospel, you ought to bless God every day
for it. And I tell you, when he went to the cross, he went
there as a man. He went there as the Lord's lamb.
He went there as a sacrifice for sin, and there he is as a
sacrifice for sin. He was lifted up from the earth
on the cross, and oh my, he's standing there, and the first
thing out of his mouth, Father! What do you want, son? They know not what they do. Forgive
them. And I tell you what, here he
identified with his people. Everybody who he prayed for that,
listen, I'm telling you, everybody he prayed for forgiveness for
got it. Oh, and I tell you here, we also
see when our Lord's on this cross, when this, he said, Father, forgive
them. We see God's estimate of sin and his guilt. Oh, we see
God's estimate of sin and his guilt and what it cost to pay
for it. Under the law, there was required
an atonement even made for sins of ignorance. And that's what
our Lord forgive them, they know not what they do. But over in
Leviticus, I think it is in chapter five, he says, if a man sins
and he's ignorant of his sin, he has still have to have an
atonement. Still has to have blood. Then David said, cleanse me from
secret faults. Now, I wonder how many sins we
commit that we're absolutely utterly ignorant of, that we're
not even conscious we did it. And Christ took care of that.
Father, forgive them. They're ignorant. Father, forgive them. They don't
know what they're doing. Oh, my. The sins we're conscious of bad
enough, but how many we got that we're not even conscious of?
But I tell you, beloved, sin is always sin, and God cites
whether we're conscious of it or not. And some of our men,
they pray, and they say, Lord, forgive me of what I am, not
only what I've done, but forgive me of what I am. And I, you know,
I'll have to be forgiven over this message today. I'll need
the Lord Jesus Christ to forgive me over how sorry that a human
being is to get up here and take the things of God and try to
deal with them. Sins of ignorance need atonement
just like conscious sins. Father, forgive them, they know
not what they do. We're ignorant of many things. But the false hires, and I blame
his hires. God's got a great, great high
standard. And our need is great. But his
blood, his blood cleanses all sins. Sins we don't know about,
sins we do know about. Sins that we did commit, sins
we are committing, and sins we shall commit. When our Lord Jesus
Christ died, he took care of past, present, and future. And
you know all my sins were future when Christ died. So when Christ saved me, all
my sins were already gone. That's what the gospel tells
us. That's what the gospel's about, telling you something's
already been done. Father, forgive them. They know
not what to do. And something else we see here
when our Lord's on this cross, We see the blindness, the blindness
of the human heart. Our Lord says, they know not
what to do. They know not what to do. They
weren't ignorant of the fact of his crucifixion. They're standing
there looking at it. They're not ignorant of that
fact. They was the ones he cried out, crucify him, crucify him.
Pilate willingly, willingly, gave them up to the people. They
see him nailed to the cross. They see him nailed to the tree.
They were eyewitnesses of it. So what did our Lord mean when
he says they know not what they do? Well, they didn't know the enormity
of what they did. This is the Son of God on this
tree. This is the Lamb of God on this tree. They did not know
the enormity of what they did. They were ignorant of who He
really was. They were ignorant of His power,
ignorant of His grace, ignorant of how compassionate He was.
And in fact, they said that if they would have knew that it
was the Lord of glory, they wouldn't have crucified Him. But they
did not know that He was the Lord of glory. They should have
known, they should have known who he was. They should not have
been ignorant of that. They should have known by what
his words, I mean his words, all of the words of his life
as he preached. And they should have known by
the deeds that he done, by the healings and by the miracles
that he performed. They should have known by the
works that he did while he's on this earth. But they said,
we'll not have this man to reign over us. And he himself asked
them, what you think ye of Christ? And I, Lord, example of his own
teaching. Look in Matthew chapter five. We find this so hard to deal
with. I don't know about you, but I do. I do. Matthew 5.43. You know, our Lord, he practiced what he preached.
He really did. And you know everybody who says,
boy, our preacher practiced what he preaches. You know, it'd be
awful to preach the sovereignty of God and then whine around
and complain all the time, wouldn't it? It'd be awful to do that. Yeah. I'll tell you, you know,
I've I've seen people die and watched people get their death
sentence pronounced on them. And I'm so thankful for my wife,
Shirley. She come with me, able to go with me. God blessed me
with her. Oh, she's a beautiful woman,
a believing woman, a compassionate woman, a patient woman, a loving
woman. But my wife, when she was diagnosed
with cancer to die, You know what she said? She said, this
is God's work, God's will, and we're going to kiss the hands
of God's providence and take it as God gives it to us. That's
exactly what she said publicly. Never. Only God can give you that kind
of grace. And I tell you what, and I, Lord, prayed for his enemies. Look what he said here in verse
43. You have heard that it hath been said, thou shalt love thy
neighbor and hate thine enemy. And that's pretty much the way
we are. But look what else he said. But I say unto you, Love
your enemies. Bless them that curse you. Do
good to them that hate you. And pray for them which despitefully
use you and persecute you. And our Lord was going through
every bit of that right then and there. And what did he say?
Father, forgive them. And he did us that way. We were
his enemies. He makes his enemies to be at
peace with him. He made me to be at peace with
him. His enemies to be at peace with him. And all grace and truth
came by Jesus Christ. He taught truth. He was truth. And oh my, we offend. Oh my goodness. We offend in our word. We offend
with our tongue. We, but I'll tell you something. Love. You want to know when somebody
does something to you, remember this. Love covers a multitude
of sin. It covers a multitude. When you
love somebody, when you really love somebody, it covers a multitude
of sin. It really does. It really does. And our love of our Lord Jesus,
He covered a multitude that no man could number of sin. And here when our Lord Jesus
Christ prayed, Father forgive them. We see here man's greatest,
greatest needs. We're sinners. We need forgiveness. Oh, how we need forgiveness.
Men may have noble ideals. They may make good resolutions. They can set rules for others
to live by. I remember one time I was down
in Goodlandville preaching at this church. And the preacher's
name was Bobby Flatt. I never will forget it. And he
had big things on the wall in his building. All these dress
codes, how you had to dress if you come to there. And he also
had all the covenants that you had to keep and all these things
that he had up there. And we got to talking. He said,
you know, we've had 1,500 church members here. And there was about half, less
than half of what's here at that place. I said, where they all
at? He said, they backslid. I'd backslide too if I had to
do that. But you know, when you start
setting rules for people, The only rule we have, the rule
that our Lord gave us is to love one another. This is the commandment
I give unto you, that you love one another, even as I've loved
you. Man's greatest need is to be forgiveness. And I tell you,
if you set rules for somebody to live by, every bit of it's
vain. That one question has to be settled,
and that's the question of sin. That's gotta be settled. Men
make heaven and hell to be the issue. Well, they'll come and
say, you don't wanna go to hell, do you? No, no, who in the world's
gonna jump up and say, yes, I'm glad, I'm going to hell, yeah,
I don't care. But no, when they start witnessing,
do you wanna go to heaven, you wanna go to hell? Naturally say,
yes, I wanna go to heaven. Well, I tell you, this is how
you get there. They start telling you how to get there. But oh
my, the issue that has to be, not heaven and hell, it's Christ
and sin. That's the issue that's got to
be dealt with, Christ and sin. And I tell you what, what good
are shoes if you're paralyzed? What good are glasses if you're
blind? What good are canes if you ain't
able to walk? And it doesn't matter who you
are, doesn't matter where you are, doesn't matter who you know,
And I'll tell you, sin is our nature, sin is our name, and
our sin is before an infinitely holy God. And we need to find
out where forgiveness is and how you get it, and there's only
one place and one man that can do that, and that's the Lord
Jesus Christ. Paul said this, he says, be it
known unto you therefore, men and brethren, that through this
man, this man, is the forgiveness of sins and you can be justified
from all things which you could not be justified by the law of
Moses. When he said justified of all
things, that means everything that you ever was. Oh, my father,
forgive them. And our greatest need was forgiveness.
Forgiveness. Have you ever, I know I've taken
10, 20, 30, I've been 30 minutes, so I'm
going to take about four or five more if you all don't care. You
know, if you ever had to go to your
own children and say, forgive me. I shouldn't have treated you
that way. I didn't mean to embarrass you that way. I'm sorry that
I treated you that way. I'm sorry that I was angry at
you over that. But I tell you what, when you've
been forgiven, if your sins is as great as you say it is, if
you've been forgiven of your sin, then you will have no problem
forgiving anybody else. I don't believe you would. And
then, oh, look at the victory of this redeeming love. And then
verse 33 says this, and when they were come to the place which
is called Calvary. There, they crucified him in
the malefactors on the right hand and on the left. And then,
then, after he was crucified, then, when those people were
beside him, then said Jesus, Father, forgive them. Then, when
the vileness of the human heart was on display, Then when man
had done his very worst, then when wicked hands had crucified
the Lord of glory, he could have destroyed them, poured his wrath
on them, caused the earth to open and swallow them. He was
subjected to the unspeakable shame of suffering, excruciating
pain, despised, rejected, And nevertheless, he says, Father,
forgive them. You know what one? Redeeming
love. Redeeming love. Redeeming love
has been my thing and shall forever be. There is a fountain filled
with blood drawn from Emmanuel's veins, and sinners plunge beneath
that flood, lose all their guilty stains. Our Lord's redeeming
love, and that's what it was, forgives all our sins completely,
perfectly, full forgiveness, past, present, and future. Blessed
is the man, Father, forgive him. Blessed is the man to whom the
sin is forgiven and the Lord impute not iniquity. Colossians
2.13 says in this, having forgiven you all trespasses, all of them. Well, what about tomorrow? Done. Oh, Father, Father, Father's
Day is coming up. People are going to honor their
dad. You should, you should, if you've got a good father that loves you and cares for
you and been good to you and you ought to be good to him.
But I, Lord Jesus Christ, Father, oh, when I, Lord Jesus Christ,
praise to his Father, his prayer is effectual. And I'm going to quit. When I,
Lord, as their intercessor, You know what? He doesn't mention
us at all. We say, yeah, he makes intercession
for us, and he did there on the cross. But you know who he mentions? He mentions himself. He don't take you and say, well,
Caleb. He'd say, well, Father Caleb done an awful thing today,
thought an awful thought. That's not the way he does it.
Satan comes and accuses you, and our Lord goes up there and
says, Father, Look here, I done took care of everything that
ever happened to him. Father, I done took care of that. Satan, you can't accuse him anymore.
I done took care of that. He always presents himself. That's who our intercession is. He presents himself. I'm thankful for that, ain't
you? Thank you all. Thank the Lord for you. Thank
the Lord for you. I'm so glad to see so many of
you and meet some of the new ones. Appreciate you. Thank you
very much.