The Free Grace Gospel Saved the Dying Thief
And he said unto Jesus, Lord, remember me when Thou comest into Thy kingdom. And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, To-day shalt thou be with Me in paradise. – Luke 23:42,43
I read somewhere, and I think it is true, that some ministers preach the gospel in the same way as donkeys eat thistles, namely, very, very cautiously. On the contrary, I will preach it boldly. I have not the slightest alarm about the matter. If any of you misuse free-grace teaching, I cannot help it. He that will be damned can as well ruin himself by perverting the gospel as by anything else. I cannot help what base hearts may invent; but mine it is to set forth the gospel in all its fulness of grace, and I will do it. If the thief was an exceptional case-and our Lord does not usually act in such a way-there would have been a hint given of so important a fact. A hedge would have been set about this exception to all rules. Would not the Saviour have whispered quietly to the dying man, “You are the only one I am going to treat in this way”? Whenever I have to do an exceptional favour to a person, I have to say, “Do not mention this, or I shall have so many besieging me.” If the Saviour had meant this to be a solitary case, He would have faintly said to him, “Do not let anybody know; but you shall to-day be in the kingdom with Me.” No, our Lord spoke openly, and those about Him heard what He said…The Saviour had this wonder of grace reported in the daily news of the gospel, because He means to repeat the marvel every day. The bulk shall be equal to sample, and therefore He sets the sample before you all. He is able to save to the uttermost, for He saved the dying thief. The case would not have been put there to encourage hopes which He cannot fulfil. Whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, and not for our disappointing. I pray you, therefore, if any of you have not yet trusted in my Lord Jesus, come and trust in Him now. Trust Him wholly; trust Him only; trust Him at once. ~ C.H. Spurgeon
https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2078.cfm
Death Bed Repentance- Is It Sincere?
Verily I say unto thee, To-day shalt thou be with Me in paradise. – Luke 23:43
Heaven and hell are not places far away. You may be in heaven before the clock ticks again, it is so near. Could we but rend that veil which parts us from the unseen! It is all there, and all near. “To-day,” said the Lord; within three or four hours at the longest, “shalt thou be with Me in paradise;” so near is it. A statesman has given us the expression of being “within measurable distance.” We are all within measurable distance of heaven or hell; if there be any difficulty in measuring the distance, it lies in its brevity rather than in its length.
Surely, if anything beyond faith is needed to make us fit to enter paradise, the thief would have been kept a little longer here; but no, he is, in the morning, in the state of nature, at noon he enters the state of grace, and by sunset he is in the state of glory. The question never is whether a death-bed repentance is accepted if it be sincere: If it be so, if the man dies five minutes after his first act of faith, he is as safe as if he had served the Lord for fifty years. If your faith is true, if you die one moment after you have believed in Christ, you will be admitted into paradise, even if you shall have enjoyed no time in which to produce good works and other evidences of grace. He that reads the heart will read your faith written on its fleshy tablets, and He will accept you through Jesus Christ, even though no act of grace has been visible to the eye of man. ~ C.H. Spurgeon
https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2078.cfm
A Great Saviour of Great Sinners
Lord, remember me when Thou comest into Thy kingdom. – Luke 23:42
Wherefore He is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by Him… – Hebrews 7:25
Consider now the teaching of our Lord; see the glory of Christ in salvation. He is ready to save at the last moment. He was just passing away; His foot was on the doorstep of the Father’s house. Up comes this poor sinner…and the Saviour smiles and declares that He will not enter except with this belated wanderer. At the very gate He declares that this seeking soul shall enter with Him. Our Lord had His dying pangs upon Him, and yet He attends to the perishing criminal, and permits him to pass through the heavenly portal in His company. Jesus easily saves the sinners for whom He painfully died. Jesus loves to rescue sinners from going down into the pit. You will be very happy if you are saved, but you will not be one half so happy as He will be when He saves you. See how gentle He is! He comes to us full of tenderness, with tears in His eyes, mercy in His hands, and love in His heart. Believe Him to be a great Saviour of great sinners. I have heard of one who had received great mercy who went about saying, “He is a great forgiver;” and I would have you say the same. You shall find your transgressions put away, and your sins pardoned once for all, if you now trust Him.
This man believed that Jesus was the Christ. The next thing he did was to appropriate that Christ. He said, “Lord, remember me.” As soon as ever a man believes that Jesus is the Christ, let him hook himself on to Him. The moment you believe Jesus to be the Saviour, seize upon Him as your Saviour. Take the Lord to be yours, and you have Him. Jesus is the common property of all sinners who make bold to take Him. Every sinner who has the will to do so may take the Lord home with him. He came into the world to save the sinful. ~ C.H. Spurgeon
https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2078.cfm
“I say to you, today…”
“Assuredly, I say to you, today you will be with Me in Paradise.” – Luke 23:43
“Verily I say unto thee, to-day shalt thou be with Me in paradise.” “To-day.” Thou shalt not lie in purgatory for ages, nor sleep in limbo for so many years; but thou shalt be ready for bliss at once, and at once thou shalt enjoy it. The sinner was hard by the gates of hell, but almighty mercy lifted him up, and the Lord said, “To-day shalt thou be with Me in paradise.” What a change from the cross to the crown, from the anguish of Calvary to the glory of the New Jerusalem! In those few hours the beggar was lifted from the dunghill and set among princes. “To-day shalt thou be with Me in paradise.” Can you measure the change from that sinner, loathsome in his iniquity, when the sun was high at noon, to that same sinner, clothed in pure white, and accepted in the Beloved, in the paradise of God, when the sun went down? O glorious Saviour, what marvels Thou canst work! How rapidly canst Thou work them!
Please notice the majesty of the Lord’s grace in this text. The Saviour said to him, “Verily I say unto thee, To-day shalt thou be with Me in paradise.” Our Lord gives His own will as the reason for saving this man. “I say.” He says it who claims the right thus to speak. It is He who will have mercy on whom He will have mercy and will have compassion on whom He will have compassion. He speaks royally, “Verily I say unto thee.” Are they not imperial words? The Lord is a King in whose word there is power. What He says none can gainsay. He that hath the keys of hell and of death saith, “I say unto thee, To-day shalt thou be with Me in paradise.” Who shall prevent the fulfilment of His word? ~ C.H. Spurgeon
https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2078.cfm
We Shall Be with Him in Paradise
“Assuredly, I say to you, today you will be with Me in Paradise.” – Luke 23:43
Who is this that entereth the pearl-gate at the same moment as the King of glory? Who is this favoured companion of the Redeemer? Is it some honoured martyr? Is it a faithful apostle? Is it a patriarch, like Abraham; or a prince, like David? It is none of these. Behold, and be amazed at sovereign grace. He that goeth in at the gate of paradise, with the King of glory, is a thief, who was saved in the article of death. He is saved in no inferior way and received into bliss in no secondary style. Verily, there are last which shall be first!
Here I would have you notice the condescension of our Lord’s choice. The comrade of the Lord of glory, for whom the cherub turns aside his sword of fire, is no great one, but a newly converted malefactor. And why? I think the Saviour took him with Him as a specimen of what He meant to do. He seemed to say to all the heavenly powers, “I bring a sinner with Me; he is a sample of the rest.” While we are handling this text, note well the blessedness of the place to which the Lord called this penitent. Jesus said, “To-day shalt thou be with Me in paradise.” Paradise means a garden, a garden filled with delights. The garden of Eden is the type of heaven. We know that paradise means heaven, for the apostle speaks of such a man caught up into paradise, and anon he calls it the third heaven. Our Saviour took this dying thief into the paradise of infinite delight, and this is where He will take all of us sinners who believe in Him. If we are trusting Him, we shall ultimately be with Him in paradise. ~ C.H. Spurgeon
https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2078.cfm
We Look to the Living Saviour
And Jesus said to him, “Assuredly, I say to you, today you will be with Me in Paradise.” – Luke 23:43
This man whom Christ saved at last was a man who could do no good works. If salvation had been by good works, he could not have been saved; for he was fastened hand and foot to the tree of doom. It was all over with him as to any act or deed of righteousness. He could say a good word or two, but that was all; he could perform no acts; and if his salvation had depended on an active life of usefulness, certainly he never could have been saved. He was a sinner also, who could not exhibit a long-enduring repentance for sin, for he had so short a time to live. He could not have experienced bitter convictions, lasting over months and years, for his time was measured by moments, and he was on the borders of the grave. His end was very near, and yet the Saviour could save him, and did save him so perfectly, that the sun went not down till he was in paradise with Christ…Jesus was a man, and he called Him so; but he knew that He was also Lord, and he called Him so, and said, “Lord, remember me.” He had such confidence in Jesus, that, if He would but only think of him, if He would only remember him when He came into His kingdom, that would be all that he would ask of Him…This man did not hesitate. He grasped the one hope for himself. He did not keep his persuasion of our Lord’s Messiahship in his mind as a dry, dead belief, but he turned it into trust and prayer, “Lord, remember me when Thou comest into Thy kingdom.” Oh, that in His infinite mercy many of you would trust my Lord! You shall be saved, I am sure you shall: if you are not saved when you trust, I must myself also renounce all hope. This is all that we have done: we looked, and we lived, and we continue to live because we look to the living Saviour. ~ C.H. Spurgeon
https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2078.cfm
He Hath Said 