The Thief on the Cross (Part 2)

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. Welcome to No Compromise Radio ministry. Today, let's see, this is the fourth show today that I'm taping, and so usually when

I get done taping or teaching, I'm pretty tired, so I guess I'm gonna feel like I preached after this. That's okay,

I like to do it, and I'm encouraged by the responses to No Compromise Radio. As I look back over the last two years and a couple months that we've been on the radio,

WVNE 760, and then on iTunes, et cetera, I've been very, very pleased and very, very thankful to the

Lord. I didn't know how many people would listen. At the time, I could've probably cared less about Facebook friends and all that kind of stuff, but anyway,

I'm just encouraged by those who write, those who listen, those who come to the church and say, we hear you on the radio, so we thought we'd come to the church.

They usually don't stay, I'm just kidding, I'm just kidding. Actually, the retention rate, if there was such a thing, that we tracked, it would definitely be higher for those that have heard the show first and then attended the church versus those that did not hear the show first and then attended, so you kinda know what to expect by the time you get here if you listen already, and so if you have a

Bible -teaching church that preaches the free grace of Christ Jesus and talks about sin and has church discipline and has godly leadership, et cetera,

I want you to just hunker down and stay right there and serve, that's the goal. If you're at a liberal church and you have the philosophy of, well, you know what,

I love everybody here and maybe God will use me as an instrument for change, you need to pull up the article written by Robert Godfrey called

The Myth of Influence, The Myth of Influence, and so most people, they're new

Christians, they're more immature Christians, they haven't been taught well yet, and they say, you know,

I'm gonna stay in my, stay in the Catholic church, stay in a Lutheran church, Methodist church,

I'll stay in this, that, or the other because I know now the truth. I listen to John MacArthur and R .C.

Sproul and Alistair Begg and I've been taught the truth and I want our church to teach that same truth and instead of me just leaving,

I'll try to help and you need to read The Myth of Influence and certainly if you're at a leadership position, that is to say you're an elder or you're a pastor, then you can really influence people and that would be good but if you're just at a church where you have no influence and your first thoughts are,

I love these people, I wanna help them, read The Myth of Influence and I think you'll end up saying, you know what?

It's time for me to go and there's a godly way to leave and all that stuff and of course, you don't have to come here, that's not my point but the point is, especially if you're the dad, you're the husband, lead your family and you not to stay at some liberal watered down church and say my,

I get fed during the day by listening to VNE and other people on the internet but on Sunday, I get milk toast.

Don't do that because then you, the man, you, the leader are the milk toast, you're the one and so make a decision.

Rise up, oh men of God, do the right thing, do the difficult thing, shepherd your family through that and say, do you know what?

The most important thing about a local church is how they handle the word of God and if they handle it improperly, if they don't talk about sin and grace and guilt, grace and gratitude as the

Heidelberg Confession would talk about, three categories of the sin of man and Jesus the

Savior, if they're not preaching the Bible, then what are you doing? You're telling your family a lot and you're giving your family a message and the message is, you know what?

The local church, yeah, we'll just supplement. Now, if you live out in the middle of nowhere and there's no other church, then we have other issues and maybe you need to move but I'm off on a little digression.

Transgression, maybe some would call it but I'll call it a digression. So this is No Compromise Radio Ministry.

We're coming from West Boylston, live, beautiful downtown Burbank, I mean,

West Boylston. I used to live right by Burbank and so that was kind of fun. My first two kids were born in Burbank, St.

Joe's Hospital. Actually, Joseph, a saint, I think he was and then my next two kids were born at St.

Vincent's Hospital, one at the old St. V's and one at the new St. V's. So what does that do to their self -esteem?

They're born, two are born in Worcester, two are born in Burbank. Where would you rather be born? Well, if you're from here, you wanna be born in Worcester.

If you live in California for a long time like I did, you probably think California is the place they ought to be.

Maybe some of you are saying, well, why don't you just go back to California? You know, matter of fact, I think I will.

And then I'm gonna tape the shows in California in my Burbank studio and then I'm gonna pay WV &E to play them so that you will still be haunted by this voice.

No, I don't think I'll do that either. God brought us out here in 1997,

Kim and I, my daughter Haley was five, my son Luke was five months probably and although I don't believe

God still speaks today outside of his word, I can look back in time for all my charismatic friends listening, you want

God to lead you and guide you and talk to you and give you messages and doors opened and closed and all these kinds of things and burnings in your bosom and peaceful feelings about it,

I got a piece about it. We are to trust the Lord with all our heart and lean not on our own understanding.

In all our ways, acknowledge him and he'll make our paths straight. That's how we live the Christian life. We walk by faith and not by sight.

But then looking back, that's where we see God's wonderful, marvelous plan.

I'm actually looking to my left right now. That's where we see that, where you see the providence of God guiding you and then you say,

I can see how God brought us here. At the time I thought, well, how do you make a decision? Scripture, wisdom, desire.

Scripture, what does the scripture say? Well, since I've been saved and God has gifted me and I have a call to ministry confirmed by the elders,

I think I should go minister. Wisdom, well, it better not take too big of a church because I don't know how to shepherd 2 ,000 people to start.

So let's pick a smaller congregation, 100, 150. Where would that be? English speaking, send your resumes out, only a couple right back, blah, blah, blah.

And then desire, well, do you have a desire to go? I don't know much about New England before. I've been to Boston a couple of times, but I know they need the gospel there.

And even if I consider my time in New England, which is 14 years now, a time of a missionary work, then that's what

I'll do because I've been bought with a price. I tell my kids all the time, we're here because God wants us to be here.

And when we are supposed to go someplace else, then that'll be patently obvious for us to go and probably patently obvious for everyone else around me to notice as well.

I don't send out resumes, not trying to use this place as a stepping stone to a larger church with more money and more secretaries, blah, blah, blah.

It is faithful preach, faithful preach. When you're not faithful, God still is faithful. When you're not doing well at prayer,

God still has been faithful to pray. Right hand of God interceding for us now.

And the list goes on. So when it comes to leading and guiding and what do we do with ministry,

I just look backwards and say, see, God is faithful. Here I raise my Ebenezer. God has helped us thus far.

It's easy to see the providential sovereign hand of God leading you to where you are now. Think about how you met your spouse.

Think about your kids or how you don't have kids, but want kids. And the list could go on and on and on. And even how

God has ordained it, as I look back in time, that he would give us the radio studio, that he would give us the radio station, that he would, we don't own the station, although that could be a goal of mine, taking that over.

So Manny, watch out. You can just look back and say, you know what? This is exactly the way things are supposed to work.

And this is what we're all about. And so my responsibility, my job, my privilege is just be faithful to talk about the free, sovereign, distinguishing grace of Christ Jesus, the only

God. And if you don't believe in him for your salvation and you are not born again, then today's the day.

You have a eternity of hell to pay for your sins that you've sinned against a holy God. And you don't know the half of it, how holy

God is and how sinful you are and how long hell is. And you need to look to the only one who'll save.

You don't get saved by dying. You don't get saved by being good. You don't get saved by being baptized. You don't get saved by religiosity.

Those are all fig leaves. They don't cover anything. You need to be changed on the inside, from the inside out. So how do you change yourself from the inside?

You can't. So how do you bury yourself again? You can't. So then you ask God, God have mercy upon me, a sinner.

I'm a sinner and I have bucked the system my whole life. And so would you grant me faith?

Would you grant me repentance? I know I'm supposed to believe in Jesus. Make it real. That kind of thinking.

So today we're looking at the thief on the cross part two. Luke 23 is a stimulating passage that talks about Jesus on the cross and how he interacted with the people there, the rulers there, but most specifically how he reacted with the thieves, the criminals.

One on the left, one on the right. And they tried to make it an ignomious, ignomious death. And Jesus here, the man who they think can't save himself and want to be saved themselves.

They don't understand what's going on until the light goes on. And God turns on the light and the one thief.

And according to the other accounts, throwing insults at Jesus, now protecting Jesus. And so that was the passage in Luke 23, the thief on the cross, which

I read last time and then said, you know what, let's have some lessons from the thief on the cross, what we can learn from this passage.

It said, the other answered and rebuked him saying, do you not even fear God since you are under the same sentence of condemnation?

And we indeed justly, we are receiving what we deserve for our deeds, but this man has done nothing wrong.

Jesus, remember me when you come in your kingdom. And Jesus said to him, truly, I say to you today, you shall be with me in paradise.

And so last week I said, when God saves you, you are a different person. Salvation changes the sinner.

And now we have the sinner, instead of railing against Jesus, sticking up for Jesus, admitting his own sin, taking

Jesus at his word, believing in him. In other words, that there's a kingdom to come and saving faith teaches all that.

It teaches you to admit your guilt before God and how you're helpless to save yourself. And it teaches you that you deserve justice.

It teaches you to confess Jesus as Lord. It gives you faith. That's what salvation does.

When you come into your kingdom, what faith that thief had, that is amazing faith.

Listen to Lightfoot, a great faith that could see Christ's kingdom through his cross and grave and death.

And when there was so little sign of a kingdom and pray to be remembered in that kingdom.

And so you have the first confessor of that kingdom right there, right there.

One man called him the first apologist for his oppressed innocence. He didn't see the thief, didn't see

Jesus raise Jairus's daughter from the dead. He didn't see Jesus heal the woman who had a flow of blood for 12 years.

He didn't see Jesus cast the demons into the swine. He didn't see Jesus feed the 5 ,000 men.

He didn't see Jesus feed the 4 ,000 men. He didn't see Jesus heal the leper. He didn't see

Jesus on the Sermon of the Mount wonderfully teaching and preaching.

No, he saw Jesus dying on a cross. But what great faith he had.

And actually this faith, the lesson learned here that's still not first lesson learned about how salvation changes you.

Once you get saved, you begin to love other people. Don't you? Certainly Jesus loved other people.

And then as Christians, little Christ as it were, followers of Christ to be technical, you begin to love other people.

And he was concerned about other people. He was concerned about other people like that other thief.

Don't you fear God? You know, we deserve this. He could be saying repent and you believe too.

That's the gist of it. Here this thief has true repentance.

When God saves you, you want to tell other people because you know then they need to be saved.

Isn't that one of the first signs of your Christian faith is that you want to go tell your friends and relatives, your spouse, your kids, your mom, your dad, your friends, hey,

I've been forgiven. Let me tell you about Jesus, how he can make you born again too. And they of course look at you like you're a

Hare Krishna at the LAX airport. But nonetheless, this is just what happens to the thief on the cross.

How about the woman at the well? Remember she went running? Come see a man who told me all the things that I've done.

This is not the Christ, is it? You know, this is the son of God. This is a son of God.

Paul gets saved and what does he do? He goes around telling other people because he loves God and wants to be faithful and he loves them.

The second lesson we can learn from the thief on the cross is that Christ has both the power and willingness to save sinners.

He has both the power and the willingness to save sinners. Aren't we glad? What if Jesus went around and said that he is the only savior but he didn't have the power to save?

What if Jesus said that he's the unique savior, there's no salvation to anyone else and he just decides not to save?

Can you imagine? We don't deserve to be saved and God could have decided like the angels who fell and he did not give them a plan of redemption.

He could have done the same for us and justice would have been done. The holy law would have been upheld. God's honor would have been vindicated and his glory would have been manifested.

Yet, can you imagine? God has a willingness to save. He's by nature a savior.

Isn't that wonderful? God's a creator, yes. God's the judge, yes. And God's a savior.

He's a saving God. You read in the pastoral epistles, 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, Titus, how often

Paul tells those two men, Timothy and Titus, God our savior, because pastors need to be reminded in a world full of sin and sinners,

God still saves those kind of people. Can you imagine Jesus has time to deal with a thief on the cross?

He didn't say, don't bother me, I'm dying for sinners, can't you see that? He is, as Isaiah 63 says, mighty to save.

One man said, this is music in the ears of all who hear it. Luke 23, 43. And he said to him, truly

I say to you, today you shall be with me in paradise. I'm willing and I've got the power to do it.

That is amazing. How much more hopeless could you get? How much more helpless could you get?

Here's a wicked man getting punished on a cross for what he deserved to get, and Jesus saves him.

That guy might've even been a murderer. He's certainly a lawbreaker. And here, this man can't move his hand, he can't move his other hand, he can't move his feet.

One breath away from eternal hell. And then what?

One writer said, if ever there was a case that seemed lost, gone, and past recovery, it was his.

If ever there was a child of Adam whom the devil made sure of as his own, it was this man.

But God, but God, Ephesians 2 says, being rich in mercy. Romans 5, 8,

God demonstrates, he makes conspicuous his love for us. Christ dies for sinners. Can you imagine

Jesus was dying for that thief right there? Lived a life of perfection that was going to be credited to that thief's account.

Then that great transaction where God would see the thief as never stolen, but always working hard, always being trustworthy, always praising

God instead of blaspheming. God is willing to save, and God is powerful enough to save.

And so, let's stop just for a minute. If you're listening today on No Compromise Radio and you have a loved one who is not a

Christian, and you've prayed, and you've cried, and you've evangelized, and you've racked your head up against, you've racked your brain and put your head up against the wall, thinking eternity is a very long time, and death is certain for this person, and I would love this person to be saved, but I can't save them.

I try to save them, but that doesn't work. And is there any hope? It doesn't seem like there's any hope.

I've evangelized and proselytized, and they don't want to hear it anymore. Cheer up.

Take heed, Christian. Christ is willing to save sinners, and He saved worse than your family member, and He is powerful enough to do it, powerful enough to go against the person's self -imposed, bad logic, against the person's sin, against the person's depravity.

Jesus Christ can save in the middle of all that. He can save the worst sinner, and I'm sure He saved worse sinners than your family member, but even if your family member is the worst sinner of all time,

Jesus Christ can save. That is why I love Ephesians 3, verse 20.

Now to Him who is able to do exceeding abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us, to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever, amen.

What a friend sinners have in Jesus, mighty to save.

Listen to this quote. In the day when He seemed most weak, Jesus showed that He was a strong deliverer.

In the hour when His body was wracked with pain, He showed that He could feel tenderly for others. At the time when

He Himself was dying, He conferred on a sinner eternal life.

That reminds me of Hebrews 7. He is able to save forever those who draw near to God through Him since He always lives to make intercession for them.

Here's this man who stopped blaspheming. He turned to the Lord to pray as it were, remember me and God answers that prayer.

God answers that prayer this very day. Today you will be with me in paradise.

Remember me and God says, the son says, you'll be with me. Be with me, not in some mystical region, not in purgatory, but in paradise.

Wow, that is amazing. That is amazing love. How can it be?

And so Jesus knows those two men are gonna die and here we have reassurance from Jesus to the penitent thief.

He's not only gonna be in the kingdom, but he's gonna be in paradise with Jesus. That is just like Jesus, mighty to save.

Spurgeon used to say, there's only one deathbed conversion in the Bible. One deathbed illustration of repentance, the thief on the cross.

And that is he said for two reasons. Number one, there's only one illustration of a deathbed repentance so that you might not be presumptuous.

So you don't say, you know what, I'll get right with God later. I'll wait till I have a few kids and let me sow my own oats for a while and then

I'll get down to spiritual things. I'll get cracking later spiritually. I've got a big life to live and you know what?

You think you're gonna live your life the whole time in sin and then at the end just ask

God to forgive you? A, that's foolish. B, you don't know that maybe today God will call you to die.

You don't know those things, so don't act foolishly. Don't act presumptuously. Look at the Bible and see how many people died, got saved just before they went to their deathbed.

Who were on their deathbed? One. And then also Spurgeon said, but there's another reason for deathbed repentance just being one in the

Bible and that is so that you'd have hope. So that when you have your friend in the ICU or your mother's dying and she's, you know, trusted in her baptism her whole life and how she's been good and you come alongside and say, grandma, mom, dad, friend, there's free grace.

You know, you can have all your sins forgiven if you would renounce your sin, renounce your religions, renounce your good works, renounce your religiosity, renounce all your good deeds, basically renounce yourself as Jesus would say, when you're sick and tired of yourself, pick up your cross and follow

Christ Jesus. That is, believe in what Jesus did. Jesus, the God -man identified with us as being the

Son of Man and also has a lot of righteousness to give, an infinite amount, because He is God as well.

And He's got enough righteousness to give to you. And to be righteous in heaven and to be in heaven at all, you need the righteousness of God.

And you can have the righteousness of God through faith, not because of your faith, but through faith. And so stop believing in yourselves and take

God at His word, that if you look to the Son who was lifted up and raised on a cross to be the

Lamb of God, the substitutionary sin -bearer, instead of you being punished,

Jesus punished in your place. If you would believe in such a God and such a transaction, the wages of sin is death and there's no forgiveness unless there's blood shed.

If you believe that was on your behalf, in your stead, that He said what He meant and meant what

He said and you believed what He said and take that by faith, that's what faith is. I believe what you said to be true.

I take it by faith. I count what that person says to be as true.

Actually, amen comes from the word. Yes, it is true. So be it, that's true. And you say amen to what

God did at Calvary and look to Him with faith, a faith full of repentance and trust and knowledge and assent and a clinging.

Then God says, then you certainly will be saved. So when it comes to deathbed repentance, why don't you call on your family at the hospital to believe?

It's not too late. It's not too late to preach the gospel if you're alive and if you're listening today, then what are you waiting for?

What kind of game are you playing? How could you listen every single day to WVNE and say, you know what, I'll wait till later.

Jesus is good, but I'm not gonna believe now. That is defiance, that's what that is.

That shows you do need a savior. That shows that your life is, to quote the crazy

AA groups, your life has become unmanageable. How about your life has become a sinful mess, a soup full of sins, transgressions, iniquities, perversions, and just sin.

You are sin incarnate, basically. And then to think God has the power and the willingness to save a sinner like you, that is great news.

That's the gospel. That's why the gospel must be proclaimed. Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

Look to the atoning sacrifice that Jesus Christ made on behalf of sinners like you. Turn from your sins, repent, believe in this great gospel.

Jesus, the King of the Jews, the King of the universe. Jesus the creator,

Jesus the judge, Jesus the savior. He is the only way of salvation. If there were two saviors,

I'd preach both. There's only one. So look to Jesus and live. Turn from your sins and trust in Christ Jesus, the

Lord alone. 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.