Facing Death Unprepared

Welcome to this weekend's In Touch Podcast with Charles Stanley. Today's lesson begins a series that focuses on every believer's responsibility to be an agent of God's love and a messenger of His good news. Here's part one, explaining the alternative to facing death unprepared. If you only had a few hours to live and you knew you were facing death, you are not a Christian, didn't know how to be saved, what would you do? Would you find the Bible somewhere and begin to read?

What would you read? Well, there are multitudes of people every day all over this world who face death unprepared. Will God save someone in the last hours of their life when their life has been absolutely totally wasted and they have nothing to offer God? Well, that's what I want to talk about in this message entitled Facing Death Unprepared.

And you know what? It just may be that you may be closer to meeting God than you realize. Not a single one of us has any assurance of another second in our life. And so I want you to listen very carefully to this message, because it could be the difference between where you spend eternity, either with God forever or separated from Him in torment forever and ever. So I want you to turn, if you will, to Luke chapter twenty three, verse thirty nine begins. And one of the criminals who were hanged there was hurling abuse at him, saying, Are you not the Christ?

Save yourself and us. But the other answered and rebuking him said, Do you not even fear God since you're under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed justly for we are receiving what we deserve for our deeds.

But this man has done nothing wrong. And he was saying, Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom. And he said to him, Truly, I say to you, today you shall be with me in paradise. Now, crucifixion was Rome's favorite type of execution for the worst kind of criminals. They would never execute someone who was not either a slave or some degraded kind of criminal.

Someone who was in opposition to Rome, some rebel. Now, with all the blood that they had shed and all the pain and the awesomeness of what was going through their minds at that time. And the awesome pain that wrecked their entire body. There's something going on here that's interesting because the scripture said, as he hanged there between them somewhere between nine o'clock in the morning and three o'clock in the afternoon, that both of these men, both in Matthew and Mark, say that both of these criminals were lashing out at Jesus and reviling him and blaspheming him. And so what I want you to see is when this begins, both of these men are guilty of the same. And oftentimes we look at the passage and we say, well, one of them was saying something about Jesus and the other was not. The twenty seventh chapter of Matthew, verse 44 says, And the robbers, both of them also who had been crucified with him were casting the same insults at him. So they both begin their crucifixion with casting insults at the Lord Jesus.

But I want you to see something interesting here, and that is this something happened to one of these criminals, not both of them, but one of them. Somehow, as he listens and begins to observe what's going on, something happens on the inside of him. And ultimately, this man in his dying hours becomes a follower of Jesus Christ. He becomes a believer in our Lord. I want you to notice what happens here, because I believe one of the evidences of his salvation is so clear in the very beginning. Here is a man who only has a very, very few hours to live.

What we find happening here, look, if you will. One of these criminals says to Jesus, he says, Are you not the Christ? Save yourself and save us. And what he's saying is, get us down from here if you be the Messiah. But the other answer and rebuking him said, Do you not even fear God since you are under the same sentence of condemnation?

What is he doing? All of a sudden, this man who's been railing upon Jesus now begins to rebuke his fellow criminal. And he says, Don't you have any fear of God? Why are you rebuking this man? Why do you keep blaspheming this man when this man has done nothing? So notice first thing that's happening, he is rebuking a man who is blaspheming the Lord Jesus. The second thing he's doing is admitting his own guilt. I think there's a third reason that we can believe he was saved, and that is this, that he expressed the most awesome kind of faith in Jesus.

Now, think about this for a moment. Here he is watching Jesus die, and he knows what he's suffering and what he's feeling and that he knows his life is very short. And now he's looking at the Lord Jesus Christ on one side of him or the other. And he knows that he's suffering the same death, that he's feeling the same kind of pain.

And this man also is going to die. And what is he saying? He's saying, Remember me when you come into your kingdom. Well, he's dying. What kind of faith is this that he could say to a man who is dying? Remember me when you come into your kingdom.

You know what? When I look at this man's faith, I'm not sure I have as much faith as he had. You and I have faith in the Lord Jesus Christ because we have the written word of God. We have seen the lives of other people change, but we've never seen God. We've never seen Jesus in the flesh. You and I have taken the revelation of God given to us through the scriptures, and we have expressed faith in the truthfulness of his word. And the Holy Spirit has borne witness to us that it is truth. We placed our faith in Jesus Christ, and we were saved. Here's a man who is looking at another dying man who never saw a Bible, who never had the scriptures as you and I had them, who lived a life of sin and disobedience and rebellion against God and against Rome and against his own people.

And what is he doing? Looking at another dying man and expressing faith that somehow there's something about this man that can save him when he breathes his last breath. That is an awesome expression of faith.

Remember me when you come into your kingdom. It also says that he believed this man had some kind of supernatural power that not only was he being crucified, but somehow when he got through this crucifixion, he was going to be able to rescue him. How is he going to be able to rescue him when both of them are stretched out on the cross? There was no human visible evidence that this man who was also dying could do anything for him, except that something began to happen in his heart from his blasphemous language. Now, it is the language of a man confessing his sinfulness, confessing his unworthiness, confessing that he was justified in being crucified. And now he's calling out to a man whom he does not know in this dying hours, asking this man to save him, save him. Listen, he didn't ask, get me down from the cross. He didn't say, rescue me from being crucified. He said, when you come into your kingdom, remember me. What an awesome sense of faith he had. Any question in my mind about him being saved?

Absolutely not. And if there were any question up to this point, this would have settled it all. Because Jesus said in return to him, he says, today, today, thou shall be with me in paradise. But listen how he said it. The Bible says, he says, truly I say to you, that word means assuredly. What a statement Jesus made to him. If there's any question in your mind as to whether this man is saved or not. Listen, would you question your salvation if you stood face to face to Jesus and he said and called your name and said, today, you're going to be with me in paradise.

You would never even begin to think about questioning your salvation experience. Here is the promise of redemption. On those three crosses, we see redemption taking place right before our eyes. Amidst all the blood and the agony and the pain and the suffering and the hurt, there's something absolutely fantastic and glorious and heavenly and redemptive going on.

What is it? A man who is a sinner, who is absolutely totally helpless, who can do nothing for himself whatsoever is being saved right in front of a mocking crowd. His name is being written in the Lamb's Book of Life.

I'll tell you, everything in heaven must have been rejoicing that day. Here's one man dying in his sin, here's another man dying for sin and here's one being saved out of his sin. His promise of everlasting and eternal life in the presence of God. Remember what the Apostle Paul said in 2 Corinthians chapter 5 when he was talking about death? He said, absent from the body, what? Present with the Lord. That when our old heart takes the last time, we breathe our last breath and God calls us home.

And he says, absent from the body, present with the Lord, we're not going at you on to somewhere and they're going to put us in some grave or some mausoleum and we're going to stay there body, soul and spirit for a thousand years, a hundred years, a hundred days, a hundred minutes, a hundred second or one single solitary second because you cannot bury a child of God. That man, listen, went from a prison to a cross to glory in just the matter of a few hours. Did God save him?

Absolutely. Why did he save him? God saved him, had absolutely nothing to do with anything within him. So the evidence of his salvation is crystal clear. Now, the big question you and I have to ask is, well, how was he saved? He didn't say, Lord Jesus, will you forgive me of my sin?

He'd already said, we justly deserve what's coming to us. And so he was confessing his sinfulness. He didn't say, I realize that you're the Lamb of God that has come to take away the sin of the world. But he did recognize that he was the Son of God.

He accepted that even in the accusations of these people. He said, Jesus, Savior, remember me when you come into your kingdom. How did this man get saved? Here he is in the last moments of life, his life.

And you know what? He got saved the same way you and I did by the grace of Almighty God. Listen to what Paul said. He said, for by grace are you saved through faith and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God not of works lest any man should boast. If there is a single passage of scripture in all the Bible that proves what grace is really all about, here it is. He says, for by grace God's goodness and love and mercy and kindness told us without regard to our worth or our deeds. And in spite of what we deserve, he said, for by grace you've been saved through faith.

That not of yourselves, not of works, lest any man should boast. How was this man saved? It was the grace of God because, you see, he couldn't earn it.

He was dying. He didn't have time. He couldn't behave in a certain way. He didn't have time. He couldn't perform any feats because he didn't have time. He couldn't be baptized because there was not going to be any baptismal experience that day.

There's not a single solitary thing this man could do. The only thing he could do is receive the grace of God by faith in Jesus Christ. He said, Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom, indicating he believed that he was the king. He believed that he was the savior. He believed in life after death. He believed in his God.

He believed that on the other side he was going to be with him. He manifested his faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and the only thing that saved that man was simply this, that he was willing to accept by faith the grace of God and receive the Lord Jesus Christ as his personal savior plus nothing. And you know what that does away with?

My friend, listen, all these folks are going to stand before God one of these days and say, well, I believe he's going to weigh my good against my bad and my good is going to outweigh my bad, therefore I'm going to be saved. Nothing. Absolutely nothing but the grace of God. What can wash away our sins? Nothing but the blood of Jesus. And that day that man was saved what? He was saved by the blood of Jesus because, listen, that was God's instrument, the blood of Jesus.

What did he do? He received the message of salvation. He received this man not understanding that he was the Lamb of God taken, given his life for the sins of the whole world. He was saved by the grace of God. The day that Jesus Christ was crucified when his blood was shed, that blood atoned for the sin of everybody from Adam all the way to the last person who is born on the face of this earth before the Lord Jesus Christ comes. That's how powerful that crucifixion was. How was he saved?

By faith through the Lord Jesus Christ. So we asked the question, can a person be saved late in life? Yes. Can a person be saved in the last dying moments?

It's possible. Somebody says, well, I'm glad to hear that because that's how long I'm going to wait. Let me ask you a question. Who says you're going to wait? Who says you have any time?

You're going to wait how long? You see, there's not a single one of us who knows which tick of a heart is going to be the last one. You know, the Bible says the fool is said in his heart.

There is no God. I want to tell you about another fool. Another fool is a person who says, I'm going to wait till I come to the end of my life. What a foolish decision, because my friend, more than likely, you don't know when that's going to be. I'll tell you something else that's dangerous about that.

And that's this. Just because you have time doesn't mean that you'll receive Jesus, because there are people who come to this point in their life where they know they're going to die. And you talk to them about the Lord.

And here's what they say. They say, well, now, you mean to tell me that I have lived all of my life and I've rejected Jesus and I rebelled against the church, not interested in the Bible and not interested in spiritual things. You mean to tell me that God will accept me now? I don't believe that. I don't believe that God will accept me now. I know that I may die and go to hell, but I just don't believe that God will accept me now.

I've wasted my whole life. And you mean to tell me these last hours of my life and I have nothing to offer and I can do nothing for him that he's going to save me? Yes. It's possible. But the tragedy is this, that many people can not believe even on their deathbed. Another danger is this, that a person may have time, but they have absolutely no desire to be saved. I want to tell you about a real danger, my friend, which the Bible warns us against, and that's this. Harden not your heart. When you reject the Lord Jesus Christ, you reject the gospel, you reject the church, you reject God, you reject the Bible, you reject sermons, you reject your friends who witness to you. I want to remind you of something. Just because you may come to the end of life and you think, well, I've got a little time and I'll settle it then, I want to remind you of something. The Bible warns us against the hardened heart.

Here's what a hardened heart says. Not interested. Not interested in that. I don't believe in all that stuff.

I don't care about it. If I die, I just die and that's the end of me and that's it. Their heart is so hardened. Listen, they can't believe. You say, well, won't the Lord Jesus Christ save anybody who cries out to Him? Jesus Christ will save anyone who cries out to Him in genuine confession of faith in Him. Yes. In the last hours of a person's life when they've wasted it all, can they be saved?

Yes. Then why not wait because you don't know when it's going to be. You may not have the opportunity. You may not have the desire. Your heart may be so hardened.

You cannot because you have said no for so long. The question is, will God save a man late in life? Absolutely yes. You mean when he's wasted his whole life and has nothing else to give God?

Yes. How long has the Holy Spirit been wooing him all of his life? But is it wise, my friend, to wait? Never. This is why the Bible doesn't say, Behold, tomorrow is the day of salvation, but rather today.

And while you have time, I want to encourage you to consider several things. Number one, one of these days you're going to fall into the hands of the living God. That is an absolute truth that cannot be altered under any condition. It doesn't make any difference what you believe, what you think, what you feel about the Bible.

It has nothing to do with it. You and I will stand in the presence of the living God. Those who receive Jesus Christ as their personal Savior will be welcome into glory. Those who stand before him with all their excuses, I want to tell you something, my friend.

When you and I stand in the presence of an almighty God, if you stand in his presence as a person has rejected him, you will be standing in the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ. It will be the most horrible, indescribable, terrifying experience. There will be no excuses.

There'll be no defense. Only condemnation and judgment. And my friend, your unbelief and your doubt is not going to keep you from the judgment. I want to tell you how you can settle once and for all your eternity. You don't have to wait till your last dying moments.

You can settle it right now. So I want to tell you how to do that. So, no matter what happens and where you are in life, I would certainly hope you'd be wise enough to do it now. So here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to pray a simple prayer. And if you'll pray this prayer to the Father with me, you can be saved right now. Where you sit, where you stand, where you drive, where you may be listening, you can be saved.

Settle this once and for all right now. This is the prayer. Will you pray this to the Father? Heavenly Father, I confess to you that I'm a sinner. I do believe that Jesus died for my sins. I am receiving Jesus Christ as my personal Savior here and now. Thank you for making me one of your children. By the power of the Holy Spirit, I want to live for you all the days of my life. In Jesus' name, amen.