One of the Most Remarkable Salvation Stories!

Hey, this is Jim Graham from the Masculine Journey Podcast, where we explore a relationship instead of religion every week. Your chosen Truth Network Podcast is starting in just a few seconds. Enjoy it, share it, but most of all, thank you for listening and for choosing the Truth Podcast Network. This is the Truth Network. It's one of the most remarkable salvation stories of all time, and it happened in the last words of Jesus.

I'm Stu Epperson. Welcome to Experience Truth. Alongside with me today is one of my mentor's friends, man of God, talk show host in his own right, Robby Dilmore, the Christian car guy. Robby, thanks for joining me. This will be an epic Experience Truth as we jump into some of Jesus' very last words as he hung on that cross to die for our sins.

I'm excited to do it with you, knowing that it's just your passion, buddy. Well, this is a lot came out of that book, Last Words of Jesus. This is what inspired that. Luke 23, verse 34. Robby, read the passage, we'll read the whole passage. It encompasses just under 10 verses, and then we'll go through these questions, and we will give many, many people hope as we read about the grace of God, even in the final moments of Jesus Christ's life before he died and rose from the dead. And the people stood looking on, but even the rulers with them sneered, saying, He saved others, let him save himself, if he is the Christ, the chosen one of God. The soldiers also mocked him, coming and offering him sour wine, and saying, If you're the king of the Jews, save yourself.

An inscription was also written over him in the letters of Greek, Latin, and Hebrew, This is the king of the Jews. Then one of the criminals who were hanged blasphemed him, saying, If you are the Christ, save yourself and us. But the other answering rebuked him, saying, Do you not even fear God, seeing you are under the same condemnation?

And we indeed justly, for we received due reward for our deeds, but this man has done nothing wrong. And then he said to Jesus, Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom. And Jesus said to him, assuredly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise.

That is the word of God. Can you imagine getting a brand new life just moments before dying at the cross, even in his final moments? Jesus is loving and saving sinners. In this climactic instance, he grants salvation to one particular sinner, a notorious criminal, a seemingly wasted life. As Jesus died, he spoke powerful words of life to the second thief, who was taken straight to heaven to be with Jesus. One commentator observes about this passage. In this account, we see strong scriptural refutation for some of the most dangerous heresies that have crept into Christendom. All forms of sacramentalism, such as baptism, the Lord's Supper, church membership, and good works as necessary for salvation are here refuted. Here, the dogma of purgatory, the notion of soul sleep, the teaching of universalism are all disproved. Dr. Charles R. Erdmann said this about the thief on the cross in this account. Quote, the story of the penitent thief has sometimes been considered the most surprising, the most suggestive, and the most instructive in all gospel narrative. So this powerful exchange of Christ in his final words teaches us so much, Robbie.

We've got to just jump right in with these questions. Now, your first question was, why did the religious leaders, soldiers, and criminal ask Jesus to save yourself? So here is the height of irony. The one who is the Savior, self-proclaimed and others-proclaimed, who came to save sinners, who came to seek and save the lost, Luke 19 10, is being asked by these others, the rulers sneering at him in boldened blasphemy, asking him to save others. So now, they're admitting, by the way, in that plea, in that mockery, that he can save others.

But they did not deny his power to heal, they did not deny his power to forgive and change lives, yet they persisted in their hate, asking the Savior to save himself and others. So this is the Messiah that they've been longing for. This is the Messiah they've been praying for. This is the Messiah that every Jewish lad would get up and young lady and mom and dad and say, we're praying the Messiah comes today to save us. And so there he is on the cross, and they're mocking him.

Right. You know, they're not praying to him for their salvation. They don't see they need their salvation.

They're pleading, and they're being throwing evil toss at him. So the idea of saving himself, Robby, think about this notion. Who else told Jesus to save himself?

In the wilderness, right after his baptism. Right, it would be Satan. Three different times, three different accusations that are recorded, by the way, in Saint Matthew chapter 4, in Saint Luke chapter 4, Satan said, save yourself. He said, do your thing and short-circuit this whole redemptive narrative, and don't end up at the cross.

Just bow down to me, throw yourself off the building, turn these stones into bread. So here Jesus Christ, the serpent crusher, Genesis 3.15, is being tempted by the serpent to save himself. Yet Jesus Christ is our only hope. He came to seek and save the lost. God sent his Son to save the world, John 3.16. He's the sinless Savior, and came to die, had to die, so we could live.

So there's a powerful, in this whole thought, notion of Jesus Christ is the only Savior. There's no one else that can save, and it's exposed in these opposites, in these false premises, these false pleas, these blasphemous taunts, and also in the second question here, related to the first thief. So what's wrong with the first thief's prayer? So the first thief says, if you are the Christ. First of all, it says, we know it was blasphemy, because Luke tells us in verse 39.

So don't anyone say, well, I wonder if it was bad, what he was saying. Well, Luke tells us, when the Bible tells you that he's blaspheming him, verse 39 of Luke chapter 23, saying, if you are the Christ, save yourself in us. Well, there's a lot wrong with that, because fundamentally, Robbie, how can Jesus save himself? What happens if he puts himself above God's mission, above his mission, and comes down from that cross? What happens to us? What happens to the blasphemous thief, and what happens to the other thief?

What happens to all of us if he doesn't go through with it? The really, really cool thing here, if you study the ancient, the original Hebrew language that was written actually in Numbers 3-3, where somebody would hang on a tree, and that word hang starts with a cross. I'm not kidding you. It looks like a little cross. And then it goes to this other picture that shows something being made right.

And these are word pictures that Hebrew was actually pictures of things. And so when you think about the cross of somebody being made right, the cross is where it all happened. He was going to make everything right for everybody, but he had to hang on a tree in order to do that. And through that, he saved me! I mean, he saved me! So if none of this happens, none of us get saved.

So the irony of this guy is, and it's interesting, Robbie, no one ever points this out. When I studied this prayer, when I wrote Last Words of Jesus, the first sinner, I asked this question when I speak. I ask it in chapels to young people. I ask it to seasoned believers. Very few people get this right. And I'll ask it to our listeners right here on Experience Truth.

I'm Stu Everson. Robbie Dilmore is with me as we're working through the Word of God today, and we're looking at Luke 23, 35-43, this powerful second word of Jesus from the cross to this thief, the dying thief. Well, before the dying thief calls out for salvation, the other dying thief called out for salvation. I asked this question, how many people at Calvary's cross asked Jesus for salvation? And naturally everyone says, well, one. In fact, I tripped you up the first time we did this.

You've been with me long enough to not, you know. Everyone says, well, one, the dying thief. The thief that we sing about, that we write about, that plays have been portrayed in art. The one that called out, you know, genuine. Well, yes he did, but the other guy did too, because he not only says, Jesus, save yourself, but he says, save us.

You sure? But what is so wrong with that prayer, save us? Because there's no belief in it. It's mocking.

Yeah, it's mocking. We know it's blasphemy, but think about, does Jesus save entire countries? Does he save entire... In other words, let me ask in the form of what the country preacher said. The country people said, God ain't got no grandchildren. Of course, that almost is like a double negative, but does God have grandchildren? In other words, is my parents' faith enough for me to get into heaven with? My dad asked a fellow once, he said, you know, do you think you are born again? You think you're going to heaven? He said, well, my wife, I'm getting in on her faith. She's a woman of great faith, and I'm going to kind of ride her coattails into heaven. Well, wrong, oh sir, because there's no one who's righteous.

No, not one. We're all sinners. We all fall short of God's glory. And this idea of save us is the idea this thief is like, hey, we're all going to be saved. Let's all be saved. It's this group think that, well, because I'm a collective member of this church, I'm saved. Because I'm born in this family, I'm saved. And that's how I thought I was good to go, because I grew up in a Christian family. God ain't going to throw me into hell, right? I got my mom that has half the Bible memorized, right?

I got my dad who's in Christian broadcasting. I'm bound to go to heaven, for sure. So this first thief, he said, save, he used the accurate word, he did pray a sinner's prayer. But it was non-effectious, it was non-effectual, it was non-efficacious, because it was saying, save us. He misunderstood that salvation is for me. He didn't see his own desperate need for that Savior.

So it was mocking, it was blasphemous. And nor did he believe. Nor did he believe. And he asked Jesus to save himself. So he didn't understand the reason Jesus was hanging there was to save him, right? He missed the whole point of the cross.

How many of us wear cross necklaces? How many of us see cross paintings and murals and pictures and even stories and even shows like the Passion of Christ, but we missed the point. We still walk away saying, well, save yourself and save us. And we have pity on Jesus, and we're so sad, and we're so sentimental, and we shed some tears, but we're not changed because we don't realize that it was for me he died. It was for this despicable sinner that that amazing grace was poured out, and I need him to not save us, save me.

But this first thief missed it. And tragically, that's the last we'll ever hear from this guy, and Jesus didn't even respond to him. Total silence, right? From the only one that could save him, total silence. And now he is in utter hell, tormented forever.

So tragic about that thief. All right, next question. How could the condemned criminal go from profanity to prayer? Exodus 20. To rebuking his partner and calling out to Jesus.

Wow. So we think that this second thief, who truly was saved, and we're going to get into the account of that next time, because we're out of time in this segment, we think that all he said is this, you know, rebuking his partner in crime and then praying, but it says in Matthew's account that he actually joined in. That both malefactors joined in, in berating and in taunting and in mocking and cursing and blaspheming Jesus.

So something changed in this man. His sin was on display. That he deserved worse than a cross that he bore. All three of these men were on the cross. The God-man in the middle, the two thieves on either side. Only two of those men deserved sin and hell and death. The third man, the man in the middle, didn't, but he took it for us. This first thief shared in the blasphemy just as much as the second thief did just as much as the first thief, but then something changed. What changed, we'll talk about next time right here on Experienced Truth. This is the Truth Network.