we enjoy singing, there is a
fountain filled with blood and it's a wonderful old hymn written
by William Cowper. great, great hymn writer and
preacher. But the second stanza of that
song goes this way, and I'm sure most of you can quote these words. The dying thief rejoiced to see
that fountain in his day. And there may I, though vile
as this man, as he, wash all my sins away." Those are eloquent words, but
they're beautiful words and words that give hope to those of us
who've been made to know we're sinners. He found forgiveness
in the Savior, though he sought it not. He found a great salvation
in the Lord Jesus, though He did not seek that salvation.
The Lord said in Isaiah, I am sought of them, or I am found
of them who sought Me not. I said, behold Me, behold Me,
to a people that weren't My people. Oh, may God bless His Word as
it goes forth today. As you know, our Lord was crucified
between two thieves. As Isaiah said He would be, Isaiah
53 says He was numbered with the transgressors. These two
thieves. In them, we see an instance of
God's sovereign, distinctive grace. Both of them were guilty
of awful crimes. Both of them were felons. Both of them were deserving of
being executed upon a Roman cross. Both of them were guilty. Both
of them would have perished in their sins except for God's free
and sovereign grace. Thank God for His free and sovereign
grace. You don't need me to remind you
this one thief, he was plucked, as the Scripture says, as a firebrand
out of the fire. I can just imagine my mind gets
a little vivid here as the jaws of hell itself opened up to receive
both of these men. And one of them did go to hell. The other one, though, he escaped. He didn't perish. And hell was once again was deprived
of another prisoner because this man was to be a prisoner of God's
grace. He was to be saved by the Lord. He's an instance of God's sovereign
grace. As I said, he wasn't seeking
the Lord. He's not seeking salvation. This is a man who's lived a life
of debauchery. This is a man who's lived a life
of wickedness. I mean, even the Romans said,
this man, he's so awful. He's so bad. He needs to be executed. We're going to crucify him. He's
going to die the worst death that he can possibly die because
he is a criminal. He doesn't deserve to live. We
don't want Him to live among us anymore. We don't want society
to have to put up with this man anymore. And there He is dying,
both of these men dying, but God in His grace said, this one
is mine. And our Lord Jesus, in that hour
of that man's death, He showed him grace. And we often think
about this is a mighty miracle of our Lord. And indeed it is. Here's a man at the very eleventh
hour. Five minutes to midnight as it
were. And the Lord saves him by His
grace. But every, every conversion is
a miracle of God's grace. Yours is. There's no greater miracle here
with this man being converted than when God converted you.
When the Spirit of God spoke life to this man, that's no greater
a miracle in raising him from a spiritual graveyard than when
the Lord raised you from a spiritual graveyard. This is another instance
of God's mighty grace. Our Lord Jesus in Isaiah 9, He's
said to be the mighty God. The mighty God. And here He reveals
His might. Even though in His physical weakness,
as He's suffering, there He is nailed to a Roman cross. And he's dying, but still, our
Lord is mighty to save. He's able to save. And He saved
this thief. And we rejoice in that. We must never forget that if
we're saved, it is by the grace of God. If we're converted, it
is by God's sovereign grace. Sovereign grace. You say, here's
one man who perished. Here's one man who was saved.
Who made the difference? Our Lord made the difference.
They would have both perished, and rightfully so, were it not
for the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ that He showed to one
of these men. You see this man, he's helpless. He's absolutely helpless. He's
without a hope. He has no hope, he has no help.
He couldn't work. And somebody said to him, listen,
if you'll do better, if you'll live better, God will take you
to heaven. Did you watch any of the service,
the funeral yesterday for Prince Philip? I only wanted to hear
what the Bishop of Canterbury had to say. A work's salvation. That's what it was. Live like
this man lived. Do like He did. Treat others
as He treated others. You'll go where He is now. Basically,
that's what He said. But here's a man nailed to a
cross. He couldn't work. He couldn't
work. He couldn't walk. This week I
had an opportunity to speak to a man. He said he's talking to
me about going to the altar. I said, we don't have an altar.
There is no altar in any Baptist church or any other church as
far as that's concerned. I said, our altar is in glory.
Our altar is the person Christ Jesus. He said, what do you mean
you don't have an altar? I said, the Lord is our altar
and we present our sacrifices of thanksgiving, our sacrifice
of praise, our sacrifice of worship. We present it to God upon the
altar of the Lord Jesus. He said if you don't have an
altar where people can walk down to, how does anybody in your
church ever get saved? Isn't that sad? Well, this man couldn't walk.
Once you walk down here and make a decision down here at this
table. He couldn't walk. He's nailed
to a tree. He can't move. Maybe move his
head a little bit. Move his eyes a little bit. He
can't work. He can't walk. He can't wash. I can just hear somebody saying
to that man, you know you need to be baptized to wash your sins
away. He can't wash. And he can't witness. And I'll tell you something else,
he can't wait either. He can't wait. He's got no time
left. All the sand has just about gone
through the hourglass. He's at his dying, this is his
dying moments. He's right at death's door. He
can't work, he can't walk, he can't wash, he can't witness,
and he can't wait. Well, you know, I'll tell you
what you need to do there, Mr. Thief. You need to talk to a
personal witness or a personal soul winner and they can help
you. He said, I can't wait. I can't wait. He's in a bad way. And all the
religious prescriptions that men would give to Him these days
won't help Him a bit. The only one who can help Him
is dying on the middle cross, who's mighty to save. Listen to me carefully. The only distinction between
these two thieves was the distinction grace had made. That's it. That's it. Only a fool would say, he made
the difference. No, this thief didn't make the
difference. Earlier, they were both cursing
God and mocking that one dying on the middle tree. But then
all of a sudden, something happened to this man. And he said to his
other buddy, don't you fear God? All of a sudden, he came to fear
God. That's the beginning of wisdom.
That's the beginning of knowledge. Don't you fear God? We're getting
what we deserve. That's his repentance. I'm getting
what I deserve. But this man, he's done nothing
amiss. This man, he's a perfect man. In fact, he's the Lord of glory. And he spoke to them and said,
Lord... Nobody can really call Jesus Lord and mean it except
by the power of the Holy Spirit. Lord, remember me. I'm not worth remembering. Probably
my mama and my daddy, if they're so ashamed of me, they'll try
to forget about me if they can, because I've lived such an awful,
awful life. But would you remember me? And
I'll tell you something else. He said, remember me when you
come into your kingdom. I know you're dying, but you're
going to be raised again. And you're going to have a kingdom.
You'll be the king in the kingdom. And here's what I'm asking you
to do for me and I don't deserve anything else, but would you
just remember me? Would you think of me? This poor
wretch dying beside of you. Would you think of me? And the Lord Jesus said to him,
now look at this verse 43, Verily, that means truly. Our Lord often used this word
when He was preaching. He said, Verily I say unto thee,
today shalt thou be with Me in Paradise. He said, I'm going
to tell you the truth. This very day, you're going to
be with Me. You know, that's one of the seven
words that our Lord spoke from the cross, or seven sayings.
There are some people who believe, who say, suggest that he quoted
all of Psalm 22. when He was upon the cross of
Calvary, and maybe He did, but the Spirit of God only recorded
these seven statements from the lips of our Lord Jesus. Here
our mediators say, Father, forgive them. They know not what they
do. And you know what? Many of these
will be forgiven. First of all, because He prayed
for them, and secondly, because they're going to hear the Gospel
on the day of Pentecost. Just fifty days from this. Fifty
days from this. Less than two months. Many of
these people who are crying out for His death, they'll cry out
for mercy from God. Father, forgive them. They don't
know what they're doing. That's Christ our Mediator. He said to Mary, He said, woman, didn't call her
mother. He said, woman, behold thy son. Son, behold thy mother. There's Christ our provider. He gives what we need. He takes
care of us. And then, here's Christ our substitute. He said, my God, my God, why
hast thou forsaken me? And of course, that's taken from
the 22nd Psalm. That's our substitute. He was
forsaken so we wouldn't be forsaken. There's no mercy for Him so there'd
be mercy for us. He must die under the wrath of
God so that we wouldn't die under the wrath of God. That's our
substitute. And then He said, I thirst. Christ,
the real man. He really was thirsty. And he said, it is finished.
There's Christ the victor. What's finished? The work that
the Father gave me to do. All the prophecies. All the promises. All the pictures of me. That's
finished. This is the Lamb of God dying. No more lambs going to be offered
to God. Not truly offered to God. Because the Lamb of God has been
offered. Throughout the Old Testament,
thousands, probably millions of animals died on altars. Sacrifice to God. They all pictured
this one. He died. He died. And before He died, He said,
it's finished. It's finished. All the typology
of my coming and my dying, it's finished. On the day of atonement
when the high priest went into the Holy of Holies and he took
the blood, he put it on the mercy seat. That's finished! That's
over! God rinsed the veil from top to bottom. It's finished! Our salvation, it's finished!
The remission of our sins, it's finished! The bringing in of
everlasting righteousness. It's finished. Our justification,
it's finished. It's finished. That's what he
said. You say, well, he didn't quite finish it. I've got to
add to it. No, that's heresy. This is the one whose name is
Truth. And he said, it's finished. If
he said it's finished, it's finished. It's done. He said in John 17,
I have finished the work that thou gavest me to do. God gave
him a work of remission of sins, of putting away of the guilt
of his people, of removing our indebtedness. The Savior said,
it's finished. This is the victory. And then
he said, Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit. That's our
forerunner. Christ, our forerunner. He's
gone into glory for us. He's there for us, our forerunner. And then there's this one. Verily I say unto thee today,
shalt thou be with me in paradise in this walled garden. Well, we fell in a garden. But
there's another garden we're going to. It's the garden of
God. The garden of God. The Savior says, today thou shalt
be with me in paradise. But the emphasis in this is not that he's going
to be in paradise. Here's the emphasis. Thou shalt
be with me. With me. You see, the issue, the issue
is not, do you want to go to heaven when you die? That's not
the issue. The issue is not, do you want
to go to paradise? That's not the issue. The issue
is, do you want to be with a hymn? Do you want to be with the Savior
forever? That's the issue. With me. And I'll tell you, when
the Savior said to him, Verily I say unto thee, I the Lord,
you've acknowledged my lordship, and I say unto you, Verily, today
thou shalt be with me, with me, in paradise. Those words must have thrilled
his soul. He could die a peaceful death there. Death, I'm ready
for you. Because the Master said, I'm
going to be with Him. My soul's not going to sleep.
And I'm not going to purgatory. What an awful, heretical message
is set forth in, you'll die and go to purgatory. Listen to me. That was just another way to
get more money into the coffers of their church. That's all that
was. Purgatory. What's that rude word? Purge.
You think you're going to go somewhere and your sins are going
to be purged? The only place sin was ever purged
was at the cross of Calvary. You turn a deaf ear to anybody
who talks about purgatory. That's foolishness. And you better
hold on to your billfold. You better hold on to your purse,
because that's what they're after. I'm telling you the truth. You
see, those who die immediately are with the Lord, with Christ. This past Thursday morning, when
Evelyn lay on her sickbed, medical doctors, the nurse came
in. A nurse came in and said, it's
not going to be long. It won't be long. And the Lord
willed for her to come home to glory. She went to be with Him. With
Him. You think of that. With the Savior.
With me. With me. And you go through the New Testament,
you'll be amazed how frequently the Scriptures speak of being
with our Lord Jesus, with Him, with Christ. If we be dead with
Christ, what is that? When He died. When He died on
the cross of Calvary. If we be dead with Christ, we
believe we shall also live with Him. That's what paradise is
all about. Living with Him. Romans 6 verse
8. In Ephesians chapter 2, even
when we're dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ. In His resurrection by grace
you're saved. And then later in Colossians
chapter 3, here's what Paul said, If ye be risen with Christ, seek
those things which are above, where Christ sitteth at the right
hand of God. And you remember what's said
in Romans chapter 8 and verse 17, And if children, then heirs,
heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ. of all the saints of God in glory. It is written in Revelation chapter
20 and verse 4, they lived and reigned with Christ. With Christ. In 2 Corinthians chapter 5, here's
what we read, whilst we're at home in the body, we're absent
from the Lord, For we walk by faith, not by sight. We're confident, I say, and willing
rather to be absent from the body and present with the Lord."
Can you imagine what it would be like, what it is like, to
be with the Lord? We say Evelyn is with the Lord. She's with the Lord. She's right
there in His presence. In His immediate presence. She's
with the Lord. How glorious must that be? You remember when our Lord was
transfigured on the Mount of Transfiguration? Peter, James,
and John were there. They saw that marvelous event. But they also saw two other men. Moses and Elijah. And they'd
been in glory hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years. Well,
do you know what Moses and Elijah were doing? You know what the
Scripture says? They were talking with Jesus. They were talking with Jesus. They had been with Jesus for
all this time. And as these three favored disciples
witnessed this, these men were talking with Jesus. Where have the saints of God
gone? They're gone to be with Jesus. What are they doing? Can
you imagine this? They're talking with Jesus. They're
talking with Jesus. And what did Moses and Elijah
talk with Jesus about? Redemption! The redemption He
would accomplish at Jerusalem. Evelyn is with the Lord. She's
with Him. What's she talking about? That
redemption He accomplished. And all the saints of God, all
have gone to glory. They're singing, worthy is the
Lamb that was slain, who redeemed us to God by His blood. Talking with Jesus. With Jesus. If you were to go to Washington,
and you couldn't even get inside the White House lawn, or get
on the White House lawn inside the gates now, I don't reckon,
but if you said to one of those policemen, I want to talk to
the President. Well, you're not going to get
very far. He'll just get you a bus ticket back to Ashland.
You're wasting your time. Or go to Frankfurt. I want to
talk to the governor. Who are you? Well, I'm nobody. I'm a voter, but he doesn't have
time to talk to you. But those are the people of God.
Those who are the Lord's people. We're going into paradise. And we're going to talk with
the King of Kings. And we ain't got to make an appointment
either. And He's not going to say, I don't have time to talk
to you. He's got time to talk to you
then, and He's got time for you to talk to Him now. And He'll
talk to you through His Word. When the Savior said to this
believing thief, Today shalt thou be with Me in Paradise. Oh, a peace just come over his
soul. John tells us that when the Lord
Jesus comes back to receive His people unto Himself, He will take us home to be with
Him. With Him. And those that are
with Him, the Scripture says in Revelation 17-14, they are
called and chosen and faithful. They're with Him. Who's with Him? Am I going to
be with Him? Well, if I'm one of the called,
and if I'm one of the chosen, you say, why do you put calling
before chosen? Because you can't know you're
chosen unless you're called. And faithful, believing. We believe
Him. And when He comes back, the Scripture
says, when Christ who is our life shall appear, then shall
ye also appear with Him in glory. He's coming back. But He's not
coming back by Himself. All those who've gone on to glory,
who live in a heavenly body that the Lord has prepared for them,
they're coming back, the Scripture says, with Him. He's not going
to separate Himself from us. He's not going to leave us to
ourselves. He's not going to leave us alone.
He's not going to desert us. He doesn't desert us in this
world. He's sure enough not going to
desert us in the world which is to come. And when He comes
back, we come back with Him. Yeah, we're coming back with
Him. I have no doubt But what paradise
is a beautiful place. Unspeakably beautiful. I don't
doubt that at all, but here's what makes paradise to be paradise. It means to be with Him. With
Him. You know, in Revelation 4, verse
1, the Lord said to John, come up hither. I'll show you things
that must be. Come up hither." And in Revelation
11-12, the witnesses, the Lord comes to take them. He says,
come up hither. I tell you, the day is going
to come when the Lord will say to each of His people, come up
hither. That's what He said to Evelyn
Thurston. Come up hither! And she did.
He's gone. The body is still here. That's
just the tabernacle for the soul, but she's with the Lord. Come
up, Heather. Do you remember the Lord said
in John chapter 14 to His troubled disciples, He talked about how
he was going away. He said, let not your heart be
troubled. You believe in God? Believe also in Me and My Father's
house and many mansions. If it were not so, I would have
told you. I go to prepare a place for you.
I go to Calvary to die for you, to prepare a place for you in
glory. And if I go, I will come again
and receive you unto Myself. Unto Myself. When this body is about ready
to give up the ghost, the Lord is going to say to each of us,
come up hither. It's time to come up hither. And we're not going to die until
that time comes. You know, we've taken precautions
with regard to this pandemic. We don't throw caution to the
wind. We've taken precautions. That's
the reason we're socially distanced in here, go through all of that. But don't be afraid of anything
in this life. People are just paralyzed with
fear. They're paralyzed with fear.
The Lord has said, fear not so many times. I know this, the
where I'll die and when I'll die, that's already been determined. And nothing's 100%. You go out
here in your car, that's not 100% safety. There's no guarantee
for you. will die when he says, come to
be with me. Come to be with me. And let me
share this with you. I marvel at the mysterious providence
of God that brought this man to meet the Savior. I'm not going
to blame any of the sins of this man on the Lord, but I'll tell
you what, This man had lived a life of wickedness and ungodliness. And all of that was ordained
mysteriously by God in order to bring him to die for all of
his criminal acts right beside the Savior. Now you're talking
about something mysterious. You can't figure that out. They've
got to meet. Just as surely as he must needs
go through Samaria to meet with the Samaritan woman at Jacob's
well, Christ must needs die for our sins according to the Scriptures
that God might be just and justify the ungodly. And this man must
die for his crimes because he must meet the Savior. This is
the ordained time. This time is marked out from
old eternity. There's no way he can escape
this. And all of his sinfulness, all of that, God can make evil
work together for good. Only He can do that. And we must
say of this man what we say of ourselves in light of Romans
8.28. And all things work together
for good to them that love God, to them who are called according
to His purpose. It all works for good. His mom,
dad broken hearted. If he's married, his wife, she's
torn all to pieces. Oh no, he's dying today. And
indeed all of his criminal acts, that's all his fault. But wait
a minute. And you wait a minute. I thought
you said we believed in the sovereignty of God in all things. Huh? Isn't that what we said? We believe
in divine providence. There's no excellence with God.
And you're right. And this is no accident either.
He's right where He needs to be. He sure took an unusual route
to get there. There's no question about that.
But He's right there beside the only One who can help Him. The
Savior. The Savior. Oh, it's mysterious. It's mysterious. No wonder David
said, surely the wrath of man will praise the Lord. The remainder
of wrath thou shalt restrain. The poison of man. The venom of man. The rage of
man. This thief went through his adult
life spewing his venom everywhere. But he was an object of God's
sovereign grace. Come up, Heather. Come up, Heather. That's what the Lord said to
John. Come up, Heather! That's what
the Lord said to those two witnesses. To Evelyn He said, Come up, Heather!
To brother Charlie, years ago. Come up, Heather! To Aaron, come
up hither. I go through the congregation,
people in your family, the Lord said, come up hither. And one
of these days, the Lord's going to say, Jim, come up hither. And boy, I'll be gone. I'll be
gone. Where'd he go? He went to be
with the Lord. He went to talk with Jesus. He went to worship. to be with
the Savior. See, people in heaven, they aren't
ghosts floating around. They aren't spirits. They have
a heavenly body awaiting this body to be raised from the grave. And they're occupied. They rest
neither day nor night worshiping and praising the Lord. Folks
in glory, they celebrate the grace of the Father in election.
They celebrate the grace of the Son in redemption. Oh, they celebrate
the grace of the Holy Spirit in regeneration, giving them
the gifts of repentance toward God and faith in the Lord Jesus. Yeah. This thief, he went to
be with Christ. The Savior said, you'll be with
me." Now the Savior died first. And then those two thieves, they
weren't dead, but they had to get them off the cross by sundown.
And so some big bruiser of a soldier took a big sledgehammer and he
broke the legs of both of those thieves. That believing thief
trying to stay alive as long as he could, just like the other
guy, kind of pushing himself up as he could to keep the pressure
off his lungs. He broke his legs and then he
couldn't do that anymore. He suffocated on his own blood. And then the Lord said, the Lord
Jesus, who's already in glory, He said, Come up, Heather." And
there He went. His soul went to be with the
Lord. He's with the Savior. And there's nobody in their right
mind who could ever attribute Him being with the Lord Jesus. You couldn't attribute that to
something He did. Only to the grace of God in Christ
Jesus. And I'll tell you, when the Lord
says, it's time for you to go, If He says to you, come up hither,
you'll be in His immediate presence. And it won't be for anything
you've done. It won't be for anything you're going to do or
you've done. It'll be because He's your Savior. He bought you. He paid for you. He put your sins away. He satisfied
God's justice. And you'll go to be with the
Lord. Now that's not scary, is it?
That's not fearful. I don't read anywhere in the
Bible where any child of God was ever afraid to meet the Lord. or ashamed to meet the Lord.
We go to glory. We go to be with Him based on
His faithfulness, not ours. His merits, not ours. His life
lived, not ours. His death died, not our martyrdom
or something like that. It's all Christ. You'll be with
Me. You'll be with Me in Paradise. You see, if He wasn't in Paradise,
it wouldn't be Paradise. Right? It wouldn't be Paradise
without the Lord. Wherever He is, that's Paradise. And then He's never going to
leave us. Even when He comes back and He's going to burn up
this world, He says, are you all coming with Me? Let's all
go! You go with Me. That's the way
it is. Oh, may God give us all grace
in Christ Jesus. Let's pray. Lord, bless Your Word. We thank You for Your grace given
to us in Christ Jesus before the world began. Thank You for
such a wonderful Savior and Redeemer. Surely, the very glory of paradise, the very preciousness of heaven,
is that we will be with the Lord Jesus. Lord, hasten the day when you
shall say to all of your people, when you come again the second
time, come up hither, and then we'll be with you forever. Until
then, give us patience, give us faith, give us a strong consolation
and confidence in Christ Jesus. These things we ask in His name
and for His sake. Amen.