No, this is not a fairy story. This is reality and there is a little bit more involved. But before we get there, let me explain to you what this is all a picture of.

Removing the Sin

In theological terms the word sanctification is used. Have you heard of it? There are a lot of doctrines out there on the subject, and I am going to tell you a bit about them now so that you understand what is going on.

Sanctification basically means the process of being made sinless or righteous. It is a process that takes place, where we move from being in a state of sin to being in a state of walking with God and in His Spirit.

Every one of us, from the time we are born again, start to move towards a process of removal of sin from our lives. I have described it in other places as the three tenses of salvation.

We have the past tense by which we are delivered from the consequences of sin. There is the future tense by which we will one day be free of the presence of sin.

And we have the in between present tense. This is where we are continually learning to overcome the power of sin in our lives.

Well just by telling you that, I have already told you which view I hold of sanctification. This is not a view held by everybody I might add. And if you have been around the block for a while, you have probably heard some of these different teachings.

As we look at the story of Haman, you may be tempted to agree with a very popular view out there which was originally formulated by John Wesley.

It is still preached by many churches that are known as the Holiness Churches and there are various different viewpoints. I will share more on that shortly.

How Sanctification Works

For the process of sanctification to take place in your life there has to firstly be a revelation of sinfulness. Until you are aware of sin you are not going to try and get rid of it are you?

Then there has to be a choice. God does not impose Himself on you. He doesn't force Himself on you, and He doesn't force you to walk in His ways.

He has made you a free moral agent, and you can choose to walk in sin or to walk in righteousness in the Spirit. You can choose to listen to Haman or listen to Mordecai. You are the king.

There is only one way to deal with the flesh and that is to bring it to death. If we are going to liken it to us being identified with Jesus, we are looking at putting the flesh on the cross.

In this particular story they hung him on the gallows. This is just a slightly different picture of the same thing. This is the process of sanctification. It is taking the flesh and bringing it to death.

Crisis of Sanctification

The Holiness view of sanctification was originally taught by John Wesley and is embraced by many people even to this day. It is a teaching known as Crisis Sanctification.

John Wesley taught that we can come to an experience subsequent to salvation where God in a crisis situation in a once off act removes the sin from our lives.

It kind of sounds like what happened to Haman doesn't it? They took him, put him on the gallows, and he was dead and gone. It was a crisis of sanctification. John Wesley must have been right. He probably studied Esther.

John Wesley said that once we have had this experience of sanctification we are not infallible. We can still make mistakes, but our motive is always love. We do everything in love.

So in love I can sometimes make mistakes. I am not perfect. That is kind of a little justification to allow for the sin that we know is still there. But you see I walk in this 'state of love'.

If you think this is far fetched it is not that way at all. There are many people who experience this.

I knew a mature brother in the Lord once who served the Lord for many years. He went through such a crisis experience and all he could ever preach about was love. He would stand up to preach and say,

"You know you can come and spit in my face. You can say what you like, and I will just put my arms around you and tell you that I love you."

It was wonderful, until he was put to the test one day and he was anything but loving.

The Second Blessing

The Holiness Churches teach that sanctification is an experience that takes place after salvation. It is kind of like we Pentecostals teach about the baptism of the Holy Spirit.

The difference is they don't believe in the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Most of them are non-Pentecostal denominations. But they believe that there is an experience that they call the Second Blessing. Have you ever heard of that?

The idea is that a preacher will preach the Word. Then he will invite people to come forward to be prayed for and to receive this second blessing. This is effectively a crisis of sanctification.

My Personal Crisis Experience

I believe that most of us have probably come to a kind of crisis like that at one stage in our lives. Sometimes it can happen more than once.

I myself have experienced such a crisis. Even after having been in ministry, as I got down to pray the one day, the Spirit of God began to move upon me and I began to weep.

He began to point out to me all my bitterness, self-righteousness and judgmental attitudes. He totally floored me, and He brought me to a place where I was just ready to give up everything.

It was a very transforming experience, and from then on my spiritual life moved to a new dimension. My ministry also moved to a new dimension after that experience.

Well did I receive sanctification at that point? No, unfortunately I didn't stop sinning. I was less prone to sin. But I was so wrapped up in Him and enjoying His presence that sin didn't enter my mind.

But you see sin is not an act. Sin is a nature. It is the Haman within us.

Manifestations of the Sons of God

So we have this extreme teaching, and some people take it to an even greater extreme. They say,

"By faith I reach out and I become like Jesus. Jesus was perfect and I am made in His image. I am born again of the Spirit of God and I am now conformed to the image of Christ.

I have become a fully fledged son of God, and I can be manifested in this world as a reborn son of God who is just like Jesus."

This is the doctrine known as the Doctrine of the Manifestations of the Sons of God. It is absolute extreme, to the point where these people almost think they are equal with Jesus.

They become little mini gods and begin to dominate and control others. They put themselves on a pedestal of superiority.

Some of them are so extreme that they think they are never going to die, because they are now physically reborn as well. It is an extreme extension of the Crisis of Sanctification teaching.

What the Word Teaches

So what is the correct teaching? This is what I believe is the Scriptural teaching.

The flesh will be with us until Jesus comes. You might say to me,

"But hang on, we just put Haman to death."

Yes we did, but the story is not over yet. We have to deal with the flesh daily.

There may come one experience where we get this revelation and where we finally move to a new place in our spiritual lives. But the battle isn't over; not by any means. We have to deal with it daily.

Trying to Fix the Flesh

The other mistake that we make is we can't fix the flesh. You know I can change my bad habits and I can learn to be different.

There is a form of psychology called Skinerianism. Skinerianism teaches that man is like a dog that can be trained to do new tricks. It teaches that we can change our sinful habits and become different.

They think that we can take the flesh and re-educate it. We can fix it up, dress it up nicely and make it into something useful.

But you see you can only do one thing with the flesh. That is put it to death. So don't ever think that you are good enough to overcome; that you can take your fleshly abilities and make yourself better.

Death to the Flesh

No you can't. Don't ever try and fix the flesh because the flesh is deceptive. It has to be put to death and it has to be done daily.

We will see how this is presented in the book of Esther in the next and final section. We will not do that in this section.

I want you to see though that you can come to a place where you get a revelation of your sinfulness. You realize what destruction this has caused in your life and you say,

"I don't want this anymore."

Then you make a choice to put that to death.

Cannot Be Reversed

Once you do that the story is not over. Because you see your flesh has done some things along the way that have left consequences in your life.

Unfortunately you cannot come to the Lord and say,

"Lord I have been very bad. So what I am going to do now is I am going to be very good. I am going to do so many good things to make up for all the bad things that I did."

Can you see this picture? You are standing in a court of law. You have been found guilty of a crime, the judge is about to pass sentence and you say,

"Hang on judge, I'd like to make a deal with you. I'm going to do something good to reverse all the bad things I've done.

So every time I stole I am going to go and give money back. Every time I have hurt I am going to heal. I am just going to do a whole lot of good things right now.

Judge, if you could just not put me in prison right now, I'd like to go out and be a good person now. I want to be a good, upstanding member of society instead of the bad person that I was."

Do you know of any judge who will buy that? No I don't think so. You have to face the consequences of your actions.

If you have allowed the flesh to reign in you for so long, there are a lot of consequences that will have to be reversed and overcome. If you were to make a list of them all, you might be quite overwhelmed.

You say, "But doesn't the Lord forgive us?"

Yes He has forgiven us. He has cleansed us and taken away our sin. But our sin has left consequences in our lives. There are things that have been set in motion that cannot be reversed.

They are like words that are spoken that we cannot take back. That concept is pictured in the story by the Law of the Medes and Persians.

Haman has issued a decree, signed with the king's ring. It has gone into the land and been made official. It has been set in motion.

Well Haman is no more. He has been hung on the gallows. He is dead and gone, but the decree has been issued and is still in motion.

Neutralizing the Decree

How do we get rid of this? Esther wants to change it all. She says,

"King, firstly I want you to know that Mordecai is my adopted father, and he is the one who has been for you all along."

So the king invites Mordecai to come in and have a talk. Then he says,

"Mordecai, here is the ring that Haman had. You have it now. You can do the same thing that Haman did and issue decrees."

Queen Esther says,

"But the decree has been issued to kill us. Can't you reverse the decree?"

The king says,

"No I can't do it; not even me. The Law of the Medes and Persians says that once the decree has been issued it cannot be reversed.

But there is something you can do, and that is the only thing I can recommend. You can issue a new decree that goes contrary to the old one in order to neutralize it."

You see you cannot bring light into a room by taking the darkness out. You can't remove the effects of sin. You have to shine the light.

When you shine the light, the light overcomes the darkness and the darkness is made of none effect. You shine the light and the darkness goes.

I shared a Scripture at the beginning of this section. I want to give it to you again and perhaps you will understand what I am trying to say.

For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death.

Summary of the Flesh

A new law must be initiated and set in motion. How is this to come about? We will look at it shortly, but let's see what we have learned so far.

The flesh is a major player in our spiritual lives. It is determined to destroy everything of God that is in us, but we can expose it and deal with it.

We have a choice to end its reign. So there must come a time when we make that choice to turn around and walk away from it.

It is likely to be a life-changing experience. It can be as powerful or even more powerful than your rebirth experience.

Many people, when they were born again, didn't feel much. They didn't experience much. They just prayed the sinners prayer by faith, took a few Scriptures and believed that they were now saved.

You may have lived for many years as a Christian and not really experienced the true power of the rebirth. It may take a crisis of sanctification like this, for you to finally come to the place where you say,

"Hang on, I'm still living my old life even though I'm born again. I want to put the old life behind me now once and for all.

So here is the challenge. Have you identified the Haman in your life yet? Is he still in control?

God has a life of blessing and victory for you. But for you to walk in that blessing, you need a revelation of the sinfulness of your flesh. You are not going to sit down one day and say,

"I am such a bad person. I think I should change."

That is called turning over a new leaf. No you need a revelation where you actually see yourself for what you are.

That may require an experience in the presence of God like Isaiah the prophet had. As he came into the presence of a holy God he said,

"Oh, I am a man of unclean lips. I'm living amongst people with bad language."

He got a revelation in the presence of God. And if you want to get that revelation I would suggest you take a bit of time to get into the presence of the Lord.

You need to do that until that surge comes from deep within your spirit; until it comes into your mind and your soul is finally informed deep within. It will say,

"Hey, you thought you were living such a good life? You are rotten. You think you are so much more spiritual than everybody else but you are rotten. You are selfish and full of sin."

You must make a choice to put that flesh to death. You must put it on the cross because that is the only thing you can do with it.

Once you have done that you will experience a victory and a change in your life. But the battle is not over yet. There are changes to be made and victories to be won.

We will see that in the final section of the story of Esther. We will have a final look at how we are to handle this from now on.

I will show you how we are to handle it as an ongoing process in our spiritual lives, and how to walk the spiritual life that the Lord intends for us.

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