Thru the Bible - Minute with McGee on Oneplace.com

“Now when the centurion saw what was done, he glorified God, saying, Certainly this was a righteous man.” This is very important to see. The centurion, I believe, was a saved man. I think this man that had charge of the crucifixion of Christ came to know Him as Savior there. He too at the foot of the cross could look up and see that something was taking place, and He could glorify God and said, “This was a righteous man.” He knew enough to take his place at the foot of the cross of Christ. And do you know that’s all God’s ever asked any sinner to do? Just to take his place at the foot of the cross of Christ.

Now when they’d started out, both of these thieves ridiculed Him, made fun of the Lord Jesus. But during that six hours that they were on the cross, this one thief he saw that something was taking place there, that this one dying on that cross was not dying for Himself but for another. And he knew Barabbas should have been on that cross; it was his cross, and Jesus was dying for him, and He was innocent. And so he recognized that. And he recognized this was a transaction between God and the man on the cross. And the man on the cross was God. And then he turned to Him in faith.

“When I was daily with you in the temple, ye stretched forth no hands against me: but this is your hour, and the power of darkness.” And that’s when darkness and light met, was at the cross of Christ. After all, there was three hours of light as we have seen in the Gospel of Matthew and three hours of darkness. And this is the hour of darkness, for that was the first three hours; it was spiritually dark. Man did his worst. But the last three hours, it’s physically dark but it was spiritually light, for that cross became the altar on which the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world was offered.

Christ’s heart was broken because of our lost condition. He bled and died for our eternal liberty. He said, “I came that they might have life, and they might have it more abundantly.” And He loved the lost world, and He went to the very depths—even hell itself. And the world spurns Him, the Holy One of God, the spotless Savior who was made sin for us. Have you rejected Him? Spurned Him? Are you ungrateful today? Do you hear the sob of His soul? Do you hear the falling of the drops of blood? “Look yonder in the Garden by yon olive tree, bending low is a Savior” who took upon Himself your humanity and mine, and He went the next day to a cross.

You know, friends, that the child of God has some great things in store for the future. I think that the redeemed are going to occupy actually exalted positions. I wonder if you’re working for a place. Somebody says, “Well, I didn’t think you work for salvation.” You don’t work for salvation. But let me put it like this. You don’t work for heaven, but you work for your place in heaven. You’re going to heaven by the grace of God, but you’re going to be judged according to your works to see what position that you have. Are you interested in your good works then? You ought to be—that which is done by the Spirit of God.