Todd's Road Grace Church would
like to invite you to listen to a sermon by our pastor, Todd
Nybert. We are located at 4137 Todd's
Road, two miles outside of Manowar Boulevard. Sunday services are
at 10.30 a.m. and 6 p.m. Bible study is at
9.45 a.m. Wednesday services are at 7 p.m. Nursery is provided for all services.
For more information, visit our website at toddsroadgracechurch.com. Now here's our pastor, Todd Nybert. I've entitled this message, Three
Crosses. How many times have you been
driving down the highway and saw along the side of the road
three crosses? And it is supposed to represent
the three crosses on Golgotha's Hill. In Mark chapter 15, verse
25, and it was the third hour, 9 a.m., and they crucified him. Mark doesn't give us detail as
to what all took place in that horrible death. He is satisfied
with these words, they crucified him. And the superscription of
his accusation was written over, the king of the Jews. And with him they crucify two
thieves. There were three crosses on Golgotha's
hill, the one on his right hand and the other on his left. Now, I don't know what kind of
thieves these men were. I don't know if they were on
the same plane as Barabbas, who would have been there. Barabbas
was a murderer and an insurrectionist. He was a political criminal,
but the scripture also says he was a robber, and perhaps these
two thieves were just like Barabbas. Two thieves, malfactors, the
scripture says, evildoers on his right hand and on his left. Now, if all we had was Matthew
and Mark's account, we would conclude that both of these thieves,
upon death, went to hell. Enemies of Jesus Christ, dying
in hatred of Jesus Christ. In verse 32 of this same chapter
of Mark 15, Christ is being mocked. Let Christ, the King of Israel,
descend now from the cross. that we may see and believe.
And they that were crucified with him reviled him, spoke blasphemously
with regard to him." Now, we know that Luke's account gives
us the story of the thief Christ saved at this time, and Lord
willing, we'll look at that sometime in the future. But these two
men, represent all of humanity. One was saved, one was not. One was righteous, the other
was wicked. Now, when I say one was righteous,
that means when God looked at this man, he saw a man who had
never sinned. Perfectly righteous. When he
looked at the other man, the wicked man, he saw a man who
had never done anything but sin. The righteous and the wicked. You and I are in one of those
two groups, and I always like to say this. All the righteous,
without exception, believe themselves to be wicked. And all of the
wicked, without exception, believe they themselves have, if not
personal righteousness, the potential to be righteous. I can turn this
thing around if I want. The sheep and the goats, the
saved and the lost, the righteous and the wicked, these two men
are the two representative men. And you and I are in one of those
groups. One is on the right hand of Christ,
one is on the left. Let me read you this scripture
in Matthew 25, verse 31. When the Son of Man shall come
in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then shall He
sit upon the throne of His glory. And before Him shall be gathered
all nations. You and I will be at this great
gathering. and all the holy angels with
him. And he shall separate them one
from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats. And
he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on
his left. I know the scripture doesn't
state which one was the thief he saved, but I would assume
the thief on the right hand is the one he saved, and the thief
on the left hand is the one he passed by. Now, all three of
these men, while hanging on the cross, died. Let me repeat that. All three
of those men. The man on the right, the man
on the left, and the man in the middle died. Their hearts stopped beating,
their lungs stopped heaving, and they died. Graveyard dead. Death is the permanent irreversible
cessation of all biological function that sustains an organism, in
all three of these men there was no more life. There were three dead corpses
hanging on those three crosses. And you and I will die, and we
will one day be lifeless corpses dead, graveyard dead. It's appointed to men once to
die, and after that, the judgment. Question, why do men die? Well, somebody says, well, heart
disease, cancer. How many people have died of
COVID? Diabetes. There are just a myriad
of answers as to why men die. Maybe old age. Maybe a car wreck. Maybe we could go on and on. My dear friends, there's one
reason you and I are going to die. Sin. Sin. By one man, sin entered the world,
and death by sin, so that death passed upon all men in that all
have sinned. The reason you and I are going
to die the reason all of our loved ones are going to die,
there's only one reason, sin. The wages of sin is death, and
all three of these men died because of sin. That is the only reason
for death, sin. Now these two men that died on
the left hand and the right hand of Christ remind us of what Revelation
chapter 22 verse 11 says. It says, as you die, you will
spend eternity. Listen to this verse of scripture.
I'm going to read it to you. Revelation 22 verse 11. He that's unjust Let him be unjust
still throughout eternity. He that is filthy, let him be
filthy still. The way you close your eyes when
you die is how you will spend eternity. And then he says, and
he that is righteous, let him be righteous still. And he that is holy, let him
be holy still. How you and I die is how we will
spend eternity, either righteous and holy before God or unjust
and filthy. The state I die in is how I'll
spend eternity. Now three crosses, three deaths,
and all three of these deaths are because of sin. On the left
cross, we have a man dying in his sin. On the middle cross,
we have a man dying for sin. And on the right-hand cross,
we have a man dying unto sin. Now, this is a human illustration,
and I suppose that there could be some holes thrown in it. There
isn't any human illustration, but listen, and I hope this will
be helpful. On the left cross, we have a man dying with his
sin in him and on him. In the middle cross, we have
a man dying with no sin in him, but sin on him. And on the third
cross, we have a man dying with sin in him, but no sin on him. Now, what does that mean? Well,
the unsaved thief died with all his sin in him and on him, and
he will stand before God in his sins. In the middle cross, we
have a man dying with no sin in him, and by that I mean he
never committed a sin. He never committed a sin. He was incapable of committing
a sin, the holy, harmless, undefiled Son of God. He had no sin in
Him in that sense, but He had all of the sins of God's elect
on Him. And the scripture actually says,
in Him, in this sense, who is Himself bear our sins in His
own body on the tree. Every sin that all of God's people
have ever committed, He bore in His own body on the tree. But He Himself never sinned. And on the third cross, we have
a man who has sin in him. After God saved that thief, he
was still a sinner. That didn't change. But he had
no sin on him. All that sin was put away by
the Lord Jesus Christ. And when he stands before God
in judgment day, he will stand as one who has never sinned. On the cross on the left, we
have a man dying in his sins. As he reviled Christ, We see
what was in his heart. He had no love for Jesus Christ. He did not believe. He said,
if you're the Christ, come down and save us and yourself. And
he did so in an insulting way. He did not believe that Jesus
was the Christ. Now the Lord said in John chapter
eight, verse 24, if you believe not, that I am." Now that's the
same name as the angel of the Lord in the burning bush with
Moses. I am. When Moses said, what's
your name? He said, I am that I am. Tell
them I am has seen thee. Christ said, if you believe not
that I am, you shall die in your sins. And he died in his sins. If I die in my sins, I will be
given precisely absolute justice. I will be getting exactly what
I deserve. We read in Luke chapter 16 verse
23 of the rich man, and in hell he lift up his eyes being in
torment. Can you imagine the horror this
man felt when he woke up in hell? Now, there is a place called
hell, and no one ever believed the gospel simply by being afraid
of hell and not wanting to go there. And I'll be honest with
you, there isn't any kind of preacher that I'd least rather
hear than what they call hellfire and brimstone preachers, trying
to scare people. You're going to punish eternal
fire. Nobody is frightened into the
kingdom of God like that. That doesn't take away from the
fact that there is a hell. And that man woke up in hell,
being in torment. And let me say this about hell.
Hell is eternal. And the reason hell is eternal
is because you can't, I can't make satisfaction for the sin
of murdering the Son of God. Now listen to me real carefully.
You may have taken drugs. You may have committed sexual
sin. Go on and on with the sins you
may have committed, and those are terrible things. I'm not
in any way dismissing them, but that's not your big problem.
Your big problem, my big problem, is we've been guilty of the murder
of the Son of God. And that is why hell is eternal. And it's eternal because there's
no reformation there. After someone's been there for
billions of eons, they'll still hate Jesus Christ. And if they
were led out of hell, they'd do the same thing over again.
My dear friends, hell is real and hell is eternal. And that
man who died in his sins upon death woke up in the lake of
fire. Now, the one on the middle cross
is a man dying for sin. You see, he had no sins of his
own to die for. He's the Lamb of God without
blemish, without spot, holy, harmless, undefiled, separate
from sinners, made higher than the heavens. Who needeth not,
as those high priests, to offer first for his own sins and then
for the sins of the people? You see, he had no sin. The only holy man to ever live. Now, if I died for you, it might
be a nice gesture, but it wouldn't do you any eternal good, because
I'm a sinner. There's no saving efficacy in
me taking your place. It would do you no good at all.
And if Christ had any sin on Him, if He was a sinner, He could
do nothing for me or you. but he had no sin, and yet he
died as the most guilty, wicked man to ever live. You say, how can that be? For
he hath made him, this is 2 Corinthians 5.21, for he, God the Father,
hath made him, the Lord Jesus Christ, to be sin. who knew no
sin. If you would have spoke of sin,
He never committed sin. He couldn't identify with that.
He couldn't understand that. He knew no sin, but He was made
to know sin when God the Father made Him to be sin. And if you
want to know the hideous reality of sin, look on that middle cross
where the Son of God hangs there forsaken by God as the sinners
substitute. God did this for He hath made
him to be sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be made
the righteousness of God in him." Now, listen to this scripture.
The gospel is called in 1 Corinthians 15, verse 3, how that Christ
died for our sins according to the scripture. Now, a preacher
can get up and say, Christ died for our sins. He never preaches
the gospel. That's a misquoting of that verse. The gospel is
how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures.
And he's talking about the Old Testament scriptures. There are
so many examples of how Christ died for our sins according to
the scriptures, but one that I think of is the great day of
atonement. The high priest, you can read
about this in Leviticus 16, the high priest goes into the Holy
of Holies with the blood of a goat and there's another goat that
is not killed. at first. Or they never kill
him, they don't know what happens to him. But the first goat represents
death for sin. And the high priest brings the
blood of that goat into the Holy of Holies as to why God can accept
me only through the blood. But that other goat, known as
the scapegoat, that's a word that's used all the time, so-and-so's
a scapegoat. Well, here is what took place.
The high priest put his hands on the head of that goat and
symbolically transferred all the sins, all the sins of Israel,
all the transgressions, all the iniquities to that scapegoat,
and he's led away by a fit man into the wilderness to never
be seen again. Now this makes us understand
what the death of Christ is according to the scriptures. That high
priest, he wasn't coming in as a representative of all men.
He had the name of the 12 tribes of Israel on his breastplate. He came in as a representative
of Israel, not all men. And He symbolically transferred
their sins to that scapegoat, and the other goat died as the
sin offering. That's how Christ died for our
sins according to the Scripture. Another example would be the
Passover. This is how Christ died for our
sins according to the Scripture. There was a lamb without blemish,
without spot that was selected. Its throat was cut. The blood
was put in a basin. The basin was put over the doors
and the doorposts of the house of the children of Israel. Every
one of them were to have that blood on their doorpost. And
God said, when I see the blood, I will pass over you. Who had
to see the blood? God didn't say when you see the
blood. He said, when I see the blood. What was he looking for? He didn't say, when I see your
faith. He didn't say, when I see your good works. He didn't say,
when I see your battle against sin. He said, when I see the
blood. That's the one thing God was
looking for. What if in a house without the
blood, you had the finest man in Egypt, the most moral man
in Egypt, but he was in a house without blood? Does God say,
I'll spare that man? No. The firstborn of that man
died because the only thing God was looking for was blood. Now
what if somebody in the camp of Israel the very day of the
Passover committed some unclean act, maybe murder or something
perverted, and they were in the house with the blood over the
door. Were they safe? Did God say, well, I see the
blood, but I'm going to get them anyway because that scene was
really bad? No, they were just as secure
as anybody else because God said, when I see the blood, I will
pass over you. That blood wasn't over everybody's
door. Christ's blood wouldn't shed for everybody, it shed for
his elect. But wherever God sees the blood, there is salvation. And then the man nailed on the
cross on the right hand is a man dying unto sin. The man on the
left dying in his sin, the man in the middle dying for sin,
and the man on the right dying unto sin. Now when he was still
alive on the cross, was he still a sinner? Yes. Yes. Without question. Yes. And he knew that. He said, We
indeed justly, for we receive the due reward of our deeds. But listen to this scripture,
Romans chapter 6 verse 11. Paul tells us, Reckon yourselves. Now this is Paul's word to every
believer. Reckon yourselves. to be dead
indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Now this is a command to every
one of God's people. Reckon yourself, count yourself,
see yourself as dead indeed to sin. Now why would God tell anybody
to reckon themselves to be dead indeed to sin? There's only one
reason. because every believer is in fact dead indeed to sin. Sin has nothing to say to me. Sin can't be brought to my charge. Sin cannot make any accusation
against me because that one on the middle cross bore my sin,
put it away, and made it not to be. Hebrews 1.3 says, when
he had by himself purged our sins. He sat down at the right
hand of the majesty on high. And the moment that man died,
the Lord said today, you'll be with me in paradise. The moment that man died, he
had no, he'd never been to church. He'd never gave a dime to the
cause of Christ. He didn't have any good works.
He'd never taken the Lord's table, he'd never been baptized. The
moment he died, he went straight into the presence of the Lord
Jesus Christ. The Lord said today, thou shalt
be with me in paradise. Now, what was the difference
between these two men? One dies reviling Christ, One
all of a sudden sees Jesus Christ in an altogether different way.
He sees Him as Lord. He knows that He's a mighty King.
He knows He will not stay dead, that He will come back as a mighty
reigning King. He believed Him to be God. He
said, don't you fear God, seeing you're in the same condemnation?
He believed He was getting nothing but absolute justice. We're receiving
the due reward of our deeds, but this man had done nothing
amiss. He knew Christ was without sin. Now how did he know those
things? Because Jesus Christ died for
him. He did not die for that other man. The difference between
these two men is the man in the middle, the man Christ Jesus. He put away the sin of the one
man, and he did not put away the sin of the other. That man
dies in his sins, but this man that Christ died for had died
unto his sins. Listen to this very carefully.
If a man preaches that Jesus Christ shed his blood for all
men without exception and paid for the sins of all men, but
whether or not you'll be saved is up to what you do with that. That man is a false prophet who
believes in salvation by works. If that is the message you believe,
that you've made the difference, something in you, You have never
yet bowed the knee to Christ. You have never yet experienced
the saving grace of God. Now, one thing I know that all
of God's elect have in common, they know that Jesus Christ is
all in their salvation. Every single one of them without
exception. That thief knew that. He knew
there was one reason Why? He entered paradise. And it wasn't because of anything
he did. It's because of what the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son
of God, did for him. Thank God for the cross on the
middle that makes the cross on the right a man dead indeed unto
sin. Now, we have this message on
DVCD. If you write the church, call.
We'll send you a copy. This is Todd Nyberg praying that
God will be pleased to make Himself known to you. That's our prayer.
Amen. To receive a copy of the sermon you have just heard, send
your request to todd.nyberg at gmail.com. or you may write or
call the church at the information provided on the screen.