♪ I see the mighty power of God ♪ ♪ Down in the mountains rise ♪ ♪ And spread the glorious hymns of praise ♪ ♪ In the clouds of Jesus Christ ♪ ♪ I see the wisdom and the glory of Jesus Christ ♪ ♪ The moon shall fall and it shall live ♪ ♪ And all the stars shall play ♪ ♪ I see the baddest of the world ♪ ♪ And all the evil is gone ♪ ♪ He formed a creature with his hand ♪ ♪ And then from the circle he came ♪ Give us your faith, our proud and true, O Gaze upon the sky. ♪ But makes our glory strong ♪ ♪ And as the rising sun is gone ♪ ♪ By an order from my throne ♪ ♪ I told the world whose life I'll lead ♪ ♪ Is ever in my care ♪ ♪ And everywhere that man can be ♪ All right, thank you kids. You can go ahead and find your seats. The little guys can go to their class. This is your... Thank you for singing this morning. I appreciate you guys doing that. They've been working hard and glad they had the opportunity to serve the Lord in that way. The rest of us can open our Bibles back up now to Luke chapter 23, verses 39 through 43. And I want to introduce the message this morning by reading quite a bit from a story in the life of a missionary named Adoniram Judson. Adoniram Judson ends up going to Burma. It's not where he set out to go, but it's where he ends up. Or modern day, is it Myanmar now? He ends up being the person that translates scripture into their language. He had a very tough ministry when he got there. It was six years before he saw his first convert. He's in prison. His wife dies. He loses his first child. He had a very, very tough missionary experience, but he stuck it out for God. But in his youth, he was an unbeliever, even though he grew up in a minister's home. And so here about Adonai Judson, he had a friend who influenced him and was a member of the class ahead of him. And after years, his name was charitably disguised as E with a line. but he was almost certainly Jacob Eames of Belfast, Maine. Amiable, talented, witty, extremely agreeable in person and manners, but a confirmed deist. A very strong friendship sprang up between the two young men, founded on similar tastes and sympathies, and Judson soon became, at least professively, as great an unbeliever as his friend. you may not have heard that word deist. We hear agnostic, we hear atheist, deist. What's a deist? A deist is really pretty much like an agnostic. They believe in the existence of God and the evidence of reason in nature only with rejection of supernatural revelation. It's a belief in a God who created the world but has since remained indifferent to it. In other words, they're They look around and they can acknowledge and go, there's got to be a God because how did this happen without an idea of somebody starting it? But they reject this book and they reject any idea that you can actually know God and think God is distant from his creation. It's basically a deist. So it's basically an unbeliever. So continuing his story, he's out of home now. He's left. He's graduated. He was valedictorian of his college class. He's doing well for himself. He's a teacher. He's traveling and getting to see the world a little bit in the United States as he travels along. As night drew on, he found himself passing through a small village. Finding the local inn, he stabled his horse and asked the innkeeper for a room. The house was nearly full, said the landlord, but he had one bed next to a young man who was critically ill, perhaps dying. He might be disturbed, but No, said Adoniram, still wrapped in his own thoughts. He would not let a few noises next door deny him a night's rest. After giving him something to eat, the landlord lighted Adoniram to this room and left him. Without further ado, Adoniram got into bed and waited for sleep to come. But though the night was still, he could not sleep. In the next room beyond the partition, he could hear sounds, not very loud, footsteps coming and going, a board creaking, low voices, a groan or gasp. These did not disturb Lunduli, not even the realization that a man might be dying. Death was a commonplace thing in Adoniram's New England. It might come to anyone at any age. What disturbed him was the thought that the man in the next room might not be prepared for death. Was he himself? A confusing coil of speculation unwound itself as he lay half-dreaming, half-waking, while the autumn chill stole down from the mountains and crept through every crack and cranny of the house. He wondered how he himself would face death. His father would welcome it as a door opening outward to immortal glory. so much his creed had done for him. But to Adoniram, the sun, the free thinker, the deist, the infidel, lying huddled under the covers, death was an exit, not an entrance. It was a door to an empty pit, to darkness darker than night, at best to extinction. At worst, to what? On this matter, his philosophy was silent. It had no answers, but who knows? He'd always been neat and well-groomed. His mother had taught him to be fastidious. He cared for his own person, but he must die. And the grave was a cold, dark place. His flesh crawl was the wet, earthy mold in the motionless body, the slow dissolution of muscle and tendon, the slower crumbling of bone, the immense weight of soil. Was this all through the endless centuries? What of that part of Adonai Judson he thought of as I? Did it go out like the flame of a candle, or did it to stay in the ground with the flesh? There was terror in these fantastically unwinding ideas, but as they presented himself, another part of himself cheered. He's laughing at himself. Midnight fancies. That part, said scornfully, What a skin-deep thing this free-thinking philosophy of Adonai Judson, valedictorian, scholar, teacher, ambitious man, must be. What would the classmates at Brown say to these terrors of the night who thought of him as bold in thought? After all, what would Eames say? Eames, the clear-headed, skeptical, witty, talented. He imagined Eames' laughter and felt shame. When Adonai awoke, the sun was streaming in the window. His apprehensions had vanished with the darkness. He could hardly believe he had given in to such weakness. He dressed quickly and ran downstairs, looking for the innkeeper. It was past time to have breakfast, pay his reckoning, saddle his horse, and be on his way. He found his host, asked for the bill, and perhaps noticing the man's somber face, asked casually whether the young man in the next room was better. He is dead, was the answer. Dead. Adoniram was taken back. There was a heavy finality to the word. For an instant, some of his fear of the night made itself felt once more. Adoniram stammered out the few conventional phrases common to humanity when death takes someone nearby and asks the inevitable question, do you know who he was? Oh yes, he's a young man from the college in Providence. Name was Eames, Jacob Eames. How he got through the next few hours, Adoniram was never able to remember. All he recalled afterwards was that he did not try to leave the inn until some hours had passed. Whether he looked on Eam's body, whether he made himself known as Eam's friend, whether any of Eam's relatives or family were in the village, whether he wept, on all this he was always silent. Later, however, he found himself on the road continuing his journey without being sure how he came to be there. He was aware that one word was tolling in his mind like a bell, the word lost. Lost. In death, Jacob Eames was lost, utterly, irrevocably lost. Lost to his friends, to the world, to the future. Lost as a puff of smoke, as lost in the infinity of air. If Eames' own views were true, neither his life nor his death had any meaning. The coincidence of his dying on the other side of the partition from Adoniram, in a remote country inn, was simply a meaningless incident in a plan too huge and impersonal to take account of individuals. But suppose Eames had been mistaken, suppose the scriptures were literally true and a personal God real, then Jacob Eames was already lost in a most desperate sense. For already this moment, Eames knew his error too late for repentance, knowing his mistake regretting it with a bitterness which no living human could ever possibly imagine. He was experiencing already the unimaginable torments of the flames of hell. Any chance of remedy, of going back, of correcting lost, eternally lost. That's an amazing story. And for those that don't believe in God, what are the odds of dying or somebody dying next to you? of whom you formed your theories about eternity, having no idea that's your best friend dying in the next room, that you're listening to his last breath as he dies, believing what you both believe, and that is that there's nothing. There's nothing. This morning, what if this was your last day on earth? Are you ready to die? Isn't that what religion is all about? I get kind of upset at modern day religion. You ask people, you know, if you die today, where would you go? And they go, they're religious people. And they say, I don't know. Or, you know, they have this idea of I hope or something like that. There's an emptiness to that. What's the point? What's the point of even going if there's nothing? But on the other hand, the emptiness of a life that is lived thinking that you go in the grave and that's it. What's the point? What's the point? I mean, if that's it and there's nothing, what is the point? I mean, my life, as he says in that story, it's meaningless. So what, I was good to people. So what, I helped people. So what, I mean, I had things. So what, if the grave's it, that's it. And so, what if today was your last day? Are you ready to die? The two men in our story are at the day of their death. Both of them will die on this day with Jesus Christ between them. The two thieves on the cross. They only had a few hours to get ready, as it were, for eternity. This was their deciding day. No further opportunity for mercy. No, I mean, this is it. I mean, you decide on this day and that's it. I mean, whatever you decide on this day, that's what counts. Think how important this day, this deciding day is. Joel 3.14 says, Isn't that kind of a sad verse when you read that? Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision. For the day of the Lord is near in the valley of decision. There is a decision that mankind must face, and it's a decision that will affect their eternity. And there's multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision. But the day of the Lord is near. It's the deciding day. It's that day of above all days that will impact our eternity. You know, I can say this morning, we are living in our deciding day. We are. No different, really, from the thief on the cross, except, I mean, their end was imminent. I mean, it was right there, but nobody's guaranteed tomorrow. Nobody's guaranteed next week. Nobody's guaranteed next year. And so in reality, as the word of God says, you know, behold, today is the day of salvation. We are living in that deciding day. You know, have you decided for Christ? Do you know where you stand this morning? With Christ, what position would you be in? Because the Jew that we're gonna look at today, we're not told their names in scripture, we don't know, we know Barabbas was to be on the center cross, but we don't know who was on either side of Jesus. And we don't know which was on which side of Christ, but we do know this, on one side of Christ was a skeptic, on the other side of Christ was a seeker. Two distinctly different men. One man's going to get off the cross and he's going to go to heaven. The other man's going to get off the cross and he's going to go to hell. It's a big step they're going to take. They're going to step out into eternity and this is their last opportunity. So again, this morning, which are you? Because the reality is you're one or the other. Everybody here is one or the other. You're either a skeptic or a seeker as represented by these two things. And so may God speak to our hearts this morning as we consider our place when it comes to Calvary and these crosses. Let's pray. Father, I pray that the Holy Spirit would speak to our hearts today. Thank you for Adoniram Judson getting saved. I'm so thankful, Lord. And yet Ames went straight to hell. I find it sad. It's sad. These men, they were friends. They had similar experiences. And it's only your mercy that rescued Adoniram from his infidel beliefs that were so against you. But oh, I pray this morning, do it again. Do it in our hearts. Lord, do it through this message in somebody's life that somebody would come to faith that, Lord, they would Lord be warned. I pray I praise you this this is in the scriptures. We're not on the cross We're not being crucified. It's not necessarily in that sense our deciding day But father in the sense that eternity is close the day of the Lord is is near in the valid decision It is our deciding day the wrath of God's coming. It's coming quick and I pray Lord me may we decide for Christ and And so help me as I preach, I pray the spirit of God to guide me. It's in Christ's name we pray, amen. So we're gonna start with the thief on the cross that's a skeptic, okay? This is the person that he's being crucified with Jesus and he's not drawing closer to Jesus, he's not for Jesus, the other man is. And so this man's a deist or an atheist. If he believes in God, he doesn't believe much about God. He doesn't believe in the revelation of God's word. You see that in his response towards the sinner cross and who Jesus is. What do we see about a person that is the skeptic or about this man as he pictures this? This person rails against God. Verse 39 says, And so he's hanging on the cross, just like Jesus, they would put a nail through their wrists, right? And they put the nail through their feet, and they're up there on the cross being crucified. They're not dying for the sins of the world, but they're dying for their sin, as we'll see. And so this man, he's hanged there, he looks at Christ, and just like a lot of other people that are in immense pain, what do they do? They strike out. A lot of times they strike out at people around them. Other times they strike out at God. This man does both. as he rails against the Lord Jesus Christ. It says in Matthew 27, 43, a parallel passage to this, that they were saying around the cross, he trusted in God, pointing at Jesus, let him deliver him now, if he will have him, for he said, I am the son of God. Then it says the thieves also, which were crucified with him, cast the same in his teeth. And so this thief on the cross is saying the same thing that they say. You say you're the Christ, get yourself off the cross. Even better, get us off too, as we'll see, he says. But they're really against Jesus Christ. You know, you don't have to witness very long to unbelievers and seek to tell them about Jesus Christ to find that there are a lot of people, they wouldn't say this. They would not say the words, I hate God. Some of them would. But by their attitude and their actions, that's their heart. They despise God. For instance, this man in Clareston, I met this past week, I didn't get his name, 73 years old. And he said, I've been a devout atheist for 30 years. And he was watching Richard Dawkins that morning as I spoke with him. We had a great conversation. But he made this statement, religion causes all the problems in the world. You know, it's almost like Satan wrote that down for sinners and said, here, say this when you meet somebody that's trying to speak to you about God. You hear it all the time. Religion causes all the problems in the world. What are they saying? If there is a God, it's all his fault. If there is a God, then why is it like this? It's his fault. A young man in Bonningrigg I tried to witness to last week, he said, I want nothing to do with Christianity. It destroyed my family. What's he saying? He's saying, God wrecked my family. It's God's fault. The reason my family's like this is not because men sin. It's not because mom and dad made a foolish decision. It's because of God. If God's like that, I want nothing to do with him. What's he doing? In his hurt, he's railing against God. Others say, if there's a God, why does he let all the good people die or allow children to be harmed? That's the other cue card that Satan's handed to people, because you hear it all the time. Why does he take the best ones? How many times have I heard that? Honestly, I wonder who's saying this to people that they all say the same thing, but what are they saying? God, it's your fault. That's a skeptic. The skeptic, in the bitterness of his heart, points his finger at God and says, if there is a God, I curse you because it's all your fault. You know, what I'd like to say to those people is that you ought to ask a different question about God Why not ask him, God, why did you love me so much that you sent your son, Jesus Christ, to die on the cross for me? Why did you care enough for me to have somebody come up to me and begin to speak to me about eternity? And begin to speak to me about heaven and hell? See, I never thought about God in my life, but all of a sudden, I'm face to face with an opportunity to think about God, and that's not where I am. But God, you've given me that opportunity. Or, God, why haven't you cast what I deserve. My sin put Jesus Christ on the cross. For that alone, I ought to be in hell right now. God, why didn't you cast me into hell already? Wouldn't those be better questions for the skeptic to ask? And yet he doesn't. He points his finger at God and says, God, it's your fault. He rails on him. What's the skeptic also do? The skeptic doubts Jesus. As he says here, if thou be Christ. He doesn't believe he's Christ. He's only saying it because he's heard it. Christ means Messiah, if thou be the Christ. Doubt. Sad. He's there on the cross. You and I, we've read the story about the crucifixion of Lord Jesus Christ, his resurrection, and we put our faith in him based on what we've seen. But if you had seen Jesus die, you see a man completely silent, dying on a cross, who Pilate has declared to be innocent. Surely there's a lot of things that you ought to be able to look at and see and observe and go, you know, there's something different about this man on the center cross. But this man, being right next to Jesus Christ, can't even see him. And the skeptic's eyes are so full of unbelief. It doesn't matter what God does. He's blind to it. He can't see it. You know, Adonai Judson, who I read this story about, Adonai Judson grew up in a minister's home. He was there at church. He was there at family devotions. He heard it from the time he was weak. But that didn't help the skeptic. His heart was just against God. The Bible says Hebrews 3, 12, take heed brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God. Take heed, you know, we ought to be warned if our heart is full of unbelief careful because that's the skeptic That's the heart that's against god. That's the heart that is going to get off the cross and go to hell careful of the unbelief You know unbelief as well Points his finger at god says god. Not only if you exist, is it your fault? But it points its finger at God and says, God, I deny you, and you are a liar. Do you know that? Unbelief says to God, God, you're a liar. 1 John 5.10, he that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself. He that believeth not God hath made him, God, a liar, because he believeth not the record that God gave of his Son. If I say this morning that this book is full of lies, who's the author of this book? God. So who am I saying is a liar this morning? I'm saying that God is a liar. The skeptic shakes his fist in the face of God and says, God, you know, it's your fault. The skeptic is right next to, could be right next to Jesus Christ, but he's so full of unbelief that he can't see Christ even there. Then we find also, that the skeptic desires to be freed. He desires to be freed, but not forgiven. He just wants off the cross. He's not seeking forgiveness. He says to Jesus, okay, if you're the Messiah, then save thyself and us. He's just looking at his life and saying, my life stinks right now. And understandably so, he's being crucified. But he doesn't want forgiveness for his sins. He doesn't want God to deal in his heart. He just wants relief. All he's doing is saying something to Jesus, just in the hope that if he is God, that then he's gonna relieve him of his hell, as it were, on earth. It's sad. I talk to unbelievers all the time, and they'll say that phrase, this is hell. I hear it all the time. Some of the first words out of people's mouths is I say, you know, if you died today, where would you go? Heaven or hell? And they say, this is hell. Oh, really? I've yet to have somebody say that to me that's on fire. They're not burning. They're not in a pit of blackness. They're not screaming in agony. Understandably, are some life circumstances very tough? Yes, but they're nothing compared to hell. Nothing. This man's been crucified, but in hell he begged to get out of hell back onto the cross. Can you imagine? I mean, because the cross is better than hell. Anything in life is better than eternal separation from God. Hell's awful. It was nothing. What he's facing is awful. but it's nothing compared to hell. You know, this morning, think about it. Why do you want God? Is it God, change my life, change my circumstances? God, if you exist, then do this, and God's not gonna respond to that any more than Jesus responded to this man. Why? Because he was full of unbelief, and all he wanted was to get rid of his earthly suffering. He didn't want forgiveness, he didn't want mercy, he didn't want grace. Sad to look at this thief, because the reality is this man ends up in eternity in hell. But there's another thief, and it's like a breath of fresh air. You can ask yourself, how much mercy did God give to Jesus on Calvary? And I used to think none. But I can think of a couple mercies. One mercy would be Mary, his mom is standing by the cross and he says to her, to John, the beloved John, this is your mom. Woman, behold thy son. And he committed his mother to the care of his disciple. That's mercy, isn't it? That God allowed him that opportunity to make sure his mom was cared for. That was his last opportunity before death to see his mom and take care of her needs. But another mercy that's given to the Son of God is that on the cross beside him is somebody that's gonna benefit from what he's doing on the center cross. This person's life's gonna be changed. Their eternity's gonna be changed. And it's what the Bible speaks about when it says in the Old Testament, he's seeing the travail of his soul, he rejoiced. He rejoiced at his suffering, why? Because he understood what he was gonna do, and he had a picture of it right beside him on the cross, in this man that we're gonna look at. The first guy's a skeptic. The second man, this man's the seeker, he's the seeker. In verse 40, the other answering rebuked him, saying, this man's not silent. And I believe about the thieves on the cross, Personally, I think they were part of Brabus's band. I don't know whether I'm right about that, I'll find out in eternity. But there was a band of robbers, Brabus was the chief of them, Brabus was set free, but two of these men are gonna die, they're also thieves. Brabus was a thief and a murderer, okay? So it is very likely that these men know each other, that are on either side of Christ. And he's not gonna be silent to this cohort in crime who's blaspheming God from the other cross. If you're a seeker, what do we find about a seeker as we see it pictured in the life of this man? A seeker is a person that fears God. He fears God. As he says to the other thief, dost thou not fear God? He's not yet born again. He's not yet asked or been guaranteed a place in the presence of God for all eternity, but he has a respect for God. He says the other man, thus thou not fear God. We read this story Thursday night about a missionary in Africa, James Huckabee, and I was telling the kids he's this big tall white man among short black people, stands out, I'm sure, but he's got a big heart for these people, the refugees that he's working with. He takes his family and he drives out to refugee camp. He takes his truck and his truck gets beat up on the way there because it's basically a lot of mud, a lot of rocks, very difficult terrain to get in there. Coming back out this past week or two in the last week and a half, he broke down. And as he says is the case, all these children come from nowhere running to help, you know, with the vehicle and they want to push it because they had to push it a mile to get it out to the main road. And he's trying to scare them away because he knows somebody's going to get hurt. And sure enough, a little boy, his foot was under the wheel. and gets crushed, thankfully not broken, but quite a big section of skin, he said, was torn. But you know, here's these kids, they're coming, and the end of the story is, he paid a bit of money, well, he sent the kid, basically, back to his village on his stretcher type thing, but then he paid the father to care for him, you know, some money to care for him. But if that child had just had a fear, a proper fear, it would have benefited his foot. If sinners would just have a proper fear of God, it's of immense benefit. And so here you got one man on the other side, does not fear God? No, he doesn't. He doesn't fear God. He can blaspheme God and he doesn't care. But the problem is there's consequences for that. but on the other side is a man that has a fear of God and a respect for who God is. You know, the Bible says in Proverbs 9, 10, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom and the knowledge of the Holy is understanding. If you wonder this morning, you know, why I don't fear God, but I'm a skeptic too, I don't believe in God, where should I start? Well, a good place to start would be, you know what, I need to fear God. I need to have that idea that there is an almighty being unto whom I'm going to give an account and I'm going to stand before someday. That's a good place to start is to humble our heart and realize, you know what, God is the authority. Yes, he can tell me what to do with my life. Yes, he can say, you know, be a cast into hell or enter down into the presence of the Lord. Yes, he has that ability. Yes, he has that authority. And to begin to cultivate in our heart that fear of God. The second thing that we see about the seeker is that he forsakes sin. He forsakes sin. These men, what are they guilty of this morning? Someone tell me. They are what? Thieves. So what have they done? They've stolen, right? They've taken something from somebody else. Somebody owned that property or that thing and they took it. And I think about the skeptic thief and see if you agree with this or not. I think he was in denial. I think he was probably getting nailed to the cross, yelling out, I'm innocent, I'm innocent, I've never done it, I never did it. He's lying about it. He's not acknowledging it. But the other, the seeker, as we'll find, he's transparent about his failures. He's not trying to hide it. The Roman judgment upon Jesus was upon both of them. He says to the other thief, dost thou not fear God? What, seeing thou art in the same kind of nation. What had the judge said to the thieves on the cross like he said to Jesus? He said what? What did he say? Help me out. Jesus, he said crucify him, didn't he? He delivered him to be crucified. What had he said about these two thieves then, the same kind of nation? Crucify them. They're under the same judgment as Jesus, but not the sin part. The sins of the world aren't being put upon them. God the Father is not turning his back on them. They're not innocent, they're guilty. But as far as the judgment, the judgment's the same. And so they're under the death sentence, but their sin had been found out, tried, and punished. Verse 41, it says, and we indeed justly, for we received the due reward of our deeds. We indeed justly. You know, this man didn't try to justify his thievery. He didn't say to the other thief on the cross, we had hard times and we just had to do something about it. Yeah, we did the wrong thing, but we just did that because we had to get by. He doesn't justify it. He doesn't look for reasons to explain why he was a thief. He doesn't exclaim that the punishment is greater than the crime. He doesn't say to Pilate, Pilate, crucifixion is too big of a punishment for me. That's too big of a punishment for my crime, does he? He's not crying out and saying, it's wrong, it's injustice, it's injustice, why am I being crucified? He's not. We indeed justly, and then he takes the full weight of his guilt and admits that he's worthy of what he's received. We indeed justly, we receive the due reward of our deeds. You know what this man does, and his humility, again, it's refreshing, he owns his crime. He's a man. He's got the humility to take the guilt and the responsibility of what he's done, and he owns it. You know, there's a lot of sinners that refuse to own up to their crime. They lie to cover their crime. They're so proud. They never admit failure. They never admit that what they did is worthy of hell. that their crimes against God are such that God is right and just to cast them into eternal lake of fire. But you know the prodigal son, remember that young man that came back to his dad, he had gotten his inheritance early and he had gone and wasted it with righteous living, just boozing it up until he didn't have anything left. Then he's eating the food for the swine that he's feeding. He's eating the husks that the swine are eating, and it's nothing. He goes, the slaves back at my dad's place, they get better food than this. They get treated better than this. I'm going to go back to my dad. But listen to what he says when he goes back. Says, I will rise and go to my father and will say to him, father, I have sinned against heaven and before thee and am no more worthy to be called thy son. Make me as one of thy hired servants. And he arose and came to his father. But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him and had compassion and ran and fell on his neck and kissed him. And the son said unto father, I have sinned against heaven and in thy sight and am no more worthy to be called thy son. And he can't even get to the part of, make me as one of thy hired servants. He can't get there because the father says, bring hither the fatted calf, kill it, let us eat and be merry. For this my son was dead. He's alive again. He was lost and is found. And they began to be married. He owned it. He looked at his life and said, it's a failure. It's a failure. He goes, I'm gonna go to my dad. He goes to his dad. He doesn't say, Dad, well, you know, it was my friends. Dad, I guess money went to my head. He's got a broken heart. He goes to his dad. He said, Dad, I really messed up. I've sinned against heaven and in thy sight. I'm no more worthy to be called thy son. What did he do? He owned his sin. You know, if you're too proud to say to God, God, I deserve it, I deserve hell, the wages of sin is death. Whosoever's not found written in the book of life is cast into the lake of fire. If you're too proud to give God the right to do that and say, God, that is just, you can't be saved. How could you be saved? You've never owned up to your crime and said, God, I have sinned against you, like this man did. This man on the cross says, we are here justly. We got what we deserve. We're not trying to get away with anything. We're not trying to talk our way out of it. God, I own it. I understand. I am guilty. I deserve what I'm getting here. So forsake sin. Then the seeker also faces the cross. Face the cross. He looks at Jesus Christ crucified between them and he said, but this man hath done nothing amiss. Again, going back to the other man, I believe the other man was so consumed with himself, so aware of everything that's taking place to him, he couldn't even see Jesus. He didn't see the fact that Christ is silent. He didn't hear Pilate saying, I find no fault in him. But I believe the seeker, on the other hand, is looking at the cross, and he's marveling at a man that's dying innocent, and he's dying with such peace and tranquility on the cross. And this man, I don't know about the thieves, but Jesus Christ on the cross, he's so disfigured you can't recognize him because he's been so beaten. I don't know that the thieves were in the same case in that regard. So he's also hearing the crowd jeering, mocking this man, and this man's not getting upset. He's not getting angry. He's not cursing back to them. And he understands this man is completely innocent, completely. You know, There's something about being able to understand we've all got problems, but it's the person that can see past his problems to Christ and what Christ suffered and what Christ did and how much my sin affected Jesus, that's the person that gets saved. It's not the person that's self-consumed saying, why is my life like this? Why all the bad things happen to me? My life is so miserable. I'm angry at God, I'm blaspheming God, I'm cursing God. It's a person that sees Jesus and what Jesus did. You know, I witness to people all the time, and again, a lot of what we hear is the same thing. Another thing that I often hear, and Kaylee and I heard this yesterday as we knocked on doors, but it's I never think about it. What about eternity? I never think about it. Sir, do you mean to tell me that you've never taken the time to think about what Jesus Christ did when he died on the cross for your sin? That a man loved you so much that he came from the eternal glory to mankind, lived a sinless life, and died on the cross for your sin, and you never think about it? You never take the time to meditate on that and really understand how much God loves you? And you're gonna stand someday before God and say, God, you should let me into heaven because I'm ignorant? You could let me into heaven because I never took the time to think about it. God says, I gave you a book. I gave you all that information about me. Both of these men had the same revelation given to them. That is an innocent man who everybody says is the Messiah dying on the cross between them. But the scorner, mocker can't hear it. The skeptic. but the other man on the cross, he gets it. I mean, he looks across and he sees Jesus and he goes, wow, look at what that man's doing. Isaiah 53, 5 says, but he was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace was upon him and with his stripes we are healed. When he was beaten and whipped right there by these men, he is providing the atonement. He's paying the price for their sin. He is making it possible so that the thief on the cross can be forgiven. He's willing to take, here's the thieves on the cross, right? What he did when he died is he died like them. He took what was against them and put it on his cross. He died in their place. I know they still were crucified, but in God's, it wasn't just on earth, it was in heaven, in God's throne room, Christ was paying eternal payment, not just physical. It was taking place. This man could see it. And the seeker as well finds forgiveness. He finds forgiveness. Verse 42, he said unto Jesus, Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom. I believe this thief on the cross, physically I think he's a tough man. He was part of a gang of thieves and murderers, apparently with Brabus, if Brabus was the head of their group. I don't think he was a wimp. I think he's a man's man. And I don't know to this point that he's wept or screamed or anything. I don't know. But if there's tears at Calvary from this thief's eyes, I don't think that the tears come from the agony of his suffering. I think the tears come at this point. As his heart finally breaks before God, and he says in faith to Jesus Christ on the cross, Lord, remember me in paradise. His heart breaks as he turns to yield himself to the Lord. I think in heaven it's gonna be neat someday to meet this thief. Like others that'll be there that were also crucified, he'll be able to say, you know, I got those at the point of my salvation. I got those on the cross with Jesus. I was there, man. Nobody, who else has that testimony in heaven? I was on a cross beside the Savior as he died. Imagine that. But this man says, Lord, remember me in paradise, and he gets saved. You know, if it's possible to die crucified and happy, this man did it. He's suffering immensely, but he knows the moment of his death, he's going to eternity with God. The burden of the crucifixion is gone. Yes, his body's gonna die, but he's gonna be eternally with God. I believe, if possible, there was a smile on this man's lips when he passed into eternity, because he had made peace with God. He found forgiveness. And then lastly, the seeker follows Jesus. It's like, you know what, Was it Ruth said to Naomi, whether thou goest I will go, whether thou lodgest I will lodge? The seeker follows Jesus. Verse 43, Jesus said unto him, verily I say unto thee, today thou shalt be with me in paradise. Jesus is gonna get off the cross and he's gonna go to eternity. The thief is gonna get off the cross and he's gonna go with Jesus into eternity. He's gonna follow Jesus. You know, sadly, he didn't have the opportunity to get off the cross, go to all his unsafe friends and say, guys, I found him. I found the Messiah. That's him there on the center cross by me. You need to trust in him to get saved. He couldn't go back to his mom. He couldn't go back to his dad. He couldn't go back to his brothers, his sisters, his family. It was too late for him because it was the deciding day. It was his deathbed conversion. And yes, you could say deathbed conversion. Praise God. Praise God. I hope people get saved on their deathbed. Better to get saved on your deathbed than to spend eternity in hell. But if you get saved on your deathbed, you'll never be able to go back and tell anybody about Christ. Never. And in eternity, I don't know what it's like in heaven, but in hell, the rich man wanted to go back and warn his brothers. But he couldn't. So for us, what's our hope for reaching others? It's now, it's now. But you know, the blessing of this man's testimony being in scripture is that anybody that gets saved, because they look at the thief on the cross, and they say, he got it there, and if he got it at the end of his life, I can get it now too, and takes Christ as where to get saved. I believe it goes to this man's account. Because he looked at Jesus and he said, Lord, remember me. Behold this day, thou shalt be with me in paradise. This morning, as we've already said, you're on one side of the cross or the other. Everybody is. You're either a skeptic against God, blaming God, saying, God, it's all your fault. All these things, these tough things in my life, God, it's your fault. There is a God, it's your fault. You're only asking, if you ask God for anything, it's only relief. It's only saying, I want relief from this because this is my hell. I'm not worried about my guilt, my sin, or that my sin put Christ on the cross. I'm not asking forgiveness. I just want relief. Or there's the seeker that looks at the cross and goes, as he's on it as well, he looks over and he goes, man, don't you fear God? Don't you understand who God is? And he opens his heart. to God as he looks at that cross and he realizes it's because of his sin. He's not hiding it. You know, do you own your sin today? Have you said to God, God, I'm so sorry that my sin put Jesus Christ on the cross? That he hadn't died in my place. God, I'm sorry, it's my sin. Have you faced the cross? Have you seen the innocent one dying in your place? That Jesus died as a sinless son of God. Have you thanked Him for dying for you? Have you ever taken the time to pray, bow your head and say, Jesus, I thank you for taking my sin on the cross. Have you found forgiveness? Have you asked to be saved? You know, everybody has to take that time to look at Jesus and say, Jesus, thank you for dying on the cross for me. Just like that thief on the cross, he had to say something, didn't he? He didn't just think in his heart, remember me in paradise. No. He said it out loud. He said in Jesus, Lord, remember me when thou enterest into thy kingdom. And there has to be that point in your life where you cry out to God and in prayer you say, God, I need that. I need to be saved. I want everlasting life. I want it now. And here's the blessing. This man, he got it on the cross. He got it as soon as he asked. And God's not against anybody this morning saying, you can't have this. He's got it right there. Then you can follow Jesus. You can follow him into eternity. I go to prepare a place for you that where I am, there you may be also. I've got a lot of people that I love in life, but there's nobody I love more than the Lord Jesus Christ, and I'm gonna spend all eternity with Jesus. 2 Corinthians 6, 2. For he hath said, I've heard thee in the time accepted and the day of salvation have I succored thee. Behold, now is the accepted time. Behold, now is the day of salvation. This is the deciding day. I'm not gonna say, you're gonna walk out of here, you're gonna get hit by a bus or anything like that. God forbid that should take place. But the reality is, life's short. It is the deciding day. You reject Jesus today, it makes it less likely, not more likely you ever get saved. It's time, when God speaks to our heart about it, it's time to deal with God and say, God, I don't wanna be like that skeptic. I don't wanna be the man that gets off the cross and goes to hell. I wanna be like the person that gets off the cross and goes to eternity with God. May God make us so, let's pray. Ask God to bless his word to our hearts. Father, I praise you for your word. I thank you for this story. Surely, Father, we're each either the skeptic or the seeker. And Father, if somebody's seeking you today, I pray they find you today. I pray today would be the day of their salvation. Lord that they in their heart just right now and father it's not something they've got to necessarily pray out loud but they do have to pray it in sincerity but father I pray they'd own their sin I pray they'd confess to you maybe for the first time that their sin stinks in the sight of a holy God that their sin is worthy of hell that it's just for you to turn them into hell because your son had to die on the cross for their sin but father that they'd understand it and acknowledge that Jesus Christ that he did rise again and that they thank him for his death and ask to have his salvation just like the thief on the cross that they get saved and father i pray that we'd also be burdened to tell others about this message that they can be saved and lord we want to see skeptics get saved too like the apostle paul praise you paul got saved before he died but he was a skeptic or it's possible for And so may the spirit of God speak to hearts. Thank you, Lord, for your mercy and your grace. It's in Christ's name we pray. Amen. 418, trust and obey.