Well, good morning and welcome
to our regular service. I'll be filling in for Norma
this morning, and we're going to be in the book of Luke. And
I'll just steal a phrase from Paul. He says, when he wrote
to those Corinthians, he says, I determine not to know anything
among you except Christ and Him crucified. So we're in Luke chapter
23 today. And we'll start reading in Luke
23, verse 32. And there were also two other
malefactors led with Him to be put to death. And when they were
come to the place which is called Calvary, there they crucified
Him and 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 Israel and cast
lots." That's our text for today as we begin here. And you know,
that's what Paul determined was to preach Christ and Him crucified
because nothing else really does any good. You can teach moral
behavior and rules and laws and things, but nothing has any lasting
effect except the Gospel. And that's what we have here. In Luke 23, 34, Jesus said, Father,
forgive them. And that's going to be the main
thing that we focus on today. Because it's the culmination
of the Gospel, the crucifixion of our Lord and Savior, the thing
that pays the sins for His people, the good news that Christ indeed
died for our sins according to the Scriptures, as Paul wrote
there in 1 Corinthians 15. three. And more specifically,
the Scriptures say, which is so pointedly brought out here
in Luke and later in his addresses in Acts and as Paul wrote in Romans, for when we were without strength
in due time, Christ died for the ungodly. And certainly He
was surrounded by a multitude of them They hanged Him on the
cross there. And one on the left and one on
the right were mentioned in your bulletin this morning. What made
the difference between the thief on the right and the thief on
the left? If you read the other Gospels
and you read the combination of all of it, they both cast
the same in His teeth. And then at the end, one of them
turned to Him and said, The other one was railing on him and saying,
hey, you should come, if you're the Christ, come down, save yourself,
save us. He didn't really believe that
that could happen. And the other one says, don't
you fear God seeing you were in the same condemnation? And
then he turned to the Lord and said, Lord, remember me when
Thou comest into Thy kingdom. And the Lord said, Today thou
shalt be with me in paradise. So, big difference between those
two. And yet they were both in the
same condition only moments before. Isn't that what we find? And while we were yet sinners,
Christ died for us. There in Romans 5.8. You know,
at the moment Christ was being executed, There was a multitude
that followed him from the praetorium, the judgment hall, up to Golgotha
or Calvary. Calgary is in the Latin, Golgotha
in the Greek. But as they led him up there
to crucify him, we find that in the praetorium, many of the
people were shouting, crucify him, crucify him. When Pilate
was trying to release unto them Barabbas, they said, no, we want
Christ crucified. He wanted to release Jesus. They said, we want Barabbas and
crucify Christ. And by grace, you know, we find
in Acts chapter 2, As Peter preached the very thing that we're talking
about right now, the Gospel of the Good News that Christ died
for the ungodly, that their sins were paid for on the cross, the
Holy Spirit was pleased to breathe life into 3,000 souls who were
before dead in sin. Let's just turn over there to
Acts 2 for a minute. examine that. Remember at the early part of
chapter 2, they're preaching the Gospel and everyone's hearing
it in their own language and the wonderful works of God. And
as Peter's preaching, As Brother Loren mentioned earlier,
he covered the death, burial, and the resurrection. And then
he makes it personal. He puts it on a personal level
for those people that were listening to him. Verse 36 of Acts 2 says, Therefore, let all the house
of Israel know assuredly that God hath made that same Jesus,
the one that He'd been preaching, whom you have crucified, both
Lord and Christ." And they thought, well, you know, I wasn't the
one hanging the nails in His feet and hands or pounding them
in. I wasn't the one that caused Him to do that. But then we find
when the Lord reason to them the breath of light, when he
gives them that new heart and that new spirit that is talked
about in Ezekiel 36, they looked and said, you know, we did crucify
him. We were the reason that he was
crucified. Now when they heard this, they
were pricked in their heart. They were goaded in their heart
and said unto Peter and to the rest of the apostles, men and
brethren, what shall we do? Which Lauren addressed in the
Bible class. That's our typical answer. What
should we do? What should we do? And Peter
said unto them, repent and be baptized every one of you in
the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins or because
of the remission of sins. Not in order to obtain them,
but because that has already occurred. and you shall receive
the gift of the Holy Ghost. For the promise is unto you,
to your children, to all that are afar off, even as many as
the Lord our God shall call." And with many other words did
he testify and exhort, saying, save yourselves from this untoward
generation. Then they that gladly received
his word were baptized, and the same day there were added unto
them about 3,000 souls." What an amazing thing. Those very
ones only a few weeks before had been
yelling, crucify him, crucify him, now gladly received the
word. And that's only due to the work
of the spirit in them. And you know, the scripture said
he was crucified between two other male factors in verse 32. And as it was written in Isaiah,
everything just perfectly fulfills all the Scriptures that were
written ahead of time. Because that's what God determined
to be done. In Isaiah 53-12, Therefore will
I divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the
spoil with the strong, because he hath poured out his soul unto
death, and he was numbered with the transgressors. And he bare
the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors. And as
we noted earlier, the grace that was displayed to the one thief,
whose name was written in the Lamb's Book of Life, who God
knew from before the foundation of the world and gave to the
Son to redeem, at the last moment of his life, he was cause to
turn unto Christ, where the other one still railed on him right
down to the very end. Again, you can check out that
article in your bulletin there on the distasteful doctrines.
They're so distasteful to the human nature because they remove
self from the equation. They take away our ability, and
it doesn't appeal to our natural pride that we like to have some
say in our outcome. We like to have some say in how
things work and some measure of control. And we find out that
because of sin, We're just headed in one way. We're only able to
achieve one thing in sin, and it takes the grace of God to
turn us from that into a new direction, turn us to Him. And
so, there's this important truth that must be declared again regarding
the nature of Jesus as both God and man here that we find in
this scripture when Jesus There are seven sayings that are recorded,
what He said on the cross. Three of them were directed to
His Father, and four of them were to the ones at large there
and to the man, the one thief. But the first thing He says is,
as he's hanging there about to give up the ghost, He said, Father,
forgive them. or they know not what they do.
And you know, this speaks to the nature of Jesus as both man
and God, and has been proclaimed from the beginning of the Scriptures
through to the end. And as Pilate brought out when
Jesus was on trial with him, he said, they placed that crown
of thorns and the purple road on Him. And Pilate said, behold,
the man He uttered those words that were so prophetic. 1 Timothy 2, verse 5 says, For
there is one God and one mediator between God and man, the man,
Christ Jesus. And that's what the Scriptures
tell us, for in the fullness of time, God sent forth His Son
to be born under the law and to redeem them that were under
the law. So what we'd like to focus our attention to a little
bit today is when He's speaking, Father, forgive them because
they know not what they do. Who's He speaking to? He's speaking
to God. Who's He speaking about? And
how is he able to fulfill that gap that's between us who are
sinners and God who is righteous? In our text of Luke, it just
tells us about that daisman that Job talked about in chapter 9
of the book of Job. And thousands of years before
this, took place, Job wrote of the need for such a one, for a daisman
he calls him, one that could be the arbitrator, one that could
be the defender, one that could be the judge, one that could
fulfill all the needs that we have, satisfying both God and
satisfying the needs of men. In Job 9, verse 1, Job answered
and said, I know it is so of a truth that how should a man
be just with God? He knew his condition, and he
said, how can a man that's dead and trespasses and sin, how can
a man that's in our natural condition be just with God? How can God
look down and say, that man is just. He says, if he will contend
with him, he can't answer him, one of a thousand. So he said,
of ourselves, we can't come up with that answer. And Job, then
he notes the anger of God towards sin and recognizes that God,
His righteousness must be satisfied. And then Paul wrote that very
issue in Romans chapter 3. And beginning at Job, he preached
Christ to the world. In Romans 3, verse 26, he says,
"...to declare, I say at this time, His righteousness, that
He might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus."
So he fulfills both those roles as the daisman. Job wrote, if
I justify myself, My own mouth shall condemn me. If we say we're
righteous, why haven't we? If we say that we have not sinned,
that's Johnson, we're just a liar. If I justify myself, my own mouth
shall condemn me. If I say I am perfect, it shall
also prove me perverse. The very thing that I'm saying
proves the incorrectness of it, and my inability. And so to him,
it's clear that there has to be an advocate. There has to be an intercessor.
There has to be a mediator. There has to be someone, he says,
that can lay a hand on us both. that can touch God and satisfy
his righteousness and can touch man and say, your sins have been
taken care of. Job 9.32 says, for he's not a
man as I am that I should answer him and we should come together
in judgment. Neither is there any daysman
betwixt us that might lay his hand upon us both." So a daysman
declares both the righteousness of God and at the same time declares
himself the atoner, the intercessor in their place. And so we have,
as Moses wrote, Jesus lifted up from the earth, suspended
between God and man. Isn't that an interesting way
that that metaphor is developed in the Old Testament and then
carried out in the New, where he's lifted up from the earth
and he's able to put a hand on man and put a hand on God and
satisfy the needs of both. And so as we look at these words spoken by the Lord, that have
eternal significance, they demand that we apply them as Jesus applied
them here and in His other words and prayers that He directed
at the Father. Because when He says, Father,
forgive them, He's speaking to His Father. He's praying to His
Father. He's communicating to His Father.
And He says, Father, forgive them, for they know not what
they do. And they pardoned Israel and
cast lots. we must notice again who the
them is and we have to make that agree with and be consistent
with what's been written before by the prophets and what Jesus
said himself in his direct prayer to the Father in John 17. And
as he's lifted up as Moses wrote about it in the wilderness and
in Numbers 21.8, The Lord said unto Moses, Make thee a fiery
serpent, and set it upon a pole, and it shall come to pass that
every one that is bitten, when he looketh upon it, shall live.
And Moses made a serpent of brass, and put it on a pole, and it
came to pass that if a serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld
the serpent of brass, he lived." And that was in a physical sense,
because we know that all those people died in the wilderness
of unbelief. But the ones that did look up,
the ones that looked up at that brazen serpent up on a pole,
they lived. The ones that were bitten by
that metaphorical serpent of sin. And it says, any man, when
he beheld the serpent of brass, he lived. And any man only applies
to the ones who believed and looked up. So we find in John
chapter 3, as Jesus refers back to this, lifting up of this brazen serpent.
Brazen always is a symbol of, brass is always a symbol of judgment
in the Bible, so we see that. that judgment being lifted up
there. In John 3.14, as Moses lifted up the serpent in the
wilderness, even so must the son of man be lifted up, that
whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal
life. And so we saw this example earlier
where many beheld him being lifted up in actual time, in the physical,
nature of it there is recorded in Luke 23 and the other Gospels. And as people look up through
reading those passages in the scripture, but not everyone believes. And we know that we only believe
according to the working of His mighty power, which He wrought
in Christ when He raised Him from the dead. So in the context
of John chapter 3, As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness,
even so must the Son of Man be lifted up. In the context of
that memory, he's talking to Nicodemus. And he tells Nicodemus,
he says, lest man be born again, he can't see, he can't get a
glimpse of this. He can't see the kingdom of God.
He can't enter into the kingdom
of God either. He can't look up to the daisman.
He might look up there as a spectacle, but he doesn't see him as the
intercessor that he needs until God causes that to happen in
his heart. And he says, Father, forgive
them, for they know not what they do. You know, in our previous lesson,
we noticed that Jesus knew from eternity His people, those whom
God had given Him from eternity. And we said as He looked out
in that crowd of that multitude that was yelling at Him to crucify
Him, crucify Him, I believe He could look out there and say,
I'm about to go to the cross and die for you, and you, and
you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and you. And it turns
out, About 3,000 of them here, and it's recorded in Acts chapter
2. These things we noted in the
last lesson that he knew those whom God had given him in eternity,
and we find that in Luke. In his prayer in John chapter
17, he says, I pray not for the world. I pray for them whom thou
has given me. It's very specific. So the same
then must apply in this case as apply there. Because certainly
if you looked at it another way, then his death on the cross would
be meaningless really, because if
he died on the cross for the sins of people and then they
end up paying for their own sin in hell, what sense would that
be? And that's where we'd all be
if it wasn't for the wonderful, magnificent grace of God. Breathing into us the breath
of life and causing us to believe and to acknowledge our own condition
and our own need of that daisman, that intercessor. In John 17,
it says, as thou has given him power over all flesh. So he has
power over everything. that or for the purpose that
He should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given Him.
It doesn't say that He gives eternal life to all. or that
it's extended to all, but he makes a differentiation there
between he has power over all flesh, that he should give eternal
life to as many as thou has given him. And so that verse alone
kind of dispels any human derived notion of a universal application
of what was said on the cross, forgive them for they know not
what they do. I think that was directed at
a certain people throughout eternity. They didn't know what they did.
And even Paul said, you know, I did things in ignorance. But then God had a meeting with
me. And then I changed. But it was after that God had
the meeting with him that he changed, not before. So as the Word of God prayed
to His Father in the garden, it must be consistent with His
prayer to the Father as He was lifted up on the cross. I pray
for them. I pray not for the world, but
for them which Thou hast given Me, for they are Thine. The them is specifically limited
to those whom thou has given me. And you know, he didn't just
come up with that right on the spot. He was just quoting what
was written in Isaiah 8, 18, where it's written, behold, I
and the children whom the Lord has given me. are for signs and wonders in
Israel from the Lord of Hosts which dwelleth in Mount Zion."
So I believe that was a prophecy of Him paying the price, being
there on the cross, and saying to the Father, Behold, I and
the children whom Thou hast given Me, behold, I have paid the price
for them. And as He was the daysman between
them, He could look up to God and say, for their sins. I paid for every single one,
all through time. And the Father could look down
through them, through the lens of His Son, and say, I see no
spot in them. I see no wrinkle. All I see is
my Son. So the Word of God must agree.
He couldn't pray one way one time in a different way another
time, because he says, I am the Lord, I change not. I'm not changeable. And he said with authority that
God forgive them because the atonement was completed. You
know, when he says in John chapter 19, in John's gospel record,
and he records one of those seven sayings of Christ on the cross,
He said, it's finished. And that word is a term which
describes a debt being discharged. If you look that up in the Greek,
that's what that means. A debt has been discharged. The
complete payment accomplished. It's like when you pay off your
loan on your car, you get the title in the mail. When you pay
off your mortgage, you get a deed. Your debt has been satisfied. Your debt has been discharged.
Well, in this case, he said it is finished because he satisfied
the debt. He made the complete payment. It was accomplished. The obligation
was satisfied. He is just, as he looks up to
God as the days man and says, the required payment has been
met. I have met it on behalf of the
people whom thou gavest me. Thine they were, thou gavest
them to me. The obligation is satisfied. And
he's the justifier. He's not only just in satisfying
God, but he's the justifier because he himself made the payment.
He made the atonement. through His blood. And as Loren
pointed out so many times in the Bible class this morning,
and read again from, I think he read in his class, Ephesians
1, verse 7, but he read it again. And in many, many places it's
written that he satisfied it with his own blood. He paid the
debt. In Psalm 85, there's a verse
I really like there in Psalm 85 verse 10. It says, mercy and
truth are met together. Righteousness and peace have
kissed each other. Isn't that a great picture of
that daisman? Righteousness and peace have
kissed each other. The satisfaction of the Father,
His justice and His righteousness met, and there is peace with
Him because of the atonement paid by Christ. And that's what
it says in Isaiah 53 verse 11. He shall see the travail of his
soul and be satisfied. By his knowledge shall my righteous
servant justify many. For he shall bear their iniquities. That's the same them that were
when he says, Father, forgive them because he bore their iniquities. Therefore, Well, I divide him
a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with
the strong, because he hath poured out his soul unto death. He was
numbered with the transgressors, and he bared the sin of many
and made intercession for the transgressors." He didn't bear
the sins of all, or consequently all would be or must be saved. If he paid their penalty, then
what obligation do they have? He made intercession for the
transgressor. He's the daisman who was lifted
up between God and man, who could lay a hand on us both. In Romans
8, verse 34, it says, Who is he that condemneth? It's Christ
that died, yea, rather, is risen again, who is even at the right
hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us. that resurrection that Loren
brought out in the Bible class. He's sitting at the right hand
of God making intercession for us, saying, He's putting a hand
on us both. I know that person is a sinner,
but I paid for that. And then God doesn't even see
that. In your bulletin, there's a little paragraph from Song
of Solomon. We just appear beautiful in the
eyes of God through His Son. The miracle, the great blessing
is that God chose to have mercy on anyone, that He would go through
that for anyone, that He would suffer those things. I think the scripture says that
He endured such contradiction of our nature, the very opposite
of His, That He would go through all
that because He loved us from all eternity. Even though we
were undeserving of grace and we all cried out, crucify Him. Crucify Him. We're all sinners
against God. Enmity with Him is hatred against
Him. But in God's great grace, in
Romans 9.21, he says, hath not the potter power over the clay
of the same lump? To make one vessel unto honor
and the other unto dishonor, just like those two thieves on
the cross. They both had their purpose. They both had their
predestined end. What if God, willing to show
His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much longsuffering
the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction? that he might make
known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy which
he had aforeprepared unto glory. How many things has he put up
with through long suffering in order to bring about the salvation
of his people, of his elect, of his sheep. And many of them,
and I know in our own many cases that my parents were not really
religious, And I'm sure they left this world not knowing much
about, if anything, about salvation. And when we would speak to them
about it and other family members, they'd say, it's nice that you're
so concerned about us, but don't ever do that again. We've all heard that, you know.
There has to be some divine work there that causes them to want
to know about that, that causes them to ask the right question
and look to the right answer, as Lauren said. What a miracle
that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for the ungodly,
as it says in Romans 5.8. Lifted up, as it was written,
suspended between heaven and earth, the days men who could
lay a hand on us both. So we'll end there with Luke
23, Father forgive them. So be free because Christ prayed
it would be so. Thank you for your attention.