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[0:00] Last week, we were looking at Mordecai and Esther, and the fact that, of course, before Mordecai could come into the and had any influence in the palace, he first has to come into the life of Esther. And of course, he did that through adoption as he adopted her, made her his adopted daughter because her parents had passed away.

[0:48] And so that gave him the responsibility, you remember, of molding and shaping her life. In particular, shaping her to realize that God has a purpose. He has a will in her life.

[1:03] There's a destiny for her that God has. And so he trains her to realize and understand that. I'm supposing that's why it wasn't a difficulty for her to go to the palace when it was time after Vastra, the queen, was dismissed.

[1:20] And all the other ladies of the kingdom were bid to come, that it wasn't a great problem for Esther, because I think I think that training that Mordecai had given her about the reality that God has a purpose for you.

[1:35] Had a part of that. Even though she had no clue at this point what that purpose was going to be. I think you and I have to recognize that. We'll look at that a little bit more tonight.

[1:50] But, you know, once we come to saving faith in Christ, we have to come to the realization that that's a tremendous purpose that God has has in mind for us in saving us.

[2:06] And whatever that purpose is, is to glorify and honor him as he produces his work through our life. So we've got to keep that in mind. And that's one way we can keep from slipping into any kind of sin is to realize God has that destiny for us, whatever that might be.

[2:29] Realize also that that destiny sometimes takes a long time to formulate to get to what the real end result is. So we're all in a training aspect like the disciples were, like the apostles were.

[2:42] And so always keep that in mind. And it doesn't make any difference how old you get. Amen. You're never, ever finished with that molding process that the Spirit of God does within our heart and in our life to bring us to that understanding.

[3:01] Just like Mordecai did to Esther. Mordecai, of course, representing the Spirit of God. And Esther, of course, the human soul or the human spirit, rather, I'm sorry.

[3:16] Now, look at Esther, chapter 4. You saw this last week, but let me rehash it with you here as we get close to what we're looking at tonight.

[3:28] Now, in verses 1 through 4 of chapter 4 of Esther, the scripture reads, When Mordecai perceived all that was done.

[3:39] Now, that's talking about the decree that Haman had issued in the name of the king, that all the Jews on a specific day were to be put to death.

[3:52] All right? Because he despised the Jews, you remember, as we saw before. So, when Mordecai perceived all that was done, Mordecai rent his clothes.

[4:03] Now, that doesn't mean he rented him out for charge. That's funny, right? Come on. Laugh. I know you've had Bible school, but come on. Yeah.

[4:14] He rent his clothes. He tore his clothes off. All right? And put on sackcloth with ashes, and went out into the midst of the city, and cried with a loud and bitter cry.

[4:26] And it came even before the king's gate, for none might enter into the king's gate without, or clothed with sackcloth. And in every province, whether so ever 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.

[4:50] 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 take away his sackcloth from him, but he received it not.

[5:05] Now, although Mordecai had come into the life of Esther the queen, representing the human spirit, he still could not have access to the palace under the counsels of the king.

[5:24] The reason being, Haman still wore the king's ring. He was in authority. No one above him except King Ahasuerus. And so that was the real problem that arose there.

[5:41] Now, in all of that, recognize something as well. Esther did not really understand her own case here. When you think about the idea of Haman representing the natural man, the sin nature, Esther, Queen Esther, had probably daily communication with Haman.

[6:08] All right. To some degree. Some casual, some maybe official. All right. But she saw nothing wrong in him at this point. Got an idea.

[6:19] He probably had a very charismatic personality, if you will, that drew people to him. That's just my guess. But it kind of looks that way. Same thing with the natural man within us recognize.

[6:33] Before we get saved, there's nothing really that hinders us from liking that guy. All right. Now, so she didn't realize her own case here.

[6:47] Now, so Mordecai now is upset. It wasn't his own case that upset him, but it was the fact of the things that were going on in the palace under the wickedness of Haman.

[7:06] All right. Now, look at verses 5 through 8 now of chapter 4. So, realize that Esther has gotten word, at least, that Mordecai, her dad, is outside the palace gates in sandcloth and ashes.

[7:33] Can't you imagine all kinds of things might have gone through her mind here? Why he's doing that? You know, is he depressed? Has he had a stroke?

[7:46] What's happened here? So, in verses 4 and 5, or really 5 through 8, 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.

[8:08] In other words, go find out what's going on with him. So Hathach went forth to Mordecai unto the street of the city, which is before the king's gate. And Mordecai told him of all that had happened unto him and of the sum of money that Haman had promised to pay to the king's treasuries for the Jews, to destroy them.

[8:30] But he goes a little bit further. Notice verse 8. He also gave him the copy of the writing of the decree that was given at Shushan to destroy them and to show it to 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.

[8:57] Now, what a tremendous thing here. Esther tried to convince Mordecai, change your clothes. Become respectable here.

[9:11] Let your, you know, let it show that you've got some kind of pride here. All right? But Mordecai was unconvinced. He wasn't going to do anything different than what he's doing because he knew there was a tremendous reason for doing what he's doing here.

[9:28] Now, he responds immediately to her request, to Esther's request. And that's the same way, remember, the Holy Spirit deals with us.

[9:42] When we're honest with ourselves, as we said last week, honest with ourselves, honest with God, and seek God, then the Holy Spirit will come and respond to us.

[9:53] And he'll do that immediately for the most part. All right? Now, and then, of course, part of that deals with the idea of convicting us of our sin. Is there anybody here in reality, be honest now, okay?

[10:08] Dana, be honest. Is there anybody here that just loves the Spirit of God convicting them of their sin? Can you hear me, Jerry?

[10:24] That's a question I want you to answer. No. Yeah. No, of course not. We're not comfortable with that. All right? But that's what needs to happen here.

[10:36] Now, so, before Haman can be put to death on the gallows, which happens later, Esther, the queen, has to recognize something.

[10:52] She has to come to an understanding of the ruthless, deceitful character of Haman. The Spirit of man has to come to an awareness of the ugliness and the deceit of the natural man within us.

[11:13] All right? We've got to come to that point. Now, this, of course, is the place where spiritual conviction begins. Before the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God's conviction can have its fullest impact upon man's soul, the Holy Spirit must act upon the human spirit.

[11:39] Okay? Remember, body, soul, and spirit, soul being the mind, willed in the emotion. All right? The Spirit of God has to bring conviction to the Spirit of man before the Spirit of man can have the proper influence upon the soul.

[11:58] All right? That's what we look at and that's what we see here. That's where true spiritual conviction comes. So, that brings us to the reality.

[12:09] It's important for us to notice here that there are two consciences within us. You only thought there was one, right? Right? what kind of conscience do we ever hear about?

[12:25] A guilty one. All right? You ever hear anybody talk about them having a not guilty conscience? Well, lo and behold, we've got two consciences that we have to deal with.

[12:38] All right? And that's where we left off last week. First of all, we find the conscience of convenience and the conscience of conviction.

[12:49] Now, the conscience of convenience acts upon the basis of what is consequently right or wrong. That is opposed to what is morally right or morally wrong.

[13:02] It's located within the soul, mind, will, and emotion and it has, it's what's called by many the animal conscience. Here's an example for you.

[13:13] How many have a dog? How many people have a dog? How many of you have ever had a dog? Oh, that's better. Okay. How many of you got that dog when it was a pup?

[13:27] Yeah. Okay. All right. You go and you get that dog, whatever the means may have been, and you bring that thing home. Cutest little thing.

[13:39] I had, I did that, I mean, I've told you the story about, told you the story about when I was at New Harmony and my, I was pastoring there and we had a revival and a guy that we've been visiting and the evangelist and I went to visit him because we both knew him and tried to influence him to come to revival.

[14:04] Well, he did and he came on Sunday morning. When we went to visit him, his dog just had pups and we went out there and he showed him those little puppies.

[14:20] I mean, you know, cute as could be and of all things, the evangelist on the way back to the house, the evangelist said, you need that puppy because there's one in particular that I really like.

[14:31] He said, you need to get that puppy and that flowed through my mind all night long. You ought to get that puppy. So, Sunday morning after the morning service, evangelist and I were standing back by the front door greeting people as they go out.

[14:52] He comes walking up. My late wife is standing right beside me and he says, when are you going to come get that puppy? My wife looked at me and said, what puppy?

[15:10] But you know what? When I went and got that puppy, she fell in love with it. I mean, how can you not? Sweet, cuddly thing.

[15:22] Yeah, furball. It had all kind of breed in it, you know, and retriever and little Rottweiler in it and I don't remember what all he said it had in it.

[15:35] Cute little puppy. It wasn't going to stay small very long. But anyway, you take that puppy home. You live it to death. And then not even thinking about it, another day or so, you go somewhere and you happen to be crazy enough to leave a steak sitting on the counter.

[15:55] What's that pup going to do? He's going to smell that thing, right? And he's going to find it. And you come home and you discover that he had gotten that steak.

[16:11] So what do you do? You know, before animal activists got busy, we'd roll up a newspaper and swat that dog.

[16:22] Sometimes they said swat the nose and hit the behind or whatever. But you spank that dog. You discipline it somehow. What's that dog, what's that little puppy thinking?

[16:33] eat. Why? Why? It's natural for a dog to want a steak.

[16:46] He doesn't know it's a steak. He just knows it's a piece of meat. Yeah. He'll eat anything. That little pup I had, I came from somewhere. I came to town for something and went back out there.

[16:57] And Parsons was right beside the church. And I was getting out of the car, parked out front there, got out of the car and started walking up the sidewalk. And I saw that little pup chewing on something on that sidewalk.

[17:11] So as I walked up there, I noticed that somehow he had gotten a package of some meat that somebody had thrown away. Rancid stuff.

[17:22] He's just chewing on that thing like crazy. You know, natural to him. And I took it away from him and threw it away, thinking that's not good for him.

[17:34] Not remembering he's a dog. And he was probably thinking, what in the world are you doing? This is natural for me. Okay. So, you know, you go on with that. You love him and cuddle him like you always do.

[17:47] Well, that scenario of different means goes along for a period of time. Each time that takes place, he gets a spanking.

[17:57] still doesn't understand what's going on, but he does realize something. There are certain things that he's doing that when he does them, he gets spanked, which is not good.

[18:17] He doesn't enjoy that. And so, what happens? He realizes it's best not to do that. So, he now has a conscience.

[18:29] All right? Now, on the other hand, what do we like to do with the little young dogs? We like to teach them tricks.

[18:41] Right? All right. Teach them to sit up, you know, and to roll over, play dead, and all that stuff. What happens? What do you do when he does that? You give him a treat.

[18:53] So, oh, now, here's another confusing situation for the pup. Have no clue why he's making me get up and stand up on my hind legs and act like I'm begging.

[19:08] But, I'm getting a treat for it. So, it's got to be a good thing. Although, I think this master is crazy, making me roll over, making me play dead, but I get a treat for that.

[19:23] All right? So, it's a good thing. Now, realize with me, there is no moral aspect, no moral, no spiritual aspect to what's going on there.

[19:44] It's just the reality of realizing there are things that I do, if I do them, I get punished. there are things that still seems crazy and silly to me, but if I do them, I'll get treats.

[20:00] So, he's got it figured out. He's now got a conscience. Now, realize you do that with a little kid.

[20:13] All right? there are things little children do that they should not do.

[20:25] So, you discipline them. but then you sit them at the dinner table and he's got green peas on his plate and he realizes that if I eat all my dinner, including the green peas, I'll get a piece of chocolate cake.

[20:57] Okay? So, we reward them for doing things they ought to be doing anyway. I remember our youngest daughter, the one that's in Montana now, when she was young, I don't know how old, six or seven, five or six, she didn't like green peas.

[21:24] And, we had no clue about this until these kids got up to be adults. Dad, guess what we used to do? You thought, you thought, Monica said, the oldest daughter said, you thought Darla was eating all her green peas.

[21:42] But she wasn't. She'd sit there for a long time before they were gone. What she would do, she would scoop those things into her mouth and act like she's going to the bathroom but she'd go to her bedroom and spit those peas out behind her dresser.

[22:03] So she finally got them done. Amen. So, you know, again, no moral aspect to that, but just the idea there are some things that are good to do that you get treats for, some bad things that you don't do or else you get punished.

[22:25] All right? Now, do we as adults ever grow out of that? Vern, do you like green peas?

[22:40] Do you fix green peas? Oh, can't use that. What do you do? What do you do when you're driving down the road?

[22:55] I should never have brought that up. What do you do when you're driving down the road? I obey the speed limit. When you're driving down the road and you see a patrolman either coming the opposite direction or sitting by the side of the road, what's the first thing you do?

[23:15] Hit the brake. Why do you hit the brake? Just my conscience. You know you're speeding. Yeah. But when you see that patrol car, we respond.

[23:29] We either look at the speedometer to see how fast we're going or we let up on the gas like Latricia does. No, that's a foot off the gas.

[23:39] Yeah, that's what you do. Yeah. Or you look back in your mirror and see if you got caught. See if you see the flashing lights coming after you.

[23:50] All right? Same idea. It's the idea of a conscience that is aware of the fact there are things to do that you get treats for or there are things that you do that you have consequences to, bad consequences, unpleasant consequences.

[24:11] All right? So that's the conscience of convenience. No moral aspect to it. No spiritual aspect to it. All right? But that's what that is.

[24:24] Now, it goes on down through life. Things that are socially right, socially wrong, financially right, financially wrong, spiritually right, spiritually wrong, that we all deal with.

[24:46] But it's how we deal with that and with what conviction or with what conscience we deal with that is what the problem is. Now, think about it just a moment.

[24:57] One of the things that used to really and still does disturb me, young people, you have kids that grow up in church.

[25:09] All right? I mean, they were brought to church from the time they were almost newborn. Maybe right out of the hospital.

[25:19] Maybe not quite that soon. But anyway, and you keep them in church and Sunday school and all those things, you raise them up in a godly home. But then what do you do?

[25:33] You send them off to a secular college. How many young people have I seen that when they went to that secular college, their life changed?

[25:53] They were taken out of this atmosphere, this environment in which they were taught and trained the right things to do and the wrong things to do.

[26:09] All right? But you take them out of that setting, out of that environment in which they were raised, and so much of the time they get so influenced by the secular world and secular people that to many it becomes a disaster.

[26:31] All right? Same kind of thing. They've always done what their parents said was right to do or their pastor taught was right to do and that can change.

[26:44] Put them in the military. Put them in the military. And what happens? Same thing. That's unless a young person has a solid biblical basis to their life.

[27:07] They've genuinely been saved walking with God. Then they have a chance in those scenarios, in those settings. Thankfully, there are some that make it through that.

[27:19] But there's a real danger in that if they don't have that. I think more so in this generation, there are young people that are finding other Christian young people in those settings that they formulate a relationship with and do spiritual things together, which is good.

[27:42] That wasn't so when I was there. back in those days. Not that I did anything wrong. I want to clarify the fact. All right? that I thought that I could have a thing that I could have that I a!

[28:00] have had have been I have had! have had!!!!!!!

[28:10] !