The Thief on the Cross (Part 4)

Thanks for tuning in to No Compromise Radio with pastor and author, Dr. Mike Avendrop. Today on No Compromise Radio, we'll be hearing Pastor Mike open the Word of God in a recent message he preached at Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston, Massachusetts.

Now let's join Pastor Mike in progress as he preaches through the Scriptures verse by verse with no compromise.

Humanly Speaking, No One Can Judge God’s Choice

True or false? Man is in no position to judge God for what He does. Listen to the words of Jesus in Matthew 20. Is it not lawful for me to do what I wish with what is my own? Or is your eye envious because I am generous?

Is there injustice with God regarding choosing Jacob over Esau? May it never be. Election, on the other hand, produces awe and worship. God chose that other thief and how did He respond? Worship, honor, thankfulness.

Listen to 2 Thessalonians. But we should always give thanks to God for you, brethren beloved by the Lord, because God has chosen you from the beginning for salvation. And as I said last time, if you are not a Christian and you're saying, am I elect or am I not?

Why don't you settle it right now? Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and that will be a response to your election. Number four, salvation is by faith alone. So believe. Look at verse 42. Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.

Jesus, remember my baptism. Jesus, remember that I was catechized. Jesus, remember my works. What works did the thief have? So far, nothing. What merit? What could he bring to God? He can't even get baptized.

This reminds me of Luke 18. Lord have mercy upon me, the sinner. Nowhere to go but to God. That's what faith alone is. Burdened with sin, empty-handedly going to Christ Jesus, believing His word. Number five, when you die, you are with Christ, so rejoice.

Paradise, Immediate Salvation, and the Thief’s Hope

When you die, you are with Christ, so rejoice. Notice verse 43. Today, you shall be with me in paradise. Now how happy do you think the thief would have been with, today, you'll be with me in purgatory?

Today, you'll be with me in soul sleep. No, Psalm 116 is insightful. Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His godly ones. The Hebrew there is carefully watched over by God is the death of one of His saints.

God's carefully looking over, watching, as the Spirit of God hovered over the waters for creation. It's like the Spirit of God hovering over the death of His godly ones, and here, it's absent from the body, present with the Lord.

For me to live is Christ and to die is what? Gain. I thought about that when I was watching my mother die. I thought, you know what, if I didn't believe what the scriptures teach, death would be horrible, awful, wicked, and final.

There'd be no gain to death, but you think, you know what? Mom didn't want to leave. She didn't want to die, but the second she closed her eyes and that last breath of death went out, gain. Gain over the three kids that were there singing hymns.

Gain over the family. Gain over money. Gain over power. It's all gain. Can you imagine the thief on the cross, naked, ashamed, dying for sins that he committed, and then all of a sudden, dead, and then it's gain.

Take a look at that word paradise, if you would, verse 43. Now it comes from a Persian root word, but it basically means garden. It means park, and over time, the Greeks thought of paradise, park, gardens, as some places wonderful, some place pleasurable, some place full of bliss.

You ever been in the Middle East? Hot, sand, desert, and you go to a little oasis, and you can feel the temperature just drop. Gardens, it would be the same way, fountains, flowers, shrubs. This word in Greek, in Luke 23, when used in the Greek Old Testament, is where we get the word garden of Eden.

The Romans had Elysium. Here we have paradise. It's a pleasure ground. It's a park. Remember when you're a kid, and at least we used to do this before the Xboxes, and people got carpal thumble when they got their thumbs all, I can't even go through an airport anymore.

These people are just walking zigzaggedly, and you think they're drunk, and they're drunk on blackberries is what they're drunk on. Man, of course if I do it, it's okay, but everybody else I don't like.

Sometimes maybe even now you'd say, you know what, we're going to go to the park today. Fun, and play, and when you're older, maybe it's a pretty park with flowers, and sensation, and smells, and you just think, you know what, the park in Victoria, Canada, think, oh, that's wonderful.

It was an idea. It was a concept, so our minds could get ourselves wrapped around the idea of what would heaven be like? How could you describe heaven? You can't describe it, but if you take a picture of one of the greatest things back in those days of pleasure, and just beauty, a park, so he says here, this is a paradise.

Today Means Immediate Salvation, Not a Chronological Delay

Now some people say, well, you know what, the text says today you will be with me in paradise. Today, and do you know, when it comes to today, didn't the creed say, and he descended into hell? Doesn't Colossians 2 say he made victory and triumph over some of the demons?

Doesn't 1 Peter chapter 3 say that his body's on the cross, but his spirit descends and proclaims victory to those who are in Tartarus? Yes, but Jesus isn't trying to talk linear time here. Look if you would with me to Luke 4, 21.

We're going to look at two passages super quickly, but I think this will help you because you can waste a lot of time trying to figure out if today Jesus says he's going to be in paradise, but he didn't ascend to heaven until Sunday, where did he go, what's paradise, what's happening?

Well the point is this. The criminal says, someday I want to be there with you in your kingdom, and Jesus is talking about an immediacy of salvation. That's the thing, and Luke uses this all the time.

Luke 4, 21. I'll show you two cases that Luke uses the word today to stress immediacy of salvation. Luke 4, 21. And he began to say to them, today the scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing. Now flip ahead to Luke 19, 9.

You'll see this theme in Luke, today. Immediacy of salvation. Focusing upon, you want to be saved later, you're going to be saved now. He's not using today as some chronological, within this next two minutes this will happen.

Certainly he will be in heaven one day. Certainly he's going to be with Jesus, and you could call that paradise if you want, but here it seems like it's a place, paradise. Luke 19, 9. And Jesus said to him, today salvation has come to this house, since he also is a son of Abraham, for the son of man came to seek and to save the lost.

Someday save me in your kingdom. Here's the point, and the only point. It's not going to be the remote future, it's going to be now you're saved. Bliss now. So you don't have to say to yourself, well where did his spirit go and all that, because the second you say his body's there and his spirit is going someplace else, you start wrapping your mind around the omnipresent spirit, what's happening.

He's not thinking a linear, today you'll be with me, and now Jesus quick goes up to heaven to drop the guy back off, come back down here, then go back down to hell, proclaim that we won. Once you start thinking that way, you're missing it.

Chapter 4, today. Chapter 19, today. Luke 23, today. You want it later, I'm telling you, you're saved. That's the big point. Paul uses the same word, I was caught up into paradise and heard inexpressible words which a man is not permitted to speak, 2 Corinthians chapter 12 verse 4.

Can you imagine, that's the same word for paradise in Luke 23. Caught up to heaven, to paradise, and I can say things that only kids in Nebraska writing the book Heaven is for Real are allowed to talk about.

That's the biggest farce. If you need to know that heaven's real based on some three-year-old kid in Nebraska, I was right close to that town, and if someone said a better title for that book Heaven is for Real needs to be Kids Say the Darnest Things.

That's a better title. Because when you describe heaven wrongly, A, it's not heaven, B, when Paul went there, he couldn't talk about it, and now you're charging $15 a person to come into the gym in Nebraska to hear about it?

W .B. Henson was going to die, and he was thinking about heaven before he died. Here's what he said, I remember a year ago when the doctor told me, you have an illness from which you won't recover. I walked out to where I live five miles from Portland, Oregon, and looked across at that mountain that I love.

I looked at that river in which I rejoice. I looked at the stately trees that are always God's own poetry to my soul. Then in the evening I looked upon the great sky where God was lighting his lamps, and I said, I may not see you many more times, but mountain, I shall be alive when you're gone.

And river, I shall be alive when you cease running toward the sea. And stars, I shall be alive when you have fallen from your sockets in the great downpulling of the material universe. Today, you will be with me in paradise.

Deathbed Repentance Is a Warning, Not a Presumption

Lesson number six. Lesson number six. As long as you're alive, it's never too late to repent and believe. As long as you're alive, it's never too late to repent and believe. No matter how bad you've been, no matter the sins you've committed, here God saves this person at death's door, at the maw of hell.

One of the dregs of humanity. One of the worst. Riffraff. These are the kind of people we want to lock up and never see again. Spurgeon said this, why is there only one deathbed repentance in the Bible?

Spurgeon said, why only one deathbed repentance? Number one, so you'd have hope. Aren't you glad when you go into the ICU and preach the gospel, you think to yourself, the power of the gospel attended by the spirit of God is powerful enough to save this person on death's door.

Aren't you glad for that? But there's only one for another reason, Spurgeon said, so that's that you don't live your whole life presumptuously saying, right before I die, I'll accept the Lord. A, that's presumption, and B, that makes you say to yourself, power of salvation is within my own power.

You can't save yourself. You can't wait to the end. You can't earn salvation. You can't merit it. Salvation isn't in your own power. Listen to what Doddridge said. Most ungrateful and foolish is the conduct of those who take encouragement from the penitent thief to put off repentance to a dying moment.

He says it's ungrateful and it's foolish. Most ungrateful in perverting the grace of their Redeemer into an occasion of reviewing their provocations against him, and most foolish to imagine that what our Lord did so in a single circumstance is to be drawn into an ordinary precedent.

When I was a kid, I said to myself, before I die, then I'll make it right with Jesus. The elevator's gonna go down, at least I have eight seconds before I hit. Presuming on God, if that's any kind of the attitude that you have, maybe some of the kids here, maybe we have some of the younger kids here, this whole Christianity thing, I know it's good, I know it's right, I know there's a hell, I know that there's eternal damnation, but I want to do my own thing now.

May I try to disavow you of that foolish and ungrateful notion? Today is the day to honor the Lord by believing in his Son. Lesson seven, God grants assurance of salvation, so enjoy your assurance. God grants assurance of salvation.

Assurance of Salvation Through Christ’s Finished Work

He granted the thief salvation and he could know it. John Reisinger writes a lot about salvation and assurance. Here's the issue. If you struggle with your assurance, I guarantee you it goes back to a faulty doctrine of salvation.

It goes back to a faulty doctrine of salvation. Now, we live in a very Roman Catholic area here, of course, and Catholics do not believe you can know for certain unless you're the Virgin Mary or possibly Paul, those are two exceptions, that you can know for sure.

You can hope, Trent will say, but you can't know for sure. Matter of fact, listen to Trent, still effectual now, he's not been rescinded. If anyone says that he will for certain of an absolute and infallible certainty have that great gift of perseverance unto the end, unless he has learned this by special revelation, Paul, let him be accursed.

Can you know for sure you're going to heaven? The answer is yes, you can. Now, there's a false assurance that professors have and some Christians are going to go to heaven even though they don't feel like they are, but you can have assurance.

Assurance isn't necessary for salvation, but you can have a real assurance. How much different is biblical Christianity than Roman Catholicism that calls real assurance, I kid you not, the sin of presumption?

Gregory the Great, 600s, he said it was dangerous. He said this, the greater our sins, the more we must do to make up for them. Whether we have done enough to atone for them, we cannot know until after death.

We can never be sure of success. Seventh century, Gregory the Great says, you know what, it's not desirable and it's kind of dangerous. Then comes the 1500s and Trent says it's a moral sin to know. You say you know you're going, it's a moral sin.

And of course, it makes sense because works righteousness religions never know how much works they righteously need to do to get to heaven. If it's do, do, do, instead of done, done, done, of course it's built into the system.

Show me a Pelagian, semi-Pelagian, Roman Catholic, Christian fundamentalist these days, thinking that somehow it's God and them, are them alone for salvation, then assurance will be distorted. I hope so, I'm going to heaven, but you can't know so.

This is in a Roman Catholic prayer book, sample prayer. I desire by thy grace to make satisfaction for my sins by worthy fruits of penance, and I will accept from thy hands whatever pains, crosses, or sufferings I shall meet with during the remainder of my life, or at my death, as just punishments for my inquiries, begging that they may be united to the sufferings and death of my Redeemer, and sanctified by his passion, in which is all my hope for mercy, grace, and salvation.

You know, I prefer a different hymn. My sin, oh, the bliss of this glorious thought. My sin, not in part, but the whole, is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more. Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, oh, my soul.

You can know for certain, you can be positive that you're going to heaven. A lot different than this kind of prayer for a sick Roman Catholic. Beg that God would accept all thy pains and uneasiness in union with the sufferings of your Savior, Jesus Christ.

Let our fast, we beseech thee, oh, Lord, be acceptable to thee, that by atoning for our sins, they may both make us worthy of thy grace, and bring us to everlasting effects of thy promise. Worthy of grace?

Friends, Protestants and Catholics alike, we are not worthy of grace. Show me someone who's got the wrong doctrine of salvation, and of course, they have the wrong doctrine of assurance. Turn if you would to 2 Timothy chapter 1.

Let's take a look at Paul, now, again, the Catholic community would say this is Paul, and only Paul can know, but he was writing to Timothy for a reason. And I just want you to see how certain Paul was, and if you read 1 John chapter 5, and John chapter 20, you can know for sure that you're going to heaven, because it's about you and your prayer life, your evangelism, your works, then you can't know.

But if it's what God has done in your place on your behalf as a substitute, fully assuaging the wrath of God, fully living a life according to the law that we could never live, then God can hold nothing against us, because it's been punished, and now God sees you even with better righteousness than Adam, with Christ's righteousness.

2 Timothy chapter 1 verse 8, therefore, do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord, nor of me as prisoner, but share in suffering for the gospel by the power of God, who saved us and called us to a holy calling, not because of our works, but because of his own purpose and grace, which he gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began, and which now has been manifest through the appearing of our Savior Christ Jesus, who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel, for which I was appointed a preacher and apostle and teacher, which is why I suffer as I do.

Now look for the word know and persuaded, or maybe it's convinced in your translation. But I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed, and I am convinced, persuaded that he is able to guard until that day which has been entrusted to me.

For I know whom, not some kind of detached things, knowledge about Jesus, facts, I know the person. And when you know the person of Christ, you can definitely have assurance. I was reading this week, and I never knew this, but it happened a long time ago, even if you're a saint in the Roman Catholic Church, you're not secure.

St. Christopher, you ever see St. Christopher in people's cars? They had not technically demoted him from being a saint, but when they discovered that lots of his life was legend, in 1969 the Catholic Church reviewed the saints on the calendar, and they demoted him and dropped him from the calendar feast day.

I thought, it's not technically that he was a saint and he's now an ain't, but close. I thought, you can't even be a saint and be sure. And in 1969, I read about how comedians made fun of the church, taking people off the list, and they sang a song called, When the Saints Come Tumbling Down.

I kid you not, suppression is what it's called. How much differently, listen to this from the gospel according to John. Now, Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book, but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing, you may have life in his name.

Listen to 1 John 5. He who has the Son has life. He who does not have the Son does not have life. These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, in order that you may, what?

Know that you have eternal life. And we know, verse 20, that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding in order that we might know him who is true. And we are in him who is true. In his Son, Jesus Christ, this is the true God and eternal life.

Do you know you're saved? Now, sometimes when you are saved, but you struggle with assurance, it's related back to sin in your life. Because when you act in rebellion to God, then those fruits of salvation, i .e., assurance, dwindle.

So here's what you do. Here's the solution. When I was struggling with assurance many, many years ago, I said to myself, I know I'm a Christian. I used to feel like a Christian. I don't have that feeling anymore.

I want that feeling back. You ever go round trip and fly? You think, okay, I got my ticket for the way back. When you go one way, sometimes I fly to California and I don't book my ticket back until I get there and I kind of have a little angst.

Here I'm thinking, I know I'm saved, but I don't feel like it. I want to feel like I'm saved. I want assurance. I can have assurance. I'm not looking for insurance against going to hell. I want assurance that I might know, that I might be persuaded of and convinced.

What do I do? The wrong advice is to try to chase assurance. I want it. I need it. I've got to have it. Because Spurgeon would say, assurance is like a dove that you're trying to catch. You can't catch it.

What you do is you focus on the person and work of Christ. Then that assurance dove, Spurgeon said, will come and just sit right on your shoulder. When you focus on Christ and his work and his accomplishment, his atonement, his high priestly work, his intercession, his sacrifice, then you say, you know what?

Belief is I take God at his word. I'm taking it at his word. And I remember S. Lewis Johnson, he said, I thought I was saved, but I one day said to myself when I struggled with assurance, I got down at the foot of my bed and I kneeled and I said this, Lord, I think I'm a Christian, but if I'm not, you say in the Bible, look to the Lord Jesus Christ and confess him as Lord.

And Lord, if I never have done that before with my whole heart and soul, I'm doing it now. Lord, I come to you by faith alone. That would be a good place to start. Focusing on Christ. Here's the thief.

He sees Jesus. He's believing in who Jesus is and what he's done and his words. And you say, well, you know what? Maybe he didn't feel like he's going to heaven. He still was going to heaven. But the text says we can know that we know and be persuaded.

Well, I had one more, but we're not going to do that. What about you today? What about you? When you have a spiritual experience and walk into a Walmart or go home or come into the church. Who's the object of that experience?

I'm not against experience. I'm not against experiencing God. But I'm against experiencing God minus doctrine and minus Jesus Christ at the center. And this passage with the thief on the cross, the spotlight is on Jesus alone dying for all those who would repent and believe.

Raised from the dead shortly. And I ask you the question, have you repented? Have you believed? You must. So don't be ungrateful or foolish to say later. Today, chapter four. Today, chapter 19. Today, chapter 23 for the Luke.

And today is the day that you must believe.

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 830 and 11 a .m. And Sunday evenings at 6 p .m. We're right on Route 110 in West Boylston, Massachusetts. You can check us out online at bbcchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.

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