The Power of Veto and Moral Choice

Last time we began looking at the ten sons of Haman.

! Remember that we spoke of the fact that although Haman has been hung on the gallows,! The picture of the flesh being crucified with Christ.

The question may be raised that would be since he has been hung on the gallows, do we have any more problems with him?

And the question is answered by what Esther said in Esther chapter 9 verses 13 and 14.

I'll read it for you. Then said Esther, if it please the king, let it be granted to the Jews which were in Shushan to do tomorrow also according unto this day's decree.

And let Haman's ten sons be hanged upon the gallows. And the king commended it so to be done. And the decree was given at Shushan and they hanged Haman's ten sons.

So there's the answer to it. Haman had ten sons. And even though in the story of Esther those ten sons have been hung, you have to believe that, you know, we have a picture of those ten sons having probably ten sons.

And on and on down the road it goes. And so the question is we are never, ever finished with the influence or the attempted influence, let me say, of the sin nature.

The thing we have to remember is there is no one particular climactic experience whereby all the evil influences of the flesh are eradicated once and for all.

There's just no such thing that happens. Though the flesh wants us to believe that sometimes, that will play into his hands. It will weaken our resolve, leave us vulnerable to sin, and nothing, of course, could please Satan more than that happening within our lives.

So appropriation of the victory of Christ demands more than just one act of faith. It requires an attitude of faith. Now remember that. Not just an act of faith, but an attitude of faith.

And I should say there are probably a continued attitude or continual attitude of faith. It's a moment by moment reckoning. And your reckoning for this moment is never adequate for the next.

You're laughing. It's amazing how just about the time you think, okay, Lord, thank you, we've got this. Whoa. Wait, what's that? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't know how many people have said to me, and I've experienced it myself.

You know, there seems to be plateaus. We wish our spiritual growth was just a steady incline. But there seems to be plateaus. And so many people have said, oh, man, he said, I would come to that point, and then God would just break through, and I would see things, and I would come out of that victoriously, thinking, I'm on my way.

And I'll trot along good for a while, and all of a sudden, boom, something else comes up, and something else happens. So it's 10 sons of Haman, and his grandsons that are doing that.

So, again, a moment by moment reckoning. And that reckoning is never adequate for the next. Galatians 5, verses 16 and 17, remember the apostle Paul says, You know, that brings something to my mind.

When he says, walk in the spirit, what is it to walk in the spirit? For some silly reason, that just brings a memory to my mind. Years ago, when our granddaughter, Carly, which is now a junior in high school, about like this, and skinny as a beanpole.

And, but years ago, when she was just a little girl, just walking well, we took her and Calvita's son and his family to Wooler Rock for Christmas, to see the Christmas display at Wooler Rock.

And, you know, we had seen some of the things. We had gone into the, to the main museum there, where they have Santa Claus seated, and you could sit there and talk with him. And that was all right.

No big deal to them. But it was okay. But when we walked out the door, to go down where, you know, they have refreshments down in the little lodge area down there.

And a lot of the decorations, big ornaments and stuff are there. We were walking, little Carly was, had me by the hand. And, all of a sudden, Carly looked up at me.

And she said, Grandpa, it's Christmas. Just like that. And, oh, I like almost melted like butter.

And you have to, you have to realize that Carly was one, when she was just starting to walk, when she and Kim would come over to the house up at the parsonage, I'd be sitting in my recliner.

And the recliner would be there. And Carly would, you know, come up into the front door to go back to the kitchen where Calvita was. And she'd go, like that.

Just give me the meanest look. I didn't know what was wrong with that kid. But that Christmas, that Christmas walk right there just ended all of that, you know.

That was, that was, oh, I tell you, that was one of my greatest grandpa moments. Yeah. Yeah. It's Christmas. Gee, but like she was just enamored with what was going on.

Anyway, to walk in the spirit. Walk in the spirit. She was walking in the spirit of Christmas. I mean, I mean, it had just overtaken her. And that's a picture for us of what it is to walk in the spirit, being so overtaken.

I like the term enswathed, enswathed by the spirit of God that we're walking in what he and who he, what and who he is. Now, walking in the spirit is a continuous process, one step at a time.

So it means that for every new situation to which every new step brings you, you must reckon positively with the Holy Spirit to keep the flesh in the place of death.

Now, notice, we emphasize the need to reckon positively. We are not only to reckon ourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but I think even more so, reckon ourselves alive unto God through Jesus Christ, our Lord.

Do you ever realize that if we would, if we would get the key to that and focus on that, we'd have a whole lot less trouble with Haman.

We really would. Now, it's our enjoyment of the resurrection life of the Lord Jesus through reckoning positively with his presence, which sets us free from the law of sin and death.

We had mentioned that before. The reality that he's living, dwelling within us that we need to recognize day by day, moment by moment, as we journey through our life.

The surest way of reckoning yourself to be dead to sin, that's the old Adamic nature, is to reckon yourself alive in Jesus Christ and be utterly dependent upon him.

Underline the word utterly. All right. Totally, absolutely, utterly dependent upon him. I like the old movie, Shenandoah.

Jimmy Stewart, that big bunch of boys in the family, they'd get down at the Sunday dinner table and they'd always say grace. Remember what he would say?

Lord, we thank you, even though we're the ones that plowed the field, even though we're the ones that sowed the seed and took care of the field as it grew, we thank you for what you've given us here that we're about to eat.

Yeah. We did all the work. Well, Lord, we thank you, you know, as if he didn't really think that was the true case. All right. So when we do that, though, when we reckon ourselves alive in Christ and be utterly dependent upon him, then he will indeed take care of the consequences for us.

Now, when Paul wrote to the church at Galatia, he realized the reality that though he was saved, he still had the nature of sin.

Same thing with the believers at Galatia, that flesh is still active in the believer if we allow it to be so. So, if not to walk, if to walk in the spirit is not to fulfill the lusts of the flesh, then the converse is true as well.

If we're not walking in the spirit, then the door is wide open for the flesh to take over and for sin to invade our lives. So we have to remember that we'll encounter Haman, his 10 sons, his 10 grandsons and on and on down the road it goes.

Now, the Bible presents an overwhelming case for Christian victory. As long as we're prepared to fulfill the conditions and appropriate by faith the victorious life of Christ himself.

Think about the Lord Jesus. Think about his life, his living, earthly living. How victorious he was, amen, over sin.

Never one iota of sin in his life, in his earthly life. He was victorious over all of that.

That same victorious Christ now dwells within us in lieu of his spirit living within us. And so we can appropriate by faith that life of Christ, that victorious life of Christ within us.

On the other hand, nowhere in the Bible is there any support for the promise of sinless perfection. Except on that great day when we shall see the Lord Jesus Christ face to face and that battle will be over for us.

Amen. Glorious time. Now, 1 John 3, 2, again, we mentioned this last week. Then indeed, we shall be like him for we shall see him as he is.

So don't ever let anybody deceive you for thinking that the flesh is eradicated once we get saved. That will only lead us to dishonesty.

So no matter how sincere we may be, as we seek to reconcile a bad conscience with our claim to sinless perfection, you'll simply have to invent some other name for sin and pretend that it doesn't exist.

And boy, how people do that today. How do you reconcile that with the verse, be holy as I am holy? Isn't he asking us to try for a sinless perfection? I can answer that.

Answer it. It's the direction of your life, not the perfection. You're going to have failures. You're going to have failures. But it's to be the direction of our life.

Just strive for holiness. You know we won't reap it in this life, but we are. And in reality, the word holiness or holy speaks well of the idea of being separated.

Okay? Being separate. So, yeah. Yeah. You know, again, we still have the nature of sin. We have the propensity to sin, but our walk should be one of a determination to do all we know how to do to yield to the Spirit of God and not willfully sin.

Okay? If we willfully sin, we've got a problem and we need to get right with God. The, these, you know, there are so many types of sin as far as, you know, of ignorance.

I'm ignorant. I can claim that. Yeah. Sins of ignorance, sins of omission, things such as that.

That we don't outright set to do. So, with that we get the idea that we still have the nature of sin within us. We're not, that's not been eradicated.

Okay? But it should be a progression for us. The nature of sin to progressively be more and more like Christ in our life and our living. and one of these days, praise the Lord, He'll shed this old human body and give us glorified body and we'll be freed from that confrontation we always have.

Alright. The Holy Spirit is our comforter and our friend. He's within us to keep us from falling. But be very sensitive to what He has to say to us.

Okay, got to do that. Got to be very sensitive to the Spirit of God in our life, in our living. In Hebrews chapter 12, verses 6-8, and out of the Amplified here, For the Lord corrects and disciplines everyone whom He loves, and He punishes, even scourges, every son whom He accepts and welcomes to his heart and cherishes.

You must submit to and endure correction for discipline. God is dealing with you as with sons. For what son is there whom the Father doesn't thus train and correct and discipline?

Now, if you are exempt from correction and left without discipline, which all of God's children share, then you are illegitimate offspring and not true sons at all.

So, in other words, when the Holy Spirit names it, call it by its name. Admit it, confess it for the sin that it is. Do we still find ourselves doing that?

I mean, it's not very big. Yeah? Not a very big sin. Yeah. And what's the favorite phrase people say?

Hmm? No, but there's a favorite phrase people use, instead of sin is sin. God understands. Amen? Amen? He understands how weak I am.

He understands this and that. Yeah, He does. And He understands where that comes from. But He also understands that His Son nailed that to the cross with Himself.

So, there's no excuse. Alright? If someone says something like that, you feel like maybe they've become insensitive to the conviction of the Holy Spirit. Yes. Yes. That or they just try to ignore it.

Yeah. Denial. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And one sin plunged the whole human race into law. Oh, yes. Exactly. Right. Right. Right. One sin. Yeah.

A bite of a... Of the wrong sin. What was... I don't want to get too hung up on this. What was it? What was that one sin that brought sin into the world?

What was it? Disobedience. Disobedience to what? To what God said. The commander God. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It wasn't necessarily eating of the fruit of the tree.

It was the idea that God told him not to do that. Alright? Disobedience. Blatant disobedience. So, that's what sin is.

Amen? Yeah. It doesn't have to be criminal. No. No. Whatever God says, don't do it. You don't do it. When we do it, that's sin. And there was only one tree they couldn't eat from.

They could eat off of me and all the other trees. Yeah. But Lord, it was the woman that made him do it. But he was blaming God. It was the woman you gave him. Claim instantly that cleansing that God has promised through the blood.

Back to the lesson, folks. Claim instantly that cleansing that God has promised through the blood of Christ. And that's the thing for us.

Instead of trying to go through all this rigmarole of justifying it, reconciling it, whatever, just confess it. Get it right with God and let the blood of Christ take care of that sin.

And then be thankful that the greater Mordecai, the Holy Spirit, is in residence, constantly alert and ready instantly to expose the wickedness of Haman's breed and to save us from the evil.

Now, let's take a look at this a moment. Interesting. The power of veto and the moral choice. In Esther chapter 10, verse 3, last verse of the book, 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 of his seed.

Now, if you've received the Lord Jesus as your Savior, then you have become a child of God, and it will be the constant delight of the Holy Spirit to seek your wealth and welfare and to speak peace to your soul.

But one thing you may have noticed in all of this, and it goes back a ways. In the last verse of the chapter, we just read, Mordecai the Jew, it's stated, was next unto King Ahasuerus.

Now, that's not a new statement, but I want you to think about that. Remember from an earlier chapter, when we saw the idea of Haman getting the ring upon his finger, that that was kind of patterned after Pharaoh and Joseph, when Pharaoh placed his ring upon the finger of Joseph.

Now, likewise, at this juncture in chapter 10, Ahasuerus has now placed his ring upon the finger of Mordecai. that when he did that, King Ahasuerus did not give up his own sovereignty.

He maintained his sovereignty, and as such, he maintained the power of veto. Alright? He said, only in, this is back in Genesis 41, verse 40, with Joseph and Pharaoh, only in the throne will I be greater than thou.

Alright? Nobody else was greater in the kingdom than Mordecai at this point, or Joseph, whichever the case, except for Pharaoh or King Ahasuerus.

Alright? 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.

As, of course, was the case with Joseph and Pharaoh, the king retained his sovereignty and thus his power of veto. Now, remember the admonition of Scripture in Galatians 5.25, if we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.

That speaks to us of the propensity of the spirit of the believer to exercise the power of veto over the work of the Holy Spirit as we all can attest to. Let me ask you a question.

We've all had days when we woke up in the morning and didn't feel super spiritual. Amen? Maybe you realized what you had laying ahead of you at work today.

Mike, maybe you had a big old dirty ditch under a house you had to dig or do something to get to a pipe. You knew that was laying in the forest. You just didn't feel real spiritual, so what did you do? You just went in, went ahead and got ready for work and didn't talk to the Lord, didn't read His Word or prepare yourself for the day or anything else.

Alright? How many have ever had that happen to you? You probably didn't dig a ditch under the house like Mike does, but... Did. Did. Yeah. But you see what we're saying here.

Alright? In essence then, Ahasuerus representing the soul, the mind, will, and the emotion of the human. Vetoed, if you will, that work of the spirit of Mordecai.

Alright? For that time. So, Scripture warns us of such impulses. And this is the thing that I got to thinking about in this. You look in the New Testament in particular a lot of times, mostly, not mostly, but a lot of times in the letters of the Apostle Paul to the churches.

How much of those, how much of those, of the content of those letters deal with Christian conduct? Alright? And here's, here's, here's some of the things that we see in Romans 12, verses 1 and 2.

I beseech you, I beg you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service, and stop, or be not, King James says, literally, the idea is, stop being conformed to this world.

Saying to us that the believers in Rome still had propensity to live like the world lives, live like they did before they got saved, vetoing the work or the power, the resolution or whatever of the Spirit of God.

So stop being conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. Then in Galatians 5, 1, he says, stand fast, therefore, in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage or the law.

Ephesians 4, verses 1 through 3, I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that you walk worthy of the vocation wherewith you're called with all lowliness, meekness, long-suffering, forbearing one another in love, endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit and the bond of peace.

All right, again, he uses the word beseech. I beg you that you walk worthy, hold the same, that your walk, that your walk holds the same weight in value as that salvation that you possess is the idea there.

Then in verse 17 of chapter 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.

That's from Wiest's expanded translation, by the way. 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 corrupt according to the passionate desires of deceit.

Moreover, that you are being constantly renewed with reference to the spirit of your mind that you have been put off once for all, excuse me, once for all the new self who after God was created in righteousness and holiness of truth.

Colossians 3.8 but now also put off all these anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy communication out of your mouth.

All right. So, you know, the picture is there, the propensity, even the believer has, for allowing those things to happen and that speaks of the veto power that we have over the work of the spirit of God in those cases.

Remember the admonition again of scripture in Galatians 5.25, if we live in the spirit, let's also walk in the spirit. I think we've been here before. This is a double up of the last slide.

It speaks of the propensity of the believer exercising the power of veto over the work of the Holy Spirit we can attest. It's God's desire that we walk in the spirit, being willing to forgo the option of veto over the work of the loving Holy Spirit within us.

God wants our heart. the privilege of being you is that you can know God and love Him because you want to. I like that. Amen. Simply because you want to.

And that's what God wants. He wants our heart and our desire to want to know Him and to want to love Him and to want to walk in Him. Boy, another thought had come to mind there but it went just as quick as it came.

Yeah, zip by quick. Alright, let's get started into this. I don't know how far we'll get with this. Pig is pig. Alright, and we'll look at that.

What verse is it? That's 2nd Lions 1212. King Ahasuerus made a wonderful discovery. Alright, he had discovered that the evil of which he was capable under the influence of Haman could be matched only by the good of which he was capable under the influence of Mordecai.

It is the same wonderful discovery God wants us to make for it's absolutely basic to an intelligent understanding of the Christian life.

so the discovery not only changed with comfort excuse me the discovery is not only charged with comfort and encouragement for the soul but is calculated to deliver us from heartbreak frustration despair all of those things which is the unhappy lot of so many sincere Christians in their earnest endeavors to please God in the energy of the flesh.

How much of the time does that happen? Christians want to please God. I mean what Christian doesn't but so much of the time the efforts to do so are spent by the exercise of the flesh and not in yieldedness to the spirit of God and what frustration and despair that that creates within the life.

The remarkable change that took place in the character of the king did not come about by improving Haman but by replacing him with Mordecai we've seen that before it was not a question of reformation but of substitution and exchanged life so there was no redeeming feature about him that's about Haman and he was entirely without remedy fit only to die upon the gallows and so that's exactly what God has to say about the old Adamic nature within us called the flesh and this was Paul's persuasion in Romans 7 18 for I know that nothing good dwells within me that is in my flesh that's why Jesus said whatsoever his flesh is flesh amen whatever is spirit is spirit alright you know I get enamored with headstones when Darla and Michael lived in

Louisville Darla said to us dad you've got to go to and I forget some hill cemetery over here down the road you've got to go by there you've just got to go through it and see it I can't describe it so we did Kelly and I drove through that one day that's where Colonel Sanders and all those guys Houdini and everybody's buried you drive through that thing and it's an old cemetery and you all of a sudden you come upon life-size bronze statues of the people that were buried there yeah I think Colonel Sanders is just a bust of his head one of them is a magician had his cape and his thing and that statue I'm thinking oh wow and you read some of the inscriptions on that it's as if they thought these things are what make the life what it was alright and to me it was just an amazing thing all the monuments and everything built to these folks like their memory's gonna live on forever unless you drove through that cemetery half of those you never knew amen how many people never have driven through that cemetery see whatever is flesh is flesh that's all it is if the work and the life has not been controlled to controlled by and yielded to the spirit of God and empowered by the spirit of God everything that's been accomplished in that life is simply flesh and has no turn of weight or anything such as that so is that yeah it's absolutely imperative for your own spiritual well-being that we recognize the fact that this old nature will never change its character all the wickedness of which is capable today it will be capable of tomorrow 50 years from now

I was gonna say 100 years from now but we'll all be dead by then if the Lord didn't come all right the flesh within you then will be as wicked as the flesh within you today there's absolutely no salvageable content within it but what a relief it is to discover that in all our attempts to harness the flesh in the service of Christ and in all of 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 have been you ever think about that that's all god expected from us as us amen outside of what christ made us just to be failures at our attempt to please god to serve him now we've been trying to do the absolute impossible all right um i think all right well the galatian church made the same mistake and paul found that out you know trying to do things that were pleasing to god achieving holiness but doing that in their own strength and of course the apostle paul then corrected them in that and they came to realize the reality of that now yeah exactly yeah just like global warming james bush george bush's fault oh yeah you might have to come further than that yeah yeah yeah outward excuse me i'm sorry yeah it is sure sure it is yeah yeah god yeah why'd you make it so hard yeah outward form and ritualistic pattern had become a substitute for the spontaneous expression of the indwelling life of christ i love that phrase the spontaneous expression of the indwelling life of christ do you realize that's what happens in the life of the yielded believer the spirit of god works spontaneously yeah yeah he just does what he wants to do when the life is yielded to him it's a spontaneous thing and you know paul writes and says oh you poor and silly and thoughtless and unreflecting and senseless galatians i like that i think this is out of the amplified who has who has fascinated or bewitched or cast a spell over you unto whom right before your very eyes jesus christ the messiah was openly and graphically set forth and portrayed as crucified let me ask you this one question he says did you receive the holy spirit as a result of obeying the law and doing its works or was it by hearing the message of the gospel and believing it was it from observing a law of rituals or from a message of faith are you so foolish and so senseless and so silly having begun your new life spiritually with the holy spirit are you now reaching perfection by dependence upon the flesh of course galatians 3 1 through 3 so good question that he raises there isn't that right all right now we're going to stop there for

tonight and next week we're going to run a little experiment all right you're wondering where does pig come in that's the experiment and we're going to run that next week and hopefully we'll finish it all up next week if not Lee we'll finish it the following week hopefully next week yeah yeah I'll too I'll too I had to dissect a pig in college are we talking about that all right any thoughts questions comments I'm grateful for Romans 7 yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah and the striking thing in all of that is you know we know the scripture says

God so loved the world that he gave a son now you realize with me that everything we're seeing up here and everything that pertains to the fact of God saving us and all the things he's done for us and through us and in us is all done on behalf of his son and his obedience to the father amen didn't save us for us for our sake per se he saved us because of the son yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah so yeah given him a name that is above every name that at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow every tongue confess that he is Lord to the glory of God the father amen amen it's all for the son's for the son's sake all right pray with me father again thank you for your love and grace your goodness and kindness to us thank you for the study this evening again to refresh our minds of what you have done in redeeming us through your precious son and making it a reality that we can live a life that honors you by letting the spirit of God direct us lead us control our lives literally the son living his life through us so father thank you continue to teach us that truth that it may become more and more a reality within our life day by day thank you for these precious folks that have come week after week to hear the study to study together to soak it in father thank you for their willingness and faithfulness in doing that bless them for doing that and lord just continue to strengthen their hearts strengthen their lives as we walk together in

Christ we thank you for it now in Jesus name amen Thank you.