Here's Pastor Alan Wright with today's blessing, a biblical faith-filled vision for your life. Imagine thick fog stifling your progress, binding you from moving forward on your windy road. If you can't see, you can't see. If you can't see, you can't advance. It's the obscured vision that stops us.
It's the thick fog that clogs our perspective. Come, cool light of Christ, and move upon the mist and clear the field of sight. O child of God, I bless you in the midst of this soupy, deceptive society. to see with new eyes. To see with Jesus' eyes, may you see.
as Jesus sees. Pastor, author, and Bible teacher Alan Wright. The truth of our lives has already been set for all eternity. We have been blessed with every spiritual blessing in Christ Jesus. And when we come to breathe our last, our best is yet to come.
We will reign with him forevermore. That's Pastor Alan Wright. Happy Easter and welcome to another message of good news that will help you see your life in a whole new light. I'm Daniel Britt, excited for you to hear the teaching today in our Easter series as presented at Renolda Church in North Carolina. If you're not able to stay with us throughout the entire program, I want to make sure you know how to get our special resource right now, which can be yours for your donation this month to Allen Wright Ministries.
So, as you listen to today's message, go deeper as we'll happily send you today's special offer. Contact us at pastorallen.org. That's pastorallen.org. Or if you prefer, call 877-544-4860. That's 877-544-4860.
More on all of this later in the program. But now, let's get started with today's Easter teaching. Here is Alan Wright. Perhaps the cliché is true. There are no atheists in foxholes.
Very few atheists on deathbeds, not many. They know. what God has done in Jesus for them. They are alike. when they speak.
This one on the left and this one on the right. They speak to Jesus and they ask ironically The same thing. They want to be saved. And this is where the difference begins. They are all so alike.
And they are oh so different. These two crooks. The first He speaks with No admission of guilt or acknowledgement. of his need. Instead, do you notice how he speaks when he turns?
the attention away from his own self-absorbed heart. And he actually rails. The word in Greek here is blasphemes. He blasphemes Christ by saying, Are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us.
Do you see, ironically, what he is doing? He is actually in the moments nearing his death blaming Jesus. You're not doing a good enough job. People who seek to live With one upmanship through the law, will shame others. Because they want to displace the attention from the poverty and the need of their own heart.
And it is a painful thing to ever admit that you need healing. It is a painful thing. But to not admit it, to not come into touch with your great need for Jesus, is to choose to not have the grace of God. And this man who is dying on a cross next to Jesus has no acknowledgement that he even needs Jesus except to mock him. And the man who is on Jesus' other side, a man who is likewise dying, a man who is likewise guilty, instead he confesses his guilt.
Not in a morbid sense, not in a sense of, therefore, I must not be saved, but in this sense, that I deserve what I'm receiving. And he confesses Jesus' innocence instead. They're so different. The first. admits his guilt.
I mean, doesn't admit of gift. The second does admit of his kit, but then this. The first crook, do you see what he's doing? Here he is. On the cross.
And he's still living a manipulative life. You would think a man who's Maybe he's lived his whole life, and this is the way he gets by: he mocks, he manipulates, he gets one up on someone. And here he is. Seeking to shame the Son of God. You Call yourself God.
Save yourself. Save us. You cannot worship God. While you're demanding God, on your own terms. Worship.
is surrender. And God will do for you what is above and beyond what you'd ever ask or think. But such blessing of unmerited grace Flows only to the yielded heart Yeah. It goes far to explain what the scriptures mean. when we are taught that God opposes the proud.
He is so drawn. To those that are broken and contrite. and spirit. It is to say those that know, that they need amazing grace. To these there is grace without measure.
This is a picture of one man who is Hanging next to the giver of grace and does not recognize it, and another who somehow sees Jesus, even through his own suffocating last moments, he sees him. The first man is a picture of how shame works. Mockery is a form of manipulation that essentially says, let's make a deal. This is the way all people of the law always operate. Let's make a deal.
I will no longer mock you if you will do what I want you to do. It may be pictured in such a dramatic way in this thief on a cross, but wherever there is shame, this is the way that it operates. It is a voice that says, I will no longer withhold my love and acceptance of you if you will do what I want you to do. It is a voice that says, If you're a good little boy, then I will accept you. If you're a good wife, then I won't intimidate you.
If you're a good husband, then I won't belittle you. This man And this man hanging on a cross, he doesn't get grace. He doesn't understand. You can't make a deal with Jesus. You can't make a deal with Jesus by your righteousness, and you certainly can't make a deal with Jesus by your mockery.
There is no amount of shaking your fist at the heavens over the sufferings that you've experienced that will ever make a deal with God. And there is no amount of your personal self-righteousness that could ever make a deal with God. There is only one of two choices: receive His grace or not. And Jesus, there hanging between these two men, picturing for us that there are only two ways of living: there is living without grace, or there's living with grace. And so, Jesus is as he is being stretched and pulled between the two.
And the man who speaks first He speaks as one as though he is going to somehow still manipulate the outcome in his final moments. But does he not picture this is the cross. You cannot do anything to save yourself. And such is the awareness of a second man. He has come To the end of his resources.
Your shame may work for a while. and it will run out. And so he says. Remember me. You'll never know, Mother Teresa said.
that Jesus is all you need. Until Jesus is all you got. Here's how they're also different. This first man. He asked to be saved, but here's how he asked to be saved.
He wants to be saved by Jesus coming off the cross. But this man He wants to be saved. By Jesus staying on the cross. and taken him into his kingdom. It is the ultimate battle.
The conspiracy of hell. To take Jesus. away from his atoning work. You hear it in the mockery of the soldiers. That was Christ.
I put the sign, the placard over his head, the king of the Jews. If you're king. Rule somebody. If you're saved, you're saved somebody. Mocking The Son of God in his suffering.
In order to to try not only to humiliate him, But to subvert His love. and work of atonement. This really was the battle All throughout, wasn't it? Jesus At one point, When Peter says, it shall never be that you go and suffer and die. Jesus has to turn him and says, get behind me, Satan.
Because it is the voice of Satan. Do you remember? How Jesus began his ministry. He hadn't eaten for 40 days. He was He was nearly starving.
And he went out in the wilderness, and the devil said to him, If you're the Son of God, Command this stone to become bread. And Jesus answered, it's written, man shall not live by bread alone. And the devil took him and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time and said to him, To you I'll give all this authority and their glory, for it's been delivered to me, and I give it to whom I will. If you then will worship me, it will all be yours. And Jesus answered him, It is written.
You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only shall you serve. And he took him to Jerusalem and set him on the pinnacle of the temple. And said to him, If you're the Son of God, throw yourself down from here, for it is written, He will command His angels concerning you to guard you, and on their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone. And Jesus answered him, It is said, You shall not put the Lord your God to the test. In other words, what the devil was tempting Jesus with from the beginning.
was to embrace his deity and deny his humanity. In other words, the devil was always tempting Jesus in the way that he tempts us. In your time of suffering, When you are racked with pain, You are enticed to try for a shortcut to glory. And some of you are under this very persecution, and I pray for you today. And I pray, though Satan has sought to sift you like wheat, he, the Lord of the universe, will strengthen you, for he knows what it is to be tempted in every way that you have been tempted.
The enemy comes at an opportune time. Do not give up now and do not give in to him now. He comes when we are in some way weak or hurting, and he mocks us. Where is your God now? He mocks you when you are in the adverse times to tempt you to believe that you are not blessed.
And we must make our resolve, beloved, that this is the truth of our gospel. Whether we are going through the easy times, the high times, the low times, the difficult times, the mountain peaks or the valleys, the truth of our lives has already been set for all eternity. We have been blessed with every spiritual blessing in Christ Jesus. And when we come to breathe our last, our best is yet to come. We will reign with Him forevermore.
We must resolve ourselves and understand it and establish. Establish it deep in our hearts.
So, when the day that the tempter comes, his snare cannot land. For you know yourself to be blessed. Here's how the devil tempts: he comes when you're hurting and he tells you you're not blessed. Where is your God? I'll offer you an easier way.
And all of our lusts Are just an enticement to a shortcut to glory. And Jesus knows your frame. He knew the frame of the two men that were next to them. He knows that we are but dust. And he has suffered what you have suffered, and he has been enticed, and he has been tempted in every way that you have been tempted.
He is a great high priest. You are not alone. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Arm. God is mighty to save.
And in Jesus Christ, He has proven He's utterly and completely For you. When you are in your moment of temptation, to not allow the enemy To tempt you to believe that Jesus has joined the accusations. There is an accuser. Satan himself. and all of the minions of hell.
But this is our gospel. Jesus Christ is for you. and never against you. Run. to the throne of grace.
boldly in your time of need. when you are most tempted and feeling most vile. Come into the throne room of grace. And he will rescue you. The battle belongs to the Lord.
It was an opportune time. When Peter said, No, it must never be. It was an opportune time at Gethsemane. where Jesus was sweating blood. But there was never a more opportune time.
than when Jesus Christ was stretched on the cross, hanging between shame and grace. between manipulative power and the yielded, surrendered life. Believe me. He was fully God, but he was fully human. He heard both voices.
It was as though all of hell had crystallized its campaign into this one thief's voice: save yourself. Forget everyone else. I wonder where it turned. And I wonder where it turned. I can only imagine.
Because at one moment, all of hell conspires to kill Jesus, and at the next moment, You see It's a very good idea. Hell has realized it was a failure. Maybe it was when the They heard Jesus say, on his way to his crucifixion, Forgive them. Maybe that maybe that was when there was a Yeah. Six alarm.
goes off into hell. I'm like, abort, abort. This isn't working. He's supposed to be cursing them now, and he's blessing them. What has gone wrong here?
The mockery is not working. Abort the mission. And all attention then comes back to where it's always been. Focus on yourself, Jesus. And he is stretched.
He is stretched. And the Father is silent. Except In this way. The Father had foreordained a preacher for Jesus that day. An unlikely prophet.
A criminal being crucified next to him. Who, just in case Jesus needed a little encouragement. to be reminded of his mission. He would have a man I think it is right hand. Remind him of the reason of his coming.
I am guilty, the man says. and am receiving what I justly deserve. And then he reminds Jesus. as he reminds the man Jesus has done no wrong. This is, after all, an unblemished lamb, that is on the altar of the cross.
This man Affirms not only Jesus' righteousness. But he affirms His kingliness. Remember me when you come. into your kingdom. He has in his dying breath told the whole gospel.
He has confessed it all. I'm a sinner. lost and without hope. and receiving condemnation that I justly deserve. Except Jesus, who is righteous, hangs next to me on the cross.
And he is the king over this invisible kingdom. And he says, remember me. And Jesus. and the power and strength of the grace of that moment. He says nothing to the mockery On the one side and to the other, he says, Today, You will be with me.
In paradise. For here is the irony, beloved. The one man who could have come down from the cross. Didn't. Yeah.
And that's the gospel. Pastor Alan Wright. Our good news message from this Easter series. And I encourage you to stay with us. Pastor Alan is back here in the studio sharing a parting good news thought for the day in just a moment.
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Alan, do you believe that good news is in direct proportion to how bad the bad news really is? And one has to have the foundation of the bad news. You've got to understand that before the good news even seems necessary. Good news is good news because it stands in contrast to the bad news. The idea of being joyful at.
um say being healthy Becomes altogether more powerful, doesn't it, for the cancer patient whose doctor says you're now healthy. because they they had come to understand that life was was frail. And so often in the way we present the gospel, we tend to move over. of the bad news of our predicament apart from God. And we must not because It's like the bitter herbs in the Passover meal celebration that remind you of your slavery so that when you taste freedom, it tastes sweet to you.
That's the way it is with our salvation. Yeah. Thanks for listening today. Visit us online at pastorallen.org or call 877-544-4860. That's 877-544-4860.
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