Luke 23, beginning with verse 40, where we were last week. And I want to try to speak to you today on the insight of the dying thief. Would you join with me as we approach our God? Our Father, we've heard about the glorious, glorious Son Our hearts have been moved a little above this old world as the saints of God sang of thy marvelous grace. Tis grace that hath brought us safe thus far. and grace will lead us home. There where Christ sits as the very King of Kings and the reigning Lord. And we with the apostles say, but we say not all things put under his feet. Chaos, corruption, Every sin that has in the past been in the dark, under the woodworks, has all of a sudden come out and boast about it. and would dare thee, oh God, to do anything about it and would attack any person that condemns it. But Lord, you have given us a little time to get away from all that. hopefully to have left it at home as we prepared to travel to thy house to meet with thy children to read, to hear thy word. We've left it behind us. And though our minds from time to time as we sit here will try to drift here or there, Lord, give us help. Give all help that they call it back and focus back upon thee. and the thanks and the praise that ought to be in our hearts as we look upon the beauty of our Lord Jesus. Help your children. Be gracious to these who as of yet do not know thee. Do not know what it is to have been pardoned, to have had the load of guilt removed, and the stain of sin washed. And now we can sing with the saints and offer our thanksgiving and our praise. if that has happened. But Lord, let none hear. Do not let them hear and the word fall on a hard soil, thorny soil, wayside, Father, if you are pleased, work to give them a good heart so that thy word can fall upon it and therein their growth, their life begins. Help the children. were sitting in silence. They traveled to that distant land. There behold Christ on the throne, holy angels all around, and the saints of God that have departed. Be exalted, O Lord, Be glorified. Work graciously into every heart here. We ask in Christ's name for His honor and glory. Amen. Luke 23, beginning with verse 40. We were here last week and I mentioned to you about the two thieves and what happened to one of them. One of them is still demanding he save himself, Christ, and save them, get them down. Verse 40, but the other answering rebuked him saying, Dost thou not fear God, seeing thou art in the same condemnation? And we indeed justly, for that's a change of heart from where he was few hours before. We receive the due reward of our deeds, but this man hath done nothing amiss. And he said unto Jesus, Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom. And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, today shalt thou be with me in paradise. The man found out who he was, and the man found out that Jesus was the Lord. the insight of a dying thief. And I use the word insight, simply meaning deep and sometimes sudden understanding of a person or thing. You've all had things in your life, something you needed to get done, something accomplished, You try this, and it fails. You try something else, and it fails. And then maybe you gave up and just walked away, and all of a sudden, a light dawned, and you realized, this is how I can solve that problem. This is how that can be fixed. Well, it's happened time and again throughout the history of the world, but in our time, or a little before. Alexander Graham Bell, upon many experiments, finally ended up with a telegraph, telephone. Edison, over hundreds of experiences before he got a light bulb. that would burn continuously as long as electricity was going to it. And Ben Franklin started off, we are told, with a kite and a key out in a lightning storm. He did a lot of work with static electricity and with electricity. And because of much work, much experiments, many, not only them, but all that you have today that has taken such a load off your work week, they gained insight into a problem they were trying to solve, something they were working on. But that day the thief wasn't, he wasn't working on anything. I mean, he just hanging there, dying. Death so long getting to him, and every time he pushes up on those old spikes in his feet, just to get a breath to breathe, pain rushes throughout his body from that. Then all of a sudden, from where most would say they do not know, we know, but hanging there on the cross and having a change of heart, all of a sudden, his understanding went from what others had said about Jesus, And if he had ever heard of him and given him any thought, even what he had thought about him, for he didn't know him when they nailed him to the cross. But there was a little light that came into his heart. And that man, we call him the man, that man was the Lord. No man can say, Lord, except by the Holy Spirit. Now even if he had a greater mind, which evidently his way of surviving was stealing, but even if he'd had a greater mind than the other thief there on the other side, that went on the middle cross. It wasn't that that provided the insight that he didn't have when they nailed him to the cross. And so we can go to Paul and Paul's writings in the Corinthians. You see, you're calling, brethren. Not many wise after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are called but God. I've chosen the weak and the foolish. But even if he did have a brilliant mind, that body kept his mind centered on his pain. And so the only conclusion that any logical or any reasonable being could ever come to And I say reasonable and there are those out there that would take great offense in that because a reasonable human being is one that has found Christ to be a savior and his Lord. So we knowing He reached that conclusion. He got that insight by a gracious work of God in his heart. And Jesus turned to His disciples and said, Who do men say that I am? Well, some say, Thou art Elias, or Jeremiah, or John, Some prophet has come back on the scene, but who do you say I am? And Peter said, Thou art the Christ. Blessed art thou, Simon Peter, for flesh and blood did not reveal that to you, but my Father which is in heaven. The only way you'll ever get to know Jesus savingly is by a divine revelation and a work of God in your soul. Shining light where there is darkness. And bringing you from that to light, light within and light without. There was a time, and it was years and years ago, when this nation was called a great nation, and our educational system ranked at the very top. That is not true now. But just suppose that we were still there. and we had not taken prayer or the reading of the Bible out of schools, do you think that it would be possible for one that was mentally gifted and capable of being taught facts come to the truth of what this thief did that day? It's not possible. You get there by God. You're brought there by a work of divine grace in your soul. God had to stop you and had to give you life and awaken you. And the first thing you knew after that was I am a sinner. But it matters not how mentally gifted one might be, the truth of God and of Christ and of salvation and of the atoning work of the Lord Jesus, it's just not possible for even the greatest of minds to see. Now you can be tall of facts, and you can know as much as I do of facts in Scripture, but it won't elevate you. And what's so sad today is we think that an exposition of the Scriptures that is right and that is presented in a proper manner that we can teach folks God. It can't be done. We can set truth before them, but even with a gifted mind, truth will not have any effect upon them. You believe human nature can rise itself to such a height as to peer into the very mind and being of God, and all of a sudden understand. You think that we are capable of something similar or close to that. Isaiah repeating the words, God my thoughts, are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways. As high as the heavens are above the earth, so are my thoughts above your thoughts, my ways above your ways. Now we don't know how far the heavens stretch, but we know that's how far God is away from any human being. apart from a work of grace and then finding out who Jesus is. You don't go from one position, railing on the Lord Jesus to now seeing Him as a Lord over all. You don't do it. That'd be like a drowning man fighting for his very life. All of a sudden coming up with, as he goes under and fights to get back above the water, coming up with this brilliant idea that would make him a billionaire. He doesn't think about money. He's fighting for his very life. And that man's dying. So for the natural man, even in his best condition of body and mind, Paul said, receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God. He is of the earth. Jesus talking to Nicodemus. And if you are of the earth, then you speak of the earth. You are earthly, but he that cometh from heaven is above all in his language. Now why, John reading that, why were eyes fixed on him? They'd never heard man speak like that. There was something different there. And that one that stood up in the synagogue that day, and was given a Bible. But here's a man dying, fighting for every breath that he can get, hanging on a cross, looking at another man next to him, in the middle and another man on the far side just like him. And that thief sees God. How can that be, children? How did you see God? Seeing in a dying man, but he doesn't look like a man. Read the last couple of verses in Isaiah 52 and see what he looked like. But that thief saw God. And what God? was accomplishing there was the greatest work of the Trinity. All the wisdom and power and love of God was on display that day. Sometimes you say, His wisdom, His love, and His power seemed then with each other to vie. You think a dying man suddenly looks over and has a different sight? Not unless God did something. I can't remember the author of that hymn. I do know he was from Scotland. I know he lived from 1720s to 1800. But he asked a question that you sing, how shall I my savior set forth? How shall I his beauties declare? Oh, how shall I speak of his worth? Or what his chief dignities are? You've got a Savior like that. How do I tell folk about Him? I don't even see clearly myself. And yet what I do see. You just can't talk about it. Folk can't. So how shall I? Only two places this morning. First is in Isaiah 53. The other ones in Isaiah also. Isaiah 53. Isaiah's in a dilemma. I mean, the last two verses of 52, he's tried to describe the suffering Savior. And then he asked this question, who hath believed our report? And to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, as a root out of a dry ground. Has anybody here ever taken a root, dried up? I don't care what kind of tree it was a root of and planted it somewhere. You don't do it. He hath no form. No beauty, no comeliness. And when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him. No beauty. Nothing about that man in his outward appearance that ever gave the slightest hint to anybody that he was God. Now this very one that Isaiah cannot explain has created a dilemma in his mind. Who's going to declare his generation? But wait, he's going to be cut off before he ever marries and ever has a family. And yet he's got many children that he will take home with him in glory. How can that be? And the prophet couldn't put these things together. And seeing him and looking at him, there was nothing in the outward appearance of the Lord Jesus that ever suggested he was God. Yet a thief saw that. And you know, the creation is a masterful work. And there's nothing that I enjoy more than just viewing nature, the mountains and the valleys and the streams that God cut just to water His animals there. but go from creation to Jesus on a cross. Got no form, got no shape as a man. Go from creation, the creation by Him, God created all things in heaven and in earth. And you see His beauty out there when you can just look up from time to time. But in comparison to what God was accomplishing on that cross, creation would be like a child learning to write his name finally. And that compared to a group or one that has done hours upon hours upon hours of research to write a thesis. You can't compare as great a work as creation was, and yet The love, the grace, the display of all God's wisdom and all God's power lay right there in that human being. Nothing greater or more costly. There the wisdom and the love and the grace that God would one day offer to man hangs there. And then for you to tell me that you have the ability, the natural ability to peer into the book and find God, and you got the ability to read this and hear God speaking, A man of the earth has only natural abilities and that won't take you to looking into the heart of God. Not including his mind, it's just unthinkable that you can take one off the street and bring him in here and sit him down and he have a clue. of what's being said. Reading Isaiah 52, Isaiah 53, telling that's Christ, unthinkable. And yet aren't you trying to get to the heart of God, to hear God talk, to behold the beauty of God revealed in Christ Jesus. But you will never see God. There will be an eternity, all eternity, but you'll never see God, except as revealed in the man, Christ Jesus. And to think that natural man, to think that that thief on the cross had the natural ability to all of a sudden see the Lord. In Isaiah say we couldn't tell what form he was. We didn't know. He was marred more than the sons of men. He didn't look like a human being. Now you tell me, I'll give you something simple to do. Why don't you just take off next week and travel up to Washington and walk into the White House and demand to talk with the President. See how that'll get you. How far? Or you can travel over there to see Windsor and the Palace. You can even buy a ticket to view. But go over there and demand, I'm here to see the King. You'd be shipped back here immediately if you made a big to-do about it. And the thief is looking at one on the cross that no person ever imagined that there was God. He that made the worlds, He that is Lord over all things, people, nations, kingdoms, devil, the demons. But it would be almost unreasonably logical and irreconcilable to think that this God that created all things is there in that shape on that cross. Lord over all, and yet he's dying. You telling me that God is there? He who spoke and the wind stopped blowing, and the waves ceased, and the sea became a calm, or he that would cast out demons, come out of it, or raise the dead. And you go to the cross after seeing His marvelous works and look there on the cross and tell me, you still believe He's God? Well, the true God is omnipresent. He's in all places at all times. He was here. before you got here. He was here before there was ever an America. He was here before there was ever a land mass. He's what we call eternal. And yet he had to travel because he had good news for a Samaritan woman. And now you tell me I can get to God, but I do not have to travel. You're telling me that God, though in his meeting house, is not in a special way down there at the front, what we've invented and call the altar? Are you telling me that God is closer to me than the one sitting beside me? And to get to him, I don't have to go anywhere. My heart has got to travel to Calvary. And there, rebuke all around that says, that's not God. And you call on him. Lord, remember me and thou comest into thy kingdom. Now, how did he have insight? into that man and that man being the Lord. We've heard believe all our lives. Do you know the weight of that word? In an instant, When faith is given, you can travel and there meet with Christ on the throne. But Preacher, you said we didn't have to travel. Well, you don't, but your heart must. Now how did that thief come to that insight? I mean, he was in great pain. He couldn't get his mind above the pain. And seemingly, almost instantly, he peered into the heart of the Lord of Heaven. There was another one down below, the centurion. Several others, many soldiers, people. But Mark 15, when the centurion saw him, and when he saw and he heard as he cried out, at last great cry, it is finished. That soldier, We'd probably call him a captain in our service. But he saw and he heard and he said, truly, this man, this man was the son of God. How'd he come to that conclusion, that knowledge? I mean, he was watching, but well, there were many others there watching that day. Do you see why we say salvation is a revelation of Jesus Christ to the heart? And it must be a revelation of Christ to your heart, faith given. You didn't come into the world with faith, not that kind of faith that'll get you to the cross or to glory. Gotta be a revelation just as it was the centurion, just as it was the dying thief, that man is God. Lord over all. One last, Isaiah 57. Verse 15, for thus saith the high and lofty one that inhabited, he dwells, he abides, continuously abides in eternity. Are you an eternal being? I don't know. I know once you're birthed and become a human, you are eternal. I know that you do not have to be birthed as a human being, but as an unborn child, your future is eternal. I know that when Christ took upon him the form of a crucified lamb, far, far back as you can go, before ever there was an earth or air or a sea or animals, I know that those in glory were there in that crucified lamb. And I know he was crucified from eternity. And folks, this is heart wrenching, but I know it's got to be valuable. Do you think when Jesus arose that first day of the week, that his body was all whole? Do you think that? He carried pierced hands and feet and a brow planted with thorns. And he sits there on the throne. I don't know what that will be for us, but I know he was a crucified lamb. And I know that his people were in him when he was crucified. And God got you on earth and God got you to the Lord Jesus by work of the Spirit. Determined when you'd be born, where you'd be born, determined the range of your life, all to get you to that high and lofty one back in Isaiah 50, 57, that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is holy. I dwell in the high and holy place with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit to revive the spirit of the humble and to revive the heart of the contrite ones. Now I hear from time to time it's been that way. must simplify. I must bring the gospel and the truth of God down to a people and their understanding. Can't be done Oh, I could give you some sweet little sermon, 15-minute sermon, but I can't bring it down. I can't bring God down in language to the point where you can be instructed into how to be saved. It cannot be accomplished to bring the vastness of the being of God down to the level of a human being's understanding. If it was a matter of your mind comprehending God, you might have a valid point that I need to kind of tone it down. But that's what has ruined worship. Preachers have brought God down to such a low level that when they think of Him, why, He's just a good old boy that I just carry with me everywhere I go. No, it used to bother me, it really did. But I say no, won't bother me ever again. And I say to you, no, I will not. I will keep pleading with you to begin thinking of God higher than what you think. A human mind can't comprehend God. You can't carry your mind high enough with the most elevated thought you've got to where you can understand God. All you've got to do is just bow. So I say to all of you here, no, let us not bring it down any lower than it is, but let all the people of God rise by divine revelation, go up higher to where God is. We don't need events. We don't need gymnasiums. We don't need things for the boys and girls to do. We just need mom and dad to teach them about God and what it is to sit on a pew and think above and outside yourself for a little. lofty one. So you try to get up there. That's my, well, it's not a big word. Transcendent. It's not. That is beyond and above the limits of ordinary experience and thinking. a place the human mind is not capable to reach. That thief did. All of a sudden, light beamed in his heart, that man is God. If knowing God was a matter of education, then the vast majority of those that have made up the church of God from the very beginning would never be a member of his church. You don't educate people to where they can know God. The true God lies beyond all limitations of a human being experiencing. The true God It's so far above all of us. As high as the heavens are above the earth so are my ways. Higher above your ways than my thoughts, your thoughts. The true God. Knowing Even experiencing is beyond our limitation. So great is this God. All things are within Him. We found out that space, it goes on and on and on. got, we've got pictures of stars so far away that take light years, light years for the light there to reach us. I read and I can't remember where, but it was about, it was men in early America, these men that I've mentioned to you, and seeing stars, and that star being so far away, it could have died when George Washington was the president, and we just now seeing it. That's how long it takes for that light to reach here. Now, you think you're going to educate human beings to the point that they can understand this God or this Christ? Much less God crucifying his son. And yet every being in this place today can get to this God if he comes knowing who he is or she is. And he begins to realize my salvation was paid for on that cross. That's all a sinner needs. Just get above and beyond his own thinking, how you'll get to God and what he'll, well, you'll say to God and what he will accomplish by his works. I've shared this quote with you before, and if you've ever read A few of Mr. Tozer's short works, worship, whatever happened to worship, worship the missing jewel. Some would say, well, he was not of our persuasion. I've never heard him say anything. Well, one thing. I don't understand, I really don't believe it, but it was so minor that I won't throw away all his good works because one little point, my word folk, you all can find many things about me. Throw me away. But anyway, he was quoting someone, And I'll share it with you again. God is above all things, but He's not pushed up. God is beneath all things, but He's not pressed down. He is outside all things, but He is not excluded. And He is inside all things, but He is not confined. God is above all things presiding, beneath all things sustaining, outside all things embracing, and inside all things filling." End of quote. That's our God. And that God lies beyond my mental And that God and that Christ, me trying to think about it is like a finite little mind trying to conceive of the infinite. And yet that one that is infinite will get so close and be so near. I dwell in the high and holy place but also dwell with him that is of a contrite and humble spirit. When you get down to revive the spirit of the humble and revive the heart of the contrite ones. It's a humbling thing to think about God. It's an amazing thing and often it is a very silencing thing to me. I just sit there with my hand over my mouth as I journey beyond this old landscape. And heartbroken from time to time, I lie beneath the cross because of what it cost my Savior for me. And that old thief, railing, reviling, casting in his teeth on the Lord Jesus. Yet he saw a suffering, bleeding Lord. Now, how do you go from that to Him being Lord? I don't know. I've got a good idea within my own heart, but it's not expressible. So all of a sudden, in an instant, his view, excuse me, his view of the Lord has changed. Children, I hope you'll walk out with a desire just to get your feet off this old ground occasionally, and see our God and you that are not saved, that you can one day find on that cross, that's my salvation. Lord keep you, bless you and draw you that you might run after him.