The Thief on the Cross

But the other criminal rebuked him. "Don't you fear God," he said, "since you are under the same sentence? We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong." Then he said, "Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom." Jesus answered him, "I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise."
- Luke 23:40-43

Did the thief on the cross pray the sinners prayer? Did he even ask Jesus to go to heaven? NO. What did this thief have that saved him? Why did Jesus accept this man? He accepted the man because he realized the fact that Jesus was dying for something he didn't deserve but that he was dying for something that he deserved. He realized that God was just in punishing him and that Jesus was going to a kingdom because the world did not deserve him as their king.

Did he have theology? I dare say that he had little in common with most of us in the amount of Bible he knew. So, had he been explained the "Four Spiritual Laws"? Here, for your convenience, they are:

1. God loves you and offers a wonderful plan for your life.
2. Man is sinful and separated from God.Therefore, he cannot know and experience God's love and plan for his life.
3. Jesus Christ is God's only provision for man's sin. Through Him you can know and experienceGod's love and plan for your life.
4. We must individually receive Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord;then we can know and experience God's love and plan for our lives.

Here also, are the problems with telling people these laws:

1. While it is true that God loves you, God hates sin and God will send unrepentant sinners to hell. You, by the way hate God with all your heart and want your way with all that you are. Jesus said, The world cannot hate you, but it hates me because I testify about it that its works are evil. - John 7:7 God's plan for your life, is that you unashamedly acknowledge your sin and repent your you will have to follow the plan for un-repentant sinners which is that you die and go to hell.
2. The problem with this law is that it is true but it is not the entire truth. While man is seperated from God, he actually likes being seperated from God. Why? Because God demands control of our lives in every aspect and man is not willing to give God that kind of control in his life. God says, unless you give me everything you have, I will not accept you or know you. I will judge you as a rebellious goat and send you to outer darkness.
3. Yes, Jesus is God's only provision for sin but people think that they are doing OK without him because their lives are bad but not that bad. We live in an age of constant pleasure to cure all of your problems. As an example of this, I would like to use Noah's ark. The ark is Jesus. Noah is me telling you to stop sinning and to go to Jesus. You are the person who is about to be drowned and destroyed along with everything you own and all that you hold dear and all the movies and music that you like to listen to rather than studying your Bible. Ha! Eat that one! When you hear this, you say, "Um, there isn't any rain dummy. I am doing just fine, I don't need your stupid ark. Go and cut down a tree if that will make you feel better. You are smelly and need to take a bath."
4. You hear this and think, "Oh wow, is that all there is? I thought it was actually going to be harder than that! I will pray that prayer on the off chance that there is actually going to be some kind of accountability for my actions. That was really nice of Jesus to die for me. It was noble of him so I guess I owe him a prayer and to make Christianity my religion of choice. But as long as that's all I have to do, I will continue being a Christian. As long as God's plan doesn't encroach on MY plan, me and God are ok. But if God starts to try to touch my things, then I am going to have to let him know who is boss."

So, that is what is behind the four spiritual laws. They are deficient because they teach a weak God who loves us and forgives our sins and doesn't demand anything else from us. Kind of like a cheap prostitute. That is it. We think and teach that God is a prostitute. God put on all this perfume and got all dressed up so that he could serve us sexually, meet out temporal need and let us go on without any type of commitment to him.

What blasphemy we are preaching! Jesus, please forgive us for our sin! We have perverted your gospel for so long and it is our fault. We put our minds above your word and accepted the doctrines of demons so that the world wouldn't persecute us and take away the lifestyle we were trying to create of heaven on earth without treasuring you and your kingdom! We love the world and hate you! We think that you are happy with us as a nation and are on the verge of commiting apostasy!

I am not going to say much more than this, I am not going to tell you the entire truth. I am just going to direct you to some websites where you can begin to learn the truth. Here is where I have learned the truth about God and Jesus. I hope that you can humbly submit to God and turn from your sin.

http://www.marshillchurch.org/

http://www.purelifeministries.org/

http://www.desiringgod.org/

http://gty.org/