(Read Luke 33.)
IN the account which the Spirit of God gives us, by the pen of Luke, of the trial and crucifixion of the blessed Lord Jesus, we have four very striking prayers, to which I desire to draw your attention. Let me ask you first of all to quietly read Luke 23 In so doing you will find
(1) THE PRAYER OF HATRED.
It was this― “Away with this man... crucify him, crucify him!” (vers. 18-21). What a prayer! You say, I have not prayed that prayer. No; but the man that sides with the world is part and parcel with it. You cannot get out of it. Christ is the touchstone and test, and everyone is either for the Lord or opposed to Him. You would not like to draw the line so clearly as that, but God draws it. “He that is not with me is against me” (Luke 11:2323He that is not with me is against me: and he that gathereth not with me scattereth. (Luke 11:23)). In all that company there was no one for Him. Perhaps I hear you say, “If I had been there that day I would have stood for Him.” Have you stood for Him today. As He looks down from heaven at your life, can He say of you, “That man is thoroughly for Me”? If not, you must see the ground you are on is very serious.
How awful was this prayer, “Crucify him,” which the till now vacillating judge granted: for “Pilate gave sentence that it should be as they required.
And he released unto them him that for sedition and murder was cast into prison, whom they had desired; but he delivered Jesus to their will” (vers. 24:25). With one stroke of his pen, Pilate signed, I fear, the death warrant of the Son of God, and that of his own eternal damnation. You miss God’s opportunity of receiving Christ now, and you may miss it forever. If God cut the thread of your life today, how would you pass into eternity?
(2) THE PRAYER OF FEAR
comes next before us. A great company of people follow the Lord towards Calvary, who “bewailed and lamented him.” “But Jesus turning unto them said, Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me, but weep for yourselves, and for your children. For, behold the days are coming, in the which they shall say, Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that never bare, and the paps which never gave suck. Then shall they begin to say to the mountains, Fall on us; and to the hills, Cover us” (vers. 26-30). That is the prayer of fear. The Lord Jesus says this prayer will yet be prayed, and I believe the moment is at hand. One day the Lord will come and the saints be taken up. Antichrist will appear, and then God gives signs of the Lord’s coming, the return of the Son of man. Men will be wakened up throughout Christendom with the feeling that they are guilty and godless, and will say to the mountains and rocks, “Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the face of the Lamb: for the great day of his wrath is come, and who shall be able to stand?” (see Rev. 6:16, 1716And said to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb: 17For the great day of his wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand? (Revelation 6:16‑17)). They will turn to creation and say, Hide us from God. If you are wise you will hide yourself in God now, and you will find a Saviour. That is what the dying thief found.
(3) THE PRAYER OF LOVE.
I do not accuse you of praying the first prayer, but I am not at all sure you will not pray the second. Have you ever noticed the third? Pass on to Calvary and heed its time and meaning. “And when they were come to the place, which is called Calvary, there they crucified him and the malefactors, one on the right hand, and the other on the left” (vs. 33). There, in a graveyard, the martial Roman, the religious Jew, and the polished Greek gave the most shameful death possible to Jesus. They nailed Him to a tree, they crucified Him, God’s Son, Creator of all things, Lord of all, brightness of the Father’s glory, the very essence of God made known down here, God manifest in the flesh. “There they crucified him.” In a cemetery the world killed God’s Son. All turns now on your relation to the One who died on that tree. What does God do? Does a thunderbolt fall from heaven? No, in all the stir of that awful scene, and at the climax of man’s wickedness which that scene brings out, love in all its resistless energy appears. A voice is heard―it is the voice of love, listen― “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do” (vs. 34). The prayer of love is divine indeed.
Who prays that prayer? Jesus, the Saviour, the One who is being murdered. You have in His prayer the revelation of what was in the bosom of the Father—love. What blessed words! Can you hear them unmoved? What is the effect upon those who heard that prayer? If the revelation of grace does not soften people’s hearts, alas it hardens them. “And the people stood beholding. And the rulers also with them, derided him, saying, He saved others; let him save himself, if he be Christ, the chosen of God” (vs. 35). They are compelled to give testimony to the glory of His Person and the blessedness of His actions― “He saved others; let him save himself; if he be Christ, the chosen of God.” Everything turned upon this―was He the Messiah, the King? Will He save Himself? No, blessed be His name! because if He had saved Himself that day, and come down from the cross He could never have saved you and me. “Without shedding of blood is no remission” (Heb. 9:2222And almost all things are by the law purged with blood; and without shedding of blood is no remission. (Hebrews 9:22)). He was being hated without a cause, and those who hated Him taunted Him, He says, “I was the song of the drunkards” (Psa. 69:1212They that sit in the gate speak against me; and I was the song of the drunkards. (Psalm 69:12)).
To all the taunts He makes no reply. “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” (vers. 36, 37). He was there for God’s glory, and there and then unfolded all the deep and eternal love of God. He would not save Himself that He might save others. “And a superscription also was written over him in letters of Greek, and Latin, and Hebrew, This is THE KING OF THE JEWS” (vs. 38). There was no doubt that He was.
“And one of the malefactors which were hanged railed on him, saying, If thou be Christ, save thyself and us” (vs. 39). There was no faith in that, it was mere reason. You have unfolded at Calvary’s cross, in a most wonderful way, the difference between rationalism and revelation, darkness and light. “If thou be Christ” meant this―If you really were the Christ you would not allow yourself to be nailed to this tree. The mental process was and is this―If you be what you allege you are, you would never suffer yourself to be put where you are. That is mere rationalism, which has never weighed the dreadful fact of what sin is in God’s sight, but Christ has, and He took up the whole question of sin before God at that moment. He absolutely gave Himself a sin-offering and a burnt-offering to God. He “who knew no sin was made sin,” and He took up between Himself and God the whole question of man’s sin, as God knows it and measures it. He gave up His blessed, holy life, a sacrifice for sin to effect atonement, and, blessed be His name, He effected it by pouring forth His soul unto death, and passing on to the deeper moment of agony when God forsook Him, because He was made sin.
Ere that moment came Be listened to a touching prayer uttered by one dying by His side. One thief could only jibe, “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” (vers. 40, 41). What produced this right judgment? God wrought in his soul, and what produced infidelity and jibes in the mass of the people―the truth conveyed in these words, “Father, forgive them”―became light to that man’s soul. He got light to see that the One dying by his side was the Son of God, and that He was dying for His murderers. As light got into his soul, faith sprang up, and he turned to Jesus, and seeing all the blessedness of Godhead in Him, says, “Lord, remember me when thou comest in thy kingdom” (vs. 42). Was not that exquisite faith at such a moment? Verily was it most manifestly.
(4) THE PRAYER OF FAITH.
The fruit of the Spirit’s work in that man’s soul is very manifest, as, fearing God himself, he rebukes his neighbor. “The fear of the Lord is to hate evil: pride, and arrogancy, and the evil way, and the froward month, do I hate” (Prov. 8:1313The fear of the Lord is to hate evil: pride, and arrogancy, and the evil way, and the froward mouth, do I hate. (Proverbs 8:13)). He judges evil, is brought to repentance, having the fear of God before his eyes. To his neighbor he says, as it were, “You and I never did a right thing; and here is a Man that never did a wrong one.” Assured that Jesus would rise again and have a kingdom, he would like to have a place in it, and hence his prayer, “Lord, remember me when thou comest in thy kingdom” (vs. 42).
The Lord has not come back yet. If the thief had got his prayer answered on his own terms he would not have got blessing yet. The Lord, however, always reads the heart, and He knew that his heart was touched, and that he meant, “I should like to be near You and to be a subject in Your kingdom.” Would not you like to be there too? What folly to go on as a slave of Satan. God enable you to say, I will bow to Christ, and be a subject in His kingdom.
“And Jesus said unto him, Verily, I say unto you, Today thou shalt be with me in paradise” (vs. 43). That meant present and eternal salvation for him. Christ has not come yet in power, but He is coming, and in the meantime what has become of the thief?’ He has had eighteen hundred years with Christ in paradise. I suppose that one thief went to the pit, and the other to paradise. Where will you spend eternity?
After the Lord’s reply to the prayer of faith, we read, “And it was about the sixth hour, and there was a darkness over all the earth until the ninth hour” (vs. 44). That was when atonement was effected, as He bore the sins of sinners. “And the sun was darkened, and the veil of the temple was rent in the midst” (vs. 45). God rent it, and the Holy Ghost came down after Christ went up, and He is bidding men to come unto God now, through the rent veil. The question of sins is all settled, and there is now no barrier to’ God, and He can come out, in all the love of His heart, and bless anybody and everybody: hence the glad tidings of the grace of God are to be proclaimed throughout the world.
Reader, we have been considering a wonderful scene. How do you stand in relation to the One who was on that central cross? Is He your Lord yet? Do not let the sun go down, and do not put your head on your pillow till you have got into the presence of the Lord Jesus, and said, “Lord, remember me.” “If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved” (Rom. 10:99That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. (Romans 10:9)).
W. T. P. W.