BIGComp21

The first person Jesus promised heaven to was a criminal who spent part of that morning cursing Him. Matthew 27:44. The thieves also, who were crucified with him, cast the same in his teeth. Both of them. Plural. Matthew and Mark both say that the two men dying beside Him joined the crowd and mocked Him. Then something happened to one of them. Nobody preached to him. Nobody gave him a tract. He watched a man get stripped, nailed, mocked by priests, gambled over by soldiers, and somewhere in those hours he changed his mind about who was hanging in the middle. Luke 23:40. Dost not thou fear God, seeing thou art in the same condemnation? He turns on his own partner first. Then: And we indeed justly; for we receive the due reward of our deeds. He doesn't minimize it. Doesn't blame Rome. Doesn't say he fell in with the wrong crowd. He says: I earned this cross. Then: but this man hath done nothing amiss. The only man in Jerusalem that day who publicly declared Jesus innocent was a condemned criminal with nails in his wrists. Pilate had said it and then washed his hands. Peter had said it and then denied it. The disciples had scattered. A thief said it out loud from a cross and couldn't run. Then he says the sentence that should stop you cold. Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom. Look at what he's looking at while he says it. A man who can't move. Naked. Bleeding out. Nailed to wood between two criminals. No army. No crown. No miracle. The sky going dark and His own mother sobbing at His feet. And this man calls Him Lord and says kingdom. Everyone else that day used the word king as a joke. The soldiers jammed thorns on His head and knelt down, mocking: Hail, King of the Jews. The priests shouted Let Christ the King of Israel descend now from the cross. Pilate nailed a sign above His head in three languages: THIS IS THE KING OF THE JEWS, and meant it as an insult to the whole nation. Everybody in the story said the word. One man believed it. And think about the faith required. Every other person who trusted Jesus in the gospels had evidence. They saw blind eyes open. They saw a dead man walk out of a tomb. They watched Him still a storm. This man saw none of it. He saw Jesus fail. He saw Him lose, publicly, completely, in the most humiliating way the Roman Empire could engineer. And he looked at total defeat and said: I want to be in your kingdom. That's the greatest act of faith recorded in the Bible, and it came from a man who had hours left to live. Now look at what he asked for. Remember me. That's all. Not save me. Not take me with you. Just when you come into whatever it is you're coming into, think of me. He asked for a thought. A memory. The smallest thing a man can ask. And look at the answer. Luke 23:43. Verily I say unto thee, To day shalt thou be with me in paradise. He asked to be remembered someday. Jesus said today. He asked for a thought. Jesus said With me. He asked to be included. Jesus said paradise. Now that word. Paradise. In Greek it's paradeisos. It isn't originally a religious word at all; it's an old Persian term for a walled garden, an enclosed park belonging to a king. And when Jewish scholars translated the Hebrew Bible into Greek, that's the word they chose for one specific place. Genesis 2:8. And the LORD God planted a garden eastward in Eden. Paradeisos. The garden. So read the promise again with that in your ears. A man is dying for his crimes, and the Son of God tells him: today you'll be with me in the garden. The garden humanity was thrown out of. Genesis 3:24: God placed cherubim at the east of the garden of Eden, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life. An angel with a burning sword stood at that gate for the whole Old Testament. Nobody got back in. Not Abraham. Not Moses. Not David. And the first human being told he was going back in was a convicted criminal, and the announcement was made by a man bleeding to death three feet away from him. The sword came down on the wrong man, and the gate came open. Now count what the thief had. No baptism. He was nailed to a cross; he wasn't going anywhere near water. No good works. His hands were fixed to wood. He could not physically do one single thing for God for the rest of his life. No restitution. Whoever he stole from never got it back. No church. No membership, no giving, no service, no years of faithfulness. No time. He had hours. He had nothing. He came with empty hands, an honest confession, and one sentence of faith. And he is the only person in the entire Bible that Jesus personally, verbally, by name guaranteed would be with Him in paradise that same day. The man we are most certain is in heaven did the fewest works of anyone in Scripture. That should wreck your arithmetic. Because you've been keeping a ledger. Years of church against years you were gone. Prayers against failures. The version of you people see against the one you actually are. You've got some idea that there's a number you have to hit before God will look at you and you're behind on it, and you know it. The thief had nothing on his side of the ledger but a lifetime of theft and a morning of mockery. Jesus didn't ask him for anything else. And notice: Jesus never told him to clean up first. Never said if you had more time. Never asked what he'd stolen or from whom. The man asked to be remembered, and Jesus handed him the garden. If you're reading this thinking you're too far gone, or too late, or too dirty, or that you'd need years to get right before God would want you. He saved a man who had six hours left and couldn't move his hands. He can do something with what's left of yours. Say what the thief said. Remember me.