ESTHER 1-10 GOD DELIVERS THE JEWS2013 Teaching by Jerry B Simmons

Teaching Transcript: Esther 1-10 God Delivers The Jews

You are listening to FerventWord, an online Bible study ministry with teachings and tools to help you grow deeper in your relationship with God. The following message was taught by Jerry Simmons in 2013.

Here in the book of Esther, looking at chapters 1 through 10, which is the chapters that we read this week. And the book of Esther is, of course, a beautiful story. It's one that's very familiar to you, I'm sure. Here we get to see God preserving the Jewish people. And as I was reading through the book of Esther this week, I kept kind of reflecting on, it's kind of like the life of Joseph.

but kind of like the girl version of it. You know, Joseph, he was sold into slavery. He was raised up as second in command over Egypt in order to preserve his people. And here, you know, slightly different version of that, but Esther rises up to become queen of the empire in order to preserve her people. And so it's an amazing account of Esther's life and how God used her to save the Jewish people.

Now perhaps you saw the movie One Night with the King back in 2006 when it came out. And if you're basing your ideas of Esther upon that, you need to kind of re-examine the scriptures because it's not really accurate to what the Bible has to say about Esther. And so to get that accurate understanding, we'll spend our time this evening going through the chapters and taking a look at her life and what she did.

As we look at the book of Esther, we really don't know who the author is. Jewish tradition suggests that it's either Ezra or Nehemiah because, of course, the account happens right around the time of, or just prior to the time of Ezra and Nehemiah. So they would have both been very familiar with Esther, and so it's possible that they wrote this book, but there's not certainty on that. It covers the time period of 470 to about 465 B.C.,

And the theme is the delivering of the Jews or the Jewish people. Now as we look at the timeline real quickly to get a sense of where we're at, we've been looking at this particular period of Israel's history for the past few weeks in the book of Ezra and Nehemiah because we've been looking at the return of the Jewish people to Israel.

Babylon conquered Jerusalem. You remember that? Took everybody captive. Jerusalem was desolate. It was destroyed. And then after a time, Persia conquered Babylon and Cyrus, the king of Persia, released the Jews to go home. They went back, rebuilt the temple.

And then Nehemiah went back and rebuilt the walls. Now in between the rebuilding of the temple and the rebuilding of the walls, you have the account of Esther. And so she's back in Persia. She's not in Israel. She's back in Persia, but she is Jewish. And so she's there in Persia. It's in between, you know, those two time periods. And it's at that point that she's raised to power and she becomes queen of Persia.

As we look at these things, I've shared these before, but Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther go together because they're looking at these two distinct periods of Israel's history. Where first of all, they go back and build the temple. That's 536 to 516. That was under Zerubbabel, and we read about that in the book of Ezra.

But then you have the second period, which is 457 to 432. And that's when Jerusalem's walls are rebuilt with Nehemiah as well as Ezra.

Esther falls into the time between those two periods. And so that's the timing. Persia is the world power. Some of the Jews went back to rebuild Jerusalem and inhabit Israel. But some of them are there in Persia and some of them are dispersed all throughout the kingdom as we'll see in the chapters this week. Now,

Persia is the ruling empire of the day and the king during the account of Esther is referred to or is known as Xerxes I. Now in the book of Esther he's referred to as Ahasuerus but that's the same person. Xerxes and Ahasuerus are the same person.

Darius, his father, is the Darius of the book of Daniel. Remember in Daniel chapter 6 when Darius has to throw Daniel into the lion's den. So you kind of get some perspective on that. The temple was built under the reign of Darius. And then Artaxerxes, which is Xerxes' son, he's the

who Nehemiah is the cupbearer to, who sends Nehemiah back to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem. So that gives you a little bit of perspective on the timing of the book of Esther. So let's jump in. Esther chapter 1, the key verse is verse 12. It says, But Queen Vashti refused to come at the king's command brought by his eunuchs. Therefore the king was furious and his anger burned within him.

Here in verses 1 through 9, we have King Ahasuerus holding a feast. It's a great feast. It's a long feast. It lasts for 180 days. And then he also holds another feast for the people of his city. But it's a feast of all these people from throughout his region, throughout his empire, who are coming to celebrate. And he's showing off his wealth, his strength, his prosperity. And

And it's a little bit of speculation, but it's also safe to assume that during this feast, while all these people from the nation are gathered together, that they're also preparing and planning for war. Because it's very soon after this that Ahasuerus will be making an attempt to conquer Greece.

And so it's right after this. And so it's probably that while they're here and they're having the feast, but also they're preparing and planning for war. And we'll kind of see that take place. But during the midst of this feast, of course, there's a lot of drinking. There's a lot of alcohol. There's a lot of feasting and things going on. And King Ahasuerus,

sends for Queen Vashti so that she could come and show her beauty to the people. And so in verses 10 through 12, you have Queen Vashti refusing to go to the king. She's throwing her own separate feast for the ladies. They didn't mingle together publicly in their social culture. And so there was a separate feast for the ladies, a separate feast for the guys. But the king says, hey Vashti, come here. And

Now, the Jewish tradition behind this, which we can't say for sure whether or not it's accurate, but it explains it saying that this request came to resolve an argument between the men at the feast saying, you know, which country has the most beautiful women?

And so Ahasuerus decides, well, I'm going to resolve this by showing them how beautiful my wife is, the queen. And so he was going to put her on public display.

But she refuses. Now it's unclear what he's actually asking. Some suggest that he's asking her to appear without her veil, which again, that would be not normal for their culture. And so therefore she refused. Others suggest that he asked her to be completely immodest and that's why she refused. So we don't know exactly sure, but either way it was inappropriate for their culture. And so she refused. She would not go to the king.

And so in response, verse 13 through 22, the king is angry and he decrees that another shall take Vashti's place. So he gets upset. Now, first of all, you know, there's alcohol involved. So he's probably not, you know, his brightest at the time. But he consults with his advisors who are participating in the feast as well. So their counsel is not really that great.

But it's not just this lone occasion where he just, you know, spouts out something and then regrets it later, as we see that he will regret it later. David Guzik points out that history's profile of Ahasuerus shows him to be an unreasonable and foolish man in many cases. He says, on one occasion, Ahasuerus executed the builders of a bridge because an ocean storm destroyed it.

So it gives you a little bit of a picture. You know, he doesn't always think rationally. He's not always, you know, the best thinker as it comes to these things. And so as he's just responding, kind of in a fit of rage, he said, that's it. She's not the queen anymore. She'll never come before me again. She's done.

In verse 19, the counsel of the men he is getting advice from says, If it pleases the king, let a royal decree go out from him and let it be recorded in the laws of the Persians and the Medes so that it will not be altered that Vashti shall come no more before King Ahasuerus and let the king give her royal position to another who is better than she.

Now his advisors are a little bit concerned. They're thinking, well, if the word of this gets around, then wives everywhere are going to start refusing their husbands. And so we don't want that to happen. And so here, King, get rid of her, make it a stern thing so that everybody knows that women are to respect their husbands. Now that is, you know, the counsel of his advisors. And so they make this stern thing and they send out the decree throughout the empire.

Now, one of the things that's important here that's noted in verse 19 is that...

Whenever a law is recorded for the Medes and the Persians, that it cannot be altered. And this will come up later on in the book as well. It's something that is known about the Persian Empire. The Medes and the Persians joined together to make the Persian Empire. And their laws were such that they could not be revoked. They couldn't be changed afterwards. When the king made a decree, his signet was attached.

That was it. There was no changing it. Even the king himself could not change it. And that's why I brought up Darius earlier because you remember in Daniel chapter 6 when

The king makes the decree, you can't pray to any other god. And then Daniel prays to another god. And the other leaders say, hey look, he's praying to another god. You've got to cast him into the lion's den like you said. And he tried all day. Remember, Darius tried all day trying to figure out a way to save Daniel from the lion's den. But even though he wanted to, there was nothing he could do to change the law that he had made. And so when he makes this law about Vashti,

It can't be changed. There's no going back. He doesn't have the power or the authority any longer to revoke it. Now as we look at chapter 1 here, it mentions the...

size of the Persian Empire there in verse 1. And it gives us a sense of, you know, what the Persian Empire was like because it talks about the 127 provinces from India to Ethiopia. And so on the right hand side there you have India. So it kind of bordered against India. And then all the way to the left hand side here where Ethiopia is a little bit south of Egypt, that's the borders of the Persian Empire. It was a vast

empire the largest empire that the world had seen up to that point there hadn't been a larger empire before that this was the biggest that there was Assyria was a lot smaller Babylon was a lot smaller Persia extended their reign and their power much more than those previous and

This territory would cover these modern day countries, Turkey, Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, Jordan, Lebanon, Israel, Egypt, Sudan, Libya, and Arabia. So those countries that we know about today, that would all be included in this Persian Empire and the 127 provinces that were throughout the empire.

And so that's the setup now for what's going to happen in chapter 2, the replacing of Queen Vashti. So Esther chapter 2 verse 17 is the key verse. It says, The king loved Esther more than all the other women, and she obtained grace and favor in his sight more than all the virgins. So he set the royal crown upon her head and made her queen instead of Vashti.

Here in verses 1 through 4, you have the servants of Ahasuerus suggesting to gather virgins together so that he could select a new queen. Now, some time passes between chapter 1 and chapter 2. In fact, about two or three years is actually long.

happening between chapter 1 and verse 1 of chapter 2. And then you see in verse 16 of this chapter, it's actually four years later when Esther becomes queen. It's four years after Vashti is removed from being queen. And so what's happened in the last two or three years of this gap that we're talking about is Ahasuerus has led an attack upon Greece. And

And he's mounted the troops. He's gone out to war. And so it's a great distance to travel. They go. They battle against Greece. But they are defeated. And so he comes back to his palace.

In defeat. And so he hasn't missed Vashti during this time because he's been out on the road. He's been out making war. But now he comes back. He's been defeated. And now he's thinking about Vashti. And he's thinking, what a big mistake that I've made. And so it's at this time, it's about two or three years later now, the servants are saying, hey, you're back. You're missing Vashti. All right, let's fulfill the second half of what you said. And let's replace her. And so they suggest gathering together

this group of ladies. And so they hold the, you know, Persian Idol show, you know, and they have all the girls come or the next top queen or Miss Persia pageant or whatever you want to call it. You know, they get these girls from all around the empire to be, you know, the most beautiful from all throughout the land. And he's going to select one of them to be the next queen.

Then verses 5 through 7, we're introduced to Mordecai and Esther. Mordecai and Esther. Now these are, of course, now the kind of the primary characters of this account and the people that are involved in what God is about to do.

Mordecai and Esther are cousins. Esther's parents have died. And so Mordecai, being an older cousin, has stepped in kind of as a father figure and has taken care of Esther and raised her.

They are descendants of the tribe of Benjamin. And so they are related to Saul. And they share the ancestor Kish. You remember Saul was a descendant of Kish. And they also are descendants of Kish as is pointed out here in chapter 2. So Esther here is also referred to in verse 7 as Hadassah. Which is her Hebrew name. It means myrtle which is a type of a tree.

But then her Persian name was Esther, which is the Persian word for star. And so as we see many times in the Bible, these different people had different names depending on the language that was being spoken. And so Esther, also known as Hadassah.

And so we're introduced to them. These cousins that are Jewish, that are there in Persia, in the capital of Persia. Again, many Jews have returned to Jerusalem, but they, for whatever reason, have decided to stay there. And now God's going to use them to accomplish something great. Well, then in verses 8 through 11, Esther is taken into the palace.

In verse 8, it says, So it was when the king's command and decree were heard, and when many young women were gathered in Shushan, the citadel, under the custody of Haggai, that Esther also was taken into the king's palace, into the care of Haggai, the custodian of the women. So Haggai was the one responsible to take care of the ladies, and so all of this big group of ladies was gathered together under his care.

The historian Josephus records that he had a total of 400 women selected for this. And so it's a gathering of 400 ladies that King Ahasuerus is going to pick from to select the new queen. Now, of course, we know the story because we've been reading it in verses 12 through 18. Esther is picked to be queen.

Now this preparation or this process included 12 months of preparation so that each of the

Each woman would go before the king, but after she spent six months with oils and then six months with perfumes. And so there was a lot of beautifying and preparation and, you know, all kinds of salon treatments and things for her to be prepared, to be ready to go before the king. And so Esther, we don't know how many went before her, but she's waiting. She's gone through this year-long process of

And then it comes her turn to go before the king. Now the way it would happen, it says in verse 14 that in evening the lady would go and in the morning she would return to the second house of the women to the custody of Shashgaz, the king's eunuch who kept the concubines. She would not go to the king again unless the king delighted in her and called for her by name.

Now all of this is very foreign to us because we don't live in that kind of culture. But what was common in those days for kings was to have a harem and it would be filled with, you know, concubines.

And so what would happen then with these young ladies is they were young virgins who were gathered together after their night with the king. They weren't virgins anymore. And so they were transferred now as concubines. And so they would be added to the concubine house under the care of another guy. And so, you know, they would be now concubines as part of his harem. And unless he called for them again, they would never see the king, but they would kind of live this concubine life that again,

Very foreign to us, but is common for them in their culture. But in verse 17, we see as Esther goes before the king, everybody recognizes she's, you know, stands above the rest. She's extra beautiful. King Ahasuerus says that's the one. And so she wins Miss Persia pageant. And she is made queen. And so she takes the place of Vashti.

Then in verses 19 through 23, we kind of have a side note here. Now as Esther has become queen, her cousin, Mordecai, he's there in the courts. He wants to stay close to her. And so as he's hanging around, he uncovers a plot to kill the king. And so he takes steps to protect the king. He reveals the plot. And the two guys who are planning to put the king to death are put to death instead. It says that they are hanged.

Now several times throughout this book you're going to see this idea of hanging. I was quite shocked and mortified to learn that when it talks about hanging, it's not like we think about with a noose. I don't want to talk about the whole thing, but just basically they're impaled on a stick. That's what it's talking about when they are hanged here in the book of Esther. It's pretty gruesome to really think about. So let's move on to chapter 3. Laughter

They made me shiver really badly. So if you want to look it up, you can look it up. But I don't recommend it. Esther chapter 3 verse 5. It says, When Haman saw that Mordecai did not bow or pay him homage, Haman was filled with wrath. So now the story continues and we're introduced to another guy. Haman. This is the wicked man of this account. He's the one who is out to destroy the Jewish people. And so in verses 1 through 7, we see him saying,

Begin to be filled with wrath. In verse 1, it says, After these things, King Ahasuerus promoted Haman, the son of Hamadathah, the Agagite, and advanced him and set his seat above all the princes who were with him.

Now here we learn some interesting things about Haman. And it's interesting how these things kind of correlate and go together. Because we learn here then that Haman is actually from the Amalekites.

Now you might remember the Amalekites because they were the ones who came up behind Israel and attacked them from behind whenever they were leaving Egypt. And there was people straggling behind as Israel was leaving Egypt. And they were the weaker ones. And they came up from behind. And so God said,

You got to wipe out the Amalekites for what they did because they, you know, behave so wickedly. And so you remember, God says, when you get into the promised land and you get established, then make sure you go back and you wipe out the Amalekites. Well, that takes place

During the prophet Samuel. And. King Saul's reign. He sends Saul. He says here. God says you're established now. Go deal with the Amalekites. But remember. Saul didn't completely wipe out the Amalekites. He left some of them alive. He brought the king back. He. Left some of the. The sheep. And. Those kinds of things alive. And so. He.

That's the history, right? And then the Amalekites, it's an Amalekite later on that actually kills Saul when he tries to put himself to death and he's unsuccessful. So here you have Mordecai and Esther, descendants of Saul, or that family line anyways, and now a descendant of the Amalekites. And there's going to be this conflict between them, not just on them alone, but against all the Jews, right?

So what happens is as King Ahasuerus promotes Haman, he becomes high ranking. He becomes kind of second in charge in the kingdom. And he's pretty excited about his new position, his power. But he gets upset because Mordecai won't bow to him. All the other people were bowing down to him, but Mordecai, he refused to do so.

Now this was not because of some law in the scriptures, but it was a choice that Mordecai made. David Guzik says that it was not based on the law of God, but on the principle of personal integrity. And so he just felt that it wasn't right, and so he would not bow before Haman. So Haman's upset with Mordecai, but you see the wickedness that is involved in his heart in verse 6.

It says, So Haman says, alright, I'll get you back Mordecai. And what I'm going to do is I'm going to destroy all your people. I'm not just going to lay hands on you and deal with you. But instead I'm going to wipe out all of the Jews throughout the kingdom.

And so verses 8 through 11, Haman suggests that the Jews be destroyed to King Ahasuerus. He tells the king, these people really don't fit. And I got an idea. Let's just get rid of them. We'll just, just in one fell swoop, we'll just take them all out.

Now the king says, okay, that sounds pretty good. He gives him the signet ring. Now the signet ring was like giving him his signature or his stamp of approval. He's like, okay, you write a law, whatever you want to do, attach my ring to it. He's giving him the authority to basically do whatever he wants with the Jewish people.

And so Haman makes the law and the decree is sent in verses 12 through 15 to all the provinces. So we're not just talking about, you know, they're locally in the city, but we're talking about the whole empire from India to Ethiopia. This decree is sent.

And here's what it was about. Verse 13 says, And the letters were sent by couriers into all the king's provinces to destroy, to kill, and to annihilate all the Jews, both young and old, little children and women, in one day on the thirteenth day of the twelfth month, which is the month of Adar, and to plunder their possessions. So, here's the law. Can you imagine this going out? President Obama signs a law. Alright, on this day in December, you guys can kill anyone

Anybody you want to of this race and take whatever you want of theirs. That's what they decided here for Persia. Kill all the Jews, take whatever you want of theirs on this particular day of this particular month.

Now the way this works out on the Jewish calendar, this is all happening in the first month of the calendar. So that's the month of Nisan, which corresponds with our March to April-ish, that time frame. And so in that time frame, Haman is there and he's plotting, he's approaching the king. Esther's been queen for a little bit at this point. Actually...

For about five years she's been queen. But now this has come up and so he's dealing with it. And so he goes before the king. He says, let's make this rule. They make the rule. Now in verse 7 it tells us how they picked the day. It says that they cast lots. So basically they kind of like rolled the dice...

And the dice landed and told them they were to pick the 12th month, which is the month of Adar, which would correspond to our February-March time frame. And so that date was set. So it was about a year out, a little less than a year out, that they set the day. This is the day. And on this day, you can kill whatever Jews you want to kill. And you can take all of their possessions, whatever you want, from what they had.

Well, that brings us to chapter 4, verse 16 is the key verse. It says, In verses 1 through 3, we see great mourning among the Jews.

Pretty clear, easy to understand why. They just received word all throughout the provinces, this law is to go into effect and everybody around them has the right to put them to death and take whatever they want from their possessions. And so there's great mourning throughout the empire as a result.

Mordecai especially is mourning and he's there in Shushan, which is the capital where Esther was. And Esther hears about it and sends and says, hey, what's wrong? And so Mordecai sends the decree to her and shows her, you know, what's going on and why there's this mourning for Mordecai and throughout the empire. Verse 14 now, Mordecai asked Esther to plead to the king for her people.

And so he says, look, this is what's going on. This is the decree. Now, Esther, you got to do something about this. You got to go in before the king. You got to plead before him for your people. Otherwise, we're all going to be destroyed. Actually, that's not what he says. He says, you got to go in before the king. But in verse 14, it's interesting. He says, for if you mean completely silent at this time, relief and deliverance will arise for the Jews from another place.

Verse 14 here in chapter 4, it's one of those classic verses. Here's Mordecai really trusting God. Obviously he's mourning, he's devastated by this decree, but he's not giving up on God. He's not decided, you know, God's not part of this or he's not on the throne. He's recognizing, look Esther, look at this.

If you don't say something, God's not going to allow this to happen. He's going to deliver the Jews some other way. But he also says, perhaps God puts you there specifically for this time or for such a time as this. He's mourning, but he's trusting God. And he's encouraging Esther, maybe that's why you're here. You know,

We see throughout the book of Esther just the incredible mighty hand of God in orchestrating the timing and events of all of these things. You know, the timing of Esther to become queen so that she's in this position, so that she's in this place. We'll see some interesting timing a little bit later on in the dealings with Haman and Mordecai. And it's amazing as you get to see and watch God work.

And it's important for us. We can learn great lessons from this about trusting God. About how, well as I mentioned in the prayer earlier, He is a God who works all things together for good to those who love Him and are called according to His purpose. According to Paul in Romans chapter 8 verse 28. And you see that taking place here. Now listen.

God is big. He's on the throne. He's sovereign, which means he is able to accomplish his purposes with or without you. And so Mordecai is, he's right on. He's dead on right here. He says, look, if you don't do this, God will do it another way. In the same way, you and I, as we consider our own lives and the things that we're going through, we can recognize God will accomplish his will and his purposes. He is able to do that with or without you.

But he's also giving Esther the opportunity to say, look, you can be part of this. There's consequences if you don't. You and your family, Mordecai says, they're going to be put to death. God will preserve the Jews, but you won't get to see it. So there'll be consequences if you don't, but God will use you

If you're available, he will use you if you're willing. Perhaps you've been put here for exactly this time or for such a time as this. And so Mordecai here asked her, go to the king. Plead before the king for the people. So Esther responds finally in verses 15 through 17, saying, ask the Jews to pray for three days. Fast and pray for three days and then I will go before the king. And she points out, it's not lawful.

And in those days, if you showed up, you know, in the king's court unannounced or uninvited, the default was off with your head. But the king could intervene. And so if he held out the scepter, then you would not be executed. But if he didn't hold out the scepter, you would be automatically executed. So she's saying, look, this is not lawful. It's illegal for me to do this.

And if I perish, I perish. I'm going to give it a shot. I'm going to do it. But take some time, pray and fast, and then I will go. And that brings us now to chapter 5, verse 12. So in verses 1 through 3...

Esther goes before the king and we see that the king receives Esther. He holds out the scepter, which was a long staff, and he holds it out and she goes and she touches the scepter and she receives his invitation at that point. And so he says, what do you want, Esther? I'll give you anything. Up to half the kingdom. Go ahead and ask for it. What is your request? And so her request in verses four through five is, please come to the feast of

that I've prepared for you in Haman. And so it's a request to come to the feast. And the idea being that at the feast, she will, you know, reveal the real request. And King Ahasuerus says, okay, let's go to the feast. And so him and Haman go. But then in verses 6 through 8, as they're enjoying this feast that Esther has prepared, he says, okay, I know you're wanting something. You're, you know, you're kind of buttering me up. You know, you want something from me. So what is it?

And Esther says, well, please come back tomorrow for another feast. We don't know what was going through Esther's mind here. It's interesting to kind of speculate though because, you know, maybe she's trying to work up the courage, you know, like, okay, I got to ask him. I got to reveal, you know, who I am, that I'm a Jew and this is what's going on.

I just can't get the words to come out. So maybe tomorrow I'll be more bold. So come back tomorrow for another feast. We don't know if that's what was going on or perhaps God spoke to her heart and said, do two feasts and not the second feast. Then ask him because we see the timing is really interesting as you go on through chapter five and then into chapter six. That again, God's orchestrating the timings of these things. It's no accident. It's not just coincidence that these things are happening the way that they are.

So verses 9 through 14, Haman goes home from the first feast. He's been invited to the second feast, but that's happening tomorrow. He goes home that night and he begins to prepare to hang Mordecai. In verse 9, it says that Haman went out that day joyful and with a glad heart. Now here's Haman. He's recently promoted. You know, he's real excited about his position. It really bugs him about Mordecai though, so he's got these plans.

But he's had this incredible opportunity... To dine at this feast... With the king and the queen. And that's unheard of. And he's like... Man, I'm at the top of the world. Everybody knows. And begins to recognize now... How important and how great I am. Until in verse 9 it says... But when Haman saw Mordecai in the king's gate... And that he did not stand or tremble before him... He was filled with indignation against Mordecai. So he walks by. Mordecai doesn't budge. He doesn't pay any attention...

And Haman is upset once again. And so he goes home and he has some friends over and he's talking to his wife and he's saying, look, I'm awesome. You guys got to understand, like, I'm just so awesome. I just got to have dinner with the king and the queen. But none of that means anything, he says. In verse 13, he says, yet all this avails me nothing so long as I see Mordecai the Jew sitting at the king's gate. You get to see Haman's heart here. These great

these great blessings, you might consider them, of being able to have this role, this position, this opportunity with the king and queen, it means nothing to him because Mordecai won't recognize who he is, the great power that he has and how awesome he is. So the friends and family kind of pitch in and they're brainstorming. Well, let's see. Here's what we could do. Set up a gallows 75 feet high

And you can execute Mordecai on that. He'll be utterly shamed. And everybody will recognize how great you are. Haman says, yeah, that's a good idea. He starts putting it together. So that the next day, the next morning, the gallows are built. I mean, this is happening pretty fastly. Pretty fastly? Pretty quickly. And now the next day, remember, that evening is going to be that feast. But before that happens, as we now go into chapter 6...

Verse 11 says, So Haman took the robe and the horse and the horse arrayed Mordecai and led him on horseback through the city square and proclaimed before him, Thus shall it be done to the man whom the king delights to honor. So this is where it becomes really interesting all the timing of what is happening here. In verses 1 through 3, we find that the king can't sleep. So he has a feast with Esther.

He goes back to his quarters. He's tossing and turning. He can't sleep. He calls in his servants to read the chronicles of his life. And as the servants are reading the chronicles of his life, they read about Mordecai saving his life from that conspiracy back in chapter 4. You think it's just a coincidence that he happened to not be able to sleep that night? Was it just by chance that

He decided, well, of all the things that I could do to try to fall asleep or entertain me while I can't sleep, I'll have them read the chronicles of my own life. And then of all the parts of his life that they could read, they chose to read the portion which records Mordecai saving the king's life. This is not by chance. Again, what we see here is God working and orchestrating. It's often been noted, you know, the name of God

is not written in the book of Esther at any point. But the hand of God is seen throughout the whole book. So it's not by chance. God is working through this. This is God's timing. And so he reads about, he remembers what Mordecai did. And then he decides, I need to do something for him. I need to honor him because he did this great thing for me. I like what David Guzik says. He says, if this book of Esther shows us anything,

It shows us that God manages the affairs of men even without their knowledge. God knows what he is doing and in the courts of heaven there are no coincidences or surprises. We need to understand this about God. Be encouraged by the book of Esther.

Because a lot of times when we, well, we're stressed out about these things, it's when we're in the midst of this decree has been given, something terrible is about to happen or something terrible has happened, we think, and we're mourning, we're, you know, we're desperate. But what we see demonstrated here and taught throughout the rest of the scriptures is that God is on the throne.

And he orchestrates timings. He orchestrates the affairs of men, even though they're not even aware that they're part of God's plan. He's working all things out for good to those who love God and are the called according to his purpose. So he reads about Mordecai in verses 1 through 3. And then verses 4 through 11, the king has Haman honor Mordecai.

This is incredible. The timing is perfect. He can't sleep. He reads about Mordecai. He reads about how he saved his life. He decides, I want to honor him. Hey, someone's coming in. Check, who is that? Who is that that's coming in? Oh, that's Haman. Oh, good. Bring Haman in. Hey, Haman, I've got this guy I want to honor. What do you think I should do for the guy that I want to honor?

Now Haman, he's full of himself. In verse 6 it tells us, Haman thought in his heart, whom would the king delight to honor more than me? Wow, right? I mean again, you see his heart. Now it's easy for us to chuckle and point fingers, but we would be there very quickly as well. But Haman, he can't imagine who else would the king want to honor. I mean, I'm the best there is.

So let me tell you what you should do, king. And now he makes a list of the things that he wants done for himself because he's thinking, I'm the guy. All right, so here's what I want, king. All right, give me a robe that you've worn. Let me ride a horse that is yours that has your royal crest. Ride me through the town with the announcement, this is what the king does to those he chooses to honor. Now it's interesting because...

If the king would have asked Mordecai, I'm sure the list would have been quite different. I mean, these things are really, they're not meaningful. They're not very great, you know. It's like so great, you know. You get to wear the president's suit and drive in his car and, you know, there's no lasting effect. You know what I mean? It's not real honor there, but for Haman, that's what his life was all about. That's all that he wanted. That's what he was pursuing. That fame, that presentation before everybody. That's what he wanted.

And so that's what he listed because he thought the king was talking about him. But so the king says, all right, I like it. Do that for Mordecai. That's one of those scenes where I just wish I could have the picture. You know, Haman's face when he hears those words. Well, what did it look like? Because he absolutely hates Mordecai.

He thinks the king wants to honor him. And now he has to honor Mordecai publicly. He's got to be the guy who walks him through the city saying, this is how the king treats the one he chooses to honor.

It was completely, absolutely humiliating for Mordecai because of course he's been telling everybody how much he hates Mordecai. He's built gallows to execute Mordecai. That very same day, he was going to go into the king and say, we need to execute Mordecai. But instead, he has to honor Mordecai all throughout the city publicly. And so in verses 12 through 14, Haman hurries home

in just complete humiliation in fact it says he covers his head he's like he puts his hood on he's like nobody recognized me nobody talked to me because he's just an absolute shame now he goes home and it's not just his wife and kids but all his friends are back there remember they were expecting to execute mordecai today on the gallows that he had built there at his home

So there's all his friends and family like, hey, what happened? You were supposed to execute him today. But we saw you. We heard you announcing that the king honors him. What's going on? And the wife says something very interesting. She says, if he's Jewish, this isn't going to work. You're going to fail. He's going to survive and you will be put to death. Now, again, here's where the timing is so interesting here.

Because here he is. He's arrived home in shame. He's talking with the friends and family. The wife says, look, this isn't going to work. He's Jewish. And then the messengers come and say, hey, it's time for the banquet. Round two of the feast, remember? Get back to the palace. And so now he heads back to the palace. Now we go into chapter seven. Verse six is the key verse. And Esther said, the adversary and enemy is this wicked Haman. So Haman was terrified before the king and queen.

So in verses 1 through 4, Esther finally reveals her real request. And she asks the king to spare her and her people. It says in verse 3, she says, Now the king's perplexed. He's like, what are you talking about? Who's trying to get you? Who's trying to take out you and your people?

And then in verse 5 and 6, Esther reveals that it's Haman. He's the one. And then it starts to click and the king understands, oh, she's Jewish. Haman's been trying to take out the Jews. And he becomes very angry at Haman. And so in verses 7 through 10, Haman is hanged on the gallows that he prepared for Mordecai. The king, as he's angry, he storms out.

To the balcony as he comes back in. Haman is there pleading for his life and he's fallen on the couch where Esther is. And he's like, hey, is he trying to assault my wife now? And so they cover his head. Your life's over. He's going to be executed. And one of the servants says, hey, you know, he just had a gallows set up for Mordecai. And the king said, all right, use that. Execute him. And so they hanged him there on those gallows that he had prepared for Mordecai.

Again, God is orchestrating. He's aligning all of these things. It's not just by chance. It's not just by circumstance. God has orchestrated all of these events. Well, that's Spirit Esther. But we find how God spares the entire population now as we move on into chapter 8.

Verse 13. It says,

In verses 1 through 6, Esther goes before the king and asks him to revoke the decree. And so they have to go through the thing once again. She shows up. He extends the scepter. He preserves her life. And she goes before him. He says, what do you want? She says, revoke the decree so that it's no longer allowed to put the Jews to death and take all their stuff.

And he replies saying, well, we can't do that. We can't change the decree. And so verses 7 through 8, the king tells them, her and Mordecai, to write another decree. In verse 8, it says, you yourselves write a decree concerning the Jews as you please in the king's name and seal it with the king's signet ring. For whatever is written in the king's name and sealed with the king's signet ring, no one can revoke.

And again, the point here is not even the king. So he couldn't revoke his prior law. So the only option was, okay, you write a new law that somehow saves the Jews or helps them on that day to preserve them. And so he gives them the signet ring. He gives them the authority and he says, all right, you figure out a way and you can pass whatever law you want to in my name and it will be upheld.

And so they do. They write a new law. Verses 9 through 14, the new decree is sent out to all the provinces. And so here's what the new decree allowed. In verse 11 it says, By these letters the king permitted the Jews who were in every city to gather together and protect their lives, to destroy, kill, and annihilate all the forces of any people or province that would assault them.

So here's what the second law allowed for. Alright Jews, what you can do then to protect yourself is you can gather together. So you kind of join together, join forces. And you are permitted to put to death anybody who comes against you.

So anybody who tries to fulfill the first decree to kill you and take your stuff, you then have the right to kill them and take their stuff. So basically, it gave them the right to defend themselves. It gave them the right to fight back. And so they have the king's authority.

To fight back on that particular day. They couldn't get rid of that day. So they just gave them the authority to fight back. And so verses 15 through 17. The Jews rejoice all throughout the empire. Because they're not helpless anymore. They have the ability. The authority to fight back. And remember there's some time that's been going on. When the first decree was issued.

There was a little less than a year before the actual day was going to happen. Now this is sometime in the middle of that. But there's some months before. And so they can get ready. They can prepare themselves. And they can defend themselves on that day. And so it all takes place now in chapter 9 verse 26.

It says, So they called these days Purim after the name Pur. Therefore, because of all the words of this letter, what they had seen according to this matter and what had happened to them. So in verses 1 through 10, the day comes and the Jews defeat their enemies. Now here's what's interesting about this. That day comes and it's not that the Jews took arms and then raided the cities.

No, the authority of the decree was if people attack you, you can fight back, you can kill them, and then you can take whatever of theirs. So it was a self-defense decree. So when the enemies are defeated here, you need to understand that the enemies still tried to conquer the Jews.

So they still tried on that day, even though the Jews had the right to defend themselves, they still attempted to take out Jews to be able to take their possessions. But the Jews are victorious and they defeat their enemies all throughout the empire.

In verses 11 through 17, the Jews are given permission, the Jews in Shushan, again, it's the capital city of Persia, they're given permission to gather together for the second day. The king says, hey, you know, day one happened, 500 people were killed just in Shushan, just in that city. Again, these are guys who came against the Jews and they defended themselves.

And then he says, I wonder what happened in the rest of the empire. Now, what do you want, Esther? What else would you desire? She said, well, let him do it again for day two. And so if people came against them day two, then they had the right and the authority to defend themselves. And so they killed another 300 there in Shushan. We also find in this passage that it was 75,000 throughout the whole empire who were killed there.

But it also points out, it's interesting, the Jews didn't take the plunder. And so they weren't, you know, they were demonstrating this wasn't about their gain. They weren't trying to put people to death so they could take their stuff. They were just defending themselves against their enemies. Well, as a result of this, the Jews were saved. And so they begin to celebrate. In verses 18 through 23, or 32 rather, the Feast of Purim is established. Now,

Purim is the plural for pur, P-U-R, which the word pur means to cast lots. So when they cast pur, it's to cast lots. And so Purim is that, it's from that. And so it points out Haman cast lots to find out the day when he would allow everybody to annihilate the Jews. And so they use that as the name of this feast. The Feast of Purim reminds them of Haman casting lots on

choosing the day to destroy the Jews. And so that, well actually that's coming up actually, February 23rd and 24th is the Feast of Purim for this year. And it's something that they continue to celebrate today, but it began here in Esther chapter 9 in the Empire of Persia.

Well then we finish up with chapter 10 which is a very short chapter. Verses 1 through 3. Mordecai becomes second to King Ahasuerus. In verse 3 it says, For Mordecai the Jew was second to the King Ahasuerus and was great among the Jews and well received by the multitude of his brethren seeking the good of his people and speaking peace to all his countrymen.

So the Jews are saved. Mordecai is raised to power and authority. We don't know all of the details, but we can imagine that he had great influence then on Artaxerxes, which was this king's son who was the king that Nehemiah served. And so perhaps he was some of the influence. We don't know all the details, but we could understand. Like Daniel, he had some great influence

influence on the empire and the dealings with the Jews and allowing them to rebuild the city of Jerusalem. Well, as we finish Esther chapter 10, we conclude now what is referred to as the historical books of the Old Testament. You start out with the books of Moses, the first five books, and then from Joshua through Esther, it's referred to as the historical books because it's the history of the nation of Israel.

The conclusion of Esther and really Nehemiah, which is just a little bit later in the chronology, concludes all of the history of the Old Testament.

And so from here on out, as we look at the rest of the books of the Old Testament, we're going to be looking back at different time periods of the history that we've already studied. And so we'll be going back and looking at different pieces of that history from different perspectives depending on which book that we are looking at.

But now as we go forward, tomorrow we start the book of Job and we start a new section of the Old Testament which is the poetic books. And there's five poetic books. Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Solomon. And these are grouped together and referred to as the poetic books.

Hebrew poetry is not like English poetry, which English poetry has rhymes or it has certain meters and things like that. Of course, there's a variety of different kinds of poetry. But Hebrew poetry is not like that.

Well, maybe some of it rhymes in Hebrew. But they do things like acrostics where each line begins with the letter of the Hebrew alphabet. They do things like it's a contrast of thought or a contrast of two different ideas. And so the poetry is a little bit different. So when we talk about the poetic books, it doesn't mean that it all rhymes. But it's a Hebrew style of poetry.

And literature that we will be looking into. And so we'll be starting the book of Job tomorrow. Then we'll head into the book of Psalms. And then Proverbs and Ecclesiastes and Song of Solomon. Now as we start the book of Job. Just a quick introduction to Job. We don't know who the author is. Jewish tradition suggests it's either Job himself. Or possibly that Moses wrote the book of Job. But we don't know for certain. We also don't really know when it was written.

It's suggested and believed by most to be the oldest book of the Bible, the first book that was written even before the laws of Moses. But again, we don't know that for sure. There's not, you know, definite evidence for that. The time period, it's believed that Job lived around the time of like Abraham, Isaac, Jacob during that time period. And so that's the setting for the book. And of course, the theme is the sufferings of Job.

Now, as we head into the poetic books, the book of Job in particular, I want to encourage you, remember the most important thing when you are reading through the poetic books, the most important thing that you need in order to understand what you're reading and understand what it's all about, the most important thing is context.

Context is the most important thing when you're looking at these poetic books. Specifically, the book of Job. In fact, I would encourage you, as we start the book of Job tomorrow, you're going to read chapters 1 and 2. Also read the last couple chapters of Job. So that you get the beginning, you get the ending. Because those are two important things that you're going to want to remember all throughout the middle. Because there's a lot of things in Job that people quote,

incorrectly all the time. I would say if there's one book that's, you know, got the most misquoted verses in it, it's probably the book of Job because people forget about the context. And so I want to encourage you and we'll be talking about that more as we go into the book of Job next Wednesday. Context, context, context. Remember the context as you're studying these things.

But as we finish up this evening, as we look back at the book of Esther, again, we see God's sovereignty. We see how he is orchestrating everything. And I would pray that it would encourage your life that whatever you're at, you know, you might be at the point of victory. You might be at the point of, oh no, there's this decree. I don't know how I'm going to survive through this. Wherever you're at, you can look and trust God.

And you can pray. Maybe you're there for such a time as this. Maybe God wants to use you in the situation. But you can rest assured that God is on the throne. And as Paul said, he works all things together for good to those who love him and are the called according to his purpose. So love him.

Pursue God and you can trust no matter what's going on in your life and it might seem impossible but God is able to work it all out for good because he is the one who orchestrates nations and timings and kings and everything. He's on the throne. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you that we can rest in you and trust in you. Lord, we also thank you that we have the opportunity to be part of your work and part of your master plan. And so Lord, I pray for all of us here and Lord, I present us to you

And Lord, we say, use us. Here we are, send us. Lord, if you want to use us for such a time as this in our homes, in our workplaces, in the grocery store, in this church, Lord, if you want to use us to accomplish your will and your purposes, we invite you to do so and we make ourselves available to you. But Lord, help us to trust you, to rest in you, and to know, Lord, that you are on the throne. And so we can really, really rest.

knowing that you are in control. In Jesus' name I pray, amen. We pray you have been blessed by this Bible teaching. The power of God to change a life is found in the daily reading of his word. Visit ferventword.com to find more teachings and Bible study resources.