“What a strange kind of man this must be! He says He is King of the Jews;
and the superscription on His cross says the same thing. But what sort
of a throne is this? He says He is the Son of God. Why does not God send
down His angels, and destroy all this great gathering of people that
are torturing His Son? If He has all power now, as He used to have when
He worked those miracles they talk about, why does He not bring out His
vengeance, and sweep all these wretches into destruction? I would do it
in a minute, if I had the power. Oh, if I could, I would open the Earth,
and swallow up these tormentors!
“But this man prays to God to ‘forgive them.’
“Strange! Strange! He must be different from the rest of us. I am sorry
that I said one word against Him when they first hung us up here. What a
difference there is between Him and me!
“Here we are, hanging on two crosses--side by side; but all the rest
of our lives we have been far enough apart. I have been robbing and
murdering, but He has been visiting the hungry, healing the sick, and
raising the dead. Now these people are railing at us both. What a strange
world is this!
“I will not rail at Him any more. Indeed, I begin to believe He must be
the Son of God; for, surely, no son of man could forgive his enemies this
way.”
That is what did it, my friends.
This poor man had been scourged and beaten and nailed to the cross, and
hung up there for the world to gaze upon; and he was not sorry for his
sins one single bit--did not feel the least conviction on account of all
that misery. But when he heard the Savior praying for His murderers that
broke his heart.
I remember to have heard a story, somewhere, of a bad boy that had run
away from home. He had given his father no end of trouble. He had refused
all the invitations that his father had sent him to come home and be
forgiven, and help to comfort his old heart. He had even gone so far as
to scoff at his father and mother.
But one day a letter came, telling him his father was dead, and they
wanted him to come home and attend the funeral.
At first he determined he would not go, but then he thought it would be a
shame not to pay some little show of respect to the memory of so good a
man after he was dead; and so, just as a matter of form, he took a train
and went to the old home.
He sat through all the funeral services, saw his kind old father buried,
and came back with the rest of the friends to the house, with his heart
as cold and stony as ever. But when the old man’s will was brought out
to be read, the ungrateful son found that his father had remembered him
along with all the other members of the family in the will, and had left
him an inheritance with the others, who had not gone astray.
This broke his heart.
It was too much for him, that his old father, during all those years in
which he had been so wicked and so rebellious, had never ceased to love
him.
That is just the way our Father in Heaven does with us. That is just the
way Jesus does with people who refuse to give their hearts to Him. He
loves them in spite of their sins, and it is the love which, more than
any thing else, brings hard-hearted sinners to fall upon their knees.
Now, this thief on the cross confessed his sins. A man may be very sorry
for his sins; but, if he does not confess them, he has no promise of
being forgiven. The thief says: “We are suffering justly.” I never knew
any man to be converted until he confessed.
Cain felt bad enough over his sins, but he did not confess.
Saul was greatly tormented in his mind, but he went to the Witch of Endor
rather than to the Lord.
Judas felt so bad over the betrayal of his Master that he went out and
hanged himself; but he did not confess--that is, he did not confess to
God. He came back and confessed to the priests, saying: “I have sinned in
that I have betrayed the innocent blood.” It was of no use to confess to
them; they could not forgive him. What he should have done was to confess
to God; but instead of that, he rushed out and hanged himself.
How different is the case with the penitent thief! He confesses his sins
to Christ, and Christ has mercy on him at once.
Just here is one of the great difficulties with many people. They do not
like to come up face to face with their sins. They do not like to own
that they are sinners. They excuse themselves in every way. They think
they are not very bad sinners; that there are a great many worse than
they are; and so they try to cover up the great fact that this penitent
thief confesses openly. My friends, you never will be saved, so long as
you try to cover up your sins.
We have heard a great deal about the faith of Abraham and the faith of
Moses; but this man seems to me to have had more faith than any of them.
He stands at the head of his class.
God was twenty-five years toning up the faith of Abraham; Moses was
forty years getting ready for his work; but this thief, right here in
the midst of men who rejected Him--nailed to the cross and racked with
pain in every nerve, overwhelmed with horror, and his soul in a perfect
tempest--still manages to lay hold upon Christ, and trust in Him for a
swift salvation. His heart goes out to the Savior. How glad he would be
to fall on his knees at the foot of that cross, and pour out his prayer
to Him who was hanging on it! But this he can not do. His hands and feet
are nailed fast to the wood; but they can not nail his eyes, nor his
heart. He can, at least, turn his head, and look upon the Son of God;
and his breaking heart can go out in love to the One who is dying beside
him--dying for him, and dying for you and me.
And what did Jesus say in answer to his prayer?
That prayer was a confession of Christ. He calls Jesus “Lord,” and begs
to be remembered in His kingdom. That must be a kingdom in Heaven--for,
surely, there was no chance of a kingdom on Earth, as matters looked at
that time.
Christ fulfilled His promise to the thief:
“Whoso confesseth Me before men, him will I confess before my Father and
the holy angels.”
He looks kindly upon him, and says:
“Today thou shalt be with Me in Paradise.”
And now the darkness falls upon the Earth; the Sun hides itself; but,
worse than all, the Father hides His face from the Son. What else is the
meaning of that bitter cry?
“My God! My God! Why hast Thou forsaken Me?”
Ah! It had been written:
“Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree.”
Jesus is made a curse for us. God can not look upon sin; and now His own
Son is bearing, in His own body, the sins of the world; and so He can not
look upon Him.
I think that was what was heaviest upon the Savior’s heart, away there in
the Garden, when He prayed: “If it be possible, let this cup pass away
from Me.”
He could bear the unfaithfulness of His friends, the spite of His
enemies, the pain of His crucifixion and the shadow of death. He could
bear all these. But when it came to the hiding of His Father’s face,
that seemed almost too much for even the Son of God to bear. But even
this He endured for our sins; and now the face of God is turned back to
us, whose sins had turned it away, and looking upon Jesus, the sinless
One, He sees our souls in Him.
In the midst of all His agony, how sweet it must have been to Christ to
hear that poor thief confessing Him! He likes to have men confessing Him.
Do you remember His asking Peter: “Who do men say that I am?”
Peter answered: “Some people say You are Moses; some people say You are
Elias, and some people say You are one of the old prophets.”
He asked again: “But, Peter, who do you say that I am?”
And when Peter said “Thou art the Son of God,” Jesus blessed him for that
confession.
And now this thief confesses Him--confesses Him in the darkness. Perhaps
it is so dark he can not see Him any longer; but he feels that He is
there beside him.
This poor thief did as much for Christ in that one act as if he had lived
and worked for Him fifty years. That is what Christ wants of us--to
confess Him; in the dark as well as in the light, and when it is hard as
well as when it is easy. For He was not ashamed of us, and carried our
sins even unto death.
Just look for a minute at the prayer of this penitent thief.
He calls Jesus “Lord.” That sounds like a young convert. “Lord, remember
me when Thou comest into Thy kingdom.” Not a very long prayer, you see,
but a prevailing prayer.
Some people think they must have a form of prayer--a prayer book,
perhaps--if they are going to address the Throne of Grace properly. But
what would that poor fellow do with a prayer book up there--hanging on
the cross, his hands nailed fast to the wood? Suppose it were necessary
that some minister or priest should pray for him, what is he going to
do? There is nobody there to pray for him, and he is going to die within
a few hours. He is out of reach of help from men, but God has laid help
upon One who is mighty, and that One is close at hand.
Then look at the answer to his prayer. The supplicant received more
than he asked. He only asked to be remembered when Christ came into His
kingdom. But Christ said to him: “I will take you right up with Me into
My kingdom today.”
The Savior wants us all to remember Him in His old kingdom--to remember
Him in the breaking of bread and in the drinking of wine--and then He
will remember us in the new kingdom.
Just think of this, my friends. The last the world ever saw of Christ
He was on the cross. The last business of His life was the saving of a
poor penitent thief. That was a part of His triumph; that was one of the
glories attending His death.
No doubt Satan said to himself: “I will have the soul of that thief,
pretty soon, down here in the caverns of the lost. He belongs to me; he
has belonged to me all these years.”
[Illustration: JACOB, TENDING FLOCKS OF LABAN.--From the Painting by
Gustave Dore.]
[Illustration: MOSES, BREAKING THE TABLES OF THE LAW