You cannot Christianized the Flesh

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Esther 7:10 “So they hanged Haman on the gallows that he had prepared for Mordecai. Then was the king’s wrath pacified.”

As always, Major Ian Thomas sums it up very well in his book on Esther – “If I perish, I perish”. Concerning this unmasking of Haman he writes: “God wants to bring you, no matter how bitter may be the experience, to the place of self-discovery… The moment of truth will come for you when, together with Esther, you quit exchanging courtesies with the flesh and repudiate it to its face, naming it for the treacherous, wicked, worthless thing it is – without any salvageable content and fit only for the gallows!… At this climactic stage in your Christian life you realize that there can be no compromise with the flesh, and that peaceful coexistence with a principle satanically hostile to the law of God and to the re- establishment of His sovereignty within your soul, is now beyond the bounds of possibility… You realize that it was never God’s purpose to improve the flesh, to re-educate or tame it – let alone Christianize it. It has always been God’s purpose that the flesh, condemned, sentenced and crucified with Jesus Christ, might be left buried in the tomb and re-placed by the resurrection life of the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. He must wear the ring upon His finger, and once more exercise control in the area of your mind, your emotions and your will, expressing Himself through your personality. Paul described this clearly in his concern for the Ephesian Christians, when he wrote “For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. ..”That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man; “That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith…” (Ephesians 3:14-17).

How quickly the boastful swagger of the flesh, in the day of ascendancy, can be reduced to the sobbing cry of self-pity when the moment of truth has come. Beware of this subtlety, and never be sorry for yourself – just be sorry for your sin! If your pride is hurt and you feel that you have been misjudged, and you become all sensitive and begin to sulk, you can be quite certain that it is only Haman grovelling in the dirt, sobbing for the mercy he doesn’t deserve. ‘