Luke 23. We'll begin reading
verse 39 and read through verse 43. One of the criminals, Matthew's a
little more specific, this was a robber, a thief. And from what
I understand, the word in the Greek indicates not simply one
in my particular pocket, or shoplift or something like that. This
was a violent, like an armed robber, that kind of fella. The
other criminal, excuse me, one of the criminals who hung there
hurled insults at him. Aren't you the Christ? Save yourself
and us. But the other criminal rebuked
him. Don't you fear God, he said. since you are under the same
sentence. We are punished justly, for we
are getting what our deeds deserve. But this man has done nothing
wrong." Then he said, Jesus, remember me when you come into
your kingdom. Jesus answered him, I tell you
the truth, Today you will be with me. You will be with me in paradise. Now our Lord told this crucified
man. Our Lord was a crucified man
and he's talking to another crucified man. And he says to this man,
today you will be with me in paradise. And we have absolutely
no reason to think that it did not happen exactly as our Lord
said it would. That day, that man, was with
the Lord Jesus in paradise. We look plainly at the story
of crucifixion, that is the events surrounding that day. And we take it as it's told that
this man, hanging there on the right-hand side of our room,
that he was a hardened criminal. This was not a man who was a
young man, kind of innocent, but maybe the other thief was
an older person and kind of dragged him along into it. He wasn't,
as some like to say of their children, if they get in trouble,
well they're a good boy, he just fell in the wrong trap. We don't
know what got him into being a robber long ago, but we know
this, by this time he's a hardened criminal. He's a violent criminal such
that it was considered the only way to deal with him was to crucify
him, which is quite probably the most excruciating death that
one can endure. In fact, our word excruciating,
that the middle part of it, C-R-U-C, comes from the Latin for cross
and indicates the pain of the cross. And such was the level of his
crimes, and we don't know how many they were, but he was caught
by Rome. And it was considered the only
appropriate way to handle a man such as him was to nail him to
a cross and let him hang there until his body, through exhaustion,
could no longer pull himself up and allow him to breathe,
and he would suffocate to death. He went to his cross as a hardened
criminal, hating God. He hated God and he hated men.
You'll find that those two go together. He despised the Lord
Jesus Christ. We read in the book of Matthew,
in his account of this, Luke only mentions one of the things,
speaking abusively to the Lord, but Matthew says both of them
were. It started out as they're both hanging there on either
side of the door. Both of them are hurling the same kind of
abusive accusations against the Lord that the people there on
the ground were hurling at him. And so for this man, this crucified
man, he started out his experience on that cross despising the Lord
Jesus Christ, having contempt for him. I read somewhere that
possibly he did this because it was not unheard of that a
crucified man would be uncrucified if he gained the sympathy of
the people. And so seeing that these thieves,
as they're hanging there, they notice everybody on the ground
is against Christ. So they join chorus with them
against Christ, maybe hoping to gain some sympathy and be
relieved from their own pain there on the cross. Don't know. But I know this. He hated Christ. He's willing, for whatever reason,
to speak abusively about Him. Yet, the crucifixion began about
9 a.m. on that day. And before the sun
went down, that God-hating, man-hating, hardened criminal was with the
Lord in paradise. I've entitled this message, A
Striking Example of Salvation by Grace. But there is no salvation,
no work of God's grace that's not as striking as this one is.
It's just that it's not so obvious to us. Because we might say,
well, you're not a sinner, but I'm not a robber like this guy.
Well, beg your pardon. God may not have allowed us,
that is, he may not have given us enough leash to act like this
man did, but every one of us has within our hearts the very
same passions, the very same selfishness, the very same hate
in our hearts that this man had. But God has sent for us a picture
here, inherited for us. He set up for us a picture of
what salvation is like. I tend to think in pictures.
I remember things in pictures. And I can see this scene in my
mind. Three men crucified. One of them ends up in glory. with the Lord Jesus Christ. He
ends the day in paradise. The other ends the day in hell,
where we all belong. And the reason for the difference
between the destinies of these two men shows us was the reason
for the difference between our destiny and the destiny of millions,
maybe even billions in this world. But this man was in paradise,
he was on equal footing with Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Isaac,
Jacob, David, Isaiah, and John the Baptist. He was not in heaven,
he did not go to paradise that day and get assigned some small
cottage in some back alleyway in glory where no one would see
him, we know he was there. But he was in the same place,
afforded all the same blessings as what we might call the finest
believer in the world. We can think, and people talk
about them, you know, heroes of the faith. We need to quit
calling them that, because there are no heroes of the faith. The
only hero in the whole Bible is the Lord Jesus Christ. There
are men whom God made strong. There are men whom God enabled
to stand in an evil day and declare the gospel. But they were just,
as Peter says, men of light passions with human being. Same kind of
men. And this man, for all his wickedness and for the obvious
display of his wickedness, yet through what the Lord did, he
was delivered into paradise and he gained every blessing that
every other believer in the Lord Jesus Christ has. Some people
believe that when we get into heaven, there shall be some kind
of extra rewards passed out. Yeah, you get into heaven by
grace, but you know what street you live on, what kind of house
you live in. I don't know if they got cars,
but you know what it is. You know the idea. Somehow or another,
the more faithful, what we would call more faithful, somehow have
a better situation in the presence of God than do those believers
who maybe believed very shortly before their death and therefore
never accomplished anything in this world for the sake of God's
kingdom, or for those believers who lived their life believing
God but not particularly involved in the things of God. Friends,
there are only two eternal conditions. With Christ and apart from Christ. It's the only one there are.
There's heaven and there's hell. Hell doesn't have degrees and
neither does heaven. Either your sins are washed away or they
are not. Either you are accepted by the Father or you are not.
And this man, wicked though he was, was found at the end of
that day, singing with that multitude that surrounded the throne, worthy
art thou for thou hast redeemed us by thy blood out of every
kindred, tongue, tribe, and nation." It is indeed the most astonishing
example of salvation by grace. The suddenness of this man's
conversion, and the remarkable difference in this man from what
he was in the morning to what he was in the evening. It stands
out and points out the remarkable work of change that is accomplished
by the grace of God. We sang that song, our opening
song, free grace, free grace alone. We are saved by grace alone through
Christ alone, period. There is nothing else that contributes
to our salvation. Nothing. Not our seeking, not
our believing, not our faithfulness to work. Nothing at all contributes
to the salvation of one of God's people. The conversion of Saul
of Tarsus and the thief of a cross stand out to demonstrate to us
that salvation is a striking thing, whether it be upon the
very righteous religious person, like Saul of Tarsus, who could
boast as such of their righteousness, which is of the law. I would
blame this. That's what Paul said. Saul then became Paul. He said, the law's got nothing
on me. And yet he needed salvation. He needed the grace of God. In
this beat, he could say, the law's got everything on me. I'm
a murderer. I'm a robber. I'm a killer. I'm
a violent man. I'm a hateful man. I'm a covetous
man. I'm everything that a man can
be and be wrong. And he needed the grace of God. He needed the grace of God. Nothing
less could do and nothing more was required. And folks, for
you and me, it's exactly the same. Nothing less than a similarly
powerful demonstration of God's grace is necessary to save us. Nothing less will do, but nothing
more is required. I do what I can to be a good
preacher. Of course, we have our ideas
of what a good preacher is. I'll tell you what a good preacher
is. It's a guy that'll tell you the truth. That's all it takes
to be a good preacher. Telling the truth. But I do what
I can to organize the material in a way that's easy for you
to understand. I try to speak in a way that will rest your
mind. Keep it on subject, make you
think about it. I know this. I can stand up here
and talk all day and nothing's going to happen. Nothing. I can
speak with the tongues of even angels, and nothing's going to
happen unless God's grace is present
to set me. I think of that man who was called
the Prince of Preachers, Charles Spurgeon. And I've read lots
and lots of his sermons, and I'll tell you, he was quite the
preacher. And he declared Christ as well as anybody, I suppose,
that's ever walked on two legs. And yet, he himself was converted
under the ministry of what they call the lay preacher, which
simply means somebody would preach what they didn't get paid for
it. Young Spurgeon was on his way to church. On a snowy morning
it got so bad he went into a primitive Methodist church simply because
he felt he couldn't go any further and there was one. So he went
in. One of those accidents as they say. But actually this was
something ordained by God before the world began. Spurgeon didn't
see it coming. Nobody saw what was about to
happen except the Lord. And he went into that little
church, and he sat down, and his heart was broken. And he
was in grief over sin. Now, let's understand, he's only,
like, 15 years old. But he had been brave, and had
read so much of the Puritans and things. He had some understanding
of the wickedness of his own heart, but he could not find
any satisfaction. He could not find any way that
this epic load of sin, that he could be relieved of it. That's
why he kept going to church. He was looking. But he goes in
there and he sits down, and the pastor of that church, because
of the snowstorm, was unable to make it. And there's a good
time for a preacher to say that. Because he heard that preacher
later on, that guy had nothing to say. So this fella, I assume
he was just somebody in the congregation. Preacher wasn't there, somebody
had to say something. So he opened up the Bible. And
he preached from that text to scripture, and looked unto me
and me saying, all the ends of the earth, for I am God and beside
me there is no other. And Spurgeon said that a poor
man can hardly do anything more than repeat his text. He said,
look, it doesn't take anything to look. You don't even have
to wiggle your finger to look. Look, you don't have to be intelligent
to look. That was the kind of message,
very simple, very plain. And I suppose under the direction
of the Spirit of God, though I'm sure the preacher himself
didn't realize, he saw Spurgeon back there, probably looking
horrible. And he said to him, young man,
you look miserable. And you will be miserable until
you look. And Spurgeon said it was like
heaven opened. And I saw. I looked and I saw. I saw him
who died for me. He doesn't need to figure any
way, but within his heart, he looked to Christ and he found
forgiveness of sin. I tell you, it's not preaching
or preachers that bring about anything. It's the grace of God. Every work of grace is treasured. We have no hesitation in saying
that this man walked to Calvary, a criminal against God, seething
with every poison in the tenter. darkened in mind and soul, with
no thought or inclination toward being reconciled to God. And
a few hours later, he stands among the glorified redeemed,
singing the praise of God. You cannot imagine a more stark
difference in a person than was accomplished in this man over
the course of just a few hours. Now knowing the end of this story, There are some things that we
can say about this man that were true even before he pled for
mercy. First of all, we can be assured
that he was one of God's elect. He was the Father's special possession,
and he had been given to Christ as a trust, and the Lord would
not lose him. Now that's what the scriptures
teach us about those who are sacred. There may be some who
despise this doctrine of election, but not this criminal on the
cross. He would say in his heart, "'Tis not that I may choose thee,
for, Lord, that could not be. My sinful heart would still refuse
thee. Hast thou not chosen me?' Election, that doctrine that
God, before the world began, chose the people out of this
sinful race to save. That is obnoxious to everyone
but those who have been saved. And they say, thank God, he chose
me. Because I know that my Lord would never choose him if he
did not first choose me. As those men, those two thieves
that were crucified by the Lord, as they made their way out toward
Calvary, you would not have been able to discern a difference
between them. They were both harder criminals,
they both hated God, they both despised the Lord Jesus, they
despised the men around them, hateful. Absolutely no difference in the
nature or conduct of these beings. And yet today is remarkably different
for both of them. How can that be? If there's no
difference in the men themselves, the difference must come from
somewhere else. Is that not true? And it comes from a God of sovereign
mercy. For he had set his affection
on one of them, and not on the other. You say, well I don't
like it that God didn't set his affections on the other. Like
it or not, it's true. And I'll tell you this, I can
understand him not having any regard for the one thief. A whole
lot more than I can understand that he did have regard and kindness
toward one of the thieves. This world has been raised on
the idea that man is so important. It's perfectly reasonable to
think that God would love man. Friends, man is so weak. When
I say man, I mean you. Man is so weak and so insignificant. It is amazing that God pays attention
to many of us. David said, what is man? But
you are mindful of him. What are we? There's a pretty
big universe out there, you know. And here we are on what, so far
as I know, is the only planet in this entire universe that has a life on it. And the God who spoke this entire
universe into existence has a current heart towards some of the rebels
that live on this planet. I guess a lot of people don't
understand the Bible because they're scratching their head
about why God created hell. I'm scratching my head about
why God created heaven. They're wondering how a loving
God can send people to hell. I'm wondering how a holy God
can take any of us to heaven. If you don't know the right question,
no one, you can't figure out the answer. You can't discern
the answer from the scriptures. Election is the only hope of
a sinful people. I've said before, if election
were not true, the Bible would only be three chapters long. Because it would describe creation
in chapters 1 and 2. It would get to chapter 3 and
describe the temptations of Adam and his sin. And it would have
said, and the Lord's fierce anger burned against the man and against
his wife and consumed them in the fierceness of his wrath.
And that would be the end of the story. But God had determined
for reasons known only to him, to save a multitude that nobody
would know. And so he is patiently born with
the sin of all the people in his world, until such time as
all his elect are called unto himself. Another thing we know
about this man, at some point in his life, somebody told him
the truth. Somebody told him that there
is a God. and that this God is a holy and
righteous God, and that He's going to come and judge me someday. And somebody told him that he
was a sinner, and that he was in need of the grace of the Lord,
if he was ever to stand blessed in God's presence. And being
a Jewish man, somebody along the way, we know, told him about
the promised Messiah. Say, how do you know all that?
Because this man exercised faith, and it is written, faith comes
by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. You can't believe
what you don't know. I don't know who it was that
told this man the truth. In all likelihood, since he was
raised in a Jewish home, he was trained in these things. And
he was taken to the temple at the times he was supposed to,
as he was being raised. And there were believers in that
day. They were believing with very little light, but they believed
with what light they had. And they were to testify to it.
He had access to all the Old Testament scriptures, like any
other person in that day, or any other Jewish man. But somewhere
along the line, somebody told him the truth. But once again,
it proves to us that telling someone the truth has no power
until such time as God makes it powerful. And what time will
that be? The time that He's determined.
Paul said, will it please God to reveal His Son in me? Old
Saul of Tarsus, he knew the Bible backwards, forwards, inside and
out. He'd studied it as much as any man alive in his day.
But that word of God, that testimony in the scriptures, was absolutely
powerless in him until the day that God had determined to open
Paul's eyes on the road to Damascus. And this man, this thief, both
of them, I'm sure, being Jewish men, were trained in the Jewish
religion. But on this day, God came in power. and made the Word
of God alive in this man, and made him alive with it. But he
had heard the Word. And let me say this, do not become
discouraged in telling the truth of Christ. You say, I keep telling
people and nobody believes me. Well, not yet maybe, but that
doesn't mean they won't. One thing's for sure, they're
not going to believe if somebody doesn't tell them the truth.
Some of them are along the way. And the Lord God may not cause
that seed that you sowed, He may not cause it to bear fruit
until much later. But you keep sowing the seed. You tell your children, you got
children? Make sure they know what the truth is. One day they're
going to walk out your door and they're not going to be in your
household anymore. While you've got them, while you have some
control over them, tell them the truth about God and them
and Christ. And they may leave your home.
And they may go on, they could go on to a life of criminality.
That's happening. Happened here, but do not despair. God saves criminals. He may nail
them on a cross to get their attention. He may nail them on
a cross to get them next to Christ. Don't know. But you tell Him. And if your children are out
there wandering in darkness, don't despair. Do they know the
truth? The Lord may yet use that. and bring them to Himself. Let's notice these things about
God's grace in the story. Let's notice just how gracious
He is. You know, it's evidence of the
hardness of our hearts that we should have to make this point,
that grace is gracious. But what does religion say? When
I say religion here, I'm talking about what passes as the Christian
religion. Most of them will say, salvation
is by grace, but you've got to do such and such. The moment
they say, but you've got to so and so, they've taken the grace
out of grace. Grace does not begin when we
do something. Grace does not look for differences. Grace makes. You say, well, the reason I didn't
say it is because I believe. Why did you believe? Grace taught my heart to fear,
and grace my fears relieved. Before you ever called upon the
name of the Lord, grace was active in your behalf. That's all we
say in it. Yes, it's true that if a man
believes, he shall be saved. But what you will discover is,
if you ever believed, God had begun a good work in you before
you believed. And it's not a work that he does
for everybody. Paul says in his letters to the
Corinthians, who makes you to differ? Good question. There's
a difference between believers and non-believers. The obvious
difference is that believers believe and non-believers don't.
That's quite a difference. Who made that difference? Was it because you were wiser
than the next guy? You are more inclined to follow
God. There is no natural inclination
of man to follow the God of Scriptures. A man never believes. It's because
God worked in him to do so. God is gracious. It's given in
the most unworthy. If you want to, turn over your
Bibles to Titus chapter 3. I tell you, nobody can express
this more powerfully than Paul. And mainly because Paul was so
aware of his unworthiness. But he came to hear just a few
sentences. He lays it out that this business
of salvation by grace is. And he says in Titus chapter
3 beginning in verse 3, at one time we too were foolish, disobedient,
deceived, and enslaved by all kinds of passions and pleasure. We lived in malice and envy,
being hated and hating one another. Now you notice that Paul doesn't
say you. He wasn't talking to Titus, one
coming from among the Gentiles, and saying, now you remember,
you Gentiles, you were like this, that, and the other. He said,
we, including himself. Here, the man who said, concerning
thy righteousness, which is of the law, I was blameless. Yet,
he said, I was foolish, disobedient, deceitful, slave, malicious,
envious, hated, and hating. but then that wonderful word
of grace. But, but when the kindness and
love of God our Savior appeared, He saved us. Not because of any
righteous things that we had done, but because of His mercy. He didn't save me because I did
something good. He didn't save me because I responded
correctly. His goodness and kindness in
Christ Jesus appeared, and that's all it took for God to save me. And in the process of saving
me, He gave me some understanding of what it was He was doing,
and caused me to believe Him. But He didn't save me because
I believed Him. I believed it, because he saved me. Saved me
out of his own goodness and kindness. Let us not be guilty of taking
the grace out of grace. Note the distinguishing character
of God's grace. God purposely arraigned the crucifixion
as a visible display of the character of his gracious salvation. The distinguishing character
of it. Both men were the same sort of
men. Both men showed the same hateful attitude toward Christ.
But God arranged that these men be separated by Christ. Really? What was between them? Christ. They're both on crosses. Both guilty. Both wicked. One was on the left and one was
on the right. Interesting that the scripture
should make that point. The only other time I can think
of right away where that left and right is mentioned is in
Matthew chapter 25 when the Lord says that a time will come when
he shall separate his sheep from his goats. And he will put the sheep on
the right and the goats on the left. Those on the left, off
to judgment. Those on the right, off to eternal
blessedness. I want you to understand this. Salvation is not a process of
making goats into sheep. Salvation is the good shepherd
going out and finding his sheep. seeking his sheep, finding his
sheep, saving his sheep, and putting them at his right hand.
And that's exactly what the Mordecai did. Right there on Calvary was
a display of judgment day. Two men came with our Lord to
that place of judgment, one on the right and one on the left,
and it's God who arranged what side they'd be on. And what is
revealed to us is that the one on the right was there because
he's a sheep. He was a bad sheep. He was a
wandering sheep, going his own way. But the Lord lay on the
shepherd the seed of that sheep and let the goat go where it
belonged in the first place. Brethren, that's salvation. I'm not hoping that goats will
come here so that by the preaching of the gospel they will be turned
into sheep. My prayer is that God will bring
some of His lost sheep here, that I might tell them about
the Good Shepherd, and that He might come and rescue them. Note the power of grace. When
did this man receive grace? Philippians said he received
it before the world began. But when did this grace begin
to work in him and when did he begin to experience it? Not until
after he was crucified. Because as I said Matthew tells
us at first he was cursing the Lord just like the thief on the
other side. But God began a work in him. It's called the new birth. He
gave this man spiritual life that he might understand things
that no one else understands. I'll tell you a few things that
weren't found there. We do not find here any lengthy time spent
in introspection and mourning over sin. Never fall into the
trap that God is somehow pleased with you simply because you spent
a significant amount of time feeling bad for your sin. This
man did not have enough time for that. He didn't feel bad at all about
his sin on the way to the cross. He felt bad about what it was
going to cost him. He felt bad about the fact that
his sin was taking him up there to Galatia to be crucified. That
bothered him. But he was not the least bit
upset that he was a thief. He had no remorse in his heart
over the fact that he had been bribing against people in order
to take the stuff that was theirs. But sometime during that day,
he suddenly realized, by the grace of God, what kind of man
he was. And he said to that other thief,
don't you fear God, seeing that we're in the same confirmation,
and we deserve it. Tell you, that man walking out
to Calvary, he didn't think he deserved it. He was mad. How dare they do this to me?
Yeah, I'm a thief, but I've only taken what was rightfully mine
because I live in a society that doesn't distribute the goods
evenly. All that kind of nonsense people
use to justify their sins. God gave this man grace to understand
the great wickedness of his sin. And he didn't spend a whole lot
of time grieving over his sin. before he called on the Savior. I've heard people supposedly
go, I've mourned my sins for 20 years. My thought is, what
a big waste of time. Really? You're wasting 20 years
of not believing the gospel. How long do you have to be sick
before you're willing to take medicine? Would you go to your
doctor and he says, well, you got pneumonia. Here, we got some
antibiotic for you. Well, I can go back over if you
give me some time. I'll come back next week. I've got to feel this disease
more. I've got to be made more aware
of just how sick I am before I take the medicine. Folks, if
you are sinful enough to know you're sinful in need of Christ,
that's all you've got to know in order to call on His name. I don't know if I feel sorry
enough for sinning. You don't. Neither do I. I've
been born long enough. There have been people in hell
mourning for thousands of years. And it's not been enough. Salvation does not come by mourning
or sin. Salvation does not come by shedding
tears. It came by shedding the blood
of the Lord Jesus Christ. Are you convinced that you're
a sinner worthy of the judgment of God? Don't wait another minute.
Call upon Him. For whosoever shall call upon
the name of the Lord shall be saved. Not of whoever thinks
they should call upon the name of the Lord. No, not everybody
who thinks they have a need for the cross shall be saved. Whoever
calls shall be saved. Now let's turn our attention
for a few minutes to the Savior himself. Let us note the condition
he's in when he shows such mercy. It's so easy for us to be nice
to people when we're feeling it, isn't it? You've heard me
talk about our dog Ziggy. I like Ziggy pretty good. He's
a neat little dog. And most of the time, I'll give
him just about anything. I start to eat that golf right
there. Why? Because he knows. And he just
has to look at me. I'll give him some. Unless I'm
in a bad mood. I spent a significant amount
of time this past week in California paying him. I sit there on my
recliner, and I'm trying to eat some. That dog comes up and puts
his paws up on that foot vest. I say, get it, he'll eat. Leave
me alone. I'm just in a bad mood, and I wasn't moving nice to my
dog, who was just doing what he always does. And I don't know
what a dog thinks. But certainly you must be confused
and wondering why some days I just laugh and say, here you go. And
other days, leave me alone. I roared. This wasn't in a bad
mood. This wasn't feeling a little
out of sorts. I roared because of the pain
of the mansion. Pain of body, pain of soul. He said, God has sent down his
fire into my bones. As our Lord was stretched out
there on Calvary, yes, He was buried in the wrath of men, but
that's nothing compared to the fact He was buried in the wrath
of God for the sins that had been laid on Him. He cried out,
My God, My God, by His mouth forsaken me. No one has ever
been as miserable as the Lord Jesus Christ was there as He
hung on Calvary. Yet in that time of great misery,
He says to this thief who had missed a little bit before Him,
cursing His name, Today, you'll be with me in paradise. Oh, what
a Savior. What a Savior. I sometimes think
that I have been so wicked. How could it be that the Lord
will continue tolerating me? I remember when I was a wicked
man, the Lord tolerated me. And I think to myself, am I not
wearing Him out? And then I think to myself, if
he, in awe and misery and agony of Calvary, can find it within
himself to show mercy and grace to a sinner, how much more now
that he is in the unbroken bliss of his Father's presence, show
mercy to sinners. And let us know what faith our
Lord had. The Lord Jesus Christ is a mysterious
person. He is God and He is man. We don't know how that can be.
But we do know this about Him. The scriptures say He emptied
Himself. Emptied Himself. Took on the
form of a servant. Became obedient to death, even
the death of the cross. What did He empty Himself of?
Everything that it means to be God. And our Lord lived His life,
though He claimed to be God, there's no question about that.
And yet He lived His life completely as a human being. And He did
not hang upon that cross in confidence because He could see heaven in
a way you and I cannot. The scriptures say, put these
words in our Lord Jesus Christ's mouth, I will put my trust in
Him. When he said to that thief, today
you will be with me in paradise, that was a declaration of faith
from our Lord Jesus Christ that he himself would that day be
in paradise. How did he know he would? He
believed God, he believed his Father. Now you and I have to
drag this weakened flesh with us. Our Lord's flesh was not
weakened and did not fight within him over the matters of faith.
But I tell you this, our Lord believed God. He believed his
Father. And with that full confidence
of faith, he said to that man, today, you'll be with me in paradise. I believe I'll be there, and
I'm taking you with me. Do you think that in the midst
of your trial it's hard to believe? Imagine what it was like for
our Lord to believe that on that day he himself would be in paradise
and believe in so much that he could with confidence tell that
man he was right. All that either one of them can
see with the eye of the flesh is death, defeat. and yet claim life and victory. The things that believers believe
cannot be seen with the eye of the flinch. You say, Preacher,
I am such a sinner. I don't see how God could have
anything to do with me. Don't feel like the Lone Ranger.
I feel the same way about me. But faith is not about what we
can see. Faith is about what God has said. And He has said, that he who
looks to the sun shall be saved. The Lord Jesus said, he that
comes to me, doesn't matter when he comes or what condition he's
in when he comes, Doesn't matter what level of understanding he
has when he comes. The point is he comes to Christ.
He that comes to me, I will in no wise cast out. Now the difficulty
for us is this. not in making ourselves good
enough for God to accept us. The difficult part for us is
to accept the fact that we're no better than that thief hanging
to the right of our Lord. And while God may have held us
back from acting out on all those things that that thief did, we're
made of the same stuff as he is. There are none in this world
so evil that God cannot save them. But there are a lot of
people too good for a precious God to save. For He's going to
save entirely by grace, or He's not going to save at all. What
was the thief's plea? Lord, When you come into the
kingdom, remember me." No big theological treatise. No contrived confession of faith.
He looked to a dying man and saw a king coming into his kingdom. And he begged the mercy of the king
to remember him. And the king did. Heavenly Father, I pray that this message will
have power. I can't give it to you, but you
can. Stir up our hearts with it. Create faith where there
is one. Strengthen faith where it's already
found. In Christ's name we pray. Amen.