Symbolic Representations (Part 3)

Welcome back to our study in the conquering the dilemma of Christian living.

! Has anybody been able to conquer it yet? Let me see your hands if you have.! So I'm glad to see you here this evening as we continue now the study that we have.

There are some new notes this evening. I don't know that we'll get that far this evening. But they're there and I still have a few copies of the previous set.

And so if you need some of those, Calvita can get those to you. Now last time when we closed our session, we took a second look at Mordecai, who of course represents the Holy Spirit.

Remember the story of Esther now? We're seeing an allegory there that pertains to the things concerning the Christian life and how we are to live that life and how we are able to do that.

And so the representation of the main characters in the story are what we've been looking at. King Ahasuerus, of course, representing the human soul.

And Esther, the human spirit. And then Mordecai as well, remember, the Holy Spirit. And then, of course, Haman representing for us the sin nature, the natural man, the flesh, whatever you want to choose to call that.

And so as we looked at Mordecai last week, you recall we referenced back to Ezra chapter 1 to remind us of what the Holy Spirit did there in his work that stirred the heart of King Cyrus to allow the Jews to return to Jerusalem to rebuild the temple.

And the purpose of the temple, of course, was so that Israel, the Jewish people, would have that place where God would permanently dwell once again with his people once they returned into the land.

But also in that then, so that the glory of God could fill that place once again. Remember, we looked at the building of Solomon's temple and how after that was completed and they dedicated that temple, the Ark of the Covenant was brought in to the Holy of Holies.

And the glory of God filled that place to the extent that the priests could not stand there to minister in the temple.

But don't you wish our church was that way? Amen? Amen? Yeah, we'd have to stand outside and have services. I hope it'd be warm. But yeah, yeah. But anyway, but remember we looked also that when the new temple of Ezra's day was completed, the one thing that was missing was the Ark of the Covenant and the glory of God.

It was not there. And I got to thinking about that this evening. What a great picture as well of man as God first created him.

I believe covered somewhat in the glory of God. There's that word. So, you have the glory of God in the temple.

You have it absent from that. And of course, God through the work of redemption through his Son, bring it back to the point where the Spirit of God then will dwell within us so that that glory can return and be lived out in and through our life.

So, that's what Mordecai represents for us. So, in so, Mordecai then comes into the life of Queen Esther who is the human spirit.

And that's the Holy Spirit coming into the presence of the human spirit. But something else has got to happen here. And we'll see that as we go along. Before Mordecai could come into the life of the king, he has got to come into the life of Esther.

That's what we see in the story. Get the picture here. Before the king, or before the Spirit of God, before the Holy Spirit can come into the life or influence, I should say, the human spirit, the mind, will, and emotion, then he has to come into the spirit of man.

All right? Before he can influence the soul, he's got to come into the spirit and be able to influence the spirit. Because we've already alluded to that before, that it's the spirit of man that influences the soul of man, mind, will, and emotion.

And then that's what energizes, creates the activity, if you will, of the human body, the outward actions that we perform. So, he's already entrenched within the human soul by nature.

That's just like Haman already entrenched within the palace of the king. The way that, as you recall, that King Ahasuerus, or excuse me, that Mordecai comes into the life of Esther is through what?

How does Mordecai come into the life of Esther? Through the adoption. Oh, very good. Through adoption. Yes. He comes into his life, her life, through the adoption.

This is a picture, then, of the spirit of God the Holy Spirit received. So, before he could come into the life of the king, he's first got to come into the life of Esther. So, likewise, the spirit of God has to first be restored to the human spirit before he can take control within the human soul.

All right. Now, again, the means through which he did that was through the basis of adoption. And that ought to speak well to us, if you will.

In Esther, chapter 2, verse 7, it says, He brought up Hadesh, that is Esther, his uncle's daughter. For she had neither father nor mother, and the maid was fair and beautiful, whom Mordecai, when her father and mother were dead, took for his own.

So, it became the responsibility of Mordecai to care for Esther by disciplining her life, all right, guiding her steps, and then quickening within her a solemn sense of responsibility and destiny that God has for her.

And if you're well aware of the story of Esther, you realize what that's alluding to here. And we'll see that in just a while. The work of the Spirit of God, again, does the same thing to our lives and for the purpose of accomplishing the same thing.

Leading us, then, into the will of God and guiding us into all truth. Romans 8, verses 14 through 15 says, For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.

For you have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you have received the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. So, there's the adoption.

Literally, the word adoption there, you remember, means the making of adult sons. In Galatians 4, 4 through 6, But when the fullness of the time was come, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.

And because you are sons, God hath sent forth the spirit of a son into your hearts, again, crying, Abba, Father. And then Galatians 3, verses 13 through 14 say, Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us, for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree, that the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.

So, God does that in tremendous ways. And I kind of got ahead of ourselves there a little bit. Now, is the idea of the coming of the Spirit of God into the human spirit, of course, then that constitutes the new birth.

We've been born again when that takes place. And that, of course, comes through faith and trust in Christ. So, we've been made then a family, part of the family of God, and we have become children of God, as the Scripture details for us there.

Now, it's the presence of the Holy Spirit within the human spirit that also gives the seal of the fact that we are His possession and that we are now set in that new relationship with Him.

So, that relationship between Mordecai and Esther is a beautiful picture of that relationship between the believer and the Spirit of God that indwells them.

And that faith through which we receive the Holy Spirit is that same faith through which we claim redemption through the blood of Christ. It's in that relationship that we know that is a reality.

We can claim that. And the evidence of that, of course, is that we have the witness of the Spirit with our spirit that we belong to Him.

And this is the picture we have here. All of the work of Christ that cannot be separated to bring to us redemption. Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law because He's been made a curse for us because it's written, Cursed is everyone that hangs on a tree.

And He's done that that the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through our faith. Now, it's when through that faith we've claimed redemption, that's the forgiveness of sins, through the blood of Christ that God's able to send the Holy Spirit into your human spirit which bears witness to your spirit that you are the child of God.

You know, there's... And we'll see this a little bit later. We'll allude to it anyway. A number of people through the years have come to a certain point in their life where they begin to question, Am I really saved?

Have I really trusted Christ in genuine salvation? In genuine faith? So they look for things to give an indicator. The best indicator that we have whether or not we've truly been born again is that last statement.

And it's found in Titus... Well, this is a couple of other verses here too. He said, Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy, He saved us by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost which He shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior.

And then in Ephesians 1.17, It's in Christ in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of His grace. But here's the one I'm looking for.

Romans 8.16, remember, says, The Spirit itself bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of God. If we ever come to that place of questioning whether or not we've really been saved, best thing for us to do is go to the Lord and say, God, I need you to let me know.

If I'm really born again, I need you to allow your spirit, your Holy Spirit, to bear witness in the way that only He can with my spirit and assure me that I am yours.

And when He does that, question's settled, right? Yeah, yeah. And that only takes one time, by the way, it should anyway. So, yeah. Yeah, it should.

So, there's the glorious picture, beautiful picture, of the relationship between Mordecai and Esther that represents the relationship between the believer and the indwelling Spirit of God.

Aren't you glad, aren't you glad that He's indwelled our spirit? And this is what this study is about. If we will only come to that place of understanding what it takes on our part to let Him have full control.

Amen? Yeah. Yeah. So, that brings us to a look at the Holy Spirit grieved. Chapter 4, verses 1 through 4 of Esther's, of the book of Esther, simply says, when Mordecai perceived all that was done, Mordecai rent his clothes.

Now, you remember what it's alluding to here. It's speaking about the fact that Haman, the new prime minister with the king's ring on his finger, had issued that decree because of his hatred for the Jews, that all the Jews in the kingdom on an assigned day and assigned time would be put to death.

And so, that's what it's alluding to here or speaking of. When Mordecai perceived all that was done, Mordecai rent his clothes and put on sackcloth with ashes, went out into the midst of the city and cried with a loud and bitter cry and came even before the king's gate.

For none might enter into the king's gate clothed with sackcloth. And in every province, whithersoever the king's commandment and his decree came, there was great mourning among the Jews and fasting and weeping and wailing and many lay in sackcloth and ashes.

What a perfect picture here of what the Spirit of God dwelling in us really goes through when we are disobedient to the things of God.

When we are not letting Him influence our soul. Alright? Now, oh, excuse me. So, Esther's maids and her chamberlains came and told it her.

Then was the queen exceedingly grieved and she sent Raymond to clothe Mordecai and to take away his sackcloth from him, but he received it not. That human earthquake's beginning again.

So, although Mordecai had come into the life of Esther, his Holy Spirit, into the human spirit, he had not yet gained access through the palace into the inner councils of the king.

He still does not have that influence. Alright? Now, there in that palace, Haman still wore the ring. King's ring. King's ring.

So, he dominated everything, if you will, in the palace. It's a picture, good picture for us, of the fleshly, carnal Christian.

Some have said there can't be such a thing, but I think there can be. What is a carnal Christian? Well, let's not get there yet. Okay. If that old Adamic nature that's still there has any sway at all within us, within our soul, within our spirit, and it dominates the scene, alright, monopolizes our personality and all we are by coloring our thinking, by sparking our ambitions, capturing our affections, or suddenly persuading us into submission to its claims upon us, if any of that's taking place, then what happens?

We are a carnal Christian. Amen? Yeah. Yeah. Oh, can I meddle a little bit?

Preach is meddle, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, for so, we've been, we've been conducting ourselves as Christians this way for a long, long time.

We really have. Feeling that, and I don't know whether it's because of our familiarity with Jesus on a personal level that I think sometimes kind of gets swayed and goes places where it shouldn't go, or something else, but we have allowed ourselves to be swayed by the natural man within us to say, some of these things are okay.

You know, if we don't consider them severe as far as sin's concerned, it's like the little white lie, if there is such a thing. You know, a lie is a lie, right?

Yeah, we'll send sin whether we categorize it small or large. And that is, that takes place in our life whenever we have allowed Haman to take control and influence our soul.

Yeah. Okay. So then, that's the case for us. If that's taking place then, we are then considered and can consider ourselves to be a carnal Christian.

So we are then a babe in Christ and that will grieve the Holy Spirit, which Paul tells us not to do. He'll become the spirit of sackcloth and ashes as pictured in Mordecai.

Good thing for us to think about is this. Anytime we go along in our life and all of a sudden we recognize and realize that we've allowed sin to dominate us for whatever period of time and take activity in our life, think of the spirit of God lying by the gate in sackcloth and ashes.

Because he's grieved at the fact that we've allowed our lives to come to that point. We grieve the spirit of God when that takes place.

1 Corinthians 3 verses 1 through 3 says, And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ.

I have fed you with milk and not with meat, for hitherto you are not able to bear it. Neither yet now are you able, for ye are yet carnal, for whereas there is among you envy, strife, and divisions, are you not carnal and walk as men.

that's a good picture there. And we could really get into some detail with that, but we won't take the time to do that much. I find it interesting the statement that he makes when he says, I have fed you with milk and not with meat.

I think we can conversely turn that around. And he said, that's because you're carnal. If they were beginning to be able to digest some meat from the Word, that would keep them from being carnal Christians.

Amen? Carnal people. And that's what the Word of God does in our heart and our life when we make the personal, practical application of the Spirit of the Word of God to our life and to our living.

You know, it's one thing to read it. It's another thing to study it. But it's also a third thing to make that personal, practical application of the Word of God to our life and to our living.

And that's where I think, if you will, the rubber meets the road. Now, if the Holy Spirit is grieved within you, then He will not be comforted by a change of raiment, but only by a change of government.

Now, catch that phrase because it's important for us. We'll see it as we go down the road here in our study. Making Haman look better is not going to work.

Amen? Esther knows that. Well, she'll come to find that out as things progress here. But we've got to get rid.

We've got to get rid of the influence of the natural man and not let him take control of our thinking and our lives and then our activity.

So Esther didn't understand what was going on. She didn't understand her whole case here. She didn't understand the character of Haman. She did not know what kind of guy he was.

I mean, after all, if King Ahasuerus, the soul, felt him to be a good enough guy to give him control of the kingdom and give him his ring, he must be okay.

She has not yet seen the character that is within this man. Whenever she would see him, he was nice, very polite, very suave character.

I get that picture, you know. Very suave character here walking around the palace when she sees him. But down deep inside, he's a wicked, cruel individual.

Now, it's not his own circumstances that bothered Mordecai. But the situation in the palace, that's what bothered him here. That's why he finds himself in sackcloth and ashes.

Not because he wasn't allowed in the palace, but because of what's going on in the palace. As long as the ring remained on Haman's finger, there could only be disaster in the land.

And again, a change of arraignment would not put that right. And we know that that's what Esther attempts to do here after a bit.

Now, it brings a question for us. What about our own Christian experience? All right? What about that? Let's meddle some more.

All right? Now, I'm not going to embarrass you unless you want to be embarrassed. I can do that if you want to be embarrassed. But, you know, what about that?

We have the confidence in our life that we've been saved. That, you know, we've come to that point that that's not a question. You know, if we've ever had any questions about that, those have been taken care of.

So, we're confident in our relationship with God through our faith in Christ. But down beneath that outward practice of Christianity, if you will, and our profession of faith, there's something deep inside us that keeps nagging on us.

Alright? Something that says to us something's just not right. Alright? That inner peace that we're looking for is not there.

We look for something to change that. So, we try so many other different type of things. But nothing works. You know, some people try to find a new job. Some people try to go out and find new friends.

Some people even try to find a new church. Amen? Go to a different church because that's got to be the problem here. This church just isn't spiritual enough for us.

So, I'll go find something. But nothing that works. Right? You're just carrying along with you the same lack of inner peace that we've been looking for.

so, the problem lays within us. There's something inside of us that has got to change. Now, failure to get it right.

Now, here's the key for us, folks. Failure to get that right will turn us into spiritual tramps all the rest of our lives. Yeah?

Almost like a homeless figure. You know, we might be dressed up in good clothes, but we're just empty.

Spiritually empty. Have you ever felt that way at all at some point in your life? You know, where you just feel drained because, you know, for some reason, it's just not like it was before.

And a lot of times, that's because we have allowed sin of some type, of some degree, into our lives. And it's set there, and it's building upon itself and taking control.

So, failure to get something done about that is not good. We've got the right man in.

That's the Holy Spirit. We've got Mordecai there. But we haven't got the wrong man out. We haven't gotten Haman out. All right? Now, the ring's still on his finger.

It's on the wrong finger. And if that persists, then the noose is going to end up on the wrong neck. So, again, it's going to take more than a change of arraignment.

What it's going to do is it's going to need to make a change in the palace, a new prime minister, if you will. Somebody else to wear the ring that Haman's got on his finger.

And I'm glad to say that's going to happen. Amen? Yeah, it's going to happen here. And it's exciting to see how it takes place. Now, chapter 4.

That's just the best way that that thing works. Amen? man, I can't wait to get there. Nothing like building your own gallows. Esther, chapter 4, verses 5 through 8 say, then called Esther for Hathach, one of the king's chamberlains whom he had appointed to attend upon her and gave him a commandment to Mordecai to know what it was and why it was.

So Hathach went forth to Mordecai unto the street of the city which was before the king's gate. And Mordecai told him of all that had happened unto him and of the sum of the money that Haman had promised to pay to the king's treasuries for the Jews to destroy them.

And he also gave him a copy of the writing of the decree that was given at Shushan to destroy them, to show it unto Esther and to declare it unto her and to charge her that she should go in unto the king to make supplication unto him and to make requests before him for her people.

Now though she tried her best to get Mordecai the Holy Spirit to change his condition, Esther to the Spirit was unconvincing.

Mordecai responds immediately to her request and take note what happens. You know, she figures the best thing to find out is what's the problem here?

You know, why are you out there by the gate, the king's gate, in sackcloth and ashes crying so the whole city can hear you? So Mordecai responds to her and he responds to her immediately.

Now remember, Mordecai representing the Spirit of God, that's a picture of what the Holy Spirit does in responding to us the moment we are prepared to set aside our own preconceived notions and allow him to speak to us as the one whose office it is to convict us of our sin and lead us into all truth.

Wow. Think about this just a moment. How much of the time as we walk through our day, as we walk through our life, are we walking there with preconceived notions about our lives?

Preconceived notions about the Spirit of God, preconceived notions about our own sin or lack thereof. Yeah. All those things that we have garnered to ourselves and allowed to shape and mold how we think and how we react and how we respond and conduct ourselves.

It's not until we're willing to let those preconceived notions go and let the Spirit of God do that work that's His responsibility to do in leading us into all truth and convict us of our sins that we'll have victory over all of this.

I think a good thing for us to do, you know, I think it's almost imperative for us to do, get along with God and say, God, you know me better than I know myself.

I need you to show me what you see. Show me what you see in my thinking, in those preconceived notions I have about you, about the Spirit of God, about myself, about my sin, about my life, about my walk with you.

Show me those things. And here's the key to it. Enable me then to set those all aside. Let me set those aside, and then you, by your Spirit, teach me through your word what this thing's all about.

again, I think it very interesting that Saul of Tarsus, the most highly educated Jew of his day, poster child of Judaism, sat at the feet of Gamaliel, and learned everything from him.

He was no doubt able to retain what he learned. Highly educated man in Judaism. But when he came face to face with the person of Christ Jesus, and after of course the dialogue between him and the Lord, and going into the city, and waiting there for instruction, what did he do then?

He went out to the desert by himself, nobody else, for a couple of years, to do nothing but converse with God and let the Spirit of God teach him the things that God wants to show him.

You know what I believe? God does not, was not pleased to give us a record of what transpired in that two and a half years. But here's what I believe happened. I believe the Holy Spirit took the Old Testament scrolls that Paul knew so well and revealed to him the truths found in those scrolls and how they pertain they pertain to the Messiah, Christ Jesus and to spiritual life and spiritual living once you've come into saving relationship with Christ.

I think that interesting. That's why Paul says all those things that were gained to me I've counted but lost. once and that idea is I considered them all once and then in considering all of them I once for all for always put them behind me and count them but done that I may win Christ be found in fashion of him to have the graces of Christ in operation in my life and in my living so that outwardly he can be manifest.

That's getting rid of preconceived notions and I think that's well for us to do. Yeah because so much of our belief so much of our thinking a lot of times has been passed down from mom and dad from grandma and grandpa not saying they were wrong but I'm just saying we need to be sure that what we know what we believe is what the spirit of God teaches us through his word.

Amen. I know that's a scary thought to do that but boy how richly God will reward us for doing that and you might be surprised at how much he shows you yeah you are on the right course there.

Yeah what you believe about this is right you were taught well. Yeah but in some instances no not so good but here's what it really means.

If Saul of Tarsus did it and look what he became amen why should we not do it as well. Thank you.