Please turn with me to Luke chapter twenty three. Luke chapter twenty three. Pick up reading at verse twenty six and Luke twenty three. Now, as they led him away, they laid a hold of a certain man, Simon, a Cyrenian who was coming from the country and on him they laid the cross that he might bear it after Jesus. and a great multitude of the people followed him and women who also mourned and lamented him.
But Jesus, turning to them, said, Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. For indeed, the days are coming in which they will say, Blessed are the barren wounds that never bore and breasts which never nursed. Then they will begin to say to the mountains, fall on us and to the hills cover us. For if they do these things in the Greenwood, what will be done in the dry?
There were also two other two others. Criminals led with him to be put to death. And when they had come to the place called Calvary, there they crucified him and the criminals, one on the right hand and the other on the left. Then Jesus said, Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do.
And they divided his garments and cast lots, and the people stood looking on. But even the rulers with them sneered, saying, He saved others. Let him save himself if he is the Christ, the chosen of God. The soldiers also mocked him, coming and offering him sour wine and saying, If you are the king of the Jews, save yourself.
And an inscription also was written over him in letters of Greek, Latin and Hebrew. This is the king of the Jews. Then one of the criminals who were hanged blasphemed him, saying, If you are the Christ, save yourself and us. But the other, answering, rebuked him, saying, Do you not even fear God, seeing you are under the same condemnation?
And we indeed justly, for we receive the due reward of our deeds. But this man has done nothing wrong. Then he said to Jesus, Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom. And Jesus said to him, Assuredly, I say to you today you will be with me in paradise.
Amen. Well, let us pray. God, we thank you for your word. We thank you for your truth.
And we pray now for the Holy Spirit to be in our hearts and in our minds. We pray that he would deal with us graciously and mercifully. We pray that he would deal with any who do not know the Lord Jesus Christ savingly. We pray that today would be the day of salvation, that today would be the day when someone believes the truth of Christ and him crucified and risen again, that they might know the blessings of everlasting life.
We just pray that you would forgive us now for all of our sin, that you would cleanse us in the blood of Jesus Christ and help us not to be confused. But please give us the mind of Christ so that we may understand the glory of your truth. And we pray, Father, that you would just bless the word as it goes forth throughout the earth. We pray that it would run swiftly and be glorified, that you would cause your face to shine upon the nations and that you would let the peoples be glad.
And we pray these things through Christ our Lord. Amen.
Introduction
Now, you are not theological concepts. You are people made in the image of the living and the true God. Christianity is about concepts. It's about theory.
It's about doctrine. It's about propositional revelation that must be believed. But it's also about the application of that truth to sinners made in God's image who have fallen in Adam, who have gone astray. who are like sheep wandering from the place where they ought to be. And so, the last couple of weeks, we've considered some of those doctrines.
We've considered justification. We've considered sanctification. We saw last Sunday that James teaches the same doctrine of justification, as does the Apostle Paul. It is a sovereign act of God.
James 118 says, of his own will, he brought us forth by the word of truth. that we might become kind of a first fruits to him. Well, this morning, I want to look at the debt. The application of Christ's crosswork to this particular thief on his side versus thirty nine to forty three illustrate the salvation of the thief on the cross. It highlights the truth that God is in Christ reconciling the world to himself.
Now, I ultimately do not know your hearts. There are those here that are heaven bound because of God's grace, because of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. But there are those who are not. The Bible teaches that those who are not in Christ will go to hell everlastingly.
And I want you to pay attention this morning. I want you to see what it means to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. Very often, preachers get that we come in the pulpits and we tell sinners, believe the gospel and you shall be saved. And then people say, well, what does it mean to believe the gospel?
Well, I think we see at least displayed here in the characteristics of this thief as he undergoes his glorious change on the cross. And I want to take up two major points this morning.
The Conversion of the Thief
First, the conversion of the thief and secondly, the response of the Savior. But notice, first of all, with reference to the conversion of the thief, this man is in what we would call the 11th hour. The 11th hour is a bit of an idiom or shorthand to describe that time just before we die. You need to remember that this man woke up that morning in order to justly suffer for his crimes and to be executed by the civil magistrate.
This was a day like no other day for this particular man. The Bible tells us that he was a robber. The Bible tells us, I believe, that he was a murderer. There were going to be three crucifixions that day.
These two men on either side of Jesus were Barabbas's partners in crime. And Barabbas is identified as a notorious criminal, as a robber, as a murderer. There are times when it says that he acted with them. And I believe that these two men on either side of Christ were part of Barabbas' gang.
They rolled together. They engaged in crime together. They committed acts of atrocity together. Remember, Barabbas was going to be executed as well.
But the ungodly and apostate crowd said, give us Barabbas. But with Christ, away with him, away with him, crucify him. So this man was as guilty as was Barabbas. So he woke up that morning ready to die for his crimes, ready to be executed, and justly so.
Albert Barnes indicates that this particular conversion account. This was a case of repentance in the last hour, the trying hour of death, and it has been remarked that one was brought to repentance there to show that no one should despair on a dying bed. and but one that none should be presumptuous and delay repentance to that awful moment. You see what he's saying. Just read it again, so you don't miss it.
He said that this was a case of repentance in the last hour or the eleventh hour, the trying hour of death. And it has been remarked that one was brought to repentance there to show that no one should despair on a dying bed. You visit someone on a dying bed. You don't tell them there's no hope for you.
While there is breath in their lungs, there is hope. And this thief demonstrates that for us. Barnes goes on to say, and but one that none should be presumptuous and delay repentance to that awful moment. So, in other words, if you are here today and you are not in Christ, don't begin to think to yourself, well, there's always time.
There's always my deathbed. There's always the 11th hour. James tells us we are like a vapor. We don't know what a day will bring.
We're here for a time and then we're gone. You don't know that tomorrow is coming. You ultimately don't know that the end of this sermon is coming. Now, I assure you, in my power, it will come to an end.
But God could take you. Some of the people that have been here for a while have heard this illustration, but it bears repeating. When our children were little, we were driving around one day conducting various errands, and they were like, specifically one of my sons said, where are we going next? What are we doing next?
What are we doing next? We wanted a sort of a play-by-play agenda. We pull into the parking lot of a restaurant, and I got a little irritated with him, and I said, listen, you don't even know that we're going to make it into that restaurant, trying to impress upon him the reality that we can't plan in every detail. So, lo and behold, we're getting the other things out, we're getting ready, and I look over and the son is there saying, Dad, look, I made it, I made it.
He was at the door of the restaurant. That illustrates a point, though. We don't know. He could have been hit.
You may be banking on a great long future. You may be young and may be thinking, well, I'll always have time to repent and believe the gospel. There is something missing today of the urgency of the gospel. God is a holy God and you are a sinful man or a woman or a boy or a girl.
You want not to rest content until you are found in him, not having a righteousness of your own, which is from the law, but that righteousness which is from God through faith in Jesus Christ. You do not know that you're going to have a long and prosperous and happy life. You are not eight foot tall and bulletproof. All kinds of bad things happen to people.
Jonathan Edwards in his famous sermon, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, said there are innumerable ways of wicked men going out of this world. Consider the bodybuilder who looks after his nutrition and his health and he eats and he balances all of his food and he exercises and he does cardio and he gets his heart rate down and everything is set. He walks out in the street one day and he gets run over by a car. Consider those who think that everything is fine and then they get some diagnosis or some bad thing is wrong with that.
The point is, brethren, do not wait until that hour. Do not wait until the 11th hour. Now is the acceptable time, Paul says. Today is the day of salvation.
These things are making sense to you. Don't put them off. Pray them in. Beseech the Lord God to save you from your sins.
Why leave here is an unconverted man, a woman or a boy or a girl. Jesus is a real savior for real sinners, as we see when we work through this passage. Now notice the glorious change manifest in this particular man.
Five Marks of the Thief's Conversion
There's five elements I want to direct your attention to.
Concern for Others
The first is, is that he shows concern for others. How do you know if you believe the gospel? Well, one of the fruits is that you care about others. You see, all our lives, up until the point that God saves us, we're pretty much only interested in ourselves.
We may pay lip service to that. We may say that I love you. We may say that I care about you. But until such time that God gets a hold of your heart, you really don't care about other people.
When push comes to shock, when you boil everything down, the issue is, is that man is proud and selfish and thinks that he is the center of the universe. Notice on the cross, this man begins to evidence concern for others. Verse thirty nine. Then one of the criminals who were hanged blasphemed him, saying, If you are the Christ, save yourself and us.
We need to remember that in the gospel of Matthew and Mark, Both of them were blaspheming Christ. A glorious change took place while this man was on the cross. And the verb suggests that they didn't stop. They kept blaspheming.
They kept mocking him. Consider the scene. Christ is on the cross. The whole group of people on the ground are mocking him.
And so are the thieves on either side of him. But somewhere along the line, on that day for this man, things changed. And now he's concerned. Verse 40.
But the other answering rebuked him, saying, Do you not even fear God, seeing you were under the same condemnation? This is an evidence. This is the operation of faith in the man's heart. Now, I realize we're not all Hudson Taylors.
I realize we're not all Amy Carmichael's. We're not all as compassionate as we ought to be. But brethren made there. There has to be a certain element of concern in their heart for other people when it comes to the things of God.
I believe we all need to pray for more, more of a burden, more of a compassion, more of a disposition that is affected by the sins of others. But there ought to be some degree of it there. We ought not to be able to look at a world going to hell and not be concerned with it at all. We need to be like that man that Pastor Tam read up in Psalm 119.
Rivers of waters run down from my eyes. Why? Because men do not keep your law. And what does that mean?
That means those men are blaspheming our holy God and those men will ultimately end in hell. This thief, converted by the grace of God through the power of the Holy Spirit, is now manifesting concern. He doesn't want Jesus to be blasphemed. He rebukes him for that, but he's also concerned for this man's soul.
Fear of God's Judgment
Notice, secondly, he fears God's judgment. Verse 40, the other answering, rebuked him, saying, Do you not even fear God, seeing you are under the same condemnation? He looked beyond his cross, didn't he? He knew it was the Roman government that had hung him up on this cross.
He was no fool that way, but he understood that this was the just judgment of God. He understood that in a moral universe, when you sin, when you rob, when you murder, when you engage in folly and in crime and in wickedness, there are consequences. He knew this. It was underscored now for him.
The magistrate was executing them. Then they would fall into the hands of the living God. See, this is another thing I just don't think we have today. We think about the here and the now we are materialist.
If we can't touch it, taste it, feel it, see it. It must not exist. This man knew there was a judgment to come. This man looked beyond this earthly life.
And you need to look beyond it as well. The Bible says it is appointed unto men once to die. And then what? Then comes judgment.
Moses, that man of God in Psalm 90 says you may live for 70 or 80 years, but then you'll fly away. 70 or 80 years seems like a long stretch. It is nothing in comparison with eternity. And again, some of you live right here, right now, no thought whatsoever for what's beyond. No thought whatsoever for that day you will stand before a holy God.
Remember that man whom Jesus spoke of in Luke 12? He was a rich man and his ground yielded plentifully. And his problem, I mean, talk about a problem. His problem was he didn't have sufficient barns to store his goods.
I mean, in the grand scheme of things, brethren, that's a tough problem to have. Not really. So what does he do? He rips down his old barns, he constructs new barns, he fills these barns up, and then he sits down and he says to his soul, take thine ease.
You have many goods laid up for many years. He said to himself, chill out and relax. Enjoy the benefits of your hard work. The Bible doesn't indicate that he was a thief, a liar, a cheat, a deceiver.
He was a rich man, and when he put his hand to the plow, his field yielded plentifully. I'm sure he was the amazement of everybody in his society when they saw how successful he was in business. God wasn't. God said to him, thou fool, your soul is required of you this very night.
I'm convinced some of you don't live that way. I'm convinced most of us don't live that way, that we could end the day standing before the judge of all the universe.
Owning Guilt for Sin
Notice he owns guilt for sin. He owns guilt for sin. He says, Do you not even fear God, seeing you are under the same condemnation and we indeed justly, for we receive the due reward of our deeds. It's a mark of the grace of God.
Because up until this point, you know what people do? No, that wasn't me. I didn't do it. I got framed.
I was the victim. Remember last Sunday night, we considered Adam. When God comes to address him after the fall, what does Adam do? He said he was the victim.
He would have fit perfectly right in with 21st century North American ethics. I was the victim. It wasn't my fault. The woman whom thou gavest me, she gave me to eat and then I ate.
So, he blames first the woman, he hides behind his wife. Instead of protecting her and guiding her and loving her, he puts her out in front of him and says, it was this woman who caused me to sin. And then he says, the woman whom thou hast given me. In other words, God, everything was fine when it was just me and the animals until you put that woman here.
If that woman wouldn't have been here, I would have never sinned. That's a mark of the unregenerate. If you are constantly defending yourself and your integrity before a thrice holy God, you don't know grace. If you could be the best defense attorney in the world to plead your case, you don't know grace.
You know what the godly man does? He doesn't stand and pray thus with himself. I thank you, Lord, that I'm not like other men. I thank you, Lord, that I'm not like adulterers, that I'm not like these unjust men.
The godly man, according to Jesus, can't even look up into heaven, but he beats his breast and he says, God, be merciful to me. The sinner. It's interesting in that in that text. God, be merciful.
New King James translates it a sinner. It's actually got the article. Be merciful to me, the sinner. When it comes between me and God, I am the sinner.
Remember King David of Israel in his psalm of penitence in Psalm 51. David did some atrocious things horizontally. When it comes time to deal with his sin, he says, against thee and thee only have I sinned and done this evil. That's what this man manifests.
He's not trying to say, look, I was framed. I wasn't really Wimper Abbas. The cop who drew my picture, he got it all wrong. That's not me.
No, he says. And we indeed, justly for we received the due reward of our deeds. There were going to be three crucifixions that particular day. And this man now has come to embrace the justness of it because he's a sinner before God.
Beware, brethren, if your only mindset is to defend yourself. I'm not saying that if you haven't done anything wrong, you shouldn't defend yourself. You know, there's a there's a sense we're in in the image of God. We want justice.
We want righteousness. We want integrity. There's been times people say, wow, you're such a sinner. You don't even know the beginning of it.
You're so bad. Yeah, well, get in line. You don't have a clue. Sometimes this happens in interpersonal relationships, right?
Oh, you sinned against me. You're such a you're you're a horrible monster. Yeah, you're right. Praise God that he restrains it from being worse than it can possibly be.
This man owned his sin.
Confession of Christ's Holiness
This man, fourthly, confesses the holiness of Jesus Christ. What he says, this man has done nothing wrong. This man doesn't deserve what he's getting. This man is wholly harmless and undefiled.
He didn't have as developed a doctrine of the impeccability of Christ as perhaps we do 21 centuries later. But he understood this truth. Christ was not on that cross because of crimes that he had done. Christ was not on that cross because he himself said Christ was not on that cross because he himself had offended a holy God.
He says this man has done nothing wrong. This thief joined the ranks of a lot of confessors of the holiness of Jesus, the angels in Isaiah 6. Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. Pilate three times confesses, I find no fault in this man.
Peter, one of Christ's closest earthly friends, can take out of Isaiah's prophecy and apply it to Jesus, who committed no sin, nor was there any guile found in his mouth. Praise God that the holy, harmless and undefiled one went to this place for us. This is what's going on here. This is substitution.
God made him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in him. This holy, harmless Christ is on that cross for you and I. This holy, harmless and undefiled Christ is there not because of deeds that he had done. He has done nothing wrong, but he is there because we have done things wrong, because we are unholy.
We are harmful. We are thoroughly defiled. We are sinners. Through and through, this man sees that Christ is holy.
Calling Upon the Lord Jesus
And then notice, fifthly, he calls upon the Lord Jesus. Verse 42. Then he said to Jesus, Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom. Don't miss the significance of this passage.
Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom. His disciples had witnessed him heal people. His disciples had witnessed him raise the dead. His disciples had witnessed his earthly life and his ministry.
His disciples had witnessed his teaching. Remember after the Sermon on the Mount, what the text says? Everybody was amazed because he taught, not like the other scribes, he taught as one having authority. That's what his disciples knew, and they confessed him as Lord.
Remember when Jesus is asking his disciples, but who do you say that I am? And Peter says, Thou art the Christ, the son of the living God. Well, Jesus acknowledges it was flesh and blood that did not reveal this to him, but his father who was in heaven. You know, humanly speaking, Peter had good cause to make that confession.
Not so with the thief. How is he seeing Jesus? He is seeing him on a cross. The type of punishment reserved for the worst criminal in the Roman Empire.
Get this down, brethren, that Romans wouldn't execute Romans on the cross unless there was a decree signed by the emperor. It was one of those things that was so foul and so polluted the Roman citizen himself wouldn't go to the cross in the normal scheme of things. He had to be a political insurrectionist, he had to be a criminal against the state in some big way. That's how we know Barabbas and his two compadres were really bad guys.
But Jesus went to that place, so when the thief looks upon him and calls him Lord, He is looking beyond the blood. He is looking beyond the shame. He's looking beyond the crown of thorns on his head. He's looking beyond all of the chanting of the crowd when they're mocking and saying he saved others, but he can't save himself.
Ryle said he only saw our Lord, by the way, Ryle's sermon on this account is called Christ's greatest trophy. He only saw our Lord in agony and in weakness, in suffering and in pain. He saw him undergoing dishonorable punishment, deserted, mocked, despised, blasphemed. He saw no scepter, no royal crown, no outward dominion, no glory, no power, no signs of might.
And yet the dying thief believed and looked forward to Christ's kingdom. Calvin said, Lord, remember me. I know not that since the creation of the world, there ever was a more remarkable and striking example of faith. It's a beautiful concept.
It's being mocked, he's being spat upon, he's bloodied, he's wounded, he's sore, he's under the smiting hand of God most high. This man says, Lord, We got people today, or at least within the 20th century, debating Lordship. Do we call Jesus Lord or not? You don't call Jesus Lord.
You're not saved. It's that simple. You don't call Jesus Lord. You have no interest in him.
We have people that make Jesus Lord. I'm here to tell you, brethren, Jesus is Lord. Whether you make him such or not. This man saw.
This man looked beyond the thief saw Jesus in the worst possible condition. Here was truly a scandal to the Jews and an affront to the Romans. Remember, Paul says that first Corinthians one. The Jews, what do they want?
They want signs. The Greeks, what do they want? They want wisdom. They want to stroke their beards and discuss the meaning of life.
Paul says, but we preach Christ crucified to the Jews. What a stumbling block, literally a scandal. The cross was a scandal to the Jews, to the great foolishness. Archaeology has uncovered prisons or places where there are pictures drawn on the wall of a man on the cross with a donkey's head. referring to Jesus, because it was such a scandal to the Jew and such folly to the Greek.
And this man, by God's grace, says, Lord, that's what the power of the Spirit does. Nobody can say Jesus is Lord except by the Spirit. Nobody says that Jesus is a curse when he really possesses the Spirit. And then notice, he believed the soul continues after physical death.
Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom. He knew certain truths. He wasn't a materialist. Life is going to go on.
This earthly body is going to pass and then comes eternity. If you've not thought that, if you don't think that, please learn this lesson from this man. Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom. He seeks Jesus as Lord who possesses a kingdom.
Again, another thing today, people. Oh, this is Jesus King. Yes, he's King. He was King on the cross.
He is the Lord who possesses a kingdom. He is the Lord who is glorious. He is a Lord who is enthroned. And then he says, remember me.
Remember me. That's the issue. He cast himself on the mercy of the court. He comes into the courtroom.
He doesn't say, look, it wasn't me. They got it all wrong. I was framed. I didn't.
I don't. I this. He said, Lord, remember me. He is the equivalent of that man in Luke 18.
God, be merciful to me, the sinner. Have you been there? Have you been there? You can be brought up in church.
You can learn a lot of doctrine. You can learn a lot of Bible verses. You can learn a lot of catechism and you can still go to hell. Reformed Baptists go to hell too.
Reformed whoever's go to hell. Evangelicals go to hell. It's not a matter of all those dirty, rotten scoundrels. We're all dirty, rotten scoundrels.
It's not a matter of all those wicked people. We're all wicked people. Have you been here? Lord, remember me when you come in your kingdom.
If you haven't been there, believe now. Don't wait, don't say another day, I'll think about this. What do you have to think about that you haven't already been told? God is in Christ reconciling the world to himself.
Believe the gospel and you will be saved. He sees with the physical eye a suffering Savior. He sees with the eye of faith a sovereign Lord. One other commentator says Jesus himself is revealed as Savior, even while dying for the outcast and criminal who turns to him in faith.
I am so happy about that. I am so glad that that is the case. I am so thrilled that in Luke 15, when the scribes and the Pharisees complained about Jesus and they said, this man receives sinners and eats with them, they were actually preaching the gospel. This is the foundation upon which we stand, that Jesus receives sinners and eats with them.
The Response of the Savior
Notice the response of the Savior. Three things, then we close.
A Willing Savior
The first is that he's a willing savior. Notice in verse forty three and Jesus said to him. That's amazing. What do you mean it's amazing.
You all know what it's like to be sick. You all know what it's like to have some sort of a malady. You all know what it's like to have some sort of trial or difficulty. Generally speaking, when malady, sickness, trial or tribulation comes upon the believer, we're not usually others minded.
We're not usually others minded when we're healthy and strong and fat, but throw a little affliction on us and boy, we become even more selfish. Jesus in his dying is others minded. Jesus, in his dying, turns and says to him, the suffering Savior, the mocked at Lord, the agonizing Son of Man, even during the agony of the cross, his eleventh hour. And need I remind you that it's not just the suffering inflicted by man.
It is the suffering, the wrath of God that he is dealing with. Christ suffered hell on the cross. The creed that says he descended into hell. He was there for three days.
Does not jive with what we find later in Luke's account. Jesus says in your head, I commit my spirit. He says to this man today, you will be with me in paradise, which means that Jesus went to paradise after the cross. His hell was on the cross.
He is bearing the weight and the fury and the wrath of God. And yet he says to this man, you know, if you ever say, well, is Jesus really willing to say, come to this passage, please. Is Jesus really willing to say, come and look at him in the 11th hour and see what he's doing. You shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.
What does Jesus mean? It means Jehovah or Yahweh is salvation. That's his job. That's his defining characteristic.
That's what he's about. That's what he does. And we see it here displayed on the cross in his own eleventh hour, which was filled with the gravity of suffering for the sins of his people, he says to the man. He looks at the man.
He addresses the man. Notice he's an able savior. Verse 43. Assuredly, I say to you, there's no hypothetical salvation here.
Jesus doesn't come to make men savable. Jesus comes to say. He doesn't say there's some uncertainty if you position yourself right, you do the rest of this suffering thing right, then you'll be with me and have assuredly, I say to you. You know that the Bible never presents God, Christ, salvation, redemption, any of these concepts as probable?
You realize that, right? In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. That is an absolute declaration. In Acts 2, Peter says, Therefore, let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ.
Here our Jesus says to this man, assuredly. You venture on him, you venture wholly, and he will save you. Assuredly, not possibly. Notice in verse 35.
And the people stood looking on. But even the rulers with them sneered, saying he saved others. Let him save himself if he is the Christ, the chosen of God. What's he doing?
He's saving others. Up until the very end, he's saving others.
A Glorious Savior
And then notice he is a glorious savior. Assuredly, I say to you today, you will be with me in paradise. His last companion in this world was a sinner. Beautiful.
That's good news for sinners. There's hope for sinners. Recently, I've been in a bit of a theological debate or discussion with people about, you know, contacts and ministering to various people and all that sort of thing. And one man said that in his church, when single moms would come in or people with tattoos or people that maybe from a lower part of society might wander in, some of the people in his church were a little bit offended.
They didn't want their kids to see that. That's your attitude. Repent. Jesus saves sinners.
We're all sinners. We're all undone. We all stand justly under his condemnation. And notice, I believe, brethren, and I think you'll agree that paradise is paradise because Jesus is there.
You will be with me in paradise. I mean, really, what makes paradise paradise? Jesus. We sing it in 599.
The lamb is all the glory of Emmanuel's lamb. In fact, let me just recite or rehearse that one stanza that is so glorious in 599. It says the king there in his beauty without a veil is seen. It were a well-spent journey.
Those seven deaths lay between the lamb with his fair army on Mount Zion stand and glory, glory dwelleth in Emmanuel's land. And then the writer says, The bride eyes not her garment, but her dear bridegroom's face. I will not gaze at glory, but on my king of grace. Not at the crown he getheth, but on his pierced hand.
The land is all the glory of Emmanuel's land. Today, he says, you will be with me in paradise. And you know what? That man was, that man is, and God willing, when we enter in, we'll be able to say, we read of you in the scripture.
It's a pleasure to meet you, brother. Well, brethren, we learned three things about Christ. First, a lesson about the Savior. He is willing, able and glories in the salvation of sinners.
This really is what Jesus is about. I'm not hawking Jesus. I'm not bringing him down or making him some sort of a of a trinket that you really ought to have. But as we look at the Bible, everything that God orchestrates is for his glory in the salvation of sinners.
Christ is that central theme that runs throughout. Christ in His person, Christ in His work, Christ in His offices, Christ as prophet and priest and king. This Christ is a willing, able, and glorious Savior.
Sovereign Grace
We learn, secondly, something about sovereign grace in this passage. Sovereign grace. Now, I know the Bible doesn't go here, but just for a moment, imagine. This thief who died had a mother.
He had to have. It's a biological necessity. How do you think she thought about her son being executed on a Roman cross for being an insurrectionist, a murderer, and a robber? She probably wasn't happy about it.
She probably wasn't thrilled about it. She probably didn't see all her friends that day and say, hey, let's go watch my son get executed justly for his crimes. What's God and His sovereignty do? Saves this boy.
Isn't that beautiful? There's hope in this passage. Not to promote presumption, there is hope. Some of us as parents, some of us as husbands or as wives or as people who have unconverted family or friends or neighbors or relatives.
It is good to be concerned about that. That manifests what we find here in this thief on the cross as he goes through this glorious change. But we live and move and operate in a world governed by a sovereign God. Where was Barabbas?
What about the other thief? There was one man on that day that Christ had his eye upon. And we need to take comfort in that, because there are men that he has his eyes upon. And while there is breath in their lungs, there is hope.
We ought never to despair. We ought never to wring our hands. We ought never to give up. We ought never to conclude, oh, they're beyond hope.
If ever there was a time to conclude that someone was beyond hope, it was this guy. I mean, think about it, brethren, if you woke up that morning and you were in Jerusalem or you were in the Roman Empire and you went down to the market and you saw this guy being crucified just before his crimes, you would not think he was going to spend that day or be that day with Jesus in heaven. You wouldn't. I have heard, I have not seen it, but there's a video called Five People You'll Meet in Heaven.
There'll be some surprises there. Why? Because God is glorious in His sovereignty. I don't doubt that some of us will promote surprise on others.
I don't doubt that as we're walking down those roads, those streets paved with gold, there's going to be some people saying, wow, you're here? You're in? It's all by grace. Sovereign grace, glorious grace, an able savior, a willing savior.
That's what we need to take from this passage. We need to understand Jesus in his power and his glory and the sovereignty of God's grace. There's hope while there's breath.
Salvation by Grace Alone
And then thirdly and finally, there is a lesson here about salvation. Salvation is never by works. We've seen that over the last two weeks. We're moving from that abstract theology and we're seeing it concretely applied.
Salvation is never by works. This man didn't clean up his act. He didn't get better. He didn't perform well.
He wasn't handed a reward for what he had done. He was saved by grace alone, through faith alone in Jesus Christ, the Lord alone. Salvation truly is of grace. William Cowper was right when he wrote this.
The dying thief rejoiced to see that fountain in his day. And there have I, as vile as he washed all my sins away. If you have not come to that fountain, Christ is a willing and enabled and a glorious savior. You believe the truth that the Bible tells you of him and you will be saved.
So that if you go out and you get hit by a truck this afternoon. Today you'll be with him in paradise. But if you continue to reject. If you continue to think I don't really need him.
If you continue to think that in your own righteousness you can avail with God. If you continue impenitent. Here's what Matthew Henry says. This gives no encouragement to any to put off their repentance to their deathbed or to hope that they shall then find mercy.
For though it is certain that true repentance is never too late, it is as certain that later repentance is seldom true. Believe today. Believe right now. And the Bible says, you will be saved.
Let us pray.
Closing Prayer
Father, we thank you for our Lord Jesus Christ. We thank you for his power in justifying sinners. We thank you for his death at Calvary. We know that he did not deserve this.
We know it was an act of justice, an act of imputation. You made him who knew no sin to be sin for us. And our Father, we praise you for these glorious truths. And we would ask that a multitude today would believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.
Thank you, God, for your mercy toward us. Thank you that you have not left us in our sin. And we praise you for your mercy. And we ask now that you would go with each one of us again.
We pray for those who are ill, those who are ailing. We just commit them to you and to the word of your grace and pray that you would stir them up and cause them just to continue to look to you and find that comfort and that hope in Christ. And we pray in Jesus name. Amen.