Grace did that. How could that thief help himself? No more than Adam could help hisself, no more than Eve could help herself, no more than you can help yourself, no more than I can help myself, when no more we could jerk ourselves up the Milky White Way with our bootstraps. We couldn’t do it. But the grace of God can do something about it, and it does it. The grace of God, the sovereignty of the grace of God come to that dying thief, “Today shalt thou be with Me in paradise.” Oh, think of it. That’s wonderful.

Think of it. Love and grace is sisters, twin sisters. You can’t have grace without having love. They’re twin sisters. That’s exactly right. Before you can have grace, you have to have love. Before you can actually show somebody a favor, you love them; right or wrong, you have to love them anyhow, or you can’t. See? So love and grace is the same thing. They’re just twin sisters (That’s all.), love and grace. They were… We can’t see one without the other. “God so loved the world, gave His only begotten Son.” He shed His grace abroad in our hearts through the Holy Ghost. See? There’s just nothing you can do without working one with the other. Grace, grace of God this is what saves us.

Now, we find out that grace, there like that dying thief, no wonder it’s inspired poets when they seen it. One poet said:

That dying thief rejoiced to see that fountain in his day;
There may I, though vile as he, wash all my sins away.

Ever since by faith I saw that stream Thy flowing wounds supplied,
Redeeming love has been my theme, and shall be till I die.

Then in a nobler, sweeter song, I’ll sing Thy power to save,
When this poor lisping, stammering tongue lies silent in the grave.

Grace, amazing grace… Hallelujah. One wrote it:

Oh, love of God, how rich and pure! How fathomless and strong!
It shall forevermore endure, Saints and angels song.

If we with ink the ocean fill, and were the skies of parchment made;
And every stalk on earth a quill, and every man a scribe by trade;
To write the love of God above would drain the ocean dry;
Or could the scroll contain the whole, though stretched from sky to sky. WMB