Can someone be saved at the very last moment?

In Luke 23, one of the criminals crucified beside Jesus turns to Him in faith — and receives an astonishing promise. In this sermon, Dr. Toby Holt opens this scene at the cross and what it reveals about grace, repentance, and salvation.

Questions this sermon answers:

1. What changed in the dying thief? He stopped mocking, acknowledged his guilt and Jesus' innocence, and simply asked, "Lord, remember me when You come into Your kingdom."

2. How did Jesus respond? With immediate assurance: "Today you will be with Me in Paradise." No works, no time to earn it — only grace received by faith.

3. What does this teach us? That salvation is by grace alone, available even at the last hour to anyone who turns to Christ in faith.

"And Jesus said to him, 'Assuredly, I say to you, today you will be with Me in Paradise.'" — Luke 23:43 (NKJV)

Speaker: In Luke 23, one of the criminals crucified beside Jesus turns to Him in faith — and receives an astonishing promise. In this sermon, Dr. Toby Holt opens this scene at the cross and what it reveals about grace, repentance, and salvation.

When Jesus Christ hung upon the cross, he was crucified between two guys.

If you were to look at Jesus on the cross, he had a man to his right, he had a man to his left.

Now, the two thieves, their guilt was beyond dispute.

No one doubted the guilt of the two guys to the right and the left.

No one doubted that these men deserved what they had coming to them.

The whole society was glad to be rid of these guys.

Was so glad to be rid of them that they would nail them on a cross and watch their lifeblood

seep right from out of them. These were guilty men. But that was not the case with the one who

hung between them. That was not the case with the one we know as Jesus. There's no historical

precedent or reference that talks about Jesus as a thief. There's no historical reference or

precedent that talks about Jesus as a murderer. There's no historical reference or precedent that

says he was a criminal in a strict sense of the word. He was no criminal. He was no sinner. And

yet he has been crucified as if he were he's been crucified as if he was as guilty as the men to his

right and to his left now let me ask you does that seem fair does that seem right suppose you can

guess the way I might answer that question of course not this is not right this is not fair

and in time even one of the thieves is going to say as much even one of the thieves is going to

say to the other thief we deserve what we're getting but not this one not this one now for

the moment, though, I just wanted you to picture, again, three men on the cross. You have an innocent

man in the middle. You have guilty men to his right and to his left. Now, what I want you to

see that you might not have seen in other encounters with this text before is that these

thieves, while there's just two of them, they're meant to represent the whole lot of us. There's

two guys on the cross, to his right and to his left, and yet these two guys are meant to represent

all of mankind every man woman and child upon this globe now how well shortly before his death

one of the thieves would say this Lord remember me when you come into your kingdom one of the

thieves would plead forgiveness one of them would ask Jesus to remember him one would confess and

profess faith the other one the other one would curse Jesus die go to hell to Christ right hand

Christ left hand there are very different fates very different futures now does that remind you

of any other text in Scripture Matthew 25 Jesus said this and he's looking to the future a future

that includes you and I and he said this he says when the Son of Man comes in his glory and all

the holy angels around him then he will sit on the throne the nations will be gathered and he will

separate them one from the other as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats he will set the

sheep by his right hand and the goats to his left then the king will say to those to his right hand

come you blessed are my father inherit the kingdom inherit the kingdom that's been prepared for you

from the foundation of the world on the cross the two thieves depicted all of mankind it depicted

the sheep and the goats, depicted those going to paradise and those

who would not. On the cross, Jesus Christ was the line of demarcation

between the fate and future of everyone on the planet as typified

in these two men. Jesus Christ was the line

of demarcation, not just between their bodies to either side, but to their

fate, their future, their very souls. That hasn't changed. He's still the

line of demarcation. He's still the way, the truth,

and alive. All right, let's consider that now. Let's look, if you would, verse 39. I'm going to

read verse 39, then we'll just work our way through this short passage. Verse 39. Then one of the

criminals who were hanged blasphemed him, saying, if, if you are the Christ, then save yourself and

us. All right, this point in Luke's narrative, the crucifixion, it's well underway. At this point,

the blood is flowing, the nails have been hammered, they're up on the cross, death is in the air,

the imminence, the inevitability of death's approach has taken place. And at that moment,

one of these guys looks and says, you know what? If you really are the one that people have been

talking about, if you really are the promised one, all of our society has been looking forward

to for centuries past. If you're that guy, then what are you doing here? If you are that guy,

to jump off the cross come on what are you waiting for jump off the cross save yourself and while

you're at it save us too if if you are the Christ now is that the first time Jesus had ever heard

that question not so much you remember just a few weeks ago we had a study in Christ's time

in the wilderness you remember right after Jesus is baptized he goes out in the wilderness and

immediately he's tempted the serpent comes in or the devil comes in at this time tempts Jesus

three times and in his temptations was this repeated question if if you are the Son of God

a what are you doing here b why you're going hungry and c why don't you just turn these

stones into bread if you're the Son of God if you're the son come on you're wasting away what

are you doing here just make with the bread if you're that guy snap your fingers say a word make

it happen there was people constantly looking to Jesus and saying some variation of the question

if if you are the Son of God then take some action like the Son of God should if you are the messiah

you should be stomping on rome you should be dealing with the roman oppression not letting

them kill you if you are the Son of God it wouldn't go down this way and because it is going

down this way, you must not be the Son of God. You must not be the Messiah in this Jewish context.

Now, it is true that Jesus had the power to lay down his life and to take it up again. That's true.

However, what made Jesus the Messiah was that although he could save himself, he would not

save himself. What made Jesus the Messiah was not what the people expected the Messiah would do.

What made Jesus the Messiah was not that he would save himself,

but that he would sacrifice himself.

And if the people knew their Bibles,

if they had read the prophecies like the one that is open to right this very morning,

isaiah 53, then they would know that this one, when he came,

He did not come to squash Rome.

He came to deal with sin and death, and it would involve,

it would be predicated upon his own death.

If they knew what they were looking for,

they would have seen him as the Messiah that he was.

And yet they didn't know what they were looking for

because they were not men and women of the word.

They wanted a Messiah who wasn't going to deal with sin and death,

but that was going to deal with Rome,

was going to deal with hardship and poverty

and all the things they hated on this side of glory.

That's the Messiah that they wanted.

And when the one showed up who was talking about sin and death,

they said, ah, that's no concern to us.

You deal with Rome, and then we'll know you're the guy.

And if Rome is killing you by putting you on the cross,

then you can't be the guy.

Even when Jesus came, they didn't know what to look for.

Let me ask you, if Jesus came back today, would we know what to look for?

Would the greater world recognize him for what he is?

I assure you, the answer is no.

Isaiah 53 said this about the one who would come,

the one which we've sung about,

the one whose words were ensconced not only in our lyrics but in the text.

Isaiah 53, this one, surely he has borne our griefs,

He has carried our sorrows, yet we esteemed him stricken,

smitten by God, afflicted, but he's wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our

iniquities. The chastisement for our peace with God was upon him, and by his stripes we are healed.

Who's that passage talking about? You can say it louder. Who? Jesus, right. Well, here's the thing.

When was that written? That was written 700 years before he ever showed up. There was prophecies for

centuries that said when this guy would come this is what he would do he would die he would be a

suffering servant he would live the life that you and I should have lived and then he would die the

death that we should have died that's the messiah that was on the radar of history of prophecy right

from the beginning yet the people did not recognize it and they thought no way no how would this guy

show up and go to a cross. Not going to happen. Even Peter, remember Peter says to Jesus, surely

no. And what did Jesus say to Peter? Get behind me, Satan. Your ways are not my ways. Your ways

are not the ways of God, your father. To Jesus, the cross was not optional. To Jesus, this was not an

unexpected development. Jesus wasn't just waltzing around the Judean countryside. One day the cross

came up and he said oh I well I guess I gotta do it not at all it was not a surprise it was always

in view and he kept trying to explain this he kept telling people this and they'd be like closing up

their ears john 12 he said this he says my soul is troubled what shall I say father save me from

this hour but it's for this purpose that I came to this hour if I'm lifted up from the earth I will

draw all peoples to myself this he said signifying by what death he would die if you take nothing

else away from this take away this the one who went to the cross knew why he was doing it and

He knew exactly what was going down he knew what would happen and not only did he know it but the

Scripture knows it if you're on the outside looking in at christianity today I ask you come to terms

with the fact that 700 years before he ever showed up on the scene are passages written that declare

exactly who he would be, where he would be born, what he would do.

Not an accident. Not a coincidence.

This is something that only a divine mind with a divine pen

could write for the people of Christ's day and for ours.

The cross was always the destination of the Messiah. Always the destination

and he never wavered course. But the others didn't get that.

Including the two thieves. And so there was the question.

If you are the Christ, then save us.

If you're the Christ, then prove it by jumping off from this cross.

The presupposition is that if you're the guy, then you don't have to suffer.

However, if Jesus did not suffer, then he could not save us.

A man is sin. You have sinned. I have sinned.

The wages of sin is death.

If that's true, then in order for you and I to have hope,

we can either pay for that debt on our own, in which case there is no hope,

or someone can pay it in our place.

Without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sin.

It's what we see in Hebrews 9.

Jesus had to die in order for us to be spared.

Let's look at verses 40 and 41.

This is, again, describing what these thieves are talking about on the cross.

So the one thief has mocked Jesus in verse 39.

In verse 40, the other, answering, rebuked him, saying,

do you not fear God, seeing that you're under the same condemnation?

And we, indeed, justly, we're thieves.

We indeed justly, we're receiving the due reward for our deeds.

We're getting our just desserts.

But this guy, this man, this one, he has done nothing.

Nothing to deserve this.

All right, back in verse 39, one of the thieves had mocked Jesus.

Again, they both, if you look at Matthew and Mark, initially they both mocked Jesus.

At that point, they were both rebuking him.

And one of them continued to do so in verse 39, but then something happens.

Verse 40, one of them says, stop the presses. Don't you fear God? you and I, we're getting

what we deserve. This one, not so much. This one is innocent. What happened? What happened on the

cross to cause that sort of change? What happened? One man is rebuking Jesus, cursing Jesus,

blaspheming Jesus, laughing at Jesus, using his last breath to curse the one to his side. Then

all of a sudden he stops in his tracks and he says you know what we deserve what we're getting

what happened this is a key question did this guy just suddenly get with the program you know in

His last moments did he just get more moral was it like the culmination of his life's efforts to

morality and all of a sudden the pilot light flicked on and he's oh I get it now I get it

well, just in time, too.

I understand now all the stuff of the theology, what the prophets are saying.

He really is the Messiah. I get it.

Is this something that volitionally he just came to?

He did the calculations and figured it out?

Of course not.

That's not what we see here.

These verses don't depict a man who's had a change of mind.

They depict a man who's had a change of heart.

A change of heart.

Now, how does that happen?

How does a heart change?

Do you remember Saul of Tarsus?

Saul of Tarsus, he had this villain,

one of the greatest villains in all of Scripture,

certainly in the New Testament, Saul of Tarsus.

Now, why is he a villain?

Because he's out slaughtering Christians.

He's out persecuting the early church,

putting people to death,

shutting down congregations as they meet.

That's what he does.

In Acts chapter 9, he's on the way to do more of that.

In Acts chapter 9, he's on the road to Damascus,

and Scripture uses this language.

It says that while he was going there,

He was breathing out threats and murder.

This is a guy on the way to Damascus, breathing out threats and murder.

When he gets there, there's going to be some murdering done.

That's what's going on.

Then all of a sudden, out of the blue, the sky blue, he's knocked from his horse.

He hears a voice crying out, talking to him, saying,

saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?

Who are you, Lord?

I am Jesus, who you are persecuting.

In this moment, what happened is that God looked down upon one

who was an enemy of the cross, an enemy of the throne,

persecuting Christians, and of his sovereign volition,

He said, I will change this one and use him for my glory.

And so that's just what he did.

The volition of God, not the volition of Saul,

caused Saul's heart to be changed.

And after his heart was changed,

He was enabled and persuaded to see Jesus

in a way that he never previously could.

That's what happened on the cross.

On the cross, there's two thieves

representing all of mankind.

Both of them initially were enemies

of the one between them.

And then God acts, the Spirit acts,

the heart of the thief who we believe

to be to the right of Jesus.

It's changed.

Have you ever heard the phrase, being born again?

Being born again is something we're all familiar with,

but here's what we do with it.

We say, all right, being born again, that's the day I came forward at a revival, right?

That's the day I walked the sawdust path.

I wrote my name on the back of the Bible, or I was baptized.

You could assign any number of actions that you did and say, that's when I was born again.

Not the way it works.

Being born again is not something you did any more than you could cause your own birth from the womb.

Being born again is a sovereign volitional act by which God looks down upon those who are spiritually flatlining

and breathes into them new life.

It's an act by which he takes Saul of Tarsus and makes him Paul, the apostle.

It's an act by which he took pagan Ninevites, prompted them to repent and turn.

It's an act by which he took a pagan king named Nebuchadnezzar

and changed his heart so that he could recognize the true king of glory.

God acts to change our hearts.

This is called regeneration.

It's an act that he pursues.

He draws us to himself.

He changes our heart.

And after he changes our heart,

it's then that we're enabled and persuaded to come to him.

But it's an act that begins

through the sovereign volition of him.

That's how we understand what happened to Saul.

It's also how we understand what happened to the thief.

God acted.

This thief was not going to figure it out on his own.

This thief was blaspheming Jesus in the very previous breath.

God acts, changes his heart, and suddenly he can look to the man to his side

and say, you are the one.

He had eyes of faith in this moment that didn't come

because he did some calculation to figure things out.

He had eyes of faith because God changed his heart.

That's when he was born again.

Spirit entered in, caused a change.

If you and I have lived long enough in the faith,

we've seen it happen to ourselves and others.

God acted, changed his heart.

And so his response is to look to the other thief and say, hey, do you not fear God?

you and I are in the same condemnation.

But this one, this one, he's not guilty.

you and I deserve what we get.

you and I deserve what we get, but this man has done nothing wrong.

Let's look at verse 42 to see what he says then to Jesus.

Then he said to Jesus, Lord, remember me.

Lord, remember me.

When you come into your kingdom.

You know, there's a lot of cool verses in Scripture.

There's a lot of cool statements of faith.

There's a lot of times when people say things and go, oh my goodness, that's gold.

That's just amazing.

This is one of my favorite statements in all of Scripture.

Lord, remember me.

You know why I like it?

Because he could have said any number of other things.

He could have said, Lord, I don't really deserve this.

Lord, if you were to look at my life, yes, I stole a couple times.

But, you know, I also held the door open for people.

I don't kick the cat.

I'm nice.

I do sweet things for at least the people that are dear to me.

He could have leaned back and said, I don't deserve to die.

I don't deserve the cross, and I sure don't deserve future condemnation.

Lord, remember me on the basis of what I've done.

No, that's not what he does.

That's not what he says.

That's what so many in our culture are saying.

I guarantee you, you knock on doors in our community, everyone believes they're saved.

They all believe they're in fine shape.

Why? Because they're better than their neighbors, because they don't kick the cat, because they help

Old ladies across the street, because they do nice and sweet things in their eyes, and because the

good deeds outweigh the bad. Therefore, that's sufficient. Wrong. That is an antithesis of the

message of Scripture. Scripture says this, that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,

and that's not a trifling thing. How many sins did it take in the garden before the whole universe

is thrown into chaos. How many? One. One. One sin was sufficient to cause the whole universe to be

thrown into chaos. How many times have you sinned? I don't hear that number coming back.

Why? Because we don't even know. We couldn't even count that high. You give us all day to write

things down, we would never get to the end of it. If one sin was sufficient to throw the whole

universe into chaos, if a holy God can't tolerate one, then what are you and I going to do as

sinners when we stand before him on that day. Point to like the few things we've done that are

good and say, hmm, look at that. Don't think about that, God. Leave that stuff alone. But look at this

good stuff. Is that our plan? You know the answer. That's not going to work. It can't work. Why?

Because the wages of sin is death, not sin plural, sin singular. The wages of sin is death. To the

thinking man, that is a horrific cataclysm. you and I have sinned more times than we can conceivably

count, and we're going to stand before a holy God on that day, and if we have the gall to stand

before him and say, oh, I've done some nice things, on that day we will melt before him like a wax

figurine in front of a blast furnace. On that day, we dare not point to ourselves and say, here's some

good stuff I did. On that day, the only thing we dare do is point to the one on the throne.

Lord, remember me. It's because of you, because of what you've done. On the cross, somehow the eyes

of this man were open. He was enabled

and persuaded to see that the one to his

side was paying his debt. He said,

I'm guilty, he's innocent, yet he's

dying. And through eyes of faith, he understood

at that moment, he's paying my debt.

If you have any hope for the future,

it's predicated on the exact same thing.

Anything less is insufficient.

I am the way, the truth,

and the life. No one comes to the Father

but through me.

There is nothing else.

Jesus Christ was the line

of demarcation between these two men.

The man who trusted in him, in his person, in his work, is the man who had a future.

Lord, remember me.

All right, let's look at our final verse, verse 43, to see what Jesus said to him.

Verse 43.

And Jesus said,

assuredly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise.

Paradise is actually a Persian word that refers to a garden.

It's the greatest word we have to describe the future we want.

You ever see marketing campaigns for going on cruises?

You know, come to paradise.

It's the greatest word we have to picture someplace we want to go.

And Jesus' response to a thief, a dirty thief that his own community was glad to be rid of,

Jesus' response was to look at this one through the eyes of faith that this man now had and say,

that's sufficient.

You're not going to get in through the bases of your works,

and you're not going to hang out in purgatory until you figure things out or someone pays down your debt.

Today, today you'll be with me in paradise. Today you'll be with me in paradise. This thief had no

basis to ask, merit, or deserve this, and yet this is what Christ offered. The same is true for you

and I. If you and I think we're going to climb a ladder of works to get there, like if I just do

enough, do enough good deeds, give enough to charity, give enough to the church, you know,

serve in the church, do whatever. If we think that's sufficient, that that's like the means by

which we're getting in. Again, the answer is no. But the good news is that even if we had no more

works than this thief, who surely didn't have much, so long as we have faith, that's sufficient.

We're saved by faith, not through works, so that no man may boast. As we said earlier this morning,

and as I'll say in closing, Jesus Christ is that demarcation line between the sheep and the goats,

between those being saved and those being condemned.

You don't have to like that.

You don't even have to fully understand it,

but it doesn't change its truth.

It doesn't change that that's the way it is.

What you have to do is come to terms with it.

What then must I do?

If this is true, if 700 years earlier,

pointed to the one who died on the cross,

of all the prophecies of Scripture,

pointed forward to him like a neon arrow,

and he lived up and did exactly what they said he would do,

you and I have to have a reckoning.

Not take this book, put it on a shelf,

let it grow as dust,

and to pretend that our ignorance of what it says

will help us out on some day to come.

I am the way, the truth, and the life.

No one comes to the Father but through me.

Presuming that's true, the question you have to answer this day

is on which side of him do you stand?

On which side of him do you stand?

On the great day to come.

Very chosen aside.

Through his grace.

On a great day to come,

dare not falter between two opinions.

On a great day to come,

all humanity is going to be judged

by the singular criteria that separated the two thieves,

and that was their position and heartfelt inclination

to the man in the middle.

If you don't know where you stand this morning,

if you've not asked Jesus to remember you,

let today be the day.

You've heard the Gospel preached.

All have sinned and fought short of the glory of God.

You've heard the problem, but you've also heard the solution.

While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

No matter who you are, no matter what you've done,

the same holds true for you.

Let's pray.