Start Of The Journey Part 2 Series

Book of Esther Series - Part II.

( Re-read chapter 1 & pray )

Picking up where we left off:

Kingdom = The range of influence our life holds over other people & other things

Palace/Capital City= Our physical bodies

King = Out soul, the part of us that makes the choices.

Queen Vasti = The fallen unregenative spirit of man.

Esther = The renewed or born-again spirit with in us.

Mordecai = The Holy Spirit.

Haman = Satan.

This morning we will see Esther as a picture of the renewed spirit of man.

She is a picture of Gods unmerited favor.

His Redeeming grace

His willingness to give us a second chance.

Read vs. 10-12 in chapter 1

Here the king has over stepped his bounds: His pride has pushed him over the edge.

a. He had the right to show off his riches. 2. But not the right to flaunt his queen.

One was OK, the other wasn’t - But the king alone made the choice.

Just as in the Garden: Man was intended to enjoy all that God had given him, but that was not enough. His pride, when chided by satan, pushed him over the edge.

Literally He bit off more than he could chew.

Choices are the prerogative of the Soul - God has given man a free will.

Consequences are the fruit of our choices.

Adam chose to eat the fruit that God had forbidden the consequence was both spiritual and physical death.

Ahazerus chose to flaunt his wife, the consequence was the loss of the very one he chose to flaunt.

And uniquely enough the operative force behind both of their actions was none other than pride.

Friends constructive pride is not a necessary evil, ( Explain what you mean ) but the intoxicating form of pride that makes us lose sight of good sense is deadly.

Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall. Buzz in Hospital ( motorcycle wreck )

A. THE KING HAS SUMMONSED THE QUEEN - But she has refused to come!

He is very angry!

1. Typical - Of the struggle internally within a person before they have surrendered their life to Christ.

a. Soul is looking out for number one.

b. Fallen spirit - Unregenerate spirit of man, has loyalties to none.

2. The King / Soul : Does what so many do - He seeks ungodly advice.

#1 He Won’t acknowledge that he is wrong.

#2 He turns to the ungodly to counsel. (ungodly advice will fail you every time )

( Read vs. 13-18 )

Listen to what they had to say to him:

A. To the man, they insinuated that it was all the queens fault. ( Took away all his responsibility for it)

THE DEVIL MADE ME DO IT. IT WAS THE WOMAN THAT YOU GAVE ME.

1. They filled his heart with the fear that he would lose face and that all the women would then

begin to disobey their husbands and in essence he would be at fault.

( The unregenerate soul is proud)

All of this is so typical of the fallen soul of man:

Is proud,

speaks without thinking,

compounds one mistake with another,

seeks ungodly advice

Refuses to admit any wrong doing.

His counselors lied to him even as Satan did to Eve.

1. Said this was the only way he could save himself.

2. Satan to eve, this is the only way to reach full potential.

He just never explained the consequences.

B. So an UNCHANGEABLE LAW WAS WRITTEN - Read 1:19

1. Letters were sent out to all the provinces - The search for the right mate. We all do this before

coming to Christ.

Important fact about the law of the medes and Persians - it had to be carried out.

a. How close a parallel to our own lives: Law of Sin & Death! read Rom. 7:4-5, 23-25

( wages of sin are death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ, our Lord)

b. When Adam chose desire of heart over fellowship with God:

He set in motion a string of circumstances that man has since been powerless to alter.

Death, sickness, guilt, alienation/separation, work, pain in child bearing, corruption, condemnation,

the list goes on and on. Man is helpless to change it. Its the Law of Sin & Death.

c. The result is the death or darkness of the human spirit. Much Like Queen Vasti’s sentence to

obscurity.

Man would be born with a spirit darkened in its knowledge of his creator... lonely... restless

( He would be soulish.... ego centered ) helpless to restore himself.

1. All insight, all his communion with God and His Holy Spirit would be gone.

But thank God the devil always goes one step too far.