The Thief on the Cross (Part 3)

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ, based on the theme in Galatians 2, verse 5, where the apostle Paul said, "'But we did not yield in subjection to them "'for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel "'would remain with you.'".

In short, if you like smooth, watered-down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn't for you. By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we're called by the divine trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her king.

Here's our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth.

The Show’s Slogan and a New Series on the Thief on the Cross

Welcome to No Compromise Radio ministry. I'm your host, and my name is Mike Abendroth, and on this show, we have a little slogan. If you've listened for a while, you know the slogan, and that slogan is, always biblical, because that's our desire, always provocative.

Hey, it's radio, always in that order. And if we were provocative, first and biblical second, I don't think we'd quite have it down rightly. Is that the way to say it? Is that the way to use an adverb?

Actually, growing up in Nebraska, I acquired quite a few little idiosyncratic speech behaviors, and I'll blame my parents and the Omaha Public School District. But then I had to study Greek and Hebrew, and I learned a lot about English, so I actually took Spanish, too.

I think I remember pluperfects in Spanish, and sometimes I need to speak Spanish, but not very often. Clatter, okay, C. Okay, so today on No Compromise Radio, I wanna make a couple quick announcements.

I've announced this quite a few times. Don't forget the book. We still have some copies left at the discount price for the publisher's discount, author's discount, rather, Sovereignty and Supremacy of King Jesus, Bowing to the Gracious Despot.

That is to say, I wrote a book about Jesus is a king, and when you think of God, do you ever think of him as a king? What kind of monarch? Weak monarch or a very strong monarch? And what are the implications of God as king?

And so we have this book here. Let's see. What does Steve Lawson say in the back? I wholeheartedly endorse this book and strongly encourage you to carefully read its message. You will find this book to be an invaluable resource.

Steve Lawson, well, there you have it. So today on No Compromise, we're continuing a series that I'm doing on the thief on the cross. Now, I don't really like to say the thief on the cross when I stop and think about it.

I should be saying something like Christ and the criminal, Christ and the thief. The thief on the cross by himself would just remain on the cross. The thief on the cross dying by himself would have no hope.

Contrary to what people say at funerals today, especially here in New England, so-and-so died and they're in heaven just because they died. It's salvation by death. How do you get to heaven? Well, you just die, because everybody goes.

It's this latent universalism where everybody seems to go. Compounded by religious people who say as long as you're baptized and original sin is gone, we know that Jim is in heaven because of his baptism.

So the thief on the cross, whatever religious thing he had done, and then now he's going to die, left to himself, he would not gain heaven. He would not have access to heaven because he has Adam's sin credited to his account by God's eternal wise decree.

And he also has his own sin that he's been sinning. And so he needs the Christ next to him on the cross to save him. And so when you say thief on the cross, it's kind of shorthand, but it almost bugs me when I hear it come out of my mouth too, because I don't like to say the gospel of Matthew, the good news of Matthew.

Well, it's the good news through Matthew, I get that. It's the good news through Luke. It's the good news through Mark, through John. But the old Bibles were right, and probably some of the newer ones say the same thing, but we just condense everything.

It is the gospel according to Matthew. Matthew records it. And so it's the gospel according to Matthew because it is the gospel of Christ Jesus and his mercy, his grace, his faithfulness, his love alone.

So today on No Compromise Radio, Christ and the criminal, part three. So you can pull up the other shows. If you go to iTunes, you can pull them up there, or if you want to go to No Compromise Radio site, we've got a crack staff and they're updating the site regularly.

Some cool pictures. You can see Joyce Meyer's picture there. Not advertising positively for her. You can see Vance Havner's face. What are some of the newer ones? I don't know, maybe Elephants in Rooms, Pachyderms, the pachyderm in the palace.

So we are No Compromise Radio and we are from Bethlehem Bible Church. I'm sitting in my study today. Surrounded by all my friends. That is to say, my dead friends. That is to say, the books written by people who are dead.

Those are a lot of my friends. So I think that's good for a pastor to have a lot of dead friends because it's hard to get a live one these days in gospel ministry. We've talked at length about how in Luke 23, where our passage is, Christ and the criminal on the cross, that one of the lessons we learned is that salvation changes people right away.

This is, upon justification, you are regenerated and you're made new and you're a new creature in Christ and you begin to take baby steps to show that very thing. Even immature Christians act like Christians because after all, they've been not only declared righteous in God's court, as it were, but they are changed.

They are regenerated and when sanctification, sanctification begins at justification. So there's lots of different ways to parse that. Number two, Christ has the power and willingness to save sinners.

And we said last time, we are very, very glad that God has a willingness to save sinners. God has a free will and he's free to do whatever he wants. Even his will is bound. It's almost, I'd hate to say that, but his will is bound to his nature.

So his will would never allow him to do any kind of sin or any unrighteous deed at all. But he does have a free will and that will is to do whatever he pleases. And if he was so pleased, could condemn everybody in Adam.

After all, that would be just and that would be holy and that would be right and no one could ever say, what did you do? And remember with the angels, the angels sinned. One third of them did when Satan fell and there's no plan of rescue.

There is no gospel or good news for angels who are fallen. The only slight bit of news that might be for the bad angels, the corrupt angels, the evil angels, would be you're going to be doomed a little bit later.

That's the only possible good news that could come from them. And so we are glad that God has the power to save sinners, but he also has the willingness because he could have the power, but not the willingness, but he has both.

So we serve a wonderful Savior who saves sinners like us. And so the third lesson we're going to look at today is that when it comes to salvation, a salvation can't be earned, nor can it be demanded. God, save me.

God, you must save me. God, I now allow you to save me. God, I've done my part, repent and believe, and now I'm going to let you save me. Somehow thinking that faith, repentance, cause salvation versus the biblical view that teaches that repentance and faith and everything else comes from salvation that's been caused by God.

And as a result of that said salvation, you now respond. So in other words, God causes your salvation, 1 Peter 1, God causes you to be born again. Second chapter of Colossians, God made you alive together with him.

Ephesians chapter two, God made you alive. Salvation is done by God. And when it's done by God, then those people who are the recipients of God's free and distinguishing grace, those people respond always with repentance.

They change their mind about sin and Jesus, et cetera. And they believe, they trust. It's not just in knowledge anymore of intellectual facts. It's not just a scent, I believe those facts, but it's a real trust.

It's volitional, it's from the will. And so when it comes to salvation, salvation is not caused by faith. The causing agent, if you want to look at Ephesians, it's not you're saved because of faith. It's you're saved through faith.

The writer making sure that faith does not become a salvific thing. It's not become a work. Your faith does not save you. The work of Christ Jesus saves you. And then you say, I have nothing to bring to the table.

I take God's word for what he has said it to be, and I believe it. And that is a result of what God is doing in your life. It's not the cause. And so I find it interesting that in Luke 23, 42, and this thief was saying, Jesus, remember me when you come in your kingdom.

Isn't that fascinating? We can learn a lot as we see this thief, not demanding, not saying I'm a good person, not saying I've earned it, not saying this is my religious pedigree, and this is what I've done or haven't done.

I've done more good than I've done bad. He doesn't say any of that. He throws himself on the mercy of the court. And that's real salvation. When you think of the parable in Luke 18, what do you think of?

You think of the Pharisee who basically prays to himself, and then you have the tax gather, and he throws himself on the mercy of God. Of course, we tell people to repent and believe, but I've told people before, throw yourself on the mercy of God and ask him to save you, to beg him to save you, to say, Lord, I know you save sinners like me in the past, and I just ask you, please, would you save me?

Would you make me new? Would you grant me faith? I don't believe like I should, but would you help my unbelief? That is exactly what's happening here in Luke 23, 42, casting himself on the Savior's grace.

He does not ask for a place of honor. He doesn't demand anything out of Jesus. He knows that Jesus is the King of the Jews, just like the placard says above his head, this is Jesus, King of the Jews. He knows that, he understands.

God the Father has been drawing him, and now he responds with, please, remember me. He's asking for favor, he's asking for grace. He's not just saying, don't forget about me, but when somebody is remembering in the Bible, often, let's just back up a little bit and think about it.

When God remembered Noah, he just didn't say, oh yeah, Noah, I forgot about Noah. No, he did something about it. That's what remembering means. When you have communion, the Lord's Supper, do this in what?

Remembrance of me. And so, that's the real rededication service for the Christian. It's not going up to the aisle, up the aisle to the altar, where there shouldn't be an altar because we don't slay things anymore.

It's when you have the communion service, and you're saying, I'm remembering Jesus' life and death in my place, and resurrection, and soon return, and in light of that, God, I want to turn up my obedience.

I'd like to increase my devotion. God, grant me these things. And so, here, remember me. Please remember me. And when it comes to salvation, this thief knew that Jesus held all the proverbial cards when it comes to salvation.

It's not, I'll do this, and I'll let you, and I contribute my faith, and you contribute the grace, and we'll meet halfway, and we're synergistic, doing things together, you and me, some Arminian, semi-Pelagian, no, not at all.

Jesus is the author and perfecter of our faith, Hebrews 12, verse two, and pretty much that thief did exactly what Hebrews says, fixing our eyes on Jesus. This thief knows there's no hope without Jesus.

This thief understands there's hell to pay without Jesus. This particular thief grasped the idea that if I'm going to get grace, Jesus must, like a king, hold out His proverbial scepter and say, you can come into my presence.

Titus 3, verse five says, He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His, what? Mercy. God, be merciful to me, a sinner. If you're not a Christian today, and you just happen to listen, or you happen to have a different faith system, and you don't believe in what the Bible teaches about grace alone, and faith alone, and Christ alone, the scriptures alone, and the glory of God alone, and you're saying to yourself, well, I like to listen, it's interesting, or I don't like to listen, I don't like to hear what I'm hearing, but then I kind of like that, you can yell at me on the radio.

If you're not a believer in any way, shape, or form, or you think you're a believer, I don't think there's anything wrong with saying, you know, Lord, I'm unsure of my salvation, I'm unsure of my state before you, would you please, if I'm not saved, would you save me?

I remember S. Lewis Johnson saying that he was unsure of his salvation when he was first saved, and so he said, I think he must have been 25, 26 years old, he went into his bedroom and kneeled down and said, Lord, you said to come to you, all who are weak and heavy laden, and I think I've believed before, I think I've repented, and I think I am your child, but if I haven't come to you already, I'm coming now.

By your grace, I'm coming now. If I haven't already believed, I'm believing now. And then S. Lewis said he never questioned his salvation ever since, and so we have to understand that we offer nothing but our sin, and Jesus is a great Savior, and when you see Christ and the criminal on the cross in Luke 23, you see a great illustration of someone casting themselves at the foot of the cross of Christ Jesus.

Please save me. Have you done that? Have you done that? Well, today on No Compromise Radio, we're looking at the thief next to Jesus, the great Savior on the cross. One thief was a scoundrel, and this thief, actually, was a scoundrel too, both of them were.

Both of them were casting and hurling insults, and yet God the Father began to work in the one, and he began to realize his need for a Savior, and he began to realize there's only one Savior. This thief is no longer saying things that the other people around him were saying.

Save yourself. If you're the king of the Jews, save yourself and then save us. No, he knew he deserved hell, and he knew that Jesus alone, maybe he had learned about him earlier, maybe he had heard someone preaching to him, maybe there's other things going on right then and there, but he knows enough about Jesus to realize he is the king of the Jews.

And if you want to get to heaven today, there's no thing that you can do, nothing you can do. You have to cast yourself on the mercy of God, and you have to say, you know, it's not by the works of the law that I'm going to be justified in God's sight.

If I want to be called not guilty, if I want to be declared not guilty like a judge declares someone not guilty, then it's going to have to be by the works of Christ and me trusting in that, because by the works of the law, no flesh shall be justified in God's sight.

Now, you might be justified in the side of your church, the side of your children, the side of your parents, the side of society, the side of the government. You might be declared good, right, upright, holy, a good citizen, a good dad, a good mom, a good child, but you are not going to be declared holy, upright, just, or anything else in God's sight by you being good, because you're not good.

That's the issue, you're not good. And we know you know that you're not good. Everyone knows they're a sinner. To what degree and to whom they sin against, that might be another story. But God has given you a conscience, and deep down inside, you know, you know that all is not right.

Now, maybe you've so seared your conscience that you think somehow that you're the end and you're the measuring stick and you're the plumb line and you're everything that the media says that you are, and you're at the top of your game, you've got a lot of money, you've got a great marriage, you've got great kids, got a great house, you've got a great future, a great 401k.

What good is that going to do on the day you die? The wages of sin is death and you're going to die. And then what? Then it's too late, my friend. Then it's too late to say anything except I now receive the penalty, do me.

That is frightening. This is a world that is just so full of busybodies that they never stop and think about eternity. I know that was the case for me. Before I got saved, I was too busy to think about hell.

I think C .S. Lewis has got a good chapter in his screw tape letters about that very thing. And, you know, the demons are keeping people busy with all kinds of other stuff, including even religion. But to just stop and think.

At my home now, we haven't had power for, if you count part of a day as a whole day, six days since Saturday, no power. Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and today is Thursday. And so we have no power because of the ice storm.

So I was down in Virginia, did a conference, came back to no power. The kids huddled up 53 degrees in the house. They were fine. And so what am I talking about? I'm talking about no power. It's been good to just sit and think.

The electronic gadgets, so they work for a while and then they have no power. We do have a generator so we can power things up, but there's just more time to think. There's more time to ponder eternity.

There's more time to say, I better consider my soul. You walk around today in an airport, as I did just a few days ago, and everybody's got their iBuds in and their Dr. Dre headphones, and their Bose Noise Reducting headphones.

Speakers, reduction, deflection, cannibalism. They are tuned in. And basically when it comes to spiritual matters, they are tuned out. And so it is nice to just sit and think. Just sit and think for a minute.

What's gonna happen when they bury you? I'm 51 years old. My dad lived to be 55. My one grandfather lived to be 92. The other one, 70. So who knows, put all that together, maybe I've got another 10 years, 15 years.

I could die today. So then what? I'm not middle-aged anymore. Middle-age is 35 if you're a man, 40 if you're a woman. I'm past middle-age. It's going to be there soon. People are gonna gather around my grave and some of the listeners will throw eggs.

Many of the other listeners will probably say, oh, he's off the air. My family will be around thinking, you know what? We're glad we believe that the Bible is true and there is the promise for those who die in the Lord, go to be with the Lord, absent from the body, present with the Lord, 2 Corinthians 5, to live as Christ, to die again, Philippians 1.

But I'm gonna die soon and so are you. And it's especially tricky when you're young and you say, you know what? I've got a long life ahead of me. But you don't know what's gonna happen. Then you go to that doctor and he puts you in one of those small little outfits that don't really go down as low as they need to go.

And he's got the white coat and he comes in with the ashen face and he gives you the results of the tests. That's when you really need to make sure you understand God is a great savior, the sovereign king over everything because what are you going to do without such a God?

I'll tell you what you're going to do. You'll suffer alone, you'll die alone and then you'll be judged alone. Now here, with the love of God, with the eternal love of God, God, the Father, God, the Son and God, the Spirit decided to rescue people like you, to rescue them by having Jesus die on the cross for their sins, to have Jesus live a life that they could never live, to have this great transaction work, be effective by the Father showing that effectiveness by raising Jesus from the dead.

And then, for those who are trusting in Christ Jesus, those who are born again, those believers in Christ Jesus, we have the Spirit of God called the Comforter to be with us when we're dying, when we're suffering.

We aren't going to die alone, whether the family's around or not, we're going to have the Spirit of God in us as we die and then we will be in the presence of God forever rejoicing because eternal life starts when you believe now and God grants to His people a saving faith, a faith that endures till the day they die.

There may be bumps, there may be questions, there may be issues, there may be tragedies, there may be suffering, there may be cancers, but this faith endures till the end and then it's glory. And then God, remember me in your kingdom.

God, remember me in paradise. God, take me there and then Jesus, the faithful one, is not going to let one of His chosen ones fall through the cracks. He, with great power and a willingness to save, saves those to the end.

Can you imagine you're going to meet that thief in heaven? You're going to meet that thief. And actually, the more I think about it, if you're not a Christian, you're going to meet another thief. Now, I don't know if you'll ever meet other people in hell, are there just screaming at you and it's extra torment or it's isolation.

I don't know the whole thing, but one thief, at least from a deduction in the scripture, one thief died in his sins. I think that's a pretty safe deduction. And the other thief, it's not a deduction, it's a truth.

He went to heaven. And so what a great picture. You have Jesus not dying for His own sins, dying for the sins of the one thief while the other thief was castigating Jesus and calling Him all kinds of things along with the rulers and the soldiers and everyone else.

And so today in No Compromise Radio Ministry, we're talking about the thief on the cross. And actually, when it comes to reality, the Bible teaches that everyone here listening is a thief and is a murderer and is an adulterer and is a rotten sinner.

Because if you've thought about things in your mind, you've done them. That's Jesus, that's the Sermon on the Mount. And we know this sin is against a great holy God, so how can we ever stand? How can we get a not guilty verdict when the evidence is against us?

The prosecuting lawyer is going to prosecute us to the nth degree, they have all the evidence, they've got the motive, they've got everything, and we're gonna walk into a courtroom and be escorted out, except it's forever.

And yet suddenly there comes an advocate, there comes someone who says, "'Not guilty because I'll take the guilt.'". That's pretty amazing, that's wonderful. And so today on No Compromise Radio, you need to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.

You need to repent of your sins and trust in Christ's perfect, wonderful atonement, the atonement that was so great it couldn't hold Jesus from the dead, up from the grave he arose. You can write us at info at nocompromiseradio .com, go to iTunes, Facebook, Twitter, et cetera,.

Nocompromiseradio .com. No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life-transforming power of God's word through verse-by-verse exposition of the sacred text.

Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 1015 and in the evening at six. We're right on route 110 in West Boylston. You can check us out online at bbchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.

The thoughts and opinions expressed on No Compromise Radio do not necessarily reflect those of WVNE, its staff or management.