They do not consider the evidences this thief left behind him. They do not observe the abundant proof he gave of the work of the Spirit in his heart. And these proofs I wish to trace out. I wish to show you that the Spirit always works in one way, and that, whether He converts a man in an hour, as He did the penitent thief, or whether by slow degrees, as He does others, the steps by which He leads souls to heaven are always the same.

Let me try to make this clear to everyone who reads this message. I want to put you on your guard. I want you to shake off the common notion that there is some easy royal road to heaven from a dying bed. I want you thoroughly to understand, that every saved soul goes through the same experience, and that the leading principles of the penitent thief’s religion were just the same as those of the oldest saint that ever lived.

a. See how strong this man’s faith was. He called Jesus ‘Lord.’ He declared his belief that He would have a ‘kingdom.’ He believed that He was able to give him eternal life and glory, and in this belief prayed to Him. He maintained His innocence of all the charges brought against Him. ‘This Man,’ said he, ‘has done nothing amiss.’ Others perhaps may have thought the Lord innocent—none said so openly but this poor dying man.

And when did all this happen? It happened when the whole nation had denied Christ, shouting, ‘Crucify Him, crucify Him we have no king but Caesar’; when the chief priests and Pharisees had condemned and found Him ‘guilty of death’; when even His own disciples had forsaken Him and fled; when He was hanging, faint, bleeding and dying on the cross, numbered with transgressors, and accounted accursed. This was the hour when the thief believed in Christ, and prayed to Him! Surely such faith was never seen since the world began.

The disciples had seen mighty signs and miracles. They had seen the dead raised with a word and lepers healed with a touch, the blind receiving sight, the dumb made to speak, the lame made to walk. They had seen thousands fed with a few loaves and fishes. They had seen their Master walking on the water as on dry land. They had all of them heard Him speak as no man ever spoke, and hold out promises of good things yet to come. They had some of them had a foretaste of His glory in the mount of transfiguration. Doubtless their faith was ‘the gift of God,’ but still they had much to help it.

The dying thief saw none of the things I have mentioned. He only saw our Lord in agony, and in weakness, in suffering and in pain. He saw Him undergoing a dishonorable punishment, deserted, mocked, despised, blasphemed. He saw Him rejected by all the great and wise and noble of His own people, His strength dried up like a potsherd, His life drawing near to the grave (Ps. 22:15; 88:3). He saw no scepter, no royal crown, no outward dominion, no glory, no majesty, no power, no signs of might. And yet the dying thief believed, and looked forward to Christ’s kingdom.

Would you know if you have the Spirit? Then mark the question I put to you this day: where is your faith in Christ?

b. See what a right sense of sin the thief had. He says to his companion, ‘We receive the due reward of our deeds.’ He acknowledges his own ungodliness, and the justice of his punishment. He makes no attempt to justify himself, or excuse his wickedness. He speaks like a man humbled and self–abased by the remembrance of past iniquities. This is what all God’s children feel. They are ready to allow they are poor hell–deserving sinners. They can say with their hearts as well as with their lips ‘We have left undone the things that we ought to have done, and we have done those things that we ought not to have done, and there is no health in us.’

Would you know if you have the Spirit? Then mark my question do you feel your sins?

c. See what brotherly love the thief showed to his companion. He tried to stop his railing and blaspheming, and bring him to a better mind. ‘Does not you fear God’, he says, ‘seeing you are in the same condemnation?’ There is no surer mark of grace than this! Grace shakes a man out of his selfishness, and makes him feel for the souls of others. When the Samaritan woman was converted, she left her water pot, and ran to the city, saying, ‘Come, see a man which told me all things that ever I did is not this the Christ?’ (John 4:28, 29). When Saul was converted, immediately he went to the synagogue at Damascus, and testified to his brethren of Israel that ‘Christ was the Son of God’ (Acts 9:20).

Would you know if you have the Spirit? Then where is your charity and love to souls?

In one word, you see in the penitent thief a finished work of the Holy Spirit. Every part of the believer’s character may be traced in him. Short as his life was after conversion, he found time to leave abundant evidence that he was a child of God. His faith, his prayer, his humility, his brotherly love, are unmistakable witnesses of the reality of his repentance. He was not a penitent in name only, but in deed and in truth.

Let no man therefore think, because the penitent thief was saved, that men can be saved without leaving any evidence of the Spirit’s work. Let such an one consider well what evidences this man left behind, and take care.

It is mournful to hear what people sometimes say about what they call deathbed evidences. It is perfectly fearful to observe how little satisfies some people, and how easily they can persuade themselves that their friends have gone to heaven. They will tell you when their relative is dead and gone, that ‘he made such a beautiful prayer one day’, or that ‘he talked so well’, or that ‘he was so sorry for his old ways, and intended to live so differently if he got better’, or that ‘he craved nothing in this world’, or that ‘he liked people to read to him, and pray with him’. And because they have this to go upon, they seem to have a comfortable hope that he is saved! Christ may never have been named, the way of salvation may never have been in the least mentioned. But it matters not; there was a little talk of religion, and so they are content!

Now I have no desire to hurt the feelings of anyone who reads this message, but I must and will speak plainly upon this subject.

Once for all, let me say, that as a general rule, nothing is so unsatisfactory as deathbed evidences. The things that men say, and the feelings they express when sick and frightened, are little to be depended on. Often, too often, they are the result of fear, and do not spring from the ground of the heart. Often, too often, they are things said by rote, caught from the lips of ministers and anxious friends, but evidently not felt. And nothing can prove all this more clearly than the well–known fact, that the great majority of people who make promises of amendment on a sick bed, and then for the first time talk about religion, if they recover, go back to sin and the world.

When a man has lived a life of thoughtlessness and folly, I want something more than a few fair words and good wishes to satisfy me about his soul, when he comes to his deathbed. It is not enough for me that he will let me read the Bible to him, and pray by his bedside, that he says, he has ‘not thought so much as he ought of religion, and he thinks he should be a different man if he got better.’ All this does not content me; it does not make me feel happy about his state. It is very well as far as it goes, but it is not conversion. It is very well in its way, but it is not faith in Christ. Until I see conversion, and faith in Christ, I cannot and dare not feel satisfied. Others may feel satisfied if they please, and after their friend’s death say, they hope he is gone to heaven. For my part I would rather hold my tongue and say nothing. I would be content with the least measure of repentance and faith in a dying man, even though it be no bigger than a grain of mustard seed. But to be content with anything less than repentance and faith seems to me next door to infidelity.

What kind of evidence do you mean to leave behind as to the state of your soul? Take example by the penitent thief, and you will do well.

When we have carried you to your narrow bed, let us not have to hunt up stray words and scraps of religion, in order to make out that you were a true believer. Let us not have to say in a hesitating way one to another, ‘I trust he is happy; he talked so nicely one day, and he seemed so pleased with a chapter in the Bible on another occasion, and he liked such a person, who is a good man.’ Let us be able to speak decidedly as to your condition. Let us have some solid proof of your repentance, your faith and your holiness, so that none shall be able for a moment to question your state. Depend on it, without this, those you leave behind can feel no solid comfort about your soul. We may use the form of religion at your burial, and express charitable hopes. We may meet you at the churchyard gate, and say, ‘Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord.’ But this will not alter your condition! If you die without conversion to God, without repentance, and without faith, your funeral will only be the funeral of a lost soul; you had better never have been born.
 

4. Believers in Christ when they die are with the Lord

We are meant, in the next place, to learn from these verses, that believers in Christ when they die are with the Lord.