Kerwin Baptist Church Daily Broadcast

Welcome to the Kerwin Baptist Church broadcast today. Our desire is for the Word of God to be spread throughout the world so that all may know Christ. Join us now for a portion of one of our services here at Kerwin Baptist Church located in Kernersville, North Carolina. Welcome to the story of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

We did not obviously go through the past chapter or two to go through all the scourging and all the things that have been going on. But verse 33, and when they were come to the place which is called Calvary. So we've already come through Pilate's Hall and all the different stops and I preached a message, showed you a map of every place that they took Jesus before Calvary.

But here we are at Calvary. And the Bible says in verse 32 that there were two other male factors that word male factors means thieves, evildoers, and they were led with him. Isn't it horrible that our Savior who never committed a sin was led to death amongst those that had committed just about every sin. Notice verse 34, then said Jesus, Father, forgive them for they know not what they do. And they parted his raiment and cast lots. And the people stood beholding and the rulers also with him derided him saying, that means they mocked him and they were hollering out things, obscenities, and making fun of him, ridiculing him.

Saying, he saved others, let him save himself if he be Christ, the chosen of God. And the soldiers also mocked him, coming to him and offering him vinegar. And saying, if thou be the king of the Jews, save thyself. And a superscription also was written over him in letters of Greek and Latin and Hebrew. This is the king of the Jews. Verse 39, and one of the male factors which were hanged railed on him.

That means exactly what it sounds like. He began to join in on the crowd while he's being crucified there also he joined in mocking, ridiculing, criticizing Jesus. I don't know if maybe it was an attempt to try to get on the good side of the people because anybody could see their hatred for Jesus. By the way, folks, people still hate Jesus. They hate him with a passion.

And it's getting to the point nowadays that those that hate him are louder than those that love him. Notice verse 39, let me read that again, and one of the male factors which were hanged railed on him saying, if thou be Christ, save thyself and us. But the other answering rebuked him saying, does not thou fear God seeing thou art in the same condemnation? This other man hanging on the other side of Jesus looks over to the other person while he's being hung and he says, you don't even fear God and you're in the same condemnation.

You're hanging here too, you're getting ready to die too. Notice this if you would, verse 41, this is what he said. And we indeed justly, what do you mean we indeed justly? He says we have the same condemnation. We're hanging on the cross and he said it is just that we're hanging on the cross.

Why? Look at verse 41, for we receive the due reward of our deeds. In other words, we're guilty of what we've done, but this man hath done nothing amiss. And he said unto Jesus, Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom. And Jesus said unto him, verily I say unto thee today, shalt thou be with me in paradise. And it was about the sixth hour and there was a darkness over all the earth until the ninth hour. And the sun was darkened and the veil of the temple was rent in the midst. And when Jesus had cried with a loud voice, he said, Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit.

And having said thus, he gave up the ghost. Father, pray that you'd bless your word this morning as you always do. Lord, your word will do the preaching for itself if I will just preach what's there. Lord, help me to honor your word and everything that is said and done in your name. We pray. Amen.

I'd like to before we dig into this about this man this morning, I want you to think with me. There's there's a term used in in literature, fiction and nonfiction and even in movies nowadays. It's the word irony. And I want to say how ironic it is. And if you think about this, that this man that we're going to talk about beginning in verse 40, this man that stood up for Jesus and got saved right here at the end of his life. Isn't it ironic that of all the people that were crucified in biblical days? And by the way, it was a very common practice for thieves and criminals and murderers. And people would call for that and they would be crucified. How ironic it is that this man, the day he gets crucified, the day his sentence is taken care of, the day that judgment finally comes to him, how ironic that he would end up hanging next to the son of God.

What are the odds? I mean, this man's entire life had been nothing but crime, evil doing, wrongdoing. It had led one thing to another.

And and we believe not only from Bible, but through history that we find that these two thieves, both of them had had had a long history of wrongdoing. His whole life had been thinking of nothing but himself, nothing of the law, nothing of morals, nothing of character and of all things. What are the odds that the day this finally comes to fruition, he is hanging right beside the creator of the universe? You know, it could be here this morning that there are individuals that maybe your whole life has been lived for one thing. How ironic that today you find yourself sitting in a building facing the son of God, how blessed you are. Once you notice number one about this man, number one, he was a dying man, a dying man. You say, preacher, where do you get that?

Well, I see this a couple of ways. And I see first that he accepted a couple of things. Number one, he accepted the load of his sin.

Look, if you would, at verse 41 with me. And this is what he said about he himself and the other thief on the other side of the cross. Now, I don't know why they were both hung on the same day.

I think the correct word is hanged, but I still say hung. It just sounds more natural to me. But I don't know why maybe they were going through this on the same day. Maybe they were thieves together. Maybe they had been kind of a team. Maybe they had been these two guys maybe had done all this stuff and were known and gotten caught together. I don't know why they're both being crucified together.

Or it could have been that they're both arrested separately and had done separate things, and now they end up together. But I notice that the one, when he looks at Jesus and he somewhat sarcastically, the Bible says, rails him, and he says, hey, if you're the son of God, why don't you save you and us? But the other guy, and we find in verse 40, notice this, but the other answering imbued him saying, oh God, seeing thou art in the same condemnation, notice verse 41, and we indeed justly, he said this, we've sinned.

We deserve what we're getting. We're on this cross because of our actions. We're not on this cross because it's just life isn't fair. And we're not on this cross because somebody else did something and we're the ones taking the fall for it. He says we're on this cross because of our deeds. He accepted the load of his sin. You know, one of the first steps of salvation is for you and I just to simply admit we've sinned.

We've done wrong. You know, nowadays the hardest part isn't trying to get people to believe that Jesus lived or even believe that he died on the cross. The hardest part nowadays is to get people to fully understand that they're sinners and they cannot get to heaven on any of their good deeds because we're all sinners. This man, number one, he accepted the load of his sin. Notice this next phrase in verse 41, for we receive the due reward of our deeds. I see secondly, he accepted the legality of his sentence. Number one, he says this, I've sinned, I'm wrong and I know it. Secondly, he says this, the punishment I'm getting, I deserve. It's what I deserve. You know, nowadays in our society, any punishment going to anybody, none of them think they deserve it.

You know, it's a big thing nowadays to blame everybody else and it's this fat and it's my dysfunctional family and it's this and that. This guy says this, hey, I've sinned and I deserve the penalty that is coming my way. You know what, folks?

You and I deserve the same penalty. Wouldn't it be good if all of us realized today got out of our little suit clothes and don't get out of your suit clothes, but you understand what I'm saying? With our minds, we get out of our little suit clothes and we get out of our little, you know, church act sometimes and we all look good and smell good and act good and we, you know, we're at church and we're behaving and I'm thanking God that you are, but let's just separate ourselves from that minute and this morning, can we all just come to grips with the fact and look at ourselves the way we really are? We're all a bunch of dirty, rotten sinners that have a filthy flesh to us and all of us deserve hell. You know why I believe this man got saved later?

Because he accepted the responsibility now. I've sinned and I deserve to hang on this cross. By the way, you and I deserved to hang on that cross too. Jesus didn't deserve to hang on that cross.

We did. You and I ought to accept the legality of our sentence. You know what the Bible says? The wages of sin is, you know what the Bible says? He that believeth not is condemned already. That's our sentence. That's the legality. If everything was legal, we'd be in hell.

If everything was fair, we'd be burning right now. He was a dying man. And dear friend, if you're here without Christ, you're a dying man too.

You just don't realize it. Once you notice, secondly, not only was he a dying man, but second, he was a discerning man. I found this very interesting here and say, preacher, why do you say he was a discerning man? Look at verse 40, if you would. He said, but the other answering rebuked him saying, dost not thou fear God? Notice this, seeing thou art in the same condemnation, we indeed justly for we receive the due reward of our deeds. Notice, but this man hath done nothing amiss. Amazingly, through all the stuff that was going on this day, this man had discernment. You say why? Well, two reasons. Number one, he began to look at Jesus.

You say, what do you mean? Well, first, he looked at his suffering agony. He had watched them scourge Jesus more than they had scourged him. In fact, the Bible says that all the hatred, all the guile from the religious hypocrites, it all was centered on Jesus that day. There's not one word of these thieves ever being hit, ever being whipped.

They didn't have a cat of nine tails ripping skin out of their back. They weren't scourged, they weren't spit on, they weren't mocked. It was all centered on Jesus. And this thief who deserved that cross, knew he deserved that cross, accepted the fact that he was a sinner, he had done wrong and deserved it. He watched as a man who didn't deserve it take all that agony.

He watched. Second, he looked at Jesus and he saw his sinless actions. Not just his suffering agony, but his sinless actions. Look at the verse we just read.

Look at verse 41. He said, this man hath done nothing amiss. He noticed him taking all this scourging, and then he noticed that this guy hasn't done one thing wrong.

There's not one charge. Listen, he was there that day. He heard all the charges. He heard all the things being said.

And he and his other guy, they had charges of theft or murder or whatever the case might be. It was all laid out and hey, we did it. And we received the reward of our deeds. Why did he say we received the reward of our deeds? Because his deeds had just been given as punishment for that crime.

But they didn't have anything to say about Jesus. He hadn't stolen anything. He hadn't murdered anybody. He hadn't even harmed a fly. Simply the fact that he claims to be the son of God. This man saw that he had a suffering agony, but he saw secondly that he had sinless actions. In the middle of all this, he realized this guy hasn't done one thing wrong. And listen to me, as this man is discerning all this, all these thousands of people that hate him can't find one thing on him. Have you ever thought about that? If anybody's going to find something in your past, it's going to be somebody that hates you. You ever watch on media as soon as somebody gets a little bit well-known, all of a sudden the reports start coming out?

That means somebody didn't like them and they're going to bring out some facts from the past. And this man noticed that out of all these thousands of people that absolutely hated Jesus, they could not come up with one piece of concrete evidence that he had ever done anything wrong. He saw that. Third, he began to look at Jesus because of his saving ability, his suffering agony, his sinless actions.

This is very interesting to me, but notice he saw his saving ability. Look at verse 35. This is Jesus' enemies talking. Look at verse 35. Amazingly, this guy hanging on the cross gets the gospel from Jesus' enemies.

Look at verse 35. And the people stood beholding, and the rulers also with them derided him, saying, He saved others. Let him try to save himself. He, even his enemies, had to admit he saved others. This man hanging on the cross, of all times he needed saving. It was then, and he heard that crowd say, He saved others. I believe with all my heart that this man hanging on the cross had heard about this man, Jesus. He had probably heard about the miracles. He had probably heard about all the religious gatherings. He had probably heard some of the things that were done in Jesus. He might have heard about how Jesus broke bread and fed 5,000 men plus women and children. He might have heard how there's this maniac that was cutting himself, running around without clothing in a graveyard. And he heard how Jesus showed up, and that man was saved, and how all of a sudden now he was dressed neat, acted neat, and went around and witnessed and brought others to Christ. Maybe he had heard about all these things. I don't know. If he was a thief, maybe he had avoided his taxes. Maybe somehow he heard about Zacchaeus as a tax collector, and maybe he heard how Jesus came and made a difference at that nasty old tax collector.

I don't know. I don't know what he heard, but I believe he had been hearing things along the way, and all of a sudden now he realizes this man hadn't done one thing wrong. Nobody can produce any evidence that he'd done anything wrong, and even his enemies have to believe and agree that he saved others. Dear friend, I'm here to tell you this morning, you might still be a little bit skeptical about God and the Bible and Christian things, but I'm here to tell you he has already saved others. He saved me and my failures and shortcomings, my sin. He saved me. Guess what?

Right in front of you today are a whole bunch of people. He's already saved. I want you to notice, fourthly, that as he looked at Jesus, he began to see his silence. I find it interesting that the Bible says as Jesus was being mocked, spit on, scourged, beaten, derided, railed, as the Bible uses.

This man was watching the entire thing, and yet I believe he saw something very interesting about this Jesus. He never cussed back. He never swore back. He never hollered back. He was never angry back. In fact, he never said anything.

He took it. You mean to tell me that doesn't tell you something about an individual? Somebody that the whole entire wrath of mankind is unleashed on, and he doesn't have one negative thing to say back to them?

Dear friend, if somebody pulls out in front of us in traffic, we got something negative to say. And now, mankind unleashed itself on him, and he said nothing. He was a discerning man because he began to look at Jesus, but secondly, he began to listen to Jesus. You say, well, preacher, you just said he didn't say anything.

Well, but let me tell you the two times he did speak. Why don't you look at verse 28 of chapter 23 where you are? Jesus is being scourged and beaten and whipped, and as he walks by, look if you would at verse 27. And there followed him a great company of people and of women, which also bewailed and lamented him.

Now, this is two possibilities here. In the difficult days, there would be those that would come, and their job was to weep and wail just so that they would have somebody to cry for them. Or it could have been that these were actually followers of Christ that were watching. The danger if you were a follower of Christ to outwardly weep and wail would be they might try to harm you too because they hated Jesus so much.

So if these women were believers that were honestly broken-hearted, or if these were just fake criers that were brought in so that there would be weeping and wailing as they often did. But notice his response in verse 28. But Jesus turning unto them said, daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me, but weep for yourselves and your children. This man heard Jesus say that. Even in all the pain inflicted on him, Jesus was still concerned about others. Oh, the compassion of this man as he was carrying his cross. And we don't have any record that these two guys carried their crosses.

Now, they might have, we don't know. But Jesus was carrying his. And he had certainly been inflicted pain that these guys hadn't. And yet in the middle of all this, not only did Jesus not say one negative thing back to those people, but he actually looked at a person and said, hey, don't weep for me, weep for yourselves and your children. Secondly, I want you to notice verse 34. As he's hanging on the cross, these two men haven't even spoken yet and Jesus is hanging on the cross and everybody's yelling and screaming, crucify him, crucify him, crucify him.

And Jesus finally is nailed to that cross. And what does he say when he gets up there? He says this, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.

You mean to tell me that man hanging there doesn't see that? All that this man has taken today, he hadn't said one negative thing back to anybody. He has nothing but compassion for those along the way. And hanging here, he says, God, forgive everybody what they've done. This was a discerning man because he looked to Jesus and he listened to Jesus.

By the way, dear friends, I want you to know something. While Jesus was here on earth, we rejected him. We rejected him.

We are just as much to blame as anyone else. And yet he still, the Bible says, is anxious to forgive. I want you to notice, thirdly, he was a dying man, a discerning man, but thirdly, he was a delivered man. Say, why is that?

Well, there's a couple reasons. Number one, I believe he had a fear of God. Look, if you look at verse 40, but the other answering rebuked the thief that was ridiculing. He rebuked him saying, dost not thou fear God? He had a fear of God. You know what worries us? We've been preaching this for years.

I remember Brother Joe for years. He would always say back when they had those t-shirts, no fear and all these things. And do you realize how ignorant it is for people to not fear God? The Bible says, the fool hath said in his heart, there is no God. He looked at the guy hanging on the other side.

He says, listen, you're hanging there too. You're getting ready to die too. You're being crucified too. You don't have fear of God. I do. That's what he's saying.

Boy, I do. Oh, dear friend, you know what would give us revival in our churches nowadays? You know what would flood people down the aisles if you and I would get a glimpse of the holiness and purity of almighty God and our fear would become so great because of our sin and what we're doing to God.

We flood these aisles to get right if we really feared God. Secondly, not only did he have a fear of God, but second, he had faith in God. Look at verse 42, very interesting. And he said unto Jesus the earthly name ascribed to our Savior. He said unto Jesus the earthly name, Lord. This is the word Jehovah, the heavenly name. He's saying your man and your God. Oh, the doctrine in this little phrase, and we're getting ready to show you here.

Notice this. He said, Jesus, said to Jesus, Lord. I love that. That word Lord, you say, what did he say? Well, he said Jehovah. And what he's saying is this, by just that name he used for him, he could have said, and we've gone through the names of God in our Sunday school class, he could have just said Elohim.

And Elohim would have been, you know, that you're just your God and we believe your God, but I don't necessarily put my faith and trust in you, you're just Elohim. Elohim is the name of God, which means like we would say Barack Obama is the president. That word president would be Elohim. He's in the office of president.

Barack Obama is his name, but president is his office. And Elohim means that God is God. He's in the office of God, but he said Jehovah.

Look at me, dear friend. If you're not saved, you have to call him Elohim. You can't call him Jehovah unless you've been saved.

Because that's the personal name for God that is reserved to those that know him and have put their faith and trust in him. He said, Jesus, you might be earthly Jesus, but you're Jehovah. You're the God who was, the God who is, and the God who always will be. The fact that he called him that particular name means that he was saying, listen, I believe and I've not done much and I have not done a lot of good, but I'm here to tell you I put my faith and trust in everything that I have.

I will bank the entire farm on it. You're God and I believe it. You say, well, preacher, I just don't know.

How do you know that? Notice the next phrase. Lord, remember me when thou comest into what? Thy kingdom. We've been going on Wednesday nights through prayer for since February. We're going through the Lord's prayer and we recently did the phrase in Lord's prayer, thy kingdom come.

This is interesting. The very fact that he said, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom. What he is saying is I believe you're king because he wouldn't say thy kingdom. If it's thy kingdom, then he has to be the king because the king owns the kingdom. So he said, Lord, Jehovah, I believe you're Lord. And then he says at the end, I even believe you're king.

You say, why is that significant? Because mockingly they had put a sign above Jesus that said, oh, here's the king of kings. Here's the king of the Jews. And this guy says, hey, I believe you're the king of the Jews. You're king.

Just remember me. He didn't say take me. He said just remember me when you go to thy kingdom because you own it. He had faith in God.

That's why I said but without faith it is impossible to please God because him that cometh to God must believe that he is. And I'm here to tell you today he is. He's Lord. He's king. He's high priest. He's savior.

He's everything. Lastly, he had a fear of God, a faith in God. And lastly, he had forgiveness by God. Look at verse 43, if you will. And Jesus said unto him, verily I say unto thee, today shalt thou be with me in paradise. Dear friend, there's only one way to paradise. You and I have sin and God can't be where sin is. God dwells in heaven. So you and I have no way to get there because our sin keeps us from that. We couldn't enter. The only way we can enter is if our sins have been covered by the blood of Jesus.

And if they've been covered by the blood of Jesus, we are allowed to enter not because we have righteousness but because we've been clothed in his righteousness. Thank you for listening today. We hope you received a blessing from our broadcast. The Kerwin Baptist Church is located at 4520 Old Hollow Road in Kernersville, North Carolina. You may also contact us by phone at 336-993-5192 or via the web at kerwinbaptistchurch.com. Enjoy our services live and all our media on our website and church app. Thank you for listening to the Kerwin broadcast today. God bless you.