Turn in your Bibles, if you would, to the Gospel of Luke. We'll go this morning to that scene that the Lord has made the focal
point of not only time, but eternity. We've come to an hour, as the Lord Jesus referred to
it. And it is a time of infinite
miracles, amazing things. But I'm just a finite creature. And so I want us to look basically
at one miracle in the midst of these miracles. So look with
me beginning in verse 39. And one of the malefactors which
were hanged railed on him, saying, If thou be Christ, save thyself,
and us. But the other, answering, rebuked
him, saying, Dost thou not fear God, seeing thou art in the same
condemnation? And we indeed justly, for we
receive the due reward of our deeds. But this man hath done
nothing amiss. And he said unto Jesus, Lord,
remember me when Thou comest into Thy kingdom. And Jesus said
unto him, Verily I say unto thee, Today shalt thou be with me in paradise." The miracle that I want us to
notice this morning is in the fact that a man, a
son of Adam, clearly a sinner, he cries out to And he pleads
for mercy from God. Now I say that in light of what
the Bible says is the condition of every sinner by nature and
by birth. And that is, in his helplessness
and in his inability to save himself, And from a condition
that God describes as spiritually dead and blind and without understanding,
he cries out to the Lord Jesus Christ for mercy. A dead man speaks. A man who cannot come. comes
to the Lord Jesus Christ. And He is a two-fold picture
here. He is a picture of every sinner
in themselves by nature. And He is also a picture of every
sinner that God saves. You see, he is a thief. As a matter of fact, he is one
of two thieves. And so Mark records for us these
words. It says, "...and with him," that
is, with Christ, "...they crucify two thieves, the one on his right
hand and the other on His left. He was a lawbreaker. And He was
a lawbreaker not only of man's law, which brought Him to this
hour, but He was also a lawbreaker of God's law. You see, it tells
us in Exodus 20 that the command of God was, is, thou shalt not
steal." He was a thief. But more than that, like every
one of us naturally, he is a thief before God. He's lived all his
days taking from God without any acknowledgement. He's lived
all his day stealing or seeking to steal the very rights of God. Seeking to steal God's glory. Just like it was in his father
Adam and our father Adam long before. Because when Adam and
Eve reached out to take of that tree in the midst of the garden,
they in that hour sought to steal the right of God to be God. The right of God to command His
creatures, rule over His creatures. have a particular, singular,
and sovereign glory as God over them. He sought to steal it all
His days. And He most especially sought
to steal the glory of Christ. And men and women who live in
this world just like Him, just like me and you, As long as we
are found among those that Paul describes in Romans 10 in this
way, as going about to establish their own righteousness, and
not submitting to the righteousness of God in Christ, they are seeking
and have been seeking all their days to steal the great glory
of the Lord Jesus Christ. steal the glory of God in His
salvation which is all by His grace." And I say this man is
a miracle in that he, just like the other thief, had not many
minutes before this been himself railing on the Lord Jesus Christ. Hold your place here and turn
back to Matthew chapter 27. Because in Matthew chapter 27,
in verse 41, it says, "...likewise also the chief priests mocking
Him, with the scribes and elders, said, He saved others, Himself
He cannot save. If He be the King of Israel,
let Him come down from the cross, and we will believe Him." He
trusted in God. Let him deliver him now, if he
will have him, for he said, I am the Son of God." And look at
that next verse. The thieves, plural, the thieves
also, which were crucified with him, cast the same in his teeth. He is just one not only in the
crowd and of the crowd, but with the crowd in his denial and unbelief
of the Lord Jesus Christ. But something has happened. Something that is totally unseen
by the natural eye. Something that is entirely a
work of God's Spirit as the Spirit of grace. And it is just like
Christ describes it in John 3. He says, "...the wind blows where
it listeth, and you hear the sound thereof, but can't tell
whence it comes, and whither it goes. And so is everyone that
is born of the Spirit. What has taken place is that
unseen and yet almighty and always effectual work of the Spirit
of God when He comes to a sinner and gives them life and faith. gives them eyes to see, in particular,
the Lord Jesus Christ for who He is and for what the Word of
God declares Him to be. He is born now of the Spirit
of God. And not only that, but we have
this miraculous picture of the free and sovereign grace of God,
the distinguishing mercy of God Almighty in Christ Jesus, there
are two thieves here. Some old writer years ago said,
there are two thieves, one so that we dare not presume and
one so that we dare not despair. It is the same situation. as it was with Isaac and Ishmael. It is the same situation as when
God says, Jacob have I loved and Esau have I hated. And someone is always asking
this question, how can God love one and hate the other? When
the truth of the matter is, the only reason is because He wants
to. Because he's God. Because he's
not a piece of silly putty in the hands of fallen men. Because
he acts like God, and therefore he saves like God, having mercy
on whom he will have mercy, and he does what he will, and nobody
can stop him. And until you and I are brought
to that reality and bowed before it, we don't really know who
He is. He is God Almighty, an absolute
Sovereign, and He has a gospel. And He saves men and women through
this gospel that He sends out. But He says that His gospel is
a saver of life unto life to some, but it's also a saver of
death unto death to others. All that was being said about
Christ in truth around this occasion, all that He said all throughout
these things that have gone on, those things were simply just
a savor of death unto death to the other thief. But oh, they
became a savor, a sweet fragrance of life unto life to this particular
thief. Because even in this hour, it
is shown not only the sovereignty of God's grace, but the sureness
of God's grace. Though he comes down to this
more even than the eleventh hour, because he belongs to God, because
he is chosen of God, because Christ has come to redeem him,
he will not and he cannot perish. If it's by the last words of
Christ that He speaks peace to his heart, that's just the way
it'll be. But neither can he be lost, and
neither can Christ fail to succeed in His salvation, because God
had not appointed Him to wrath, but had appointed Him to salvation. And what we have here miraculously
is an evidence in that He is one of God's elect because He
has received this gift of repentance. Not only the gift of faith to
believe, but the gift of repentance. And repentance is toward God. And so here He is, God manifest
in the flesh, hanging on the cross beside Him. And even in
that hour, looking at that man hanging on that middle cross, He acknowledges Him as the Lord. I told you it was miraculous.
Here He is one minute railing on Him with everyone else in
the crowd. Here He is one minute seeing
Him of no value in the same trouble that He is in. And here He is
the next minute. And He's calling on Him as the
Lord. The Lord. That's the way it is with every
sinner God saves. We have our own Jesus that we
make up. We have the one that false religion
puts out. Here is the gospel. Here is the
one, the last one we would ever choose, the last one we'd ever
own to be the true and living Son of God. Here we are in all
these things in denial of Him and all of a sudden something
happens. The one we thought wasn't the
Lord. we find out He is the Lord. I remember that so well. I remember
the thought coming to my mind in the early days of when God
was revealing Himself to me, reading this book and thinking,
God's not who I thought He was. God's not who we think He is
by nature. He's who He says He is in His
Word. He's who He sets Himself forth
as in His Gospel. But unless He comes to us as
He came to this thief in the power of His Spirit, giving us
eyes to see this and hearts to believe it and an understanding,
we'll deny Him. But when we see Him, when He stops Saul of Tarsus
on the road to Damascus, He did not at that very first moment
know exactly who it was that had shone this brilliant blinding
light onto His eyes and caused Him to be unable to see naturally,
and yet at the same time to be able to see spiritually. But
whoever it was, He's the Lord. He's the Lord. And here's this
man, he gives this evidence that God has done His work, and he
acknowledges Christ not only as Lord, but as the King. He
speaks of His kingdom. You can't have a kingdom. You
can't rule over a kingdom. You can't be a king if you stay
dead. And so he says, remember me,
Lord, when You come into Your kingdom, then it's a dead giveaway
that something has happened to this man. Because he, for the
first time before God and men, acknowledges himself for what
God in His Word says that he is. He said, we're in the same
state, but we're in this state. We're about to be executed. We're about to be crucified. He tells this man, he said, and
we justly. Justly. You see, there's one
thing about it. A man or a woman never finds
out really what they are. before God, what they are in
themselves. And they never confess it before
God or men until He enables us to believe what He says that
we are. And we can poke out our chests,
and we can grab hold of our lapels, and we can say to ourselves or
to anybody, well, I just don't feel like I'm that bad. I just
don't feel like I'm that lost. I just don't feel like I'm without
the favor of God. We can do that all we want to,
but it won't change what God says we are. And he says we're all sinners. He says we all sinned in Adam. He says we all come forth from
the womb speaking lies. He said we all drink iniquity
like water. We do what we do because we are
what we are. And like that thief, any and
all condemnation of us is just. Just. Condemned justly. And he takes side with God. He takes side with justice against
himself. He says, "...and we indeed justly,
for we receive the due reward of our deeds." And he immediately, Acknowledge
is something that seems always to be in question in our day.
And that's the sinlessness of Christ. I would never take the words
of modern preachers and their descriptions of what Christ became
or what Christ was made ahead of the record of God's Word at
a man who looks at the Son of God right there in that last
fleeting moment before he lays down his life and he says, this
man, he's not done anything amiss. He's that lamb without spot and
without blemish. He's that one who knew no sin. He's that one separate from sinners. He's that one who dies the just
for the unjust. He must be a perfect sinless
sacrifice in order to save sinners. And he said, this man, I know
he's hanging on a cross. I know he's being punished as
a sinner. I know that most everybody out there has condemned him.
I know that they have charged Him with the cruelest and the
most awful allegations that can be made, but in truth, I know
He's not done anything amiss. He's not a sinner. Rather, He's
a Savior. You don't call out to another
sinner to save you. You call out to a Savior to save
you. And he immediately gives evidence
that he believes God. He believes what Christ has said. He believes on the Lord Jesus
Christ. He looks to Him in the hour of
His greatest desperation. And unlike most, he becomes sure
of Christ's success. He becomes sure that Christ's
death is one in which He conquers. He becomes sure of His ability
to save. He becomes sure of His resurrection. He said, Lord, remember me when
You come into Your kingdom, not if You come into Your kingdom.
He wouldn't like a lot in our day say, well, I tried Jesus
and I liked Him. I tried His way and let Him save
me. You see, whether He saves this
man or not, humanly speaking, He's still going to be victorious,
isn't He? He's still going to be the King of kings. He's still
going to rule over His kingdom. Death cannot stop Him from being
that King of kings that rules over His kingdom. And it is in
this death that He assures the salvation of all the subjects
in His kingdom." He says, when? When you're coming
to your kingdom. Oh, I know you're coming. I believe
that you're coming to your kingdom. But how do we know that he now
has faith? That's sure a lot of good evidence
right there, isn't it? How do we know that he really
is a possessor of spiritual life? How do we know? Has it made manifest
that he's now born again, that he's an object of God's sovereign
grace and mercy, that he's one of God's elect? How do we know
that? What's an evidence? Well, our Lord said this. He
said, it is written in the prophets, and they shall be all taught
of God. Every one of God's people. Every
one He chose in Christ's purpose to save, gave to His Son. Every
one of them shall be taught of God. And every man therefore
that hath heard and hath learned of the Father, He said, comes
to Me. He comes to me. How do we know
He's one of God's elect? How do we know? Because He's
looking to the true Christ. He's looking to the Christ that
God has been pleased to reveal to Him. We know he's taught of
God because he comes to Christ. In John 6 again, he says, "...all
that the Father gives me shall come to me, and him that comes
to me I will in no wise cast out." Here's a thief being condemned,
executed. He calls out to Christ. Does
Christ cast him out? Does he look at him and say,
no, you filthy thief? How could holiness look upon
you with favor? Does he shut his ears to his
cry? Does he say, oh, you're just
a phony and a fake? It's just because you're dying?
No. He gives him a promise. And John the Apostle in his first
epistle, he says, Whosoever believeth that Jesus Christ, Jesus is the
Christ, is born of God, and everyone that loveth Him, that begot Him,
loveth Him also, that is begotten of Him." Everyone that believes
on Christ. Not just believes on Jesus. You
know it's more than that. You know it's different from
that. I believe that there's a bridge in London called London
Bridge. But I'm not crossing it today.
I'm not putting my life on the line with it. To believe that Jesus is the
Christ, is to believe on Christ, the Anointed of God, in all those
offices appointed by the Father to Him which is His Prophet,
His Priest, and His King. And guess what? When we look
to Christ, we look to Christ in that same character. He's
our Prophet. He's the one who speaks to us.
God hath in these last days spoken unto us by His Son. We don't
hold Him as a figurehead. We hear what God has said in
Him. He's our priest. What's the priest's
work? To represent men to God. We look
to Him as our priest, our one mediator, our great high priest.
We look at the sacrifice He offered. We don't look to ourselves. And
we look to Him as our King. He rules us. When would we ever learn that
a good King beats an elected President every time? Oh, a benevolent
King is a wonderful thing. He's the King of Salem. King
of Peace. He's the King of Grace. He's
the King of Salvation. He's the King of Kings. Oh, to
be a subject in the Kingdom of a gracious King. And when we look at this man
who undoubtedly came to the Lord Jesus Christ, we find out a lot
about what coming to Christ is. What being saved by the Lord
Jesus Christ is. And we find out immediately that
coming to Christ is not coming to the front of a building, It's
not coming down an aisle in a religious service. It's not coming to a
baptismal pool or a font. It's not any physical thing. He didn't have time to do service
for the Lord. He didn't have time to take the
Lord's Supper or to be baptized. He didn't have time for moral
improvement. Let me tell you something. Grace
is not God simply helping you to improve yourself. Grace is
not giving you some ability to help you live a holy life. Grace
is not God moving you all the time to perfection so you'll
be ready to enter into heaven. He didn't have time, did He? How could preachers in our day
say such a thing? to a man like that, you'll be
in heaven right now. You don't have time to do any
of their rules and regulations. You don't have any time. And
he's looking at a man, when he says these, when he asks this
question, when he makes this plea, he's looking at a man who
appears to be in as bad a shape as he is. And that's why when we preach,
as Paul said, Christ crucified men and women, look at us as
if to say, what good is a dying Savior? It all depends on who's dying.
When John saw Him in the Revelation, he describes Him in this glory,
and then he says, and I fell down at His feet as one dead.
An old writer said once, he said, better dead at the feet of this
Jesus than alive anywhere else. That's right. He's alive. Here's this man, he can't move. He can't raise his hand. He can't move his feet. He can't make a geographical
change of location. But if the Spirit of God's given
him faith, he can believe. Call out to Christ. Call out
to the Lord Jesus Christ. And that's the great evidence
that He does have life and faith. He cries out to Christ for mercy. He doesn't stand up like those
doing Matthew 7 and say, well, I've done a lot of things for
you, Jesus, in my day. I know I've made a few mistakes.
Isn't it amazing how God shuts us up here to this man who's
pronounced a thief, condemns a thief, going to die, nothing's
going to change that, he's nailed to a cross? He can't do anything. But he
came to Christ. That's the miracle of grace.
No man can come, but praise God in His grace, some will come.
Because He said, I'll bring them. I'll bring them to Myself. He
couldn't join anybody's church. He couldn't say he sat under
the preaching ministry of Dr. Reverend so-and-so. He just can plead for mercy.
He pleads for grace. Mercy can't be deserved. Grace
can't be merited. He says, Lord, remember me. Remember me. But how can the
holy, sinless, just Christ respond to His plea and not violate His
holy character? Hold your place right here and
turn back to 1 Corinthians 6. 1 Corinthians 6. And look down
at verse 9 and listen to what Paul writes here. And of all
the places and of all the people that he would write these words,
it is to those who lived and have lived in this wicked city
of Corinth." So Paul says in verse 9, "'Know
ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God?'
Now, is Christ here about to do something that will violate
what He sends His Apostle to say? Be not deceived, neither fornicators,
nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of
themselves with mankind, nor thieves. nor covetous, nor drunkards,
nor revilers, nor extortioners shall inherit the kingdom of
God." Period. End of statement. Now how can
he remember this man? How can he show favor to this
man? Only on the same basis that if
he saves you and me, he'll have to show favor. But Paul continues,
"...and such were some of you, past tense." In other words,
amongst these people at Corinth that God has brought to believe
on Christ, there were some of all of this natural character
and wrong. I've seen these crusades where
they have in their announcements, an ex-hell's angel, an ex-drug
addict, an ex-harlot off the street. Thank God, those He saves,
they're not ex-anything. And such were some of you. But you are washed. Oh, what does it take to wash
Wash a sinner from these kinds of sins. The same blood that
it takes to wash self-righteousness from the religious sinner. I
watch what goes on in this world today in politics and such. And
you got all these people on this side who back this candidate
because they want a law to be a law unto themselves and do
anything and justify and all that. You got these over here
who disagree with that kind of morality and such as that. And
so they're fighting against it. They're standing against it. I'll just tell you the truth.
Without Christ, they're going to spend eternity together. And
that's going to make it more of a hell for them. The self-righteous religionist
on one hand looks down on everybody, and here overhears the harlot
off the street wallowing in the gutter. Without Christ, they
are both lost, facing the same end. Christ will say to those in Matthew
7 who say, well, we've preached in your name, we've done great
things in your name, we've cast out devils in your name, depart
from me, I never knew you. Ye that work iniquity. Inequity. All you did, it was
not equal to what I required. All you did, you trusted in,
in opposition to the gift of righteousness that I give in
my Son. But you are sanctified." Ooh,
I'm glad he put that there. Because Christ is not made unto
us a way to holiness, He is holiness itself. He is made unto us wisdom,
righteousness, sanctification and redemption. You are sanctified. And you are justified. In the
name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God. In Christ. That man was at that
moment as perfect before God as if he had lived and served
God another fifty years in this world. Because he was made the
righteousness of God in that one hanging on the middle cross.
He could show mercy to Him because the Lord Jesus Christ had come
as His surety and He had been responsible for His sin since
before the man was born. That's a little too long for
some people. But He was made surety for His people, which
meant that He took all the responsibility at that time for all of their
sins and all of their salvation unto Himself before they ever
breathed the breath of air. That's what grace is. He remembered him the same way
that he remembered Noah. Noah found grace in the eyes
of the Lord. And Genesis 8 says, And God remembered
Noah. Then it also says, And God remembered
Abraham. And God remembered Rachel. And
God remembered this one. Men forget God, but He never
forgets His people. He remembers them. He says, I
have blotted out as a thick cloud thy transgressions, as a thick
cloud thy sins. I have blotted them out. They
are no more. They are not on the books of
God's justice, already satisfied, marked, paid, and full. Men even try to drown God out. I don't want to listen to what's
being preached. I don't want to read what God says. I don't
want to hear any more about Him. But you can thank God if you're
His child. He won't forget you. He describes
our relationship with Him in that priest. Names written in
that golden breastplate. Written on those golden pieces
on His shoulder. He's not going to forget the
people He loves with an everlasting love. He's not going to forget
that covenant of grace. He's the messenger of the covenant. And God made an everlasting covenant
with this man as He does with all His elect. And He will not
forget them. You remember Joseph when he was
in prison? Joseph told the butler, I believe
it was, he said, now, you're going to be spared. And when
you stand before the king and you're spared and you're restored
to your position, don't forget me. You know what he did? He forgot him. Sometimes we can
forget some things, can't we? I mean, well-meaningly, we can
forget things. He can't. He can't forget. And so He cries out in mercy,
through mercy. Will Christ remember Him? He
already has. That's what He's doing there
on that metal cross. The Lord from old eternity had
imputed to the Lord Jesus Christ all of this man's sins. And He
comes as the responsible party to bear the guilt and the punishment
of those sins in His place on that cross. He hath remembered His mercy
and His truth toward the house of Israel. All the ends of the
earth shall have seen the salvation of our God." He's come to be
the testator of that New Testament, that New Covenant. And God has
not only imputed all of this man's sins, as well as all the
sins of his elect to Christ, He's also imputed to this man
the very righteousness of God in him. Blessed transfer. Wonderful exchange. The Lord thy God is a merciful
God. He will not forsake thee, neither
destroy thee, nor forget the covenant of thy fathers which
He sware unto them. Christ hanging on that cross,
suffering on that cross, that's the remembrance of His covenant.
And you see, this is what the Gospel declares. Covenant mercy
to sinners in Christ's crucifixion. What will He answer him? He says, today. Today. Not tomorrow. Not after a state
of purgatory. Not after a little stint of improvement. Today. Shout thou, not maybe. Any salvation that puts a maybe,
a doubt, a wonder in it, is not the salvation in Christ. Today,
you will be with me in paradise. Now, I know you're wondering
what paradise is, aren't you? Actually, the answer to paradise
It's right there in that verse. Exactly, Joe. With me. Wherever Christ is, paradise. And the reason that has no appeal
to your soul, maybe, is because you don't know who He is, and
you don't know what God has given in Him. Are you a thief? A criminal against God? Can you cry out to Him and Him alone and rest
in what He's done? Finished. I am. I am. So I'll just have to say with
Him, pray with Him, Lord, remember me. Remember me. If left to myself, I'll forget
You. I know my salvation can't depend on me remembering You.
Remember me. Because You're coming into Your
Kingdom. And I want to be found amongst those subjects. What
did He have to offer? Nothing. Not only did he have
nothing to offer, he had very much demerit. What could he do? Cry out to
Christ for mercy. Like the sinking Peter, Lord
save me or I perish. That's just it. Have mercy on me. That's what
the blind man said. Have mercy on me. Father, we
thank You this day for such a marvelous Savior, Savior of sinners who
cannot save themselves, who have no good work, and whose works
of themselves are only evil works, dead works. Give us life in Your
Son. Give us that forgiveness of sin
in Him. Help us to cry out to the One
the true Jesus who shall save His people from their sins. We look to Him and plead mercy
in Him. Save us or we perish. For we pray in His high and holy
and saving name. Amen.