Luke chapter 23. Cody's preaching at our place
today. He's turned out to be an outstanding
preacher. He really, really has. I want
to start reading here in verse 33 down to verse 37. And when they were come to the
place which is called Calvary, there they crucified Him. 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
His raiment and cast lots. And the people stood beholding.
And the rulers also with them derided him, saying, He saved
others, let him save himself, if he be Christ, the chosen of
God. And the soldiers also mocking
him came to him, offering him vinegar, and saying, If thou
be the king of the Jews, save thyself. I want to get my subject there
in verse 34. Then Jesus said, Father, forgive
them. They know not what they do. Our
Lord had seven sayings when He was on the cross. This is the
very first one. Father, forgive them. They know
not what they do. Our Lord had been apprehended
out of the Garden of Gethsemane by a howling mob, screaming mob,
above 500 men, to come to take one man. And he didn't have no
halos over his head. He didn't have no distinguishing
thing about him. And Judas had to kiss him to
let him know which one to take. And they took our Lord Jesus
Christ, and they took him into Herod's pilot, into Herod's hall,
And they began to have a trial. It was a mock trial. The verdict
had already been given long before he got in Pilate's hall. God had already purposed what
was going to happen there. But they took him and they mistreated
him very, very badly, cruelly. And they took him after they'd
done that and they crucified him. They crucified him. And two men with him And this
howling, screaming mob followed him all the way to his cross.
And there was a great, great crowd around him. And there's
two criminals on one or the other side of him. And he hangs there. He hangs there. And it says,
the rulers of the people. The rulers, not just the average
person, but the priest. All the rabbis, everybody that
was anybody, they'd already said that they was going to find ways
to get him. But they took our Lord Jesus Christ and they put
him on this trial. And when he got in Herod's Hall,
that's where they slapped him. That's where they put the purple
robe on him. That's where they put the crown
of thorns on him. And then they sent him to Pilate.
They sent him to Pilate. And now they've got him on the
tree. They've got him where they want him. They've got him what
they do and what they wanted to do to him. And he hangs there. And these rulers and the people
derided him, made fun of him, ridiculed him, spat at him, hollered
at him. And they told him, they said,
if you're really the Christ, the chosen of God, come on down,
save yourself. Come on down, save yourself.
But here's the thing, if you know anything about yourself
and know anything about how God saves a sinner, you know that
Christ could not have saved himself and saved us at the same time.
It'd been impossible, been an impossibility. And here's the
thing about it, they enjoyed, they delighted in seeing Christ
suffer. They enjoyed it immensely. They
even, you know, the soldiers mocking him. They came to him
and they said, oh listen, if you're the king of the Jews,
get down off that cross. Get down off that cross. And
oh my, he was treated so cruelly by the high priest, Herod and
Pilate. And the world, you know, you'd
think that when our Lord Jesus Christ, after the way they had
treated him, after the way they had hired people to lie on him,
the way they had spat on him and plucked out his beard and
put the crown of thorns on him and bowed down with a false scepter
in their hand, you'd think that when our Lord opened his mouth,
the first thing he would have done, he had opened his mouth
and cursed him. Sent him to hell, said, you fellas,
you're gonna get what you got coming to you. Go to hell. But
that's not what our Lord done. That's what we would have done.
But that's not what our master done. And when he does speak,
he's not asking for pity. He's not asking for mercy. He's
not asking for people to treat him right. The first thing he
says is, Father, forgive him. Father, forgive them. Father, forgive them. Who's he
talking about, Father, forgive them? He's talking about people
that he loved, people that he died for. He's talking about
His elect, those that the Father gave Him. He's talking about
Father forgive them, not the world. He didn't pray for the
world. When He says that, that tells
that our Lord has such a wonderful, blessed knowledge of us. Here
we were, and listen, I'll gladly take my place at the cross. I
know when I was at that cross, I was there two ways. I was there
as an enemy of the Lord Jesus Christ, and I was there as one
crucified with Christ. And because I was an enemy, that's
why I was crucified with Him. So I was at the cross in two
ways. I was worthy of howling mob,
said, crucify Him, crucify Him. And then I was one of those ones
that was crucified with Him. Now, if you can explain that,
I'd love for you to get up here and do it. But all I know is
so. I just know it's so. And when He said, Father, forgive
them, they know not what they do. So look what's going on at
the foot of the cross. Here he is, he's praying for
his enemies. He's praying for his enemies.
This is the first saying of our Savior from the cross. And the
thing is, it's a prayer. Three things about prayer. Our
Lord Jesus Christ's ministry started with public prayer. When
our Lord Jesus Christ was being baptized, the scripture says
He prayed while He was in the water being baptized of John.
He prayed and the heavens were opened. And a voice spoke, said,
this is my beloved son. And then the second time, in
praying for his enemies, and here praying the second thing
about prayers, let us never, never forget that no one is beyond
the reach of prayer. No one is. I still pray for my
children and my grandchildren, and I pray for my great-grandchildren.
It's a little bitty thing. And I tell you, the difference
between Armenians and believers is, believers start praying for
their children when they're still in the womb. God, give me a child
that'll be a believer. Give me a child that'll know
you. Oh, God, please make this one of your children. And I tell
you, the only hope we have for anybody that we love and want
to see saved by the grace of God, I tell you what, they're
not beyond the reach of prayer, not beyond the reach of our Lord
Jesus Christ. And God may never hear our prayer.
My mother-in-law died and she had been gone about 10 years
before my father-in-law got saved by the grace of God. And I know, listen, there's been
countless times that it's when other folks die and they're out
of the way that God saves somebody. And I'm not saying it's because
of their prayers, but never stop praying for people you love and
say, God, for Christ's sake, do it. For Christ's sake, hear
me. For Christ's sake, do something
for them. For Christ's sake, open their heart. For Christ's
sake, speak to their soul. Not because of our prayers, but
oh my goodness, we wouldn't be much if we didn't pray for our
lost loved ones, would we? And then I'll tell you, here's
the third thing about prayer. His prayer was effectual. When
he prays, it's effectual. It's an effectual prayer. Oh
my, you know the first person it reached? The thief beside
him. The first person that he prayed,
the first person he reached was one of them thieves hanging beside
him. One of them criminals hanging beside him. That's the first
person he's reached. The first person that heard that
prayer, Father forgive him. Who was he saying? He was forgiving,
forgive this man right here. God put him on that cross that
he can be crucified with Christ. And when I, Lord, pray, the first
person that heard that prayer and was saved by it, that shows
you how our Lord's prayers affect you. You know, when he read that
tonight, we come boldly under a throne of grace to obtain mercy
and find grace to help in time of need. And I tell you, that
thief beside him was the first soul reached by his prayer. And
then that centurion, one of those centurions that helped crucify
him, he says, truly, this was the Son of God. Truly, truly,
this was the Son of God. And then on the day of Pentecost,
50 days later, Peter was preaching on the day of Pentecost and 3,000
souls were saved because our Lord prayed for them. And I've
been no telling how many of them were at that cross and are gathered
around that cross and 3,000 souls. And our Lord, he prayed for us.
You know why? You know why we become believers?
Because our Lord interceded for us before the world ever began. Oh, listen. And he prayed for us in John
17. He says, Father, Father, they were yours, you gave them
to me. And I'm not praying for the world, I'm praying for them
that you gave me out of the world. And I pray for them that they
will believe on me through these men's word. Oh my, prayer. Our Lord prayed, prayed. And oh my, this first saying,
Father forgive them, they know not what they do, is a fulfillment
of a prophecy. Now you keep Luke and go with
me over here to Isaiah 53. I want you to look with me in
Isaiah 53. This is just a fulfillment of
a prophecy. Everything that took place on
that cross was just a fulfillment of a prophecy. Oh my, fulfillment
of a prophecy. Look what it says down in verse
12. Therefore will I divide him a
portion with the great, and he shall divide the small with the
strong. Now listen to this, because he
hath poured out his soul unto death. How do you pour out your
soul? We do that sometimes, we pour
out our souls. When we can't do nothing but
just groan and cry, and can't articulate what we wanna say
with words. That's what it says here, he
poured out his soul. His soul was so painful and so,
what he was going through, so painful and so great, he poured
out his soul. And listen to this, he was numbered
with the transgressors. That's, and then, and listen
to this, and He bore the sin of many and made intercession
for who? The transgressors. He has numbered
with them, made intercession for them, poured out His soul
for them, for who? Transgressors. Who was the transgressors? Not only those folks that was
at the cross, not only those people that our Lord prayed for,
But for us, for us, it tells us there also in Isaiah, and
you know it very well, that he was despised. Oh, despised. He was rejected of men. He was a man of sorrows. Oh,
what a man of sorrows. He said he was to be wounded,
but not for himself. He said he would be bruised,
but not for himself. Said he'd be chastised, but not
for himself. Said he'd be led as a lamb to
the slaughter, and he would not resist. So our Lord Jesus Christ,
when it says here, oh, the first saying is, Father, forgive him,
this is after the way he'd been treated, after he'd been numbered
with the transgressors. After he had borne the sin of
many after he had poured out his soul unto death and all my
Second thing is this Back over in our text here. We see the
estimate how God views sin and his guilt This is how God views
sin and his guilt He was wounded for our transgressions, bruised
for our iniquities, and yet he said, Father, forgive them. They
know not what they do. Now under the law, under the
law, God required an atonement made for sins of ignorance. Now
over in Leviticus 15, excuse me, Leviticus 5, it says over
there that when a man commits a sin of ignorance, you have
to have a blood sacrifice to pay for that sin of ignorance.
Now how would you know that you committed a sin of ignorance?
How would you know? Well, how many sins you reckon
we've committed that we have no idea we've done it? How many
sins a day do you reckon we commit? And we are ignorant, absolutely
ignorant of how many times. You know, how many times do we
sin a day and we're not conscious of it because we're such part
and parcel of it? That's why David said, Lord,
cleanse me from my secret faults. Lord, keep me back from my presumptuous
sins. And I tell you sin, Paul said
sin is exceeding sinful. There's no way in the world we
can describe sin. It'd be impossibility to describe
sin. But I tell you the only way you
can know what sin is for God to teach you in your own heart
and your own soul what sin is. Because you can't describe it.
How are you going to describe sin? How are you going to describe
Christ being made sin Whatever sin is, God hates it. God detests
it. And every sin we commit is committed
against God Himself. How in the world can we, as you
know, we can use every adjective. We can use every way in the world
we can to describe it. But you can't say sin without
the hiss of the serpent. You know, sins always sin in
God's sight, whether it's ignorant, whether it's deliberate, whether
it's conscious, whether we do it willfully. People say, boy,
you know, if you make sins willfully, anybody not here that don't sin
willfully? Huh? Nobody's holding a gun to
your head and telling you to do it, but you know it. We make
some of the dumbest statements. But oh my, how many sins in God's
sight do we commit that we're never conscious of? Sins of ignorance,
they've got to be paid for just like sins numbered with the transgressors. And here's the thing about it.
Here's the thing about it, we always take the blame, and we
always say every sin we've ever committed is our fault. We're
not going to charge anybody else with it. We're not going to say,
I've done it, when even in sins of ignorance, we take the blame
for it. The blame is higher. Now God
is high, God is holy, God is infinitely holy, and He has a
standard, and He's never lowered that standard for nobody. He
does not bring His law down. He does not bring His holiness
down. He does not bring His righteousness down. He does not bring any attribute
He's got down. He doesn't do it. All His attributes
are way, way, way, way up. I mean, we can't imagine. The
heaven of heavens can't contain Him. God inhabits eternity. He measures the waters in the
hollow of His hands. He cut and tells us numbers of
the stars and tells the names of them. And I'll tell you what,
His way up here and how in the world, and our need is so great,
our need is so great, But how in the world, who in the world
can beat God's standard? Who can rise to the holiness
of God? Who can rise to the righteousness
of God? Who can rise and give God all
the glory? Who can rise and obey God completely,
entirely, and perfectly all the days of his life? Who can do
that? Father, forgive them. They know not what to do. God
met his holiness, everything he met, stayed high and holy
because of his son. Oh, bless his holy name and bless
his name. His blood, his blood, his blood
cleanses from all sin. Oh, and our Lord said, Father,
forgive them. They know not what they do. And
I, you know, sin, sin. Oh, what a blessed day we're
going to be done with it. What a blessed day. What a blessed
day. I've seen a lot of folks go out
into eternity, a lot of believers. And the first thing you think
of is, they say, boy, they're not dealing with His flesh anymore.
They're not dealing with sin anymore. And listen, when we get into
the presence of Christ, we'll never, ever, never, ever, the
day's coming when sin's already, as far as God's concerned, gone,
put away. As far as God's concerned, we're
righteous as Christ himself. As far as God's concerned, we're
righteous as God himself. But oh, wretched man that I am. Oh, wretched man that I am. And God came down, and His blessed
Son, and He is hanging on that cross, numbered with the transgressors. And He looked at His people. looked in their hearts, looked
in their souls, and seen exactly what he was dying for, and said,
Father, forgive them. And you know what? He said, they
know not what they do. Here's the third thing we see
here when our Lord prayed like this. Father, forgive them. We see the blindness and hardness
and cruelty of the human heart. Our Lord says they know not what
they do. They know not what they do. When
did you become a sinner? When did you become a sinner? You know, I don't know how blind
you were, but I was blind to God. I was blind to sin. I was blind to myself. I was blind
to righteousness. I was blind to how much I hated
God. I was blind to the Bible. When
I first started reading the Bible, years ago, I was just a very
young man, about 21, 22. And I spent a lot of time in
hospitals coming back from Vietnam. And the reason I got a Bible,
I said, I'm gonna buy me a Bible. I'm gonna start living right.
And I'm gonna start living right. And I went out on North Dixie
Highway, Dayton, Ohio, the Bible bookstore out there, bought me
a little world Bible, little old black Bible. Here's a world
Bible. And I opened it up and I said,
I'm gonna start living right. I'm gonna read the Bible. And
I started in the Sermon on the Mount. I got about halfway through
it and I said, oh my, I closed that book. I said, there's no
way in the world I can be like that. I can't be like that. I'm
not like that. It can't possibly be like that.
Can't be like that. And oh my, and that's why our
Lord says they know not what they do. We didn't know what
we was doing. We didn't have a clue what we
was doing when we was lost. We didn't understand a thing
in the world about God, about Christ, about sin, about righteousness. But here's the thing about it.
They weren't ignorant of the fact of His crucifixion. They
were standing there. They were deriding Him. They
were mocking Him, spitting at Him. Oh, they'd done everything
under the sun. Oh, my. They weren't ignorant
of the fact that they crucified Him. In fact, they cried out
over and over and over again, crucify him, crucify him, crucify
him. Herod, Herod sent him over to
Pilate, and Pilate stood up and told him, I believe four times,
I find no fault in this man. He instead said, well, we're
glad, let him go. No, crucify him. Well, I don't
find, crucify him. I don't find no, crucify him.
Crucify him. And Pilate, when the scripture
says Pilate, willing to content the people, willing to content
the people, gave him up, gave him up. And oh my, and they're
standing there, they're watching him. They're watching him nail
to that tree. They're looking at him. And let
me tell you this, This concept that people have, that our Lord
had a little loincloth about him and he hung there and his
head down, just a little bit of blood. Our Lord was a bloody
mess. They beat him with 39 stripes.
And in those 39 stripes, they either put glass or lead. in the end of those things, so
it would rip out the flesh. And that's why the Lord said,
my bones, my bones are saved. And I tell you, in his back,
you could see the bones in his back. The blood coming down his
face, and you know how much blood, I just cut myself all the time,
and I have blood over there, I get it on all my clothes, I
get it in the bed, I just barely, I can bump my head and I'll start
bleeding. But our Lord was bloody all over. His face had blood
all over it. His body was just bloody as it
can be. Listen, His blood was all over
the ground. They, they, you're talking about
the human heart being cruel. Talking about the human heart
being blind. Talking about the human heart
being cruel and hateful and hating. Oh, what, what can the, we, we
can't, we can't, we can't, we see people and say, oh my, I
hope justice gets them, I hope justice gets them. Well, Thank
God that justice didn't get us, He got our Savior. Huh? Oh my. What do you reckon our
Lord meant when He said they knew not? They knew not what
they do. They don't know what they do.
Well, I'll tell you what. They were ignorant, ignorant
of the enormity of the crime they had just committed. They
were ignorant of the enormity of their crime. You know, Paul
said it like this, we speak the hidden of God, wisdom of God
in a mystery. And if the princes, the mighty
people of this world had known it, they would not have crucified
the Lord of glory, but they didn't know it. They didn't know it.
They were ignorant of the enormity of their crime. And you know,
Here's the sad thing about it. People, preachers try to preach
the cross so you'd pity Christ. Oh, no, no. He pitied us when
he said, Father, forgive them. They knew not that it was the
Lord of glory they crucified. They knew not, they know not.
They ought to have known. They ought to have known. How
should they have known? By what our Lord taught. Oh,
what our Lord Jesus Christ taught. He was such a precious man, a
blessed man, a sinless man. And however place, you know,
He would go out of His way to get one soul at a time. And when He looked out over Jerusalem,
He stood there and wept, tears running down His holy face. Tears
had to be holy because tears run down His holy cheeks. And
he said, oh Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how oft would I gather as a hen
gathers her chicks. But you wouldn't do it. You wouldn't
do it. Oh, and what about his deeds? What about his deeds? There was
no place he went that he didn't do good. No place he went that
he didn't do good. You know, he went about doing
good, healing all that were oppressed of the devil. And oh my, what
about his work? What about his work? He raised
three people from the dead. He gave a man that was born blind. Grown man, born blind. Born blind,
never had seen. Christ gave him sight. Five lepers, 10 lepers come to
him, and he healed all of them. And then one leper came to him
and he says now, he cleansed him, said, go to the law for
a testimony. Why did he say go to the law?
Because the law, when he got there, the law couldn't find
anything wrong with him. He was clean, he was pure, and
that's what the law does to us when it looks at us. It can't
find a thing in the world wrong with us. Oh my, you know what they said? They said, we will not have this
man to reign over us. We won't do it. And here's the
fourth thing. Let me hurry. Our Lord's example
of His own teaching. When He said, Father, forgive
them. You know what our Lord did? Look with me over in Matthew
chapter five. Look at Matthew chapter five.
Look what our Lord did over here. This example of his own teaching,
of his own preaching, Matthew 5, 43 and 44, look at it with
me. Oh my. Our Lord said in verse 43, you
have heard that it hath been said, thou shalt love thy neighbor
and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, love your
enemies. Bless them that curse you. They
were cursing him. They were his enemies. Do good
to them that hate you. And pray for them which despitefully
use you and persecute you. Here's a perfect example of what
our Lord taught right here. Grace and truth came by our Lord
Jesus Christ. Grace full of grace. And truth,
oh what truth came by Christ. He taught truth because He was
true. We ourselves, we offend in so
many ways. We offend in our words. We offend
with our tongue. But He still says, Father, forgive
them. Forgive them. With all the offenses
that we've done. With all the things that we've
done, He said, Father, forgive them. When the Scripture says
love covers a multitude of sins, right here is love that covered
a multitude of sins when our Lord Jesus Christ was on that
cross. Let me give you another point.
I'll hurry on. And here, when our Lord was on
that cross, said, Father, forgive them, we see here man's greatest
need. We're sinners. We're sinners. Safe sinners, yes, but we're
sinners. We're sinners. I'll own up to it. And you know
why? Because Christ said He came into
this world to save sinners. If He'd come to save sinners,
He saved me. Saved me. A man asked a woman that was
dying. I was there when he asked her. He said, what's your hope
after you leave here? What's your hope? What do you
trust it in? And she said, if Christ came
to save sinners, I'm saved. Because I'm a great sinner. And
that's my hope. Christ was a great Savior, and
I'm a great sinner. Now that's a pretty good thing
to have an attorney trust in it. Oh, I didn't, I ain't going out
to, you know, they could have said, oh listen, I've prayed
all my life. I've been faithful to go to church.
I support the preacher. I pay tithes. I'm a sinner, and if Christ came
to save sinners, then I'm going to be saved. She died probably
two months later. It's a pretty good testimony,
I think. Oh, we're sinners. Men may have
noble ideals, and they may make good, good resolutions, and set
rules for themselves or somebody else set rules for them to live
by. All of it's vain. All of it's vain. Until the sin
question is settled. Sin question is settled. Don
and Henry and everybody that's ever preached this done gone
on. They said the great issue between God and man is Christ. And Christ is the only one that
can settle the issue of sin. And the issue between us and
God is sin. Who can settle the question of
that sin? Only Christ can. What good are shoes if your feet's
paralyzed? What good are glasses if you're
blind? And oh my, you don't need crutches
if you're lame. You don't need a shove in the
right direction if you're dead. Boy, it doesn't matter who you
are. It doesn't matter where you're from. It doesn't matter
who you know. Sin is our nature. Sin is our nature. Sin is our
name. And it's before an infinitely
holy, righteous God. And this is the question, this
is the question of the ages. How in the world can God justly,
justly forgive sin? How can He justly forgive us
our sins? How can He do it and stay righteous? How can He do it and stay just?
How can He do it and stay holy? How can He do it? God made him to be sin. He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace
was upon him. He was wounded for our transgressions. God saw the travail of his soul,
and God said, I'm satisfied. And it's through this man, through
this man, is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins. By Him,
you can be justified from all things. Oh my. Father, forgive
them. Forgive them. Forgive them. And then over here in our text,
it says in verse 34, Then, said Jesus, what happened? He was crucified, one thief on
one side and the malefactors on the other side. Oh my, then,
then said Jesus, Father forgive them, forgive them. Then, when
the violence of the human heart was on display, then, when man
had done his very, very worst, then, when wicked hands had crucified
the Lord of Glory. Instead of destroying them, instead
of pouring His wrath out on them, instead of causing the earth
to open up and swallow them, He was subjected to unspeakable
shame. Suffering, suffering, suffering,
excruciating, despised and rejected. Nevertheless, oh what victory
was in these words. Nevertheless, oh my. Father, forgive them. They know
not what they do. Redeeming love always, always
gives the victory. And His redeeming love, this
prayer that He prayed, His redeeming love forgives all sins. Completely, perfectly, full forgiveness. Past sins, present sins, and
future sins. When Christ died, all my sins
were future. Is that not right? So when He died, Nothing I did
added to anything he did, but everything he did was added to
me. Bless his name. Blessed is the
man whose sins are forgiven. Blessed is the man to whom the
Lord imputes not iniquity. And I'll tell you Colossians
2.13 says this, having forgiven you all, A-L-L, all trespasses. All of them. That's a bunch. I don't know how many you got. I don't think any of us can number
them. God numbers the hairs of our head, but he don't number
our sins. You know why? He said there's
sins and iniquities. I will remember no more. What
a blessed Redeemer. What a wonderful Savior is Jesus,
my Lord. What a wonderful Savior to me.
Oh, God bless His holy name. What a Savior. What a Savior. Father, forgive him. You reckon
he answered that prayer for us?