The Eric Metaxas Show - Heaven - How I Got Here (continued)

Episode Date: April 10, 2020

It's the second part of our special Good Friday broadcast from "Unlocking the Bible": One of the thieves who died on a cross next to Jesus tells the story of how he got to heaven.

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I tell all my relatives to take it. relief factor.com. Welcome to the Eric Mattaxas show. Have you ever gargled Peter Butter? What's the capital of North Dakota? Do I spit when I talk? All this and more on the Eric Mataxis show. Now your host, until further notice, Eric Mataxis.

Hey, folks, this is a special Good Friday edition of the Eric Mataxis show. In both hours today, we are doing something brought to us by unlocking the Bible. It is called Heaven, How I Got Here by Colin Smith. We know you'll enjoy it. Stay tuned. Welcome to the second hour of heaven, how I got here. It's a radio drama based upon the book by that same title as written by Pastor Colin Smith, the senior pastor of the orchard just outside Chicago, and speaker on the radio broadcast, Unlocking the Bible.

We continue. The book has read by actor Stephen Baldwin. It's Chapter 5, Love. Chapter 5, Love, 1150 a.m. The bright sun dazzled my eyes, so I was. looked down to the small group of friends standing in front of Jesus. One of them was called Mary, and it became clear to me that she was Jesus' mother. There was a radiant beauty about Mary, as she wept and watched and waited, surrounded by hatred, she exuded love. It seemed to me that

Jesus Christ was more hated and more loved than any other person I had done. known. I tried to imagine what it was like for her to watch her son suffer. I had come to trust him in the last hour, but she had loved him from the day of his birth. Now the brow she had kissed as she put him to bed was crowned with thorns. Hands she had held as she taught him to walk were pierced with nails. I looked at her and felt compassion. It was a strange sensation for a heart that was more familiar with hate than would love. Over the years, I had hardened myself. My lifestyle demanded it.

Grit and steel were my familiar friends. Compassion was far from me. But now, enveloped in pain, I felt compassion for a woman I did not even know. Something good was happening in my heart that it was happening because of Jesus. Love had been a stranger to me. My mother had loved me in her own disciplined way,

but I had long since broken away from family. From the crowd I ran with, loyalty on the basis of self-interest was the standard substitute for love. Think about the love that you have experienced. Love usually comes with a reason. Your mother loves you because you're her child. Your spouse loves you because he or she,

is drawn to something in you. Your friends love you because they enjoy your company. But Christ loved me without a reason. He cared for me without cause. His love is its own explanation. Christ loves you for no other reason than that. He loves you. Whatever your experience of love or the lack of it in your life,

there is love for you in the heart of Jesus Christ. I saw this as he prayed for his enemies, and as he promised paradise to me. But that was only the beginning. I was about to discover more. With all the noise and clamor that had been taking place, I was struck by how little Jesus said. Since the ordeal began, he had spoken only twice. He had called on his father and prayed for his enemies.

Father, forgive them. they do not know what they are doing. Then he had spoken to me. Amen. Today you will be with me in paradise. Now Jesus looked down at his mother, and in spite of his agony, he raised himself up and drew the breath he needed to speak.

Woman, he said, Behold your son. He wasn't referring to himself, but to a man standing beside her. who I know now to be John, a disciple of Jesus who later wrote the fourth gospel. John had stood with Mary and the other women all morning. Now Jesus assigned him the son's duty of caring for his mother. Woman, behold your son, he said to Mary.

Then to John, he said, behold your mother. The crowd, the Pharisees, the soldiers and the other thief, were all consumed with themselves, as I had also been. But into this hellhole of suffering and self-interest, Jesus brought love. It streamed out of him to his enemies, to me, and now to his mother. Mary stood at the foot of the cross, crying out, my son, my son, my son, my son, my son,

But Jesus was saying, You must no longer think of me as your son. From now on, John is to take that place in your life. Regard him as your son. So how then was Mary to regard Jesus, as her Savior and as her Lord? When the angel told Mary about the son she would bear, Mary said,

My spirit rejoices in God, my savior. Mary had looked to God as her savior, and this is how God saved her. Jesus, God's son, went to the cross and laid down the life he had drawn from Mary. His body was broken. His blood was shed. Mary's son died, and in his death, he became her savior. Her gain was far greater than her loss. know about the hate that was in my heart. The blasphemy I spoke against Jesus and the crimes I committed against my fellow man. I was the bottom of the pile,

the worst of sinners. But Christ became my Savior, and because of him, I am in heaven today. It was at the other end of the moral spectrum, and imagine a more godly woman than Mary. She was patient, kind, good, and true.

A woman of virtue. Blessed by God and a blessing to others. And Mary is in heaven today, not because Jesus was her son, but because he is her Savior. If she looked to Christ to save her, every person who has sought to live a good life must do the same. Here's the amazing thing that I still can't get over.

I had lived a life that was as bad as they come. Mary lived a life that was as good as they come. Yet both of us entered into heaven precisely the same way through faith in Jesus. In the words he spoke to me and then to Mary, Jesus embraced the worst and the best of humanity and reconciled us both to his father. So wherever you are on the moral spectrum, Jesus Christ is the Savior for you.

The mind that had been hostile to Jesus, now trusted and believed in him. The will that had been hell bent on pursuing my own way now desired more than anything to honor Christ or experienced anything like this before. The religion I was brought up with attempted to change me from the outside in. Do these things.

and you will be a good person. It never worked. All I can say is that when Christ's word went into me, my heart changed, and I believed. I now understand why Jesus spoke of this interchange as being born again. I was changed from the inside out. So here we were. A scoundrel on the cross and a saintly woman standing.

below and both of our lives changed forever by Jesus Christ. Hey folks, you're listening to a special presentation of the Eric Metaxus show presented by unlocking the Bible. You're listening to Heaven, How I Got Here by Colin Smith. Check it out. Chapter 6. Darkness. On us and the next, we were plunged into complete darkness.

Not slowly, like on a stormy day, but instantly. complete darkness. We went from midday to midnight in a moment. It was the scariest thing I've ever experienced. My first thought was, God's judgment must be falling on the soldiers who had struck and nailed Jesus, or maybe on the people who had mocked him,

or on the leaders who had condemned him. But that didn't happen. All of them slept in their beds that night and woke to continue their lives the following day. The judgment of God was falling on someone else that day. And now I know who it was. Jesus, the son of God, was about to die. Jesus himself was coming under the judgment of God,

were on God's side, and that he would affirm their condemnation of Jesus. If they were right, trusting Jesus would turn out to be the greatest mistake of my life. I had spun with questions about what just a few hours earlier I had come to believe. Then, Jesus's agonizing cry broke right through all of my questions. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? I felt a gut-wrenching anguish as these words echoed through the eerie darkness. Had God abandoned Jesus?

This terrified me. I had put my trust in Jesus, and he had promised paradise to me. But if God had forsaken him, what hope was there for me? My new faith was being stretched to the limit. When doubts crowd in, and you find yourself in darkness, go back to what you know about Jesus. That's what I did, and it got me through. Why would a man who had done nothing wrong find himself under the judgment of God?

why would a man who had done nothing wrong be crucified on a cross? The most hideous method of death ever devised. I now know the answer. And the more I think about it, the more astonishing I find it to be. Jesus suffered the judgment that was due to me. The crowd was sure that Jesus was under God's curse, and in a sense they were right. He was under God's curse, but the curse did not fall on him for his own sins.

He had none. He came under the curse for the sins of others. He endured my judgment so that I could enter into his reward. Even here in heaven, I still can't get over this. He carried their guilt and judgment in full. The cumulative weight of this is unimaginable to me. And this was the reason why he was pierced and crushed. It was for sinners like you and me.

Without Jesus, I would have carried my sins into my death and emerged on the other side to face the Almighty. All that I had endured at the hands of men would only have been a prelude to what I would have suffered at the hand of God. But Jesus carried my sins into his death so that I should not carry them into mine. I suffered the judgment of men,

but through Christ and all that he endured in the darkness, I was saved from the judgment of God. That's why I'm in heaven today. Some say I trusted Christ at the last moment. But the way I look at it, I trusted Christ at my first opportunity, and that's what you should do. trust him now

trusting Jesus is never a passport to a pain-free life that's not his promise heaven is forgiveness is the strength to bear up under all that you suffer is what he promises and what he gives some folks have the idea that if you trust in Jesus

he will take the pain out of your life He certainly didn't do that for me. Pain shot through the nerves of my body as much after I trusted in Jesus as it did before. With every hour that passed, my pain increased as the wounds from the nails in my hands and my feet widened under the weight of my body. Fever raged.

Dehydration followed. My whole body was burning up. He was the same for Jesus. And that is why he cried out, I thirst. Roman soldiers sometimes offered a mild sedative to their victims before crucifixion. Earlier in the morning, they had done this for Jesus, offering him wine mixed with gall. Jesus refused the sedative. Any compassionate person would say to him,

drink, take the sedative, dole your senses to the horrors you're about to endure. but he did not take it. Why? Spised him for this and counted him a fool. But when I asked him to remember me, I was so glad that his senses were not dulled, drugged or drowsy. Christ was fully conscious,

and that meant he was ready and able to save me, to pray for his enemies, and reach out in love to his mother, becoming a man meant that Jesus's body had a central nervous system just like yours and mine. So the physical agony of crucifixion was the same for Jesus as it was for me. But there was more to his pain than the physical agony. What Jesus endured went far beyond what I experienced that day. When Christ became our sin bearer,

He was alone in the darkness. The guilt and stench of our sin was on him, as he bore the judgment that we deserved. Jesus had always enjoyed the love of his father, but now that blessing had been taken away. He couldn't feel the father's approval. He couldn't reach his comfort. At his hour of greatest need,

Jesus was alone. Separated from his father, rejected by his own people, abandoned by his disciples. He was stretched out on a pole suspended between heaven and earth, and rejected by both. Jesus cried out in a loud voice. My God, my God, I have you forsaken me. The thing that I had endured came close to what it meant for him to be forsaken by his father. And there's more. Jesus experienced hell on the cross. Some people think that hell is a myth,

but I tell you that hell is as real as the cross, and it's more than just a way of describing something really bad, much more. Hell has six dimensions and Jesus experienced all of them on the cross. He was in conscious suffering. He was in blackest darkness. He was surrounded by demonic powers. He was bearing sin.

He was under judgment. He was separated from the knowledge of the love of God. That is hell. I endured the pains of crucifixion, but I did not experience the agonies of hell. Jesus endured them for me so that I would never have to know what they are like. Hello, I'm Pastor Colin Smith, and I hope you're enjoying Heaven how I got here. I want to take a moment to commend to you another resource from unlocking the Bible, one that I think you'll find useful, especially in these uncertain days in which we're living. Open is a guided journey through the entire Bible story, and it's a free resource available at openthebibble.org.

In 50 short sessions, you'll walk through the Bible from Genesis to Revelation. It's all one story. It begins in a garden, it ends in a city, and all the way through it points to Jesus Christ. So please visit Openthebiblical.org today and get started. These are unusual days and they are an opportunity that you could use to get to know the God of the Bible. So again, visit us at openthebibble.org. Hey, folks, this is a special edition of the Eric Metaxis show featuring Heaven How I Got Here by Colin Smith. It is brought to you by unlocking the Bible. Listen in.

Seeing what Jesus suffered and hearing him cry out in agony had a profound effect on me. From childhood, I had been told that God's law was given to show us our sins. That's true. But I have to tell you that the clearest view I ever got of the ugliness of my sin was not in reading the Ten Commandments, but in being near to Jesus in that awful darkness on the cross. I began to see that if my sins caused him so much suffering, they must be very great indeed.

I learned to hate my sins at the cross, the rebellion that once tasted sweet, the covetous heart that once drove me forward, my hatred and unbelief toward God, and my self-willed desire all seemed ugly and repulsive to me as I saw what they had done to Jesus. His cry of anguish tore me apart If he was given up for my sins

What sin would I not give up for him That took hold of me My greatest desire Was to be done with any and every sin That had ever gained a foothold in my life I found myself longing to be holy To be filled with the love that I had seen in Jesus' eyes and to live a life that would please him.

Only had a few hours left for that. You'll have much longer. Chapter 8. Triumph. 3 p.m. His voice pierced the silence like the blast of a trumpet. It is finished. Father, into your hands, I commit my spirit. No one ever died like this.

Have you ever heard of someone whose last words were spoken with a loud voice? Dies, his voice becomes weaker and weaker. Until it is no more than a whisper. Then he is gone. He shouts at the moment of his own death, but Jesus did. Christ entered into death, not in defeat, but in triumph. He was in complete control. He accomplished everything he had come to do and gave himself into death.

earth beneath me shook, causing the beam on which I was suspended to lurch violently. The shock was agonizing. The crowd whose jeering had been quieted by the darkness now erupted in panic and confusion. People screamed as the tremors ripped through the city. Cracks began to open in the ground. Was this the end? I knew my time and almost run out. But had humanity's time run out to We had just crucified God's son. God's justice had to fall. I closed my eyes and I held my breath, bracing myself against whatever came next.

The commander who was responsible for overseeing our executions looked up at Jesus' lifeless body and said, Surely this was the son of God. The soldiers who a few hours before had cast lots for Jesus' robe now looked at each other in fear and terror. What have we done? The lifeless body of Jesus hung in silence a few feet away from me, and having staked everything on him.

I thought I would be the first to die and that he would send me ahead of him. It never occurred to me that he would die first. Right before Jesus died, he said, it is finished. When was I ever able to say that? My life was a tangle of loose ends. Nothing was complete.

My mother poured all her energy into the pursuit of a godly life. But for all of her relentless effort, the feeling of incompleteness haunted her. She found it hard to rest because she always felt there was more to do, more that was required. Nothing was ever enough. She was right in saying that there is no rest for the wicked. I knew that to be true. But as far as I could see,

there isn't much rest for people who try to be righteous either. It is finished. Now there's something that neither I nor my mother could ever have said. But Jesus said it with a shout of triumph. Hello, I'm Pastor Colin Smith, and I hope you're enjoying heaven how I got here.

You know, during times of crisis, people often reach for the Bible, but sometimes they don't know where to begin. And I've found that while many people know some stories from the Bible, they don't have a good grasp of how the whole story fits together. And that's why our team at Unlocking the Bible have set out a new resource called Open. In 50 short sessions, you'll walk through the entire Bible story. You'll see how it begins in a garden, ends in a city,

and all the way through points to Jesus Christ. So visit Open the Bible. dot org today to get started. These are unusual days and they're an opportunity that you could use to get to know the God of the Bible. So again, visit us at open the bible.org. Openthebiblical.org. Folks, you've been listening to Heaven How I Got Here by Colin Smith. It's brought to you by unlocking the Bible. This is a special edition of the Erkmataxis show. The reason his voice was so strong at the moment of his death was that Jesus did not slide into death as a victim.

He marched into death as a conquering warrior. I now see that Jesus did everything that God calls you and me to do on earth and kept all of the commandments. He loved God with all his heart and loved his neighbor as himself. He did this completely, consistently, and without even a shadow of compromise. That's why on the last day of my life, I began to fear God. I knew that I had not kept His commandments. I knew that I was not righteous, not even close.

Where do you go from there? You haven't done what God calls you to do. Your best efforts have come up short. you have failed to keep his Ten Commandments, and you can't relive the past. This was painfully obvious to me as I hung on the cross. With every hour that passed, I was being pressed ever closer to my exit from this world,

and I had no way of pulling back. To my great joy, the Son of God became a man, to live the life that I had. had failed to live. He finished when I had barely started. Jesus was and is everything God had called me to be. I trusted Jesus. God made me one with him.

All that was mine, God counted as his. And all that was his, God counted as mine. It was as if my sin-spattered soul was draped in, the purity of the perfect life of Jesus. So that I could stand before God with the confidence to which Jesus himself would be entitled. If it had not been for Jesus,

I would still be locked in an endless conflict with God. I would still be angry with him. I would still feel that he owed me a better life and a better eternity. My anger and rebellion against God would have grown stronger and more futile in eternity. I would still be standing with my little sword trying to take on the Almighty.

It's a ridiculous picture, isn't it? And it's clearer to me than ever before that my fight with God is a fight that I could never win. You don't have to live one more minute of your life locked in conflict with God either. You can put down your sword today. You can rest from this battle. This is a war you could never win.

Now you don't have to. Jesus laid down his life so you could know real peace with God for all. Chapter 9. Safety 538 p.m. He told me, today, you will be with me for sundown and he said, said with me, so he would be there too. I believed him.

So there was no doubt in my mind that Jesus was in heaven already. He had gone there ahead of me. When Jesus died, he said, Father, into your hands, I commit my spirit. He had no doubt about where he was going. His body remained on the cross until it was taken down and laid in the tomb. But his spirit went immediately into the presence of his father in heaven. At the moment

of his death, Jesus was translated from the agony of suffering in the body, to the conscious enjoyment of life in heaven. And he had promised the same to me. Time seemed to stretch on forever. Then, suddenly,

there was movement. Someone had come out from the city. The soldiers immediately stood at attention. New instructions were given. Kill the criminals, bury the bodies, take down the crosses. So the soldiers turned and walked purposefully toward me, armed with their clubs. One swing to the head with one of those would kill a man. And if there was any interest in relieving my pain,

they could have ended my life in an instant. But that was not what they had in mind. My legs were their target. I screamed out as the first blow slammed into my knees, then the second and then the third. My body sadged, suspended, but no longer supported. Unbearable pain seared through my aching hands. Without the support of my legs, I no longer had the strength to lift my body and to breathe. Only a few minutes longer. Now this one, said one of the soldiers, as they came to Jesus, he's old.

dead? Make sure we don't want any doubt. The soldier pulled back with his spear and with full force rammed it into the side of Jesus' body, ripping it open with a huge gash from which his blood spilled out onto the ground. That was the last thing I saw. If my soul leaving my body would be like being launched out like a shivering ghost lost and alone in the unknown vastness of space the thought was terrifying me he learned a pitch in your backyard now his team's coming over to celebrate their high school championship so you need to patch those bear spots fast pennington one step complete has a revolutionary formula that repairs bear spots in only two weeks or less pennington's been trusted since

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If you want to know more about heaven, you'll have to wait until you get here yourself. All I can say is. that this is a place of greater joy than you have ever tasted. He opens the door for people who believe his word and trust themselves to him. I confess to Jesus. I face the fact that my sins were many, and that if death took me to the outer darkness of hell, I was in no position to complain. Now, you might be thinking, I'm not as bad as the thief on the cross, and that may be true.

but your need is as great as mine. We are all in the same position. We come up short of his high calling. Tell him that your sins are many. Tell him that you have been trying to make your own way in life apart from him. Tell him that you've been trying to make your own way to heaven apart from him. Tell him you are done with that. Tell him you are ready to follow him.

obey him trust him love him and serve him you can have confidence in asking God's love for you is so strong that he gave his son you can be sure

that when you come to Jesus and ask him to forgive you and save you he will not turn you away not now not ever so ask him to be the Lord and Savior of your life right now ask him to forgive you, ask him to forgive

your sins, ask him to give you peace with God, and ask him to give you strength by his spirit to live in a way that is pleasing to him. And when you ask, you must believe. Asking arises from

faith in who Jesus is and in what he promises. Believing in Jesus, you ask him for what he has promised and trust him that it will be yours. Don't expect it to be easy. Your faith will be tested as mine was.

You may experience days of great darkness. You may go through times when you feel that God is far from you. You may experience great pain in your body as I did or great pain in your soul. But his presence is with you and the strength he gives will get you through. My faith was tested from the time I trusted Jesus right up to the end. When the moment of my death drew near, it seemed as if all the worst things I had ever done flashed across my dulling mind. My sins were real, alive, fresh, and present, and they were many. It felt as if I would drown in them, that my sins would overwhelm me and damn me forever.

All I could do was trust the promise of Jesus. today you will be in paradise. Trusting in Jesus begins with a decision, a commitment, and a prayer. I lived for myself. I failed to love God, but that changed when I met Jesus Christ. The king captured my mind. His love and care for me laid hold of my heart. if I had been given a longer life on earth, I would have lived it for him.

No question. That gift was not given to me. But right now, it is being given to you. So please cherish every day you have and live in a way that honors your Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Jesus gives all of us who trust him a whole new purpose and desire. It's not so much that you are living for something. You are living for someone. The one who loved you and gave himself for you.

The one that you are going to share the unending joys of heaven with. The one who one day will welcome you in Jesus Christ, the Son of God.