Pig Is Pig

[0:00] We left off last week by looking at the idea that we've got the power of veto and moral choice.

[0:24] ! So that's what we're going to begin with this evening.! Now, we look at it from Esther chapter 10 and verse number 3 that says, For Mordecai the Jew was next unto king Ahasuerus, and great among the Jews, and accepted of the multitude of his brethren, seeking the wealth of his people, and speaking peace to all his seed.

[0:50] Now, if we've received Christ Jesus as Lord and Savior, then of course we've become a child of God. And it'll be the constant delight now of the Holy Spirit to seek our wealth and welfare and to speak peace to our soul.

[1:05] But one thing that may have struck us is the last verse of the last chapter of Esther, where it states that Mordecai the Jew was next unto king Ahasuerus.

[1:17] Now, remember what that deals with. From earlier chapter, we looked at this. When Pharaoh, back in the book of Genesis, when Pharaoh placed the ring on Joseph's finger, that gave Joseph all the power of the kingdom except for the king.

[1:37] The king was the only one that now was above Joseph throughout the kingdom of Egypt. All right. Now, Ahasuerus now has placed his ring upon Mordecai.

[1:53] And so, recognize when, either whether it's Pharaoh or whether it's king Ahasuerus, when he placed that ring on Mordecai, Ahasuerus, Mordecai's finger, or Joseph for Pharaoh, gave them power over all the kingdom except for the power that the king himself or Pharaoh himself had.

[2:16] So, Pharaoh then retained the power of veto. Anything that, whether it had been Haman or whether it had been Mordecai, either one of them did, as the king's representative, right-hand man, anything that they declared, he could veto.

[2:33] All right. So, keep that in mind. And remember, in all of this, Mordecai representing the spirit of God and King Ahasuerus representing the soul, the mind, the will, and the emotion.

[2:48] Now, Genesis 41, verse 40, again, speaking of Pharaoh, So, only in the throne will I be greater than thou, is what he told to Joseph.

[2:59] So, Joseph was next unto Pharaoh, as Mordecai was next unto the king, giving him power over everything that pertains to the kingdom. Mordecai's power was only surpassed by that of the king.

[3:14] As was the case with Joseph and Pharaoh, the king retained his sovereignty now, and thus his power of veto. Now, keep in mind, the scripture admonishes us again in Galatians chapter 5 and verse 25.

[3:33] If we live in the spirit, let us also walk in the spirit. Now, notice two different things here. Living in the spirit. We're saved.

[3:43] We have the spirit of God dwelling within us. So, what he's telling us here, since that's the reality for those of us that are saved, then let us walk in the realm of the spirit.

[3:56] If you want to rephrase that, let us walk under the control and leadership and guidance of the spirit of God. All right. Now, that's the admonition of scripture that we have.

[4:07] But in that, it speaks of something to us. And that is that it speaks of the propensity of the spirit of the believer, our human spirit. All right. To exercise the power of veto over the work of the Holy Spirit.

[4:22] And we can all tell that. Is there anybody here? Be honest. Is there anybody here that has never, ever, since you've been saved, disobeyed the spirit of God? Okay.

[4:36] Let me see how many of you are honest. How many of you have, at some point, disobeyed the spirit of God? Ah, I love honest people. So, we can see what we're talking about here.

[4:48] Scripture warns us. Now, notice. The implication is this. Look how many times in the scriptures, in particular, the letters of Paul, in particular, that admonishes us to be sure we're in that frame of living in the spirit of God.

[5:06] All right. In Romans chapter 12, verses 1 and 2. I beseech you, therefore, brethren, again, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is a reasonable service.

[5:21] And be not, literally, it's stop being conformed to this world. Now, he's writing to believers here. All right. Believers at Rome were being conformed.

[5:31] They were in conformity to the world in their outward activity and action. So, he said, stop doing that. But be transformed, then, by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.

[5:47] Now, in Galatians chapter 5, verse 1. Stand fast, therefore, in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free. Be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.

[6:00] That's going from grace back to the law. Stop doing that. And Ephesians chapter 4, verses 1 through 3. I, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that you walk worthy of the vocation wherewith you are called.

[6:15] In other words, remember, worthy there is to hold the same weight. So, your outward activity, your outward manner of living is to have the same weight as the salvation that God has given you.

[6:26] Same value, if you will. And that is with all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love, and then endeavoring. That's working hard, laboring diligently to keep or maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

[6:44] Now, look at verse 17 of Ephesians 4. This, therefore, I am saying and solemnly declaring in the Lord that no longer are you to be ordering your behavior as the Gentiles order their behavior in the futility of their mind.

[7:00] And then later on, I think it's verse 20 and following. But as for you, not in this manner did you learn Christ. Because in between there, he talked about the mind of the Gentile unbelievers.

[7:12] But as for you, not in this manner did you learn the Christ. Since indeed, as is the case, you heard and in him were taught, just as truth is in Jesus, that you have put off once for all with reference to your former manner of life, the old self who is being continually corrupted, is the idea, according to the passionate desires of deceit.

[7:38] Moreover, that you are being constantly renewed with reference to the spirit of your mind, and that you have put on once for all the new self who after God was created in righteousness and holiness of truth.

[7:52] That's verses 20 through 24 of Ephesians 4. Now, look at Colossians 3, 5. So he says for us to do something here. That's fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil consumptions, and covetousness, which is idolatry.

[8:17] Then in verse 8 of Colossians 3, But now put also off all these. You get specific here. Anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy communication out of your mouth.

[8:30] Now, recognize here that he's writing to believers, writing to the church. An indication is that they are still possessing or still conducting some of their life in the same manner as they did before they got saved.

[8:49] They were angry, demonstrating anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy communication out of their mouth, filthy speaking. All right. They were doing that.

[9:00] Now, Paul says, you're a new person in Christ Jesus. Stop doing those things. Now, again, the admonition of Scripture.

[9:14] If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit. Galatians 5, 25. It speaks of the propensity of the spirit of the believer, exercising the power of veto over the work of the Holy Spirit.

[9:27] And we can all attest to that. It's God's desire that we walk in the Spirit, being willing to forego the option of veto over the work of the loving Holy Spirit within us.

[9:40] Now, we've recognized that. Spirit of God lives within us to direct us, to guide us into the will of God. And I should say, to empower us to be able to do that and have the will to do that.

[9:54] All right. But again, that's what God's desire is. But we have that propensity within us to overpower that. God, of all things, wants our heart.

[10:07] So the privilege of being you is that you can know God and love Him simply because you want to. If you look all through the Old Testament, I'm not going to chase this rabbit very far.

[10:20] But if you look through the Old Testament with God's dealings with Israel, time after time, it's a cycle of behavior for them. And all the things that God did in dealing with Israel, in the Old Testament in particular, the thing that God was trying to do is to draw their heart to Him.

[10:46] He wants the heart. All right. Because that's where the issues of life are. He wants the heart. And the heart will then bring to the soul, the mind, will, and the emotion, the desire, and the power of the Spirit of God to please God and to serve Him.

[11:02] All right. Boy, He wants our heart. And that's why He says in the Scripture to guard our heart. It's with the heart. Man believes unto righteousness.

[11:13] And with the mouth, confession made unto salvation. Now, pig is pig. Amen. All right. That's the new notes that you got tonight.

[11:29] King Ahasuerus made a wonderful discovery about something. He discovered that the evil that he was capable of under the influence of Haman can be changed.

[11:40] It can be matched only by the good that he was capable of under Mordecai. All right. Under the influence of Mordecai.

[11:51] He discovered that. It is the same wonderful discovery now that God wants us to make. It's absolutely basic to an intelligent understanding of the Christian life.

[12:03] God wants to do something different in our life. And He wants us to allow Him the privilege and the leadership of doing that.

[12:14] The discovery is not only charged with comfort and encouragement for the soul, but is calculated to deliver us from heartbreak, frustration, and despair, which is the unhappy lot of so many sincere Christians in their earnest endeavors to please God in the energy of the flesh.

[12:34] Is there anybody here that's ever done that? Anybody? Yeah. Boy, I want to please God. Especially when you get saved. Right after you get saved. I want to please God.

[12:45] I want to do whatever I can to honor God, to serve Him, to please Him. And so off we go. And it's not long before we find ourselves falling on our face.

[12:57] Amen? Yeah. And that's because we've been going in the power of the flesh and not the power of the Spirit of God. Doing what we think is a good thing to do.

[13:08] When God hasn't necessarily said we're the ones to do that. All right? So, that's what we've got to be careful of. That's what God wants us to understand and see.

[13:20] Now, the remarkable change that took place in the character of the king did not come about by improving Haman. All right? But by replacing him with Mordecai.

[13:33] It was not a question of reformation, but of substitution. Literally, an exchange life. And for the sake of those of you that are new here this evening in the study, Mordecai represents the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit.

[13:48] And Haman represented the flesh, the natural man within us. Okay? I need to clarify that for you. Don't want you going out of here confused and bum-fuzzled.

[13:59] All right. Now, there was no redeeming feature about Haman. He was entirely without remedy. Fit only to die upon his own gallows. Remember, we saw that when it came to the idea of before Queen Esther ever came to realize the true character of Haman.

[14:19] How she was, you know, quite cordial to him in the palace and all those things. Until she found out for sure what he really was. So, it's the idea.

[14:30] There's no redeeming feature about him. He is what he is. And that's not going to change. So, this is exactly what God has to say about the old Adamic nature within us called the flesh.

[14:40] And this was Paul's persuasion. For I know that nothing good dwells in me that is in my flesh. Romans 7, 18.

[14:51] All right. Is there anybody here that's honest and true with us here? That you have been or you've even recognized in yourself that you're a fixer?

[15:03] I'm not talking about a plumber fixing the plumbing. But fixing people and situations and circumstances. Yeah, I know one. I'm not going to tell you who it is. But I've gotten to know her pretty well over the last 23 years.

[15:19] But nonetheless, you know, always want everything to be good. Rosie, fine. There's some things you just can't change. And there's some things that God never intended for you to try to change.

[15:33] And one of that, one of those things is the natural man within us. It's not going to change. It's character. Can't dress it up. So it's absolutely imperative for our own spiritual well-being that we recognize the fact that this old nature will never change its character.

[15:53] All the wickedness of which it is capable today will be capable of tomorrow. And in fact, 50 years from now, it'll be just as capable. All right.

[16:04] The flesh within you then will be as wicked as the flesh within you today. There's absolutely no salvageable content within it.

[16:14] Now, but on the other hand, what a relief it is to discover that in all our attempts to harness the flesh in the service of Jesus, in all our painful endeavors to introduce it to godly principles of life and conduct, God has never expected anything of us but the hopeless failure we've been in doing that.

[16:35] Amen. You ever thought about God wanting us to fail? Well, that's one of the things he has in there. He sees that we're going to fail in that because it can't be done. Now, we have been trying literally to do the impossible thing.

[16:51] All right. Now, you remember back in the book of Galatians that Paul is dealing with the believers there about the matter of law and grace.

[17:03] Well, in reality, they were trying to do the same thing here as what we see here. They were trying to mix law and grace, but in reality, what that was is trying to satisfy the will of God by the power of the flesh.

[17:20] And Paul wasn't going to have it. They were set to obey rules and regulations of the Mosaic law, and that just wasn't going to work. So, outward form and ritualistic pattern had become a substitute for them for the spontaneous expression of the indwelling life of Christ.

[17:41] All right. You just can't beat Christ acting within our life, doing what he wants to do, how he wants to do it, when he wants to do it, spontaneously.

[17:57] Amen. Amen. At whatever time he wants to do it. So, he writes to the Galatians and saying, oh, you poor and silly and thoughtless and unreflecting and senseless Galatians.

[18:08] Boy, the Amplified really amplifies that, doesn't it? Who has fascinated, yeah, who has fascinated or bewitched or cast a spell over you, unto whom right before your very eyes, Jesus the Messiah was openly and graphically set forth and portrayed as crucified.

[18:28] Let me ask you this one question. Did you receive the Holy Spirit as a result of obeying the law and doing its works? Or was it by the hearing, that is the message of the gospel, and believing it?

[18:40] Was it from observing a law of rituals or from a message of faith? Are you so foolish and so senseless and so silly? What a word.

[18:50] Having begun your new life spiritually with the Holy Spirit, are you now reaching perfection, that is, by dependence upon the flesh?

[19:01] What are you doing here? Okay? How are you going about that? Now, let's look at something here, just a minute. Let's perform an imaginary experiment.

[19:12] I don't remember if I put this in your notes or not. I may have. All right? But let's think about something here, just a minute. All right? Let's just imagine that we've come to believe, there's not any pig farmers in here, is there?

[19:30] Has anybody got a pet pig? Okay, good. That pigs have gotten a bad rap. All right? You know, people think that pigs just like to go out and wallow in the mud because that's what they like to do.

[19:46] They do it on purpose. And we've come to believe that that's not the case. That, you know, it's just a matter of environment, of living, of all these different types of things, that the pig does what it does.

[20:03] It doesn't really want to do that. I mean, after all, who would want to go wallow in the mud? So we decide to do a little experiment here.

[20:14] We go out and we buy a pet pig, a little pig, a little baby pig. And we bring him home. We tell our spouse what we're going to do. And Calvita would love it.

[20:27] All right? Yeah, I can tell. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then we bring the kids. We have a family conference to bring the kids in. Say, kids, I want you to know something.

[20:39] We've adopted this little pig, this little baby pig. And we want everybody to treat him just like he's a part of the family because he is now. All right?

[20:49] And so I want you to do with him what you do with each other and your friends. And just treat him just like he's one of your friends and one of your family. All right?

[21:00] So we go and we determine we're going to teach him and train him to behave the way he really wants to behave. All right? So we go and we buy him a little pink satin shirt.

[21:15] All right? And then a pair of little blue pants to go with it with little ivory studs on the side of the pant legs and fix him up real nice. And so we begin to teach him.

[21:27] So here's what we're going to do. You're going to behave like one of our kids do. You're going to eat at the table with us.

[21:39] You're going to bow your head when we say grace. And you're just going to eat the way you should normally eat. All well and good.

[21:50] And then when it comes time to bed, we put him upstairs in his own little room, in his own little bed between the sheets, and tell him to stay there.

[22:02] All right? Now, of course, naturally, the pig is a little bewildered here. I mean, this is something new. He's never had any idea this is ever going to happen. And he's not particularly pleased with it.

[22:15] Okay? But he goes along with it because, hey, it's happening. So we might as well go along with it. Now, even the neighbors, you know, it comes to the point where all of a sudden, all of a sudden, they begin to realize, hey, it looks like we're just about headed for success here.

[22:35] Our experiment is working. This pig's doing just what we've taught him to do. So our experiment is beginning and showing our thesis to be true.

[22:46] Even the neighbors who at first were really skeptical about what was happening here, what they were going to do, are now getting excited about what they see.

[22:58] Okay? But it's just about at that point in time that somebody makes a mistake. Somebody leaves the front door open.

[23:14] And the breeze is blowing through that door into the room where the little pig is playing. Okay? He starts walking across the room, stops a minute.

[23:27] His little snout begins to twitch. He smells the fresh mowed grass. His little tail that's curled up sticks straight up like an antenna.

[23:43] Then, like a bullet out of a gun, boom, there he goes, right out the door, right across to the park. And what does he do? He looks for and finds the muddiest mud hole in the park.

[24:00] He jumps in that mud hole, lays on his back, pink shirt, blue pants and all, and just wallows in that old muck and mud.

[24:13] And then, quietly, you could hear a voice as he screams loudly. Home, sweet home.

[24:26] He's home. He's home. Why? He's a pig. You can try to dress him up. You can try to train him up. He's still a pig.

[24:36] Amen? You put him out in the mud bog, he's right at home. He's right at home. And that's the point that we look at here. That's where we're at in our very nature.

[24:50] Changing the pig's environment. Train it as you may. Little pink pants or blue satin shirt or clean straw. Pig is still pig. Given half the chance, the nature of the beast is to get back to where it belongs.

[25:06] And this we all have found to be true in our own experience. All right? Talking about the sin nature here now. The flesh within us never ceased to love sin and never will.

[25:19] Given half a chance, it too will want to get back where it belongs and wallow in the mud and the muck. This is why the godliest of men still have latent within them the most terrible potential for evil.

[25:35] And it's the godliest of men who know that truth best. Because it's the acknowledgement of that very fact which is the secret to their godliness.

[25:47] They have learned long ago with King Ahasuerus and often by bitter experience that character does not change for the better by improving the flesh. But rather by allowing it to be replaced by the Holy Spirit.

[26:02] For pig is pig. Only the Holy Spirit can render its pernicious appetites inoperative. Now, Paul reminds us that this is what happened to Israel.

[26:16] God never intended to improve their lot under Pharaoh. But to exchange their land. He intended to substitute Canaan for Egypt. And in exchange, land introduces people to an exchange life.

[26:31] Believing God enough to get out, Israel did not believe God enough to get in. Now, there's the key. All right? Instead, they sought to establish a new way of life in the wilderness. And experienced nothing of the good thing which God had provided for them in the land of promise.

[26:46] Now, that goes back here. Believing God enough to get out of Egypt. But they did not believe him enough to get in to the land of their inheritance.

[26:58] We've got to question ourselves about whether or not that's where we're at. In the work of God within our lives. Can God really do in me what he wants to do?

[27:09] Can he really make of me what he wants to make me? Oh, I see that in the scriptures of how he's done that to other people. And I see other people that I know or I know of that he has done that.

[27:21] But when it comes to me, can he really do that? And that's the question we've got to answer positively. Yes, indeed, he can.

[27:33] All right? So, they sought to establish a new way of life in the wilderness. And experience nothing of the good things which God had provided for them in the land of promise.

[27:45] What a sad travesty that was. Travesty of God's goodness and grace. Now, and let me say, by the way, we're the same way. If we're living in that mode, and we continue to do that without allowing God to do what he wants to do within us, it's a travesty of God's grace in our lives.

[28:07] If we don't allow him to bring us where he wants to bring us, to make us what he wants to make us, so that he can do through us what he wants to do through us. So, little wonder, therefore, that their new life in the wilderness was thoroughly contaminated by those appetites which could only be satisfied in Egypt.

[28:26] And they constantly waited to get back to where those appetites belonged. Oh, would the God we never came out of Egypt, was their cry. Now, in this context, Paul wrote to the Christians in Corinth, whom, of course, this was also true, who evidenced, and who evidenced so much of carnality in their behavior and in their practice of Christian faith.

[28:50] They were such a carnal church. He says in 1 Corinthians 10, 11 through 13, this is in the New American Standard, Now, these things happened to them as an example, and they were written for our instruction, upon whom the ends of the ages have come.

[29:06] Therefore, let him who thinks he stands take heed that he does not fall. No temptation has overtaken you, but such as is common to man. And God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted above, beyond what you are able, but will, with the temptation, will provide the way of escape also, so that you will be able to endure it.

[29:30] Somebody tell me, what is that way of escape? Yeah, it's the leadership of the Spirit of God. It's the conviction of the Spirit of God that we must yield to, and submit to, and obey.

[29:49] I mean, that's a means of expression that God gives us. My dad, bless his heart, was a good man.

[29:59] Good man. He didn't have much of a father. No, let me rephrase that. He didn't have a father for very long in his life because his father was a train engineer, railroad engineer, and he was killed in a train wreck.

[30:13] So, but he was a good dad. Worked hard. He was a career Navy man. But I always knew he had a belt. Amen?

[30:27] And I had to be careful. I had to watch myself. Every once in a while, I'd slip up. And when he did that, I knew I was in trouble.

[30:45] He'd wrap that belt around his hand. And on the chase goes. Told you about the time I shimmied up that ladder up on the side of the house, didn't I? In Rhode Island. I don't even remember to this day what I did, but I knew when I did it, and I saw him, I took off running.

[31:03] Went out the kitchen door, back door, around the house. It was a two-story house. And there was a, they were painting the house or something. There was a big ladder up to the top story.

[31:15] Boy, I shimmied up there like I was getting away from a bear. Without thinking that he could shimmy up that too. And I looked down and sure enough, here he comes, belt and all.

[31:29] Amen? So, the Spirit of God may allow us to feel the chastening of the Lord to get us where we need to be.

[31:41] But he'll do that and that's good because it yields a peaceable fruit of righteousness to those that are exercised thereby is what the Scripture says.

[31:53] But, as my old band director at Central Junior High used to say, the best way to cure a broken leg is not to break it in the first place.

[32:03] brilliant, right? Yeah. Jules Borkman. Yeah. Be persuaded of the wickedness of your own heart and humbly confess it before God.

[32:18] The heart is deceitful above all things, desperately wicked. Who can know it? According to Jeremiah 17, 9. So, never be shocked or dismayed at the amazing capacity for your sin that lies within you.

[32:30] for this is the nature of your case. It's only when you're honest enough to face up to these facts that you will have on the one hand a big enough view of what the Lord Jesus Christ came to do or came into the world to do for you specifically.

[32:46] And on the other hand, the desire to let him do it. Jesus wants so very much to replace by his presence within you, by his spirit, all your inherent potential for evil under the influence of the flesh.

[33:02] He offers you instead all his limitless potential for good through the energy and the power of his Holy Spirit. It can never be accomplished by putting Haman through the beauty parlor.

[33:14] It is the gallows that he needs with the ring off of his finger and the rope around his neck. Now, the conclusion of the matter.

[33:27] All right, let's wrap it all up here. Spiritual new birth involves the principle of divine substitution, of course. And though you are to be persuaded of your inherent wickedness, you're also to be equally persuaded of Christ's inherent righteousness.

[33:44] If that which is born of the flesh is flesh and pig is pig, you can be equally certain that that which is born of the spirit is spirit and that God is God.

[33:56] What is so completely amazing is that God is prepared to be God in you. Boy, I hope you catch that. God is prepared and I should say wants to be God in you and to you, by the way.

[34:10] Not figuratively, but factually. You can share his life and be transformed in his likeness. In 1 Peter 1, 3-5, seeing that his divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness through the true knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and excellence.

[34:34] For by these he has granted to us precious and magnificent promises so that by them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust.

[34:48] Again, he's granted to us everything that pertains to life. Everything we need in life we can find through him. Now, 1 John 3, verses 8-9, He that committeth sin is of the devil for the devil sinneth from the beginning.

[35:06] For this purpose the Son of God was manifested that he might destroy the works of the devil. Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin that by the way is willful sin for his seed remaineth in him and he cannot sin because he is born of God.

[35:22] Every act of sin has its origin in Satan. It is his character incarnate. Every act of righteousness has its origin in God which is his character incarnate through our lives.

[35:38] Alright? It's what Mordecai makes of you when Mordecai wears the ring. It is in the author of the act that its true character may be recognized or discerned.

[35:52] It's not a question of pattern but a question of parentage. In this the children of God are manifest and the children of the devil 1 John 3.10 So it was to bring about a change in authorship that the Son of God was manifested that he might destroy the works of the devil as we see in 1 John 3.8 The Lord Jesus Christ came to get the wrong man out and the right man in and when the Lord Jesus died upon the cross he not only paid the price of your redemption he put the rope around Haman's neck.

[36:28] He then rose again from the dead and ascended to the Father that he might come according to his promise and take up residence within you to live again on earth but clothed with your humanity again.

[36:45] Our life possesses the life of Christ by his Spirit. it's him living his life through our humanity.

[36:56] Amen? Now think about this just a moment. All the power you see Jesus expressing in his earthly ministry he still possesses and he possesses that within us.

[37:12] that's why it's imperative that we learn to yield to the Spirit of God to be discerning of the Spirit of God so that he can do through us whatever it is he wants to do through us.

[37:28] That which is born of God in you is Jesus Christ and it is he who does not commit sin nor can he for he is God. This is what John means when he says for his seed remaineth in him in 1 John 3 9 it's the divine seed the very nature of God himself and the nature that he wants to share with you through his Son.

[37:50] Share the nature of Christ and you share his victory. You ever let me challenge you to do this alright? Remember Paul said in one of his letters to the church at Corinth he said before I got saved I saw things through fleshly eyes but since if any man be in Christ he's a new creature old things passed away all things become new I see things and people in particular with different eyesight with spiritual eyesight now.

[38:21] So I challenge you when you see each other when you see your brothers and sisters in Christ recognize what you're looking at alright?

[38:34] I'm not going to use him I'm going to use Matthew I don't want to insult Lee he's a good guy Matthew on the other hand no you don't just see this old fuzzy faced guy with a bald head covered by a tideless cap good cap by the way yeah yeah you see God being expressed through him because God's within him he possesses the spirit of God all of us we need to see each other as that people that are being possessed by and with the spirit of God for God everybody's the dynamo really if the spirit of God's dwelling within them and the power of Christ is resident in that he could do through his sovereignty anything with anybody he wants to do that's the potential see everybody in that that's why that's why

[39:51] I dream of the day when we can come to church and we can hear people talk about instead of talking about the football games talk about what God's done in their life or talk about what I see God doing in you yeah that's the sphere of view that we need to have with one another turn this thing around into a spiritual atmosphere and attitude because Christ is living in us I don't really think Jesus cares whether OU or OSU wins any more ball games at all amen don't think he does now again sharing the nature of Christ and you share his victory you do not achieve it but you receive it for Christ is made unto us wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption that according as it is written he that glorieth let him glory in the Lord and then in verse 29 that no flesh should glory in his presence that's first

[41:08] Corinthians chapter 1 verse 30 31 and then verse 29 it was the crucified Lord Jesus who put the noose around Haman's neck but if in your experience Haman is to be hoisted on his own scaffold then you need the risen living Lord Jesus at the other end of the rope it is he alone who by his spirit the greater Mordecai can put him and keep him where he belongs you cannot carry out the execution but to you and to you alone belongs the moral responsibility of confirming the sentence of death limited in his sovereignty by the law of faith which gives you the moral capacity to know him and to love him for yourself this is the decision which God's waiting for you to make and by the way this freedom of choice freedom of veto is what makes us different than the animal creation all right because again as we said earlier God wants our heart and he wants it by free choice now that's what he's waiting for consent to die to all you are which does not derive from all that

[42:26] Christ is and thank him for his willingness to make it real in your experience then you too will be able to say now I really realize that not only am I in Christ but that Christ is in me I also realize that there is no further basic issue to face you will have come to know God in a new and thrilling way for yourself and life will have become the adventure that God intended for it to be and though a thousand Hamans may beset you dead to yourself and alive to God you will share the life of Jesus Christ and you will share his victory and then you will also share compassion for the lost and become expendable for God in the service of mankind to know Christ more fully and to make him known will become the consuming passion of your soul in the face of death itself that duty might be done you will echo with Esther of old if I perish I perish God take the consequences and he will amen now I put on there a poem here and I'm going to let you read that for yourself but I want to get to this

[43:38] A.W. Tozer wrote this wrote this poem it's not a poem but it's a prayer he wrote it down father I want to know thee desire to know you I want to know thee but my coward heart fears to give up its toys I cannot part with them without inward bleeding and I do not try to hide from thee the terror of the parting I come trembling but I do come please root from my heart all those things which I have cherished so long and which have become a very part of my living self so that thou mayest enter and dwell there without any rival then shalt thou make thy place of thy feet glorious then shall my heart have no need of the sun to shine in it for thyself will be the light of it and there shall be no night there in Jesus name amen oh that that be our prayer amen that we surrender it all to God and let him be

[44:46] God in us father again we're grateful and thankful for your love and grace to us and again father thank you for the privilege of the study you've enabled us to have and share together as we looked at your work within us not only in salvation alone but by the indwelling presence of the spirit of God that enables us to desire to do your will and the power to satisfy that will and so now father I pray that those things that we've seen in this study will be impressed continually upon our heart and mind as we approach day by day and circumstance by circumstance that you'll enable us to surrender to your spirit seek his wisdom seek his guidance and live victoriously in our relationship to Christ Jesus thank you again for these precious folks week by week that come and desire to hear your word thank you for them ask a continued blessing upon them and now we pray for Lee as he brings his study in the gospel of Mark beginning next week that you will guide him and direct him as we know you will he'll be sensitive to you and just empower the teaching and the lesson that will encourage us and further develop us in your will and we'll thank you for it now in

[46:12] Jesus name we pray amen