As we remember the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus this Easter, I would like us for a moment to remove our eyes from Christ to consider one of the men crucified next to Him. All four gospels record the crucifixion of the two criminals; Luke alone tells us that one of these men confessed Jesus as Lord. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Luke 23:39-43, \u201cThen one of the criminals who were hanged blasphemed Him, saying, “If You are the Christ, save Yourself and us.” (40) But the other, answering, rebuked him, saying, “Do you not even fear God, seeing you are under the same condemnation? (41) And we indeed justly, for we receive the due reward of our deeds; but this Man has done nothing wrong.” (42) Then he said to Jesus, “Lord, remember me when You come into Your kingdom.” (43) And Jesus said to him, “Assuredly, I say to you, today you will be with Me in Paradise.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Three observations. <\/p>\n\n\n\n God saves in His own time. <\/strong>It is possible that the converted thief heard the truth in the past. Perhaps he had believing parents, perhaps he met someone who taught him about Messiah and salvation. This would certainly explain his seemingly sudden conversion. People can hear the truth over and over yet they don\u2019t come to saving faith until they are ready. They are only ready when God brings them to a place of readiness. It may be that the truth was lying dormant in this man, then in the presence of Christ and facing his own death, he was made ready. He knew who Christ was and he owned his guilt. He asked Jesus to remember him (receive him into His kingdom). Don\u2019t ever imagine that God is finished with someone because they have so far rejected His truth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It isn\u2019t over until it\u2019s over. <\/strong>The converted thief is an example that God can and does save people in the very last moments of life. Salvation is always possible while there is breath, right up until the final breath. Salvation is possible even when people are comatose and unresponsive. Not until life ends does the possibility of salvation end. It is never a waste of time to explain the gospel to people with dementia, brain damage, intellectual impairment or unconsciousness. Such effects are not a barrier to the omnipotent God. My own dying mother was completely unmoved by family speaking to her, yet when the scriptures were read she was clearly responsive. She was already a believer, but the point is, God can access areas that are closed to us. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Grace is more powerful than sin.<\/strong> For those who knew this man, they probably would never have imagined him turning to God. As a criminal there would not have been a lot of sympathy for him. No one was surprised that he ended up on a cross and according to Roman law he got what he deserved. Just as brain trauma is not a barrier to God neither is the heart hardened by sin and crime. Saul was determined to wipe the Christian church from the face of the earth, then he became a Christian. Heaven is populated with people who lived the worst kinds of life \u2013 murderers, drunkards, thieves, fornicators because God is in the business of changing lives. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The converted thief is an encouragement to us in gospel witness, he also points us to the mercy that we ourselves have received. Like him we warrant judgement, like him we have been acquitted through Christ. Let us rejoice in and give thanks for the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ this Easter. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" As we remember the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus this Easter, I would like us for a moment to remove our eyes from Christ to consider one of …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8496,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9038","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sdreformedbaptist.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9038","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sdreformedbaptist.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sdreformedbaptist.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sdreformedbaptist.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sdreformedbaptist.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9038"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sdreformedbaptist.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9038\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9039,"href":"https:\/\/sdreformedbaptist.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9038\/revisions\/9039"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sdreformedbaptist.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8496"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sdreformedbaptist.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9038"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sdreformedbaptist.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9038"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sdreformedbaptist.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9038"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}