The Doom of Duplicity

[0:00] Back in Esther and our study of conquering the dilemma of Christian living.

[0:21] ! Now, Esther has prepared and invited the king and Haman to the first banquet, you recall.

[0:39] And now they come, and that was part of the request that Esther had for the king. And so they come to the banquet, and at that first banquet, the king says to her, All right, now, Queen Esther, what is your request that you have of me?

[1:03] And I will make it so throughout at least half of the kingdom. And so she says, My request, if you'll be patient with me, my request for you is that you and Haman come to the next banquet that I prepare for you.

[1:22] And he said, All right, we will do that. So realize what takes place there again. When the queen mentions that, Haman is just so proud that now the queen wants him to come to another banquet.

[1:42] Plus the king, and remember we said the other night that Haman's thinking no doubt was, you know, probably Esther's desire really would be that the king would stay home, but that's not the proper thing to do.

[1:56] And so he, you know, his pride is really on the high level here. And so he goes and wants to tell all his family and his wife and friends what's taking place here, that he no doubt is the king's right-hand man.

[2:18] He's the king's boy and the favorite of the queen as well. And so as he goes, remember, guess what happens here again? As he passes by the king's gate, guess who's sitting there again?

[2:34] It's Mordecai. Mordecai's there. And now, he's the one flying the ointment, remember, Mordecai is.

[2:48] And so he's downhearted in spite of the fact that he's had this privilege of once again coming to a banquet with the queen and the king. And so he goes home to tell his family what's going on, and then he starts complaining.

[3:02] But there's one person, just one person that makes all this joyous privilege of mine not so joyous. And that's Mordecai, the Jew that sits at the king's gate.

[3:16] And when I walk by, he doesn't stand. He doesn't bow. He doesn't give me obedience of any sort. I just despise him, and he's ruining everything.

[3:28] And so he was just, you know, that's like what the flesh does when it doesn't get its way. Now, his friends and his wife and his family say to them this.

[3:41] And again, Haman doesn't seem to be a very smart guy. They say, well, here, why don't you do this? Why don't you go out back and build a gallows in the backyard here, in the garden?

[3:59] And before the second banquet, just arrange for you to be able to hang Haman before the second banquet, before the queen can have any sort of dealings with the king.

[4:13] Of course, he doesn't know yet that she's a Jew. And so, boy, that revived his sense of pride because now it sounded like a great idea.

[4:25] So he goes about and he builds that gallow in the backyard. And there's a rope swinging from the gallows. Now, the question is, who's going to hang on that rope?

[4:41] Who's going to hang? And that's where we come to tonight in our study in the doom of duplicity. And by the way, we've already passed out the notes for this.

[4:52] But if you don't have one, there's a few extra ones on the table back there. You can help yourself to that. All right. Now, take notice of you. The first banquet's already come to pass now.

[5:04] Now, there's something, though, that's a problem. Something is keeping King Ahasuerus awake. He cannot get to sleep.

[5:15] Now, keep in mind, King Ahasuerus represents the human soul, the mind, the will, and the emotion. All right. Now, he can't sleep.

[5:27] Something's keeping him awake. And so Esther 6.1 says, On that night, could not the king sleep? And he commanded to bring the book of records of the chronicles.

[5:40] And they were read before the king. And I got to thinking about that. You know, I don't know of anything else I'd rather not read than a history book. When I can't go to sleep to try to help me get to sleep.

[5:54] But nonetheless, that's what King Ahasuerus does. No doubt he's probably tried everything else in the world. But he couldn't sleep. Maybe the excitement of the night. Maybe he's like a lot of us men when it's late at night, ate too much dinner.

[6:09] And so he gets up and tries to do various things. He tosses. He turns. He, you know, pulls the blankets off, puts them back on. If nothing else works, he goes into the living room and lays back in the recliner to try to get some sleep.

[6:26] But nothing worked. And so something's got to happen here. He calls then for the book of the chronicles, the history of the kingdom, to be brought to him so he could read some of that and review that in his mind.

[6:42] Now, keep in mind here, most of the kings of the day through the history were pretty proud men. So they like to read about themselves. And so possibly that's what he was doing here.

[6:56] But that night of all nights, the night between the two banquets. All right. Just when Mordecai seemed to have been in such mortal danger on the eve of his execution, precisely that night, the king could not sleep.

[7:16] Now, look what else happens here. So as he could not sleep in last desperation, he calls for the book of records and they were read before the king. So realize God's timing is always perfect.

[7:33] Now. Is there anybody here that's ever had trouble waiting on God? Yeah. Try to tell yourself, all right, I know.

[7:45] I know God's timing is just right, but perhaps he needs some help here. Yeah. Let's just hurry up and get get it going here because we're in such a rapid pace generation.

[7:56] Anyway, aren't we? Yeah. Everything needs to be done right like right, right, right away. I can't snap my fingers right away. And everything's instant. Amen. I've told you the story a long time ago, but you probably forgotten it anyway.

[8:11] Anyway, how many of you remember who Yakov Smirnoff is? He's the violin player that had his own place in Branson. And he.

[8:23] Yeah. No. Yeah. I'm thinking of the violin player, but the Oriental. But no, Yakov Smirnoff was the comedian. Yeah. Water country. Yeah. That's it. He was water country. And with that idea in mind, that was his thing.

[8:36] He told the story about about everything being instant. He goes into the grocery store and he looks at the shelves and he said he looked at a box and it said instant potatoes.

[8:48] And he picked it up and says, just add water. He said, oh, yeah. And he goes on through that scenario, instant this, instant that.

[8:59] And he said, yeah. Then he turns around the corner of the grocery store and comes to the baby aisle, the baby supplies aisle.

[9:10] And he looks down there and he sees a container of baby powder. He said, oh, what a country.

[9:20] You know, his figure, he just had water. You got a baby. Amen. Yeah. So that's what we are. That's the kind of generation we're in. We're fast paced. We want it now.

[9:31] And it's hard for us to even wait upon the Lord. But God's timing is always perfect. And we've got to keep that in mind as we've continued to serve him and follow him.

[9:45] So it's not till everything seemed at loss here. And the knife was flashing in the sun. Did Abraham, did God tell Abraham to throw the knife away when he was about to offer Isaac as a sacrifice?

[10:00] Though due to die at dawn, Peter was delivered from his chains from prison by the angel of the Lord, who thus cheated Herod of his prey. And it wasn't by chance that Philip met the eunuch in the desert, nor Paul encountered Lydia by the riverside.

[10:20] All of these, remember, were divine appointments. And those appointments were made so that God could accomplish his purpose. Now, as the pages of the book were read upon this restless night, the book of the Chronicles, Scripture says in verse 2 of chapter 6 of Esther, Now catch that.

[10:59] Isn't that amazing? Not only is God's timing perfect, but he knows how to bring somebody's heart and mind into focus here. And he does that here with King Ahasuerus.

[11:10] The king suddenly became aware that it's Mordecai that was the one that brought deliverance from those who had plotted his destruction.

[11:21] And that story, of course, is found at the end of chapter 2 of Esther. In those days, while Mordecai sat in the king's gate, two of the king's chamberlains, Big Than, I love that name, Big Than, got to be a big guy, amen?

[11:39] Big Than and Thresh, of those which kept the door, were wroth and sought to lay hand on the king Ahasuerus. And the thing was known unto Mordecai, who told it unto Esther the queen, and Esther certified the king thereof in Mordecai's name.

[11:58] And when inquisition was made of the matter, it was found out, therefore they were both hanged on a tree, and it was written in the book of the Chronicles before the king.

[12:09] And so that's what the king, no doubt, read about and was reminded about as he read that. So it's not that it was unfamiliar to him.

[12:21] No doubt he recognized and knew and said, oh yeah, that did happen. And he was the one that brought deliverance and intervened for me on my behalf. So all of a sudden he's beginning to remember that.

[12:34] And so he cries out as he recognizes what's taking place here. He said, what honor and dignity has been done to Mordecai for this?

[12:47] And then said the king's servant that ministered unto him, there is nothing done for him. Okay? They could have probably said to him, now king, you've read this before, you knew about this, but it didn't really seem to make a whole lot of difference to you.

[13:05] And for some particular reason, now it does. Now, think about it just a moment here. Put the application of this to us. It could be possible for a man to live a number of years, but still be unmoved by the amazing love of God, which is in Christ.

[13:24] Though professing saving faith, to be so preoccupied with other things, that the momentous fact of redemption through the precious blood of Jesus remains a matter of secondary importance.

[13:41] Now, you don't have to raise your hand because I don't want to embarrass anybody, Lee. Matthew. Matthew. But think about, think about your, the moment you got saved.

[13:59] Some of you have to go back a long way. All right? Don't know what degree of understanding you had concerning the death of Christ.

[14:13] What that took, what he went through, what he suffered, everything that that meant. I would almost guess that most of us, at that moment, had a very superficial idea of what that was.

[14:31] We knew that he died for us. That we needed someone to die for our sins, and he died for us. But it took a while, for some of us, for that to really take hold as far as the depth of it is concerned.

[14:51] Of course, we never really get completely there. We won't probably until we get to see him in eternity. But it's, it's, you know, it's, there's various degrees of that happening within various individuals.

[15:05] But that does, and that can happen. Now, think about it just a moment. The facts are known, but we just really haven't put everything together here. until the moment when the Spirit of God begins to speak to our hearts through the Word of God, and give us a more complete understanding.

[15:25] All right? The significance, then, of the cross and the death of Christ stands out boldly to us. So that a troubled, restless soul is suddenly confronted with the claims of a neglected Savior.

[15:39] Because that's what we've done in reality up until that point. It's a bit of a neglect there. However, how many, how many haven't and still do at moments when you're reading and studying through the Scriptures, whether it's in your quiet time, whether it's studying for a lesson or whatever, all of a sudden God's opened your heart and mind to something in the Word of God that you've not really seen before or realized.

[16:06] That happens to some of you? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Sometimes it makes you want to shout. Amen? When He puts, when He puts two and two together and still comes up with four, it's like rumbling buffalo.

[16:17] Right? Yeah. In your heart and mind that you just want to give praise to the Lord for showing that to you because it becomes more of a reality to you.

[16:30] Or when you're taking something out of the Old Testament and all of a sudden it opens up to you what you know in the New Testament and you see how those blend together and gives you a fuller understanding of that and you just rejoins.

[16:45] All right? That is the Spirit of God opening our heart and mind to more and more the reality of the love of God for us and the death of Christ on the cross for us.

[16:56] All right? So that we can come to that deeper understanding of what He wants to show us because of what He has done through His Son.

[17:07] Now, at the sight of the wounds in His hands and in His feet the heart cries out to God what honor and dignity hath been done to Him for this?

[17:19] And the answer to the question may be just as crushing to us as it was to Ahasuerus that night that he that he reads this and asks the question.

[17:33] And the answer that was given to the king is the answer we have. There is nothing done for him. Now, filled with remorse the king determines something's got to be done and it's got to be done right away to honor Mordecai for his intercession for the king because without that the king would be buried and dead.

[18:06] That's a good idea, right? If he's dead you bury him. Alright? He would have been had Mordecai not done that. And so, what honor has been done? Nothing. So, that's going to have to change and that's going to have to change right away.

[18:21] Verses 4-5 of chapter 6 the two banquets he's got to do his best to hang Mordecai from those gallows.

[19:00] But he's got to get the king's permission to do that. So, what has he done? he has come to see the king. Unbeknown to him that the king has read the book of the chronicles and come to the realization that it's Mordecai that has caused his life to be spared earlier.

[19:22] So, who's in the court? The king asked. Guess who's there? Haman has come to get permission from the king to hang Mordecai.

[19:34] The king's servant said unto him behold Haman standeth in the court and the king said let him come in bring him on in here.

[19:47] Now, remember some things that we have learned earlier. Though the Holy Spirit may bring conviction to the human spirit doesn't necessarily become articulate all at once nor discernible within the soul.

[20:07] Again, the king as a picture of the human soul not yet aware of the wickedness of Haman. He still believes there's integrity in Haman and that's all he thinks and that's all he knows.

[20:20] That wickedness has not been revealed to him as it had been to Esther by Mordecai. Now, so he's still fully persuaded that Haman's got great integrity.

[20:34] He's his right hand man. He's wearing the king's ring. So who better? Who better would there be to make plans and carry him out to honor Mordecai?

[20:51] I mean, think of that's what the king's thinking here. Who better to do that? And now he's in the court unbeknownst to himself what the king's up to here. So, Haman came in and the king said unto him what shall be done unto the man whom the king delighteth to honor?

[21:11] Oh, good question. Now, put your mindset with Haman's here. Alright? He walks in here to get permission to hang Mordecai.

[21:23] The king asks him a question. Alright? He said, what shall I do unto the man that I want to honor above everything else? Oh, now Haman thought to his heart, to whom would the king delight to do honor more than myself?

[21:42] Yeah, amen? Who else would he want to do that for? Utterly egocentric and completely obsessed with his own self-importance. It seemed inconceivable to Haman that the king would wish to honor anybody else but himself.

[22:00] So, unable to think except in terms of self-grandeure, all the measures he suggests here are designed for his own advantage, and that's what he's thinking. Oh, the king wants to honor me, and he's asked me what should be done to honor me.

[22:14] I'm going to just really do it well. So, what does he say in verses 7-9? Haman answered the king, for the man whom the king delighteth to honor, let the royal apparel be brought which the king useth to wear, and the horse that the king rideth upon, and the crown royal which is set up upon his head, and let this apparel and horse be delivered to the hand of the one of the king's most noble princes, that they may array the man with whom the king delights to honor, and bring him on horseback to the street of the city, and proclaim before him, thus shall it be done to the man whom the king delighteth to honor.

[23:01] Now, Haman could just fancy himself. Isn't they pretty brazen here? He's already got the king's ring on his finger. Picture the authority that he has in the kingdom.

[23:13] But now, put your best clothes on, put the king's best clothes on him, put his crown upon his head, put him on the king's horse, and ride him through as if he himself were the king.

[23:28] Alright? So, that has to be a tremendous picture in Haman's mind to realize what excitement the people of the kingdom would have seen him riding through town with such regal apparel.

[23:51] Now, the idea of Mordecai being put on the gallows of the garden was no doubt now a foregone conclusion. He has done this, the king is going to do this for me, he'll do anything I ask.

[24:05] So, Haman could think of nothing more grand than to see his arch enemy swing by the neck as the glorious grand finale of the day of royal acclamation here.

[24:17] Yeah, couldn't think of anything better. He's just chuckling within himself here. Now, verse 10, Then the king said to Haman, Make haste, take the apparel and the horse as thou hast said, and do even so to Mordecai the Jew that sitteth in the king's gate, let nothing fail of all that you have said should be done.

[24:47] Alright, now, wouldn't you love to have seen his face? Amen? I would have. Now, of course, he's a smart guy, you know, he's a conniver, but he's a smart guy, and he knows what to do and what not to do.

[25:04] He knows not to make too big a deal of this outwardly. inwardly, he's seething, no doubt, but outwardly, he's got to be careful because he realizes how sincere the king is in wanting to do honor to Mordecai.

[25:24] And so, he's got to be careful here because he's got to realize that something's going on here. So, something quite obviously had happened to the king, and although he didn't know that the king had rediscovered Mordecai through the reading of the book, he somehow knew to defy him in his present state of mind would be more than his life was worth.

[25:50] All right? So, it's dangerous for the flesh. Now, think of this. Mordecai, I mean, Haman, representing the fleshly nature, the sin nature, or the flesh.

[26:03] It's dangerous for the flesh when you rediscover Christ through the reading of the book. All right? Again, let me ask you to see if this is soaked in.

[26:15] If not, we'll just keep repeating it until it soaks in. All right? We all, whether, even redeemed, even saved by the grace of God, we still have the nature of sin within us.

[26:29] Now, the Spirit of God has entered in. All right? To take control over the sin nature in our lives. Control our mind, our heart, emotions, the soul.

[26:42] All right? Lead us into the direct will of God. Now, we still have the nature of sin within us.

[26:53] All right? We still do. And it wants to take control again. sin. And so, again, the Scripture talks about that constant battle between the sin nature and the Spirit of God within us.

[27:09] Again, the determining factor of who's going to win is our yieldedness. Now, what is it that God's given to us?

[27:24] God's made available to us to keep us from allowing the Spirit, allowing the natural man to control us.

[27:36] What is it? Other than the Holy Spirit. His Word. All right? Now, what does His Word do?

[27:50] The more we know about Christ, all right? The more we fall in love with Him, the more we fall in love with Him, the less we won't have anything to do with sin.

[28:06] All right? That's the picture Paul paints for us in the book of Ephesians. Word of God's full of that. What did Jesus say? Jesus said, if you've seen Me, you've seen the Father.

[28:19] All right? He's come to reveal to us who God is, what God is. And so the Word of God enables us then to see more of Jesus who reveals the Father.

[28:33] That's why it's so important for us to see the work of Jesus in His earthly ministry. So in that, we can get a good picture of what God is and who He is.

[28:46] And as we see that in particular more and more in His love for us and what it took for us to recognize that love and have that apply to our lives, the more we'll fall in love with Him.

[29:00] The more we fall in love with Him, the more of Him we want, and the more of Him we want, the less of sin we want. Amen? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[29:10] And He's conforming us more and more to the image of Christ as we submit to the Spirit of God to do His work within us. All right? So, it's dangerous for the flesh when we come to that realization and begin to let that be appropriate or appropriated to our lives.

[29:28] So now, it was now for Haman a question of self-preservation and he was prepared even to go through the motions of honoring Mordecai if that's what it was going to take and that was his only chance for survival.

[29:46] Now, think about it just a moment here. Think of the natural man within our lives. All right? It will do anything to survive.

[29:57] It will even teach Sunday school. It will sing in the choir. It will conduct board meetings in church, whatever. You remember, how many of you remember far back enough when they used to have the Sunday school attendance pins?

[30:16] you know, if you have a perfect attendance in Sunday school that year you got a little pin. And there are some mostly ladies, there are some ladies that had those pins hanging down this far.

[30:31] They were so proud of that. I mean, really, they wore those things so you could see how faithful they were to Sunday school. Yeah, and that's fine. That's noble. but some of that could be the natural man trying to survive.

[30:48] Amen? Because we're still letting him take control of our lives. Now, he's trying his best to keep his neck out of the noose.

[31:03] For the same reason, we may have harnessed the energy of the flesh in an otherwise quite genuine desire to honor the Lord Jesus in your life.

[31:15] Well, you will discover now is that what the king discovered then, that the flesh which has its origin in Satan will go along with you.

[31:26] It is quite prepared to engage in every form of Christian activity if that be the only chance of survival. Now, characteristic of the spiritually immature, that they are unable to discern between good and evil.

[31:48] And the baby Christian like the foolish Galatians having begun in the spirit still tries to be made perfect by the flesh as we saw in Galatians 3.3.

[32:00] Now, hang on there just a second. we've all recognized, and I don't want to belittle, I don't want to belittle new Christians for wanting to serve God.

[32:13] I mean, that's a great thing that they need to be doing is serving God. But sometimes it's very obvious that the things that they're doing are things of the flesh.

[32:28] All right? With good motive, with good thoughts, but they have not yet learned what it is to submit to the spirit of God and be sure that the things we do in honoring the Lord and following him, working for him, if you will, I've got to be careful with that term, are led by the spirit of God and empowered by the spirit of God.

[32:56] So we've got to be careful with immature Christians, baby Christians, and even some older Christians that haven't grown yet in the grace of God. Now, in chapter 6, verse 11 of Esther, then Haman took the apparel and the horse and arrayed Mordecai and brought him on horseback through the street of the city and proclaimed before him, thus shall it be done unto the man whom the king delighteth to honor.

[33:22] Don't you know those were hard words for him to say? Yeah, God probably got a hold of that horse and leading it through the city and proclaiming those words, gritting his teeth while he did it.

[33:35] So Haman did what he was commanded and seemingly to the king's entire satisfaction because he was so enthusiastic in his desire to honor Mordecai that he was altogether unsuspecting of Haman's duplicity.

[33:52] So, and likewise, the new Christian or the immature believer is the same way.

[34:04] They haven't learned yet about the reality of the sin nature and how it can still control their life, even in the idea of doing things for God, if you will.

[34:15] So we've got to be particularly patient with those whose lack of understanding allows a genuine love for the Lord to be satisfied with and sometimes to be quite enthusiastic about Christian activities involving means and methods which to the more discerning are heavily contaminated by the flesh.

[34:38] Those folks are more deserving of instruction than rebuke as they are still in spiritual infancy. Now, Mordecai again returns to the king's gate, but Haman hasted to his house mourning and having his head covered.

[34:59] Now, take note of something here. Again, Zeresh's wife, all his family, all of his friends, gather together and Haman lodged that complaint about Mordecai to them.

[35:23] Now, their response in this case wasn't very encouraging. Haman, we love you, but you're trash.

[35:34] You're as a dead man now because of the king honoring Mordecai. You've got a problem. Now, the flesh has few friends in its adversity and little to comfort it in the day of calamity.

[35:53] I was thinking back in the Revelation and when we studied that a couple of years ago in Sunday school, how that Satan didn't really care what anybody else thought.

[36:11] And though the sin nature in unbelievers in particular would go right along with him, when you reverse that and you see God beginning to do a work there, what is Satan doing?

[36:31] More and more in the Revelation, you see Satan working harder and harder and harder. Alright? To accomplish his purposes when God is bringing more, more severe, more severe, more severe judgment upon the world.

[36:50] Now, so the flesh and the life of people has few friends when it comes to the idea of the Spirit of God taking control and he's seeing that he's about to be doomed in that life.

[37:06] In verses 13 and 14, Haman told Zeresh, his wife, and all his friends everything that had been befallen him. Then said his wise men and Zeresh, his wife, unto him, if Mordecai be of the seed of the Jews, before whom thou hast begun to fall, thou shalt not prevail against him, but shalt surely fall before him.

[37:31] And while they were yet talking with him, came the king's chamberlains and hasted to bring Haman unto the banquet that Esther had prepared.

[37:43] So as Haman is complaining to his family and they're beyond encouragement to him, here comes the king's chamberlain to escort him to the second banquet.

[37:56] Now remember, when he went into the king's chamber, he was going to ask permission to hang Haman before the second banquet. Alright?

[38:07] But that didn't happen. But he still thought he's going to be honored. The death of Mordecai is a given here. He'll get permission to do that. But now things have so changed, alright, that what takes place is they come to escort him to the second banquet.

[38:28] And remember, it's at the second banquet now that Esther is going to tell the king exactly what her desire is. At the first banquet she told him, and I'm surmising that Mordecai had probably told her, just tell him you're going to have another banquet.

[38:49] So the other things could transpire before that. And so the request at the first banquet was, I would like for you, King Ahasuerus, and Haman to come to a second banquet that I'm going to prepare for you.

[39:05] And when we have that banquet, I will give to you my request. King said, done deal. Alright? So, here, they come to fetch Haman, to come to that banquet, and he ups and goes with him.

[39:28] Alright? Now, time had run out on Haman. The table was laid and the stage was set. From a gallows in his garden, fifty cubits high, a rope swung gently in the breeze, and in the heart of Haman, there had to be a sense of doom.

[39:50] And that's the doom of duplicity. Alright, let's pray. Father, again, thank you for your loving kindness, your goodness and grace to us, and for the privilege again of the study tonight, and being together, just to learn of you.

[40:05] So, Father, thank you for that, and again, thank you for these precious folks that love you, love your word, and we just pray that you will continue to speak to our heart through the study you've given to us, and we'll thank you for it.

[40:18] And so just keep us abreast of it. The remainder of this week, bring us back next week to see what you have for us, and we'll thank you for it in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. .