I should do this with all my heart, rejoicing that I had such a story to tell to one at the gates of eternity. I should tell him that, though he was as near to dying as the thief upon the cross was, yet, if he repented of his sin, and turned his face to Christ believingly, he would find eternal life.
I venture, however, to say that if I stood by the bedside of a dying man to-night, and I found him anxious about his soul, but fearful that Christ could not save him because repentance had been put off so late, I should certainly quote the dying thief to him, and I should do it with good conscience, and without hesitation. There is no doctrine of the grace of God so gracious that graceless men may not turn it into licentiousness. He that has a mind to destroy himself can choke his soul with the Bread of life, or dash himself in pieces against the Rock of ages. Wicked men will drown themselves in the rivers of truth as readily as in the pools of error. I might say, “I may be a thief because this thief was saved,” just as rationally as I might say," I may put off repentance because this thief was saved when he was about to die.” The fact is, there is nothing so good but men can pervert it into evil, if they have evil hearts: the justice of God is made a motive for despair, and his mercy an argument for sin. It cannot be properly turned to such a purpose: it might be used as an encouragement to thieving just as much as to the delay of repentance. I trust, however, that the narrative is not often so used, even by the worst of men, and I feel sure that it will not be so used by any one of you. No Christian man could or would use it so injuriously: he must be hopelessly bad who would draw from God’s longsuffering an argument for continuing in sin. Brethren, if the author meant - and I do not think he did mean- that this ought never to be so used as to lead people to postpone repentance to a dying bed, he spoke correctly. I read the other day that this story of the dying thief ought not to be taken as an encouragement to death-bed repentance. So often has this been the case that it has produced a sort of revulsion of feeling in certain minds, so that they have been driven in a wrong direction by their wish to protest against what they think to be a common error.
He who is mighty to save was mighty, even during his own death, to pluck others from the grasp of the destroyer, though they were in the act of expiring.īut that is not everything which the story teaches us and it is always a pity to look exclusively upon one point, and thus to miss everything else- perhaps miss that which is more important. The cross of Christ avails even for a man hanging on a gibbet, and drawing near to his last hour. In his case it is proven that as long as a man can repent he can obtain forgiveness. He has always been quoted as a case of salvation at the eleventh hour and so, indeed, he is. 40- 42.Ī GREAT many persons, whenever they hear of the conversion of the dying thief, remember that he was saved in the very article of death, and they dwell upon that fact, and that alone. And he said unto Jesus, Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom.” - Luke xxiii. “But the other answering rebuked him, saying, Dost not thou fear God, seeing thou art in the same condemnation? And we indeed justly for we receive the due reward of our deeds: but this Man hath done nothing amiss.
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