Chapter 5 - How to Expose the Flesh

Section 03 - Getting Rid of Haman

1 Corinthians 3:3 says,

For you are still fleshly: for since [there is] among you envying, and strife, and divisions, are you not fleshly, and acting like [ordinary] men?

Then Romans 8:9 says,

But you are not [continually] in the flesh, but in the Spirit, since the Spirit of God continues to dwell in you. But whoever does not have the Spirit of Christ is none of his.

We ended the last section on the all is lost part of the movie; the part where it seems like there is no hope and there is no way out. That is what our spiritual life actually looks like when the flesh takes control.

But you see the flesh isn't finished yet. It has even more plans to destroy. The all is lost is about to get worse. The flesh wants to remove all traces of the Holy Spirit from our lives. What can we do to stop it?

In the story of Esther it seems like King Ahasuerus is pretty powerless. He just submits and hands over to Haman. Haman takes control and does whatever he likes.

The Holy Spirit Helps Us

When the flesh takes control it is going to take more than willpower and gritting your teeth to overcome. You are going to need a bit of help from deep inside, and that is where it is going to start.

The help comes firstly from the Holy Spirit that is within us. He makes the first move. We see this happening in the next account of the story of Esther.

We need to activate our spiritual abilities. We have activated the fleshly abilities and they are in control. Now in order to counteract that, the Scripture says that the flesh and the spirit strive against each other.

In order to overcome the flesh we must activate our inner spiritual abilities. But what we tend to do is we tend to squash them. And when we do that it affects the Spirit of God within us.

Ephesians 4:30 says these words,

And do not grieve the holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed until the day of redemption.

When we walk in the flesh the Holy Spirit is grieved. He can't be pacified when the flesh is in control. We can't say,

"Shame, poor Holy Spirit. Let's give Him a chance."

He Never Leaves Us

We can't do that and keep the flesh there, because the one is contrary to the other. We can't have both.

But here is the wonderful thing about the Lord Jesus in us by His Spirit. Even though we grieve Him. He doesn't turn His back on us. He doesn't leave us. He doesn't kick us out every time the flesh takes control of our lives.

I know there are some people out there who teach this. They have a very legalistic approach to the spiritual life.

The whole idea is we have to strive and work hard to make it to heaven one day. And when we fail the Lord and allow the flesh to dominate, the Lord is not going to tolerate sin in our lives and He's going to kick us out.

I always use this illustration. You see I am a father. I have brought up four children, and every one of them at some stage didn't do what they were supposed to do. They were just plain naughty.

The first time this happened I took my eldest daughter and stood by the open door. I gave her a boot kick into the street and said,

"I don't want you anymore. I don't want naughty children."

That doesn't sound like a real story does it? Have you ever seen any father who would do that? But we expect the Heavenly Father, who has more love than you and I could ever have, to do exactly that to us.

Grieving the Spirit

Every time we fail God, fail to walk in the Spirit or to obey His laws and live a righteous life, we expect Him to kick us out. But He doesn't kick us out. He is deeply grieved and sad. He is affected, but He will never leave us or forsake us.

He is the One who will make the first move towards helping us overcome this sinful tendency which we all have within us.

When we walk in the flesh, the first effect that takes place deep within is that the Holy Spirit is grieved. And when He is grieved, there is a part of you that is affected immediately. That is your recreated human spirit.

In the book of Esther this is pictured by Queen Esther herself. You will remember that Vashti was the old spirit. The new recreated spirit was Esther who was brought in to the palace.

So Mordecai was grieved, and he dressed in sackcloth and ashes. It was a standard procedure in those days which indicated that you were unhappy and distressed.

He walked through the streets dressed in this way and came as far as the king's gate. He wasn't allowed to go any further so he couldn't come right in. But he stood there in the street in his sackcloth and ashes.

The news was brought to Esther,

"Mordecai is in sackcloth and ashes. Something is wrong."

Aware of a Problem

What happens when you continue to walk in the flesh and allow it to control you? Deep down inside the Holy Spirit begins to work in your spirit and you begin to feel that something is wrong. You say to yourself,

"What is wrong? I don't understand it. The Lord just doesn't seem to be there anymore. I can't hear His voice or sense His presence anymore."

What happens now is the new you that was recreated in Christ is put on the spot. You see Mordecai can't just walk into the king's palace and say,

"You are really stupid! How can you put someone like Haman in control? Don't you realize what I did for you? I saved your life and I gave you the most beautiful queen you ever had. Don't you appreciate me?"

The Holy Spirit is a gentleman. He never imposes Himself in any way and is always ready to serve. But Mordecai puts Esther on the spot.

Esther is now in a position where she has to do something. The new you cannot remain passive. She sends a message to Mordecai and says,

"Mordecai, what is wrong?"

She tries to send him clothes and tells him to take off his sackcloth and ashes but he refuses them. She sends someone to go and find out what is going on, and he sends back a copy of the decree that has been sent out to destroy all the Jews.

Mordecai says to her,

"You're also a Jew. Don't think that because you are in the king's palace that you are going to escape. You are going to die along with the rest of us. Esther you have to do something. You have to go and speak to the king."

She says, "Well that is easier said than done."

You see the king is the boss in a male chauvinistic society. The woman does what she is told and the man is in control.

She says, "The king hasn't called for me for a while. I haven't spoken to him for ages. And I don't have the right just to walk in on him uninvited."

Subtlety to Expose the Flesh

You know we can't just dominate the flesh and bring it under control. We have to use subtlety and take a very specific approach.

The Holy Spirit and our spirit have to work together from deep within. They have to follow a specific order, in order to expose the thing that is controlling our lives and bringing destruction to us.

Esther makes up her mind and says,

"I am going to go to the king."

The danger is if she walks into the court uninvited, the law is that anybody who walks in without being summoned is immediately put to death. That is the law, unless the king holds out his golden scepter and says,

"It's okay, you can come in."

If he doesn't do that you are gone.

So Queen Esther stomps in with the curlers still in her hair and dressed in her night gown and says,

"Hey king."

Some stupid movie portrayed her as doing something like that. I really don't know where they got that from but it certainly isn't in the Scriptures.

No, she went and dolled herself up with the best makeup and the best clothing that she had. She put the royal crown on her head and she was ravishing. She was beautiful. No normal man can resist a sight like that, and Ahasuerus was a normal man.

So the queen appeared there in the court right where the king was sitting. She was dazzling in her glory. How could he resist her? One look at her and he said,

"Wow, how could I forget about you?"

He immediately holds out the golden scepter and says,

"Come on in, my beautiful. What can I do for you? Is there anything that you want?"

We have the king eating out of her hand. Why did it happen? Because she used the right approach. She didn't come strong and bold, but she used an approach of humility and submissiveness.

You know women could learn this and find out how to handle their husbands sometimes. That is just a sidetrack though. We are not dealing with that in this message.

Enticing the Flesh

But you see we have to trap the flesh. And to do that we have to first entice or almost seduce the soul, so that we can get in there and do it.

The soul will submit naturally if we give it the right spiritual influence from within. It will submit if we give it a beautiful, tender loving spirit; not a legalistic, dominating spirit that says,

"You should do this! You shouldn't do that!"

It is like the law that says,

"Thou shalt, and thou shalt not."

We preach the law, but the law only stirs up the flesh. Paul teaches us that. The law never dealt with sin in the flesh. It just stirred it up. Tell someone they can't do something and they will say,

"Why not?"

Let the Spirit of God come up from deep within. He never pushes and never condemns. He never imposes His will. And when He influences our recreated spirits, it comes in exactly the same way. It comes in gentleness and submission.

You see there is a plan here. We want to set a trap for the flesh.

We want to do as the English expression goes and give him enough rope to hang himself. We are going to give Haman enough rope to hang himself, and we have to use the exact same approach.

Revealing the Plan

Well now that Esther has got in with the king, now she sets her plan in motion. She could have done something right then. As she walked into the court the king was wowed and said,

"My beautiful queen, what can I do for you? Tell me anything; up to half of my kingdom."

It seems to me that the kings of those days were happy to give away half of their kingdom when they were moved. You see it in the book of Daniel as well. He did the same thing.

King Herod had a half naked woman dancing for him and he said,

"What do you want? You can have up to half of my kingdom."

The kingdom could not have been worth much in those days.

Anyway Esther though is right at the point now where the king says,

"What do you want?"

She could not have immediately said,

"King, I want my life because we are all due to be killed. I am a Jew and I'm going to be destroyed."

If she had done that though there would have been a bit of a ruckus. The king would have said,

"Who caused this? What has happened? Let's do some investigation and have some discussion. Let's look at the pros and cons and have a Board Meeting."

You know what happens in Board Meetings like that. Nothing is ever resolved.

No, we have to zero in, because you see we have to deal with the culprit. It is not enough just to say,

"Please save my life."

We need to deal with the culprit, get rid of him and get him out of there because he is the enemy.

Get to the Root

So here is how we deal with the king. We come with a beautiful appeal and we don't settle for a quick fix. We want to solve the full problem, not the current problem.

You see so often there is a temptation to say,

"As long as I can get rid of this feeling that I have and I feel happy again that is okay."

Perhaps you have been feeling depressed and full of fear. Maybe you have been feeling worried and down. Then you say,

"If someone can just help me with my problems I will feel better. Maybe I can just go to a shrink and have a bit of discussion. I can pour out all my sorrows to somebody who will listen and I will feel better afterwards."

You see it is not enough to feel better because there is a problem that hasn't been dealt with. That problem is the flesh. There is a Haman that is still there and we need to get rid of him. That is the key. Don't settle for a quick fix.

You might say, "We had a glorious praise meeting. It was wonderful and I went home feeling great."

The trouble is tomorrow morning you wake up and the problem is back. You have to get to the core; get to the root.

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Esther As a Model Of The Spiritual Life - Chapter 5 of 10