Series: Close Encounters
“A Criminal Who Was Gloriously Converted”
(Sunday Morning November 15th, 2009)
Passage: Luke 23:39-43
O.S. In Fraunberg, Prussia, an Astronomer by the Name of Copernicus Was Buried in a Cathedral. Copericus is Famous for Being One of the First to Prove Scientifically That the Earth is Not in the Center of the Universe And the Epitaph on His Tombstone Says This; It Says,
“I ASKED NOT SUCH FAVOR AS SAINT PAUL RECEIVED NOR YET SUCH GRACE AS SAINT PETER OBTAINED, BUT WHAT ON THE CROSS TO THE THIEF THOU DIDS’T GIVE. OH, JESUS, I FERVENTLY PRAY GRANT ME”
I Don’t Know Any More About Copernicus’ Faith Than That, But It is Easy to Understand Why He Found so Much Comfort in This Story Because This Story, More Than Any Other Story in the Bible, Reminds Us of the Fact That No One is Outside the Reach of God’s Offer of Salvation by Grace Through Faith in His Son Jesus Christ. In Fact, the Bible Says That There are Really Only Two Things That Any Person Needs in Order to be Saved.
a. First, a Person Needs to be Alive
For You See, God’s Offer of Salvation Does Not Extend Beyond the Grave Once a Person Closes Their Eyes in Death, Their Time of Opportunity Will Have Passed, and Their Eternal Destiny Will Have Been Sealed. Hebrews 9:27 Says “And inasmuch as it is appointed for men to die once and after this comes judgment”. There is no Intermediate State Like “Purgatory”. Only the Judgment And When a Person Dies, Their Soul Goes Immediately to One of Two Places; Their Soul Either Goes to Heaven or to Hades (And if a Person Goes to Hades, No One Can Pray Them Out or Pay Them Out – And By the Way, Even Catholics no Longer Believe in Purgatory)
b. Second, a Person Needs to Have Faith
By This, I Mean That a Person Must be Willing to Place Their Faith and Trust in Jesus Christ Believing in His Death Burial and Resurrection And the Truth is That There are Some People in This World Who Cannot do That. There are Some People Who are Alive, But They Have Hardened Their Hearts to Such a Point That They Have Become Confirmed in Their Unbelief. In Matthew 12:31, Jesus Called This “The Unpardonable Sin”And the Unpardonable Sin Occurs When a Person Reaches the Point That They are Simply Unwilling to Believe and Nothing Can Occur That Will Cause Them to Change Their Mind. I Have Had a Few Occasions, for Example, Where People Have Asked to Speak With Me, Because They Were Afraid That They Might Have Committed the Unpardonable Sin And Whenever This Has Occurred, I Have Always Reassured Them by Saying That, if They are Concerned About Having Committed the Unpardonable Sin, That is Proof Enough of the Fact That They Have Not Done So. For You See, a Person Who Has Committed the Unpardonable Sin is Not Concerned in Any Way About That; They are Confirmed in Their Unbelief. So, Here is the Good News, If You are Alive, and if You Have Any Desire at All to Place Your Faith and Trust in Jesus Christ, I Can Assure You of the Fact That You ARE NOT Outside the Reach of God’s Grace.
In Fact, in Romans 1:16, the Apostle Paul Said This; He Said, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the
power of God for salvation(Listen Now) to everyone who believes,…”.
T.S. Now, the Magnanimous Nature of God’s Grace is What This Passage of Scripture is All About And So, With
This in Mind, I Have Two Timeless Truths That I Want Us to Draw Out of This Text This Morning.
I. The Timeless Responses of People to Jesus
Now, It is no Accident That Jesus Was Crucified Between Two Criminals; This Was a Fulfillment of Prophecy. Isaiah 53:12 Had Stated That He Would be “…numbered with transgressors”And This Portrays for Us, Listen to Me Now, This Portrays for Us the Predicament of Fallen Humanity in Miniature, and the Fact That These Two Thieves Responded Differently to the Lord Jesus is Descriptive of the Entire Human Race. It Actually Teaches Us Two Very Simple Things:
1) There are Some Who Will Reject Him
This Forces Us to Come to Grips With the Fact That There are Some Who Will Never Receive Jesus Christ as Their Lord and Savior And It Also Disproves the Heresy of Univeralism Just as Jesus’ Teaching on the Unpardonable Sin Does.
In Fact, Jesus Actually Said This in Matthew 12:32; He Said, “…it shall not be forgiven him, either in this age or in the age to come” And We are Clearly Told in This Passage of Scripture That Some Will Slip Into Eternity Without Receiving Christ, and as a Consequence, They Will Ultimately be Incarcerated in a Place Called Hell From Which There is no Escape. That is Not a Popular Thing for Me to Say, But That is What the Bible Teaches.
In Daniel 12:2, for Example, the Bible Says "Many of those who sleep in the dust of the ground will awake, these to everlasting life, but the others to disgrace and everlasting contempt”And Please Notice That Word “Everlasting”. Some Will Receive “Everlasting Life” But Others Will Receive “Everlasting Contempt,” and This Will be Determined by How They Respond to Jesus. 1 John 5:12 Says “He who has the Son has the life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have the life”
St = Now, the Bible Says That Both of These Men Were “Thieves” And the Greek Word “Lestase” Implies That They Were More Than Common Thieves. It is a Word That Means “to Steal by Using Violent Force” (Armed Robbery) So, These Were Not Petty Purse Snatchers; These Were Dangerous Criminals And One of These Thieves Who Hung There Began to Blaspheme Jesus. In Matthew and Mark, We Read That Initially Both of These Thieves Reviled Jesus, But It is Says Here That One of Them Began to Blaspheme Him. That Means That He Began to Call Into Question the Power and the Dignity of Jesus Christ as the Son of God And It is Interesting to See How the Penitent Thief Rebuked Him.
vs 40 (Read)
The Penitent Thief Hit the Nail Right on the Head, Because These are Two Very Common Reasons Why Many People Never Come to God.
a. First, Many People Live in Denial of Death
Death is an Uncomfortable Subject; So, Many People Just Put Their Head
in the Sand Like an Ostrich and Try to Deny the Reality of It. In Fact, Even Those Who Have the Sentence of Death Upon Them Like This Man Did Have a Tendency to Deny the Reality of It (By Experience) And Because They Erroneously Assume That Death is Never Going to Happen to Them, They Never Get Prepared to Face It. But My Friend, the Truth is That Death is Not Only Coming; It is Coming Much Sooner Than Most of Us Think That It Is. James 4:14 Says That Our Life is Like “…a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away”. Before You Know It, Your Life and Mine Will be Drawing to a Close, and One of the Healthiest Things We Can do Spiritually is to Face Up to That Fact Because Then, We Will Become Spiritually Prepared for It
b. Second, Many People do Not Fear God
Psalms 10:13 Says “Why do the wicked renounce God? He has said in his heart, ‘You will not require an account’” (NKJV) You See, Many People Live Under the Erroneous Impression That God is Never Going to Expect Them to Give an Account for Their Lives. But My Friend, I Have News for You We Will All Have to Give an Account to God for Our Lives - Even Christians Will at the Judgment Seat of Christ
Q.n = Should This Cause a Lost Man or Woman to Fear God?
Ans = Absolutely
Because Hebrews 10:31 Says “It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God” What the Penitent Thief Was Saying to This Other Thief, in Essence, Was This; He Was Saying “There is Something a Lot More Frightening Than This Mob That We Will Have to Face and That is God, and We are About to Meet God; So, This is Certainly no Time to be Blaspheming Him!”. And He Was Exactly Right.
That’s Why Jesus Said This in Matthew 10:28; He Said, "Do not fear those who kill the body but are unable to kill the soul; but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell”. You See, Fear Was the Turning Point for the Penitent Thief; He Began to Realize That He Was About to Give an Account for His Life to God; That Thought Terrified Him, and It Caused Him to See His Need for Grace. Unfortunately, That Kind of Fear Never Came Into the Heart of This Man, And Listen, a Person Cannot Come to Christ Without This Kind of Fear. That’s Why Our Beloved Hymn Amazing Grace Has One Line in It That Says “It was grace that taught my heart to fear, and grace my fears relieved”.
2) There are Some Who Will Receive Him
We are Told That There Was “Another” Thief at Calvary, and the Word “Another” Literally Means “Another of a Different Kind”. He Was Just as Guilty of Sin as the Other Thief, But Something Happened to Him in That First Hour on the Cross That Caused Him to be Changed.
a. His Repentance
vs 40-41 (Read)
This Man Confessed His Guilt, and He Offered no Excuses.
He Didn’t Say…
…Well, I Had a Disadvantaged Life. If I Hadn’t Had Such a Rough Life, I Might Not be Hanging on This Cross Right Now
OR
…Well, I Didn’t Have the Education and the Social Opportunities That Many Other People Have Had, and That is Why I Ended Up on This Cross.
No, Without Excuse, Without Explanation, Without Extenuation, He Said Plainly “I Have Sinned, and I am Getting Exactly What I Deserve”. And May I Submit to You That Before Anyone Can Come to Know Jesus Christ as Their Personal Lord and Savior, They Must Come to This Point. They Must Come to the Point of Recognizing That They are Sinful and Deserving of God’s Judgment. Romans 3:23 Says “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God”. A Person Has to Come to the Point of Recognizing That Before They Can Get Saved And the Sad Truth is That Our World is Filled With People Who Don’t Recognize This. In Fact, Most People Consider Themselves to be “Good People,” and This is Why They Don’t See Their Need for Grace. Just Ask Them, and They Will Tell You; They Will Say “I’m a Good Person”.
b. His Revelation
What We Have Here, in My Opinion, is One of the Clearest Examples in the Bible of the Fact That Our Salvation is Based on God’s Sovereignty. And the Fact That Even the Faith That We Have to Trust in Christ Must Come From God. That is Why the Apostle Paul Said This in Ephesians 2:8-9 ; He Said, “8 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; 9 not as a result of works, so that no one may boast”.
Q.n = So, What is It That is the Gift of God?
Ans = Our Faith
And the Reason This Passage Helps Convince Me of This is Because This Thief Overcame Some Incredible Obstacles to His Faith. Other People Saw Jesus Raise People From the Dead and They Did Not Believe; Yet, This Thief Saw Jesus Dying, and He Did Believe.This Man’s Conversion Came at a Time When It Appeared to Others as Though Christ Had Lost All of His Power to Save Himself or Others.
Jesus’ Enemies Appeared to be Triumphing Over Him; Jesus Friends Had All Forsaken Him; He Was Being Abased Before He Was Exalted, and This Was Before the Miracles.
· This Was Before the Darkness Had Covered the Earth for Three Hours
· This Was Before the Earthquake, Before the Tombs Were Opened, Before Some Were Brought Back to Life
So, We Know That This Man’s Faith in Jesus Christ Was Nothing Short of a Miracle That Came From God. In Fact, I am Amazed by the Fact That This Man Even Had a Christology That Ought to Impress Any Modern Day Theologian And I Want You to See This Because It is Truly Amazing Based on the Limited Amount of Light That He Was Given .
i. He Believed in the Sinless Nature of Christ
· He Rebuked the Other Thief by Saying “…we are receiving what we deserve for our deeds; but this man has done NOTHING WRONG." (Luke 23:41) And So, He Affirmed the Sinless Nature of Christ. In Fact, This is the Fourth Testimony of Jesus’ Sinless Nature That Came From an Unlikely Source.
· Judas Confessed That He Had “…sinned by betraying INNOCENT BLOOD" in Matthew
27:4
· Governor Pilate’s Wife Encouraged Him to “Have nothing to do with that JUST MAN,” …in Matthew 27:19
· In Luke 23:5, Governor Pilate Himself Said “…I find NO FAULT in this man”
· And Here We Find the Penitent Thief Affirming Jesus’ Sinless Nature
ii. He Believed the Saving Nature of Christ
We Should Not Forget That the Name “Jesus” Literally Means Savior. In Matthew 1:21, an Angel Told Joseph That He and His Wife Mary Should Name This Child Jesus “…for He will save His people from their sins”. And When This Thief Asked Jesus to Remember Him, He Was Obviously Referring to More Than Him Becoming a Distant Thought, He Was Asking for Forgiveness and Mercy
iii. He Believed in the Sovereign Nature of Christ
He Said “remember me when You come in Your kingdom!" So, Somewhere Along the Way, This Thief Must Have Been Exposed to the Old Testament Teachings About Eschatology. In Places Like Isaiah 2:4, for Example, We are Told That the Lord Himself Will Reign From Mount Zion in Jerusalem “And He will judge between the nations, and will render decisions for many peoples”. And This Thief Had Arrived at a Proper Understanding of All of This.
St = AND THAT’S NOT ALL
For This Man to Come to That Conclusion, He Also Had to Believe That Jesus Would be Resurrected From the Dead Because for Jesus to Come to Mount Zion, and to Sit on His Throne in Jerusalem, and to Reign Over All the Nations Would be Impossible Without a Resurrection. He Also Must Have Believed That Jesus Had the Ability to Raise Him From the Dead so That He Could be a Part of His Future Kingdom. This Means That He Had a Proper Understanding of Daniel 12:13 Which Says This, Listen, It Says “…you will enter into rest and rise again for your allotted portion at the end of the age”. This is Absolutely Amazing.In Fact, Listen, This Thief Had a Better Understanding of Theology Than a Lot of Southern Baptists That I Know. (Can I Get a Witness?)
I Have Pastor Friends Who Have Been Christians for Many Years, and They Still Don’t Believe That Jesus Will Ultimately Reign Upon This Earth. Yet, This Penitent Thief Had Managed to Put All of This Together at a Very Unlikely Place (A Cross), and in a Very Short Span of Time.
Q.n = So, What is It That Produced This Man’s Amazing Faith?
Ans = Three Things: the Holy Spirit, a Good Testimony and the Word of God
· The Holy Spirit Obviously Had to be Working on His Heart for Him to
be Able to Come to These Remarkable Conclusions.
· He Saw How Jesus Responded While He Was Being Mocked and Crucified and How He Had Even Asked His Heavenly Father to Forgive Them.
· And I Believe That He Looked Up at the Top of That Cross and He Saw the First Bible Tract That Had Ever Been Written
Q.n = Because the Sign Over the Cross Said What?
Ans = It Said, “This is Jesus
the King of the Jews”
Q.n = And What Does Romans 10:17 Say?
Ans = It Says Faith Comes by Hearing and Hearing by the Word of God (NJKV)
c. His Request
Now, It’s Possible That Someone Might Misunderstand Me and Think That I am Suggesting That Our Salvation is Completely Determined by Divine Agency So, Let Me Explain That This Was Not Entirely the Way It Happened. I Believe That God Did Give This Thief the Ability to Know That He Needed to Repent, and That God Did Give This Thief the Ability to Recognize Who Jesus Was Which is Something He Must do for All of Us, Because 2 Corinthians 4:4 Says “…the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, …”. God Must Illumine Us, and God Must Enable Us to See and Understand the Gospel. God Gave This Thief the Ability to Know That He Needed to Repent, and God Gave This Thief the Ability to Recognize Who Jesus Was. But This Thief Still Had to do Something Himself, He Had to Request Salvation. And What Was True for Him is Also True for Us.
Romans 10:9-10 Says “9 …if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; 10 for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation”.
Now, Let Me Add That This is Really All That This Man Could Do.
· He Couldn’t Use His Hands to Accomplish Any Good Works, Because They Were Nailed to the Cross
(Sandra = Live a Good Life = Scores of People)
· He Couldn’t Use His Feet to Walk to the Jordan River to be Baptized, Because They Were Also Nailed to the Cross (Alenna = By Taking the Sacraments)
· And He Couldn’t Turn Over a New Leaf in Life, Because He Was in the Process of Dying
(Neil = By Keeping the Golden Rule)
All This Man Could do, Listen to Me Now, All This Man Could do Was Confess That He Was a Sinner, Repent, and Turn in Faith to Christ. This is What He Did and as a Result He Received Eternal Salvation.
II. The Timeless Response of Jesus to People
As We Might Expect From Our Lord, He Always Gives Us Much More Than We Ask for, and That is What He Did for This Penitent Thief
1) Jesus Gave Him More PRESENTLY Than He Asked For
He Was Asking Jesus at Some Point in the Future to Acknowledge His Existence, Remember Him for the Good, and to Give Him a Place in His Kingdom, But Jesus Said to Him “Today” Literally “This Day,” You Shall be With Me in Paradise.
As I Stated Earlier, the Concept of Purgatory is Not Biblical, and Neither
is the Concept of Soul Sleep.The Bible Says That There is Never a Time When a Believer or a Non-Believer Will be Unconscious After Death.
And as Far as Believers are Concerned, Paul Said in 2 Corinthians 5:8 That to be Absent From the Body is to be at Home With the Lord. And So, Jesus Said to Him, in Essence, “You want something good to happen for you in the distant future,
but I will insure that something good happens for you TODAY”.
By the Way, This Also Eliminates the Possibility of Jesus Spending Three Days in Hell as Some People Suggest (Elaborate = He Announced His Triumph)
2) He Gave Him More POSITIONALLY Than He Asked For
This Man Was Hoping That the Lord Might Preserve for Him Some Place Out on the Periphere of His Kingdom Down in Some Remote Corner of It But Jesus Said, “Today, You Will be With Me in Paradise”. The Word “Paradise” Was Originally a Persian Loan Word; It Referred to the Botanical Garden of a King. It Only Appears in Two Other Places in the New Testament.
It Appears in 2 Corinthians 12:4 Where Paul Says That He Was Caught Up Into the Third Heaven, and He Was Given a Glimpse of the Paradise of God. And It Appears in Revelation 2:7 Describing a Restored Garden of Eden.
3) He Gave Him More PERSONALLY Than He Asked for And This is the Most Beautiful Part of All
Jesus Said to Him “Today” Lit. “This Day” You Shall Be WITH ME in Paradise” This is What is Most Desired by Both Our Savior and We Who are His Saints
· This is What is Desired Most by Our Savior
In 1 Corinthians 1:9, the Bible Says, “God is faithful, through whom you were called into fellowship with His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord”
· This is What is Desired Most by His Saints
In Psalms 73:25, the Psalmist Said, “Whom have I in heaven but You? And besides You, I desire nothing on earth”. According to the Psalmist, This is What is Going to Make Heaven Special; It is Going to be the Fact That We Will be Able to See Our Lord Face to Face And I Tend to Agree
Q.n = Now, Can You Imagine What This Scene Was Like?
As Our Lord Walked Through Those Celestial Gates, He Brought Someone With Him When He Met Abraham There, and Moses There, and David There, and Elijah There, He Said, “I Want to Introduce You to My First Trophy of Grace”.And Here Was This Ex-Con With Beedy Eyes and a Flat Nose Smiling From Ear to Ear Because He Had Become a Recipient of the Marvelous Grace of God.
Ill: William Cowper Wrote a Song Many of Us are Familiar With
It Goes Like This: “There is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Emmanuel’s veins and sinners plunged beneath that flood loose all their guilty stains”. One the Stanzas of This Song Was Inspired by This Passage About the Penitent Thief, and It Goes Like This “The dying thief rejoiced to see that fountain in his day and there may I, though vile as he, wash all my sins away”
Q.n = That’s Right, Isn’t It?
Compared to a God Whose Standard is Holiness, There is Not a One of Us Here This Morning Who is Any Less Vile Than This Thief But the Good News is That Those of Us Who are Willing to Admit That Can Have All Our Sins Washed Away And the Best Time to do That is Right Now. There are Those Who Might Say, “Well, That Thief Waited Until He Was on His Deathbed to Receive Christ, and Christ Saved Him”. Yes, That is True, But Did You Know That This is the Only Example of a Deathbed Conversion in the Entire Bible. (Repeat)
One Man Said It This Way“There is one such case recorded that none need despair, but only one that none might presume”.
Listen Friend, the Devil’s Word is “Tomorrow, But God’s Word is “Today” Because the Bible Says Two Things About Tomorrow as It Relates to Our Faith. It Says You Will Have Less Faith to Repent With and Less Time to Repent In. (Elaborate) Besides This, You Might be Taken Very Suddenly, or You Might Wind Up in a Drug Induced Coma or Something; So, You Can’t Count on Having Such an Opportunity.