Esther - Spiritually Alive Yet Carnally Controlled — Major Ian Thomas

Salvation as Christ’s Life Replacing the Flesh

You needn't have bothered anyway, because, as probably most of you know, the incredible story of the book of Esther is found in what was once titled, If I Perish, I Perish, but now is printed under the title of The Wrong Man Out, and you can guess who that is, Hayman, in, and the right man in, and you can guess who that is, Mordecai, the wrong man out, the flesh, I am crucified with Christ, eager, nevertheless I live, yet not I, that's the wrong man out, Christ lives in me, that's the right man in, and there's only one way of getting the wrong man out and the right man in, and that is to get the right man in to get the wrong man out, and that's what's involved in true salvation.

That's when you get off the bottle, having grown to the completeness of your salvation, when you're giving to the Lord Jesus that rightful place in your personality that allows him to keep the flesh where it belongs, on the cross, and he ascend the throne and exercise all his rightful, sovereign will, clothed with your flesh and blood, so that your mum and dad and brothers and sisters and workmates and neighbors and fellow students will recognize who's in residence and who it is that reigns.

That's really what salvation is all about, it has very little to do with getting to heaven, though that's gloriously true, and we have the legitimate right to rejoice in the fact that that is our ultimate destination, not there to receive eternal life, but there to continue to enjoy eternal life that we received on earth on the way to heaven.

For this is the record, God has already given to us eternal life, and this life which alone is eternal that he has given to us is in his Son, and he that has the Son has that life, and on earth he can enjoy heaven on the way to heaven, and then forever.

That's the glorious, profound simplicity of the good news, the gospel. If there are some who may be joining us tonight for the very first time during this conference, we are exploring the book of Esther, and we are turning again to the third chapter of that book.

The Old Testament as a Revelation of Christ

We've already recognized in the picture language of this Old Testament parable, known in the New Testament as an allegory, the picture of one thing in the image of another, God illustrating in the historical records of the Old Testament those spiritual truths that are so clearly enunciated in the New Testament, and each, of course, must be compatible, the one with the other.

The record that God has given us by divine inspiration, the Old Testament, doesn't have to be relevant to human reason, but it must be relevant to God's revelation, because from the beginning of then, Genesis to the last chapter and the last word of the last verse in the last chapter is a total revelation.

The things, said Jesus, that are written of me in the book, that I incarnate, stepping out of eternity into time, have come to implement and bring to their glorious consummation. Great. And he did it in the redemptive act.

He did it in the regenerative purpose. When risen from the dead, he came on the day of Pentecost to re-invade the humanity of forgiven sinners, and he'll do it again when he comes, dead on schedule, to receive us to himself forever, probably far, far sooner than any one of us would dare to believe.

We're right on the threshold of that final momentous event where he brings to its full consummation the redemptive and regenerative purpose of God, restored to image in the likeness of his own dear Son, reflecting the glory, fantastic, that to which each forgiven sinner who's exercised their moral option to claim Christ as Redeemer is predestined to be conformed to the image of God's Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.

What a day that will be for him, when he ultimately seeeth the travail of his soul and be satisfied. And God will never be satisfied with other than that which is his perfect image, because that was the purpose of God in creating the souls of men.

And Jesus came, did what he did then, is who he is now, and comes to be what he eternally will be, the Lamb upon the throne, that God's purpose in creating the souls of men might not be frustrated. Well, we've seen that Haman is a picture of the old Adamic nature, the flesh, as the king Ahasuerus represents the human soul, initially at the outset of the story, dominated by that alien agency of satanic origin, as the natural man is born sold under sin.

That principle dominating his behavior that has wrecked havoc and chaos in human history all down the centuries, and in ever increasing measure as man rushes at an ever accelerating pace to his own self-destruct.

Christ as God’s Perfect Humanity

But Mordecai, a picture of God's divine intervention, magnificently executed in the person of God's dear Son conceived of the Holy Ghost, and then encapsulated with the humanity of a creature that he created man, so that he might for thirty-three years give a fantastic demonstration of what God had in mind when he created man to bring an invisible God out into the open where he could be seen, an advertised deity, that God in man might be seen, known, and heard.

And the only one who ever implemented that plan to God's holy satisfaction since Adam fell was Jesus, of whom alone, of all mankind since then, before God could say, good, very good, this is my beloved Son.

Because he was functional, that means he was man in normality. Not superman, just man, as he as God intended man to be. The Holy Spirit resisted. Acts chapter 7, verses 51 and 52, opposed to everything that God had in mind as he is still today, for the flesh opposes the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit at all times opposes the intentions of the flesh.

Now we need just for a moment to glance at the plot that we find there in chapter 3. It said, Amen to the King, there's a certain people, verse 8, scattered abroad, dispersed among the people in all the provinces of thy kingdom.

Their laws are diverse from all people, neither keep they the King's laws. Therefore it is not for the King's prophet to suffer them. If it please the King, let it be written that they may be destroyed.

And the King took his ring from his hand and gave it to Haman, he vested in him all the executive powers of government, and the King said to Haman, verse 11, the silver is given to thee, the people also, to do with them as it seemeth good to you.

For till this stage, the King, representing the human soul, sees nothing evil, wicked, malicious, or clandestine in this wicked, evil man, Haman. He vests in him his total trust, as man in his natural fallen condition vests in the carnal mind total confidence that man's perfectly capable of paddling his own canoe, fashioning his own ends, king in his own kingdom, the very epitome of humanism, where man is his own god.

Then were the King's tribes called on the thirteenth day of the first month, and it was written according to all that Haman had commanded under the King's lieutenant, and to the governors that were over every province, and to the rulers of every people of every province, according to the writing thereof, and to every people after their language, in the name of King Ahasuerus, but remember, a plot that was conceived in the wicked heart of Haman, in the name of the King, but promulgated by his chief executive officer, Haman, sealed with the King's ring.

The letters were sent by post and to all the King's provinces to destroy, to kill, to cause to perish all Jews, both young and old, little children and women, in one day, even upon the thirteenth day of the twelfth month, which is the month Adar, and to take the spoil of them for a prey.

This was the plot, a terrible moment of assassination when every Jew, man, woman, and child would be destroyed, as those to whom had been entrusted the oracles of God, not Haman's law, but God's. Etched with the finger of God upon tables of stone.

The post went out, verse fifteen, being hastened by the King's commandment, and the decree was given in Shushan the palace, and the King and Haman sat down to drink, celebrate that murderous day. But the city Shushan was perplexed, well, that's Haman, with murder in his heart from the very beginning as the grandson of Esau, as Esau purposed to murder Jacob.

And all down that long history of Esau, Mount Seir, Edom, the Amalekites, represents militant hostility against everything that is represented by those who claimed the birthright, and still do. That's his pedigree.

But then we have another picture, Morikei, as representing the gracious ministry of the God of the Holy Spirit, who stands upright, refuses to bow at the behest of the King, and Haman hates it. Interesting, incidentally, that King Herod, who gave the command that every male child should be murdered in anticipation that, according to the wise men, the Christ of God had or would appear, was the last of the kings of the Idunumians, an Amalekite.

Interesting, in the relentless consistency of the divine revelation, that God warned Joseph to take that child into Egypt to preserve him from an Amalekite who wanted to kill him. To thwart God's plan in mercy, that his purpose in creating the souls of men might not be frustrated.

That's the first picture that we have, the Holy Spirit resisted. Amen. The second picture, upon which we briefly touched at the conclusion of the morning session, the Holy Spirit received. How it was Morikei to get into the life and experience of the king, in spite of Haman's wicked devices, and he wearing the ring upon his finger, through Esther the queen, wedded to the king.

As that which distinguishes man's soul from the animal soul is the fact that God gave to man what he didn't give to any form of animal life, a human spirit. And Esther represents the human spirit. And it's through the human spirit that God, the Holy Spirit, first gains access to the human soul.

The Holy Spirit resisted, Haman, Acts 7, 51, 52. The Holy Spirit received on the basis, remember from this morning, of adoption. The spirit of adoption. Just glance at that, keep the place there, please, in Ephesians, in chapter 3, and turn to Galatians, in chapter 4, epistle to the Galatians, fourth verse, when the fullness of the time was come, that is, dead on schedule, precisely as God in the eternal ages of the past had planned it, when the fullness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son.

God incarnate, made of a woman, conceived by the Holy Spirit in fashion in the borrowed womb of that virgin girl, made under the law, never ever repudiating the attributes of deity, claiming at all times his oneness with the Father in the triune Godhead, together with the Holy Spirit.

And yet he came into this world, though never ever less than God, to behave on earth for thirty-three years as though he were never ever more than man. And as such, deliberately forwent the exercise of those attributes of deity that would have been incompatible with his sinless humanity.

He was born under the law. What law? God's law. That law which God himself had etched with the finger of God upon tables of stone that hay man hated, for he was not subject to the law of God, neither indeed could be.

Hostile. But the Lord Jesus, God's incarnate Son, was born subject to the law. In other words, he took it upon himself to submit to every righteous demand of God the Father in playing the role for which he is God the Creator made you and me.

And he was without sin. How is sin defied? First epistle of John, chapter three, verse eight, sin is the transgression of the law. And the Lord Jesus as man deliberately placed him under the requirements of that law and never transgressed.

That's how it was that God could make him to be sin for us, who himself knew no sin. For sin is not only the transgression of God's law, but inevitably by virtue of that fact sin is falling short of the glory.

All have sinned and come short of the glory. And the glory is described by God's law. To satisfy his law is to reveal the glory. Jesus neither transgressed the law nor fell short of the glory. Paul the apostle could say of that blinding moment of revelation on the road to Damascus, I saw the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, God's Son, in whom he was born.

Well pleased. Made of a woman, made under the law, to what end? Should God incarnate, step out of eternity into time, come into this wicked, evil world? Well it tells you in verse five, to redeem, to redeem them that were under the law.

And having transgressed the law, condemned by the law. For by the law is the knowledge of sin. That's why it's exposing our sin and stopping our mouths and proving us guilty. There's no justification for you and for me in our vain attempt to satisfy its holy, ultimate, absolute demands.

By the works of the law shall no flesh be justified in God's presence. But Jesus came, who totally satisfied that law in the sinlessness of his perfection as man, to assume on your behalf and mine that condemnation that we deserved.

He was made sin for us, who knew no sin. He came to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption, the adoption of sons. That on the grounds of that redemptive act, in the moment of our obedience to the gospel, God might accept us in the beloved, remembering our sins no more, putting them far away as the east is from the west and putting them behind his back and burying them in the depths of the sea, though crimson, whiter than the snow.

And sealing that redemptive transaction instantly by the gift to us of God, the Holy Spirit, whom you received in the moment of acceptance by God for the sake of his dear son who died in your place and mine.

That's the first thing that happens. The Holy Spirit received. Look at Ephesians in chapter 1. Ephesians, chapter 1, the grounds of our acceptance spelled out loud and clear. Verse 6, Ephesians, chapter 1, verse 6.

To the praise of the glory of God's grace, G-R-A-C-E, God's riches at Christ's expense. Something that you and I could never deserve, earn, merit, or buy. God's riches at Christ's expense. To the praise of the glory of his grace wherein he, God, hath made us, guilty sinners, accepted.

Now, in the Beloved, in whom, the Beloved, Jesus, we have redemption. Because that's what he came first to do, redeem. How does he redeem? Through his blood. Not animal blood, not the blood of human beings, only but the blood of God.

For the life is in the blood, and that life that is animal blood or human blood is animal blood, an animal life. But that life that was in our incarnate Savior, Jesus, was the life of God. And that was the life that he laid down to redeem us because he was the only man ever born since Adam fell who was still inhabited by the life of God.

We thus judge that if one died for all, Jesus, then we're all for whom the one died, dead. And dead men can't die. That tells us that Jesus, of all mankind already dead, was the only one who was alive, who possessed that life that all had lost in Adam.

That was the redemptive act. Not a noble martyr suffering the consequences of being too progressive amongst his age, not drifting to disaster, not just misunderstood by his peers, but the Word who was made flesh, the logos, walking this earth, clothed with your humanity and mine, and in his person incurring the consequence of man's sin that took place in Adam.

My God, why hast thou forsaken me? Because he was made sin for your sake and mine. Then, in whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of God's grace, the shedding of his precious blood.

That is the grounds upon which we are first accepted in the beloved, and secondly, we become the recipients of the seal of our acceptance. In whom, verse 13 of the same first chapter of the epistle to the Ephesians, in whom you also trusted when you heard the word of truth.

In other words, you obeyed the gospel, acted on the assumption that God said it, meant what he said, and had the right to say it, and would do it if we had let him. That's how you become a child of God.

That's how you are redeemed. That's how you're accepted. In whom you also trusted when you heard the word of truth, the good news, the gospel of your salvation, in whom the beloved, Jesus, also, when you believed, in that moment of time, you were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise.

The only evidence that you've been redeemed is that the Holy Spirit has come to live within you. If you haven't received the Holy Spirit, if Mordecai hasn't come into the life of Esther in the picture language of the book of Esther, then you're not a Christian.

If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, Romans 8, he's none of his. That's why the very moment of true belief, in other words, acting intelligently on the basis of God's redemptive act and his timeless pledge, you're accepted in the beloved, and that transaction is sealed instantly that you might bear the earnest of your inheritance, the down payment, that you are the blood-bought property of Jesus Christ.

Look at Acts in chapter 10 and verse 47. This is what happened to Cornelius, that Gentile Roman officer, that Roman major, Cornelius, the centurion, and all majors are tremendously fine people. So is Cornelius, who to the uttermost of his ability, but unenlightened as to God's terms of reference, tried to find peace with God.

God didn't leave him in the lurch. He was told by the angel to go and send for Peter, who'd tell him what he ought to do. And Peter, in the discharge of his responsibility, though sent as a Jew to the home of a Gentile, was told what to do, did as he was told, and God behaved.

That's righteousness. And Peter told him what he ought to do, together with all those whom Cornelius had gathered to hear what God had to say on the lips of one of God's servants. And as Peter recounted God's redemptive purpose in sending his incarnate son, who was crucified, but said he, God raised him from the dead, they believed in their hearts, and instantly.

And Peter hadn't finished his address. He hadn't got to the third point, or even the little poem at the end. There was no invitation. I mean, the whole thing was hardly respectable. But God saw faith, as is recorded for us in the 15th chapter of the book of the Acts, when God saw their faith.

In other words, obedience in their hearts to the word of God, and said, thank you for sending this man to tell us about your dear son, who died in our place. Instantly, God bore witness, giving them the Holy Spirit.

The only evidence that a person is redeemed. If anybody tells you that you've got to receive the Holy Spirit after you've been redeemed, tell them to go back and read their Bibles. As Peter was still speaking, the 44th verse of the 10th chapter of the book of the Acts, the Holy Spirit fell on all them which heard the word.

And the six Jews that accompanied Peter on their expedition to this man, Cornelius, they were amazed, because that on the Gentiles also was poured out the gift of somebody coming to re-inhabit somebody.

The Holy Spirit, restored to their human spirit. Esther, receiving Mordecai unto her life on the basis of adoption. Can any man, said Peter, forbid water, that these should not be baptized who have, what's the word, received.

The Holy Spirit, as well as we. When? Well, Peter later, in the 11th chapter says, at the beginning. What was the beginning then for Peter, when he was born again? When was that? Pentecost. Born again by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, reconciled to God, redeemed, not with corruptible things like silver and gold, but with the precious, precious blood of God's dear Son, as of a lamb without blemish, verily foreordained, Peter discovers, before ever the world was, in the timeless purpose of God, in the redemptive and regenerative purpose in his incarnate Son, born again.

In the third verse of the first chapter of his first epistle, by his resurrection from the dead. Peter says, at last I understand, Jesus died to take away my sins, so that he, risen from the dead, might come and take up residence and clothe himself on earth with my humanity, and I thereby be added by the baptism of the Holy Ghost, as a member of the new body corporate, in whom Jesus would live and clothe his divine activity, and continue through me and others, equally redeemed, regenerate, what he began to do, and what he began to teach, when he first came into this earth, clothed with the little baby boy who was born at Bethlehem and conceived of God the Holy Spirit.

What a plan, so clear, so logical, so obvious, unless you let somebody come and confuse you, and there are plenty around, but blame yourself if you're confused, because it's all spelled out loud and clear, the Holy Spirit, by Haman, resisted, Esther, the Holy Spirit received, as by adoption, Mordecai comes into her life, aren't you glad that you've been adopted, and that the Holy Spirit now bears witness to your spirit, that you're the child of God, who tells you, I wouldn't be here, I wouldn't be reoccupying your human spirit if you hadn't entered by obedience of faith into the good of the redemptive act, if your sins had not been forgiven, had you not been accepted in the beloved, and your sins blotted out like a thick cloud, I would never have been able to re-enter your human spirit, and by my presence in life, abolish that state of death in which you were born.

You have been regenerate, restored to life, raised from the dead, magnificent. So here we have the picture, Esther, into whose life Mordecai has come on the basis of adoption, the Holy Spirit received, but what next?

The Grieved Holy Spirit and Carnal Christianity

Well, look at chapter 4, after the unfolding of the plot, and the city of Shushan, the capital, perplexed, Mordecai, verse 1 of chapter 4, perceived all that was done, Mordecai rent his clothes, he put on sackcloth with ashes, and went out into the midst of the city and cried with a loud and bitter cry, came even before the king's gate, for none might enter the king's gate clothed with sackcloth.

The Holy Spirit grieved, resisted, amen, received, Esther, now the Holy Spirit grieved. Ephesians chapter 4, verse 30, grieve not the Holy Spirit a promise whereby you have been sealed until the day of Jesus Christ, in other words, until he comes to take to himself his blood-bought possession.

Grieve not the Holy Spirit. In other words, it's possible, having received the Holy Spirit, to inhabit your human spirit, that you continue to grieve him. Say why was the Holy Spirit grieved? Who is still wearing the ring?

Amen. In spite of that bloodthirsty plot to assassinate, murder, kill every man, woman, and child of God's chosen people, to whom had been entrusted the oracle's God, his holy law, it was to that man, amen, the king gave the ring.

And all the material resources that he needed to carry out his murderous designs, to that man. Little wonder Mordecai was still grieved. The obvious question to ask at this point is, in your life, as one who claims to be redeemed and sealed by the gift to you of God's Holy Spirit, through whose presence you've been regenerate, born again, a child of God, with your name written in the Lamb's book of life and heaven-bound, who wears the ring?

On whose finger still in your life is the ring that vests authority to call the shots and govern your behavior? Who wears the ring? Is the Holy Spirit grieved? Esther's maids, verse 4 of chapter 4, and her chamberlains came and they told it to her that Mordecai was grieved.

He was sitting in sackcloth and ashes. Then was the queen, Esther, exceedingly grieved herself. For when the Holy Spirit is grieved, your human spirit will be grieved. And she sent Raymond to clothe Mordecai and to take away his sackcloth from him, but he received it not.

He refused to be comforted. And the Holy Spirit refuses to be comforted in your life or mine, while the ring is still on Haman's finger, governing your behavior. As the carnal mind, the flesh still governed, as we have reminded ourselves several times now, those who claimed in Corinth and boasted most of their charismatic gifts.

The only church to which the subject was addressed, but of whom said, the apostle Paul, I could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal. Because, although the Holy Spirit has come individually and collectively to live within you, the ring is still on Haman's finger.

And you give an ugly expression already, still, of his evil ways, grieved. Esther, unenlightened as yet in the full implications of the situation, tried to remedy the state of Mordecai with a change of Raymond.

And this is a popular thing, of course, for people to do, who are still on the bottle, haven't grown up or understood the true implications of the mystery. A change of Raymond. Mordecai said, no, that won't heal the hurt, so long as the ring is still on Haman's finger.

Some people, of course, will try to appease a grieved spirit, thinking that if they change their job, or change their ministry, or change their position, change their church, go to this church family instead of that, they're pastoring.

On the mission field, if only I were given another field to operate in. Every kind of external change that never finds the final solution to the problem which lies on the inside. If only I could change my activity, or just change my friends.

Well, you can try it all, but it's only a band-aid on the outside. It doesn't remedy the situation on the inside, until you've got the wrong man out, and the right man in. Until the ring has been taken off Haman's finger and placed upon that of Mordecai.

That's the story of the book of Esther. In other words, here is Esther, indwelt by the Holy Spirit and the picture language of the book, having received Mordecai into her life, but she's still on the bottle.

She's still a baby. She's still, in the picture language of the book, a carnal Christian, because she's still wedded to the king who has full confidence in that wicked, evil, malicious Haman. And she's living shoulder-to-shoulder with him, in the same palace, and as yet is not fully aware of just how wicked he is.

Then called Esther for Hatak, one of the king's chamberlains, whom he had appointed to attend upon her, and she gave him a commandment to Mordecai to know what it was, and why it was. So Hatak went forth to Mordecai, and to the street, to the city, which was before the king's gate, and Mordecai told Hatak, one of the king's chamberlains, who was designated to wait upon Esther, Mordecai told him of all that had happened unto him, of the sum of the money that Haman had promised to pay to the king's treasurers for the Jews to destroy them.

In other words, to Hatak, he unfolded the evil, wicked, malicious, bloodthirsty plot that had been hatched in the heart of Haman. He gave him the 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, her people.

For you see, until this time, verse 20 of chapter 2, Esther had not yet showed her kindred, nor her people, as Mordecai had charged her. For Esther did the commandment of Mordecai like as when she was brought up with him, adopted and in his custody.

But now the moment has come to identify herself with her people, God's purpose, and God's power. The moment of truth. When she was to go into the presence of the king and expose the wickedness of Haman.

Conscience, Moral Law, and the Holy Spirit

Fascinating. It may well be that the human spirit is the seat of moral conscience. The first thing the Holy Spirit does when he comes, restored to your human spirit on the grounds of redemption, as that seal that God gives to you that you've been accepted in the beloved, the first thing he does is to re-establish the divine law.

That's the first thing he does. Before ever it's rationalized within the human soul. That's why when a person accepts Christ genuinely and is regenerate and the Holy Spirit comes to be restored to the human spirit, they stop doing things.

They quit drinking, smoking, gambling, taking drugs, and nobody says a word to them about it. They can't rationalize. Their friends say, why didn't you come with us tonight? And that person will say, well, I don't want to.

What do you mean you don't want to? Well, they say, I don't feel comfortable. What's happening? Well, the Holy Spirit, restored to the human spirit, is re-establishing a divine standard that that person itself can't quite understand, but increasingly it becomes evident to the people around.

As finally the Holy Spirit, formed in the human spirit, gains access to the human soul and begins to throw out the filth from the temple, cleanse it, and restore pure worship. Just notice there's a very simple illustration of this fact.

Keep the place open there, but turn to the second of Paul's two epistles to the Corinthians in the third chapter. Says the apostle, are we starting to commend ourselves again? Do we need, as false teachers who've got a hollow, empty, substance-less gospel, do we need written credentials or letters of recommendation to you or from you?

Do we have to keep in business in our evangelistic career by getting people to promote us? Uh-uh. No, said he. You yourselves are our letter of recommendation. You are our credentials, written in your hearts, to be perceived, recognized, known, and read by everybody.

You show and you make obvious that you are now a letter from Christ, delivered by us. We are simply the postman. Not written with ink, but written with the spirit of the living God. Not on tables of stone once, that can only condemn you, but now on the tablets of a human heart.

The spirit of God rewriting God's law that he once etched with his own finger upon tables of stone that finally were left fragmented in shattered remnants at the feet of Moses. As God's people danced half-naked round a golden calf, Paul says, I don't need letters of recommendation.

He said, you're that letter delivered by me as the postman from God himself, because he has written his law now within you. You were liars, now you tell the truth. You were drunkards, now you're sober.

You were dirty, but now you're clean and chaste. You were thieves, but now you're honest. I don't need letters of recommendation. You're the only tangible evidence of the validity of my ministry, because the only tangible evidence of the ministry of any man who purports to be proclaiming the gospel is the transformed lives of those who have been reconciled to God on God's terms, to whose human spirits the Holy Spirit has restored God's standard of morality, touching every area of their being, what they do and what they say and what they are, so that it becomes demonstrably obvious who is in residence and who it is that reigns.

That's evangelism, not just preaching from a tub, not standing in a church pulpit. Evangelism is expressing the life of Christ in the totality of your being as your humanity, your flesh and blood is made over to the one who on the moment of redemption comes to reinvade your personality and make you a new creation, God's new man, new woman in Christ.

So maybe, you see, the human spirit is the seat of moral conscience. I thought it would be valuable just to spend a moment or two talking about conscience and what is right, the difference. That will depend upon your breeding, it will depend upon your upbringing, it will depend upon your environment.

Amongst the Orca Indians years ago before Christ transformed their lives, an Orca Indian boy was told that to kill a neighbor of another tribe was good, it's the only way, son, you'll become a man, but never touch an Orca, that's bad.

So an Orca Indian boy was taught from the year dark that to kill the neighbors was good and to kill an Orca was bad. And so his conscience said never kill an Orca, but his conscience says kill every other kind of person you can find who isn't an Orca.

Was he obeying his conscience? Well, of course. And he never grew into manhood until he killed a neighbor. And the more he killed, the greater his stature within the tribe. That's a seared conscience.

And, of course, within society, a permissive society, men's animal consciences are constantly being seared and, of course, alas, within the community of those who profess to be believers. The conscience is being seared unless it has been enlightened by a new revelation of God's morality which is the peculiar and immediate office of God the Holy Spirit within those who have obeyed the gospel and become the recipients of his gracious presence.

First thing he wants to do is quicken your conscience within your human spirit, not simply to do what is right and avoid doing what is wrong, but to know from within what is right and what is wrong. And if there's some Christian boy, girl, man, or woman whose behavior evidences that they don't yet know the difference between what is right and what is wrong, it means they're not yet off the bottle.

They're a baby who's never grown up, in whom the old Adamic nature still prevails, like the church in Corinth. You see, the animal natural conscience is the conscience of convenience and by nature it is comparative.

It's the very heart of existentialism. In other words, so long as your behavior conforms to the behavior of your peers, you're okay. It's a conscience of convenience, purely comparative. And that's the reason why, of course, you can always prove yourself good, so long as you're prepared to compare yourself with somebody who's worse than you are.

And that's an old trick, that God isn't impressed. Because, you see, there's only one standard with which God will compare you in the final day when he is appointed unto men once to die, and after that, the judgment.

His own matchless, perfect, absolute standard of righteousness, what is called in Romans chapter 10, the righteousness of God. And Paul said, I'm sorry for my own kith and kin, I long that they might be saved, for they have a zeal of God.