Persian Beauty Contest Esther 2 18 Oct 2020
Hello! I'm Pastor Greg of Calvary Reformed Church.
This video is the second video in a series of Esther, an Old Testament book about a Jewish young lady who becomes Queen of Persia.
Persia, in the 400 BC’s, was one of the greatest capitals of the world at the time. It's a story about God's providence. For such a time as this she was put at a certain place. It's just not a story about her, it's also a story about Mordecai, her cousin. It's a story about King Xerxes. It's a story about a man we're going to learn about next week. A very evil man. Overall, it's the story of God's providence.
Now, if you watched last week's video, we studied chapter one of Esther. Chapter one of Esther deals with King Xerxes (the King of Persia). The borders of Persia at that time went all the way from the
land of Greece to India down into Africa, Egypt, and over to where Libya is today. He was very wealthy, very powerful.
Chapter one shows King Xerxes throwing a 180 day feast, a banquet, for the nobles and the military men getting ready to fight against Greece. We know that after the 180 days he had another seven-day feast and invited all the people in. At the end of this time, when he is (I believe) in a drunken state, he calls to have Queen Vashti come and parade herself with her crown in front of everybody.
Queen Vashti declines. The king doesn't know what to do. He asks his wise men what to do and they say
you need to dispose of the queen. Set her aside or all women will rebel against their husbands. The king says okay I will do that. He then goes off to war and comes back four years later after a humiliating defeat by the Greeks. He comes back humiliated and is still an egotistical and arrogant king. However, he comes back to no queen.
We're going to see what happens when he has no queen. He has all his concubines, but he doesn't have one that he can turn to and confide in and receive comfort in.
If you have your Bibles, I encourage you to read with me in Esther Chapter 2. Esther 2 begins one year later when the anger of King Xerxes had succeeded. He remembered Vashti the queen and what she had done. She denied him and the decree that he had made about her. It sounds like he possibly would have changed his mind. However, when a Persian King made a decree it could not be altered, it could not be changed. We're going to talk about that shortly.
The King’s wise men (I don't think they were very wise to start with) said let's dispose of the queen… now they're saying, ‘Hey, let's have a contest. Let a search be made for beautiful young virgins from all over the land for the king. Let the king appoint commissioners in every providence of his realm to bring these beautiful girls into a harem into the capital city. Let them be placed underneath the care
of one of the king's eunuchs, who oversee the women and the beauty treatments that will be given to them.
This sounded good to the king. The historian Josephus said that there were at least 400 young women that were rounded up at this time. We don't know if women went voluntarily or if they went under the force of the king's order. I don't know about you, but I know I would not be too thrilled to have a daughter taken to go into this Persian beauty contest with the king.
People today like to watch the show ‘The Bachelor’ or ‘The Bachelorette’ and yet the reality is this Persian contest was set up only for one person, the King. I think it would have been hard to give up your daughter to be at the whims of this man. She could be put aside, left in the harem, never to know love…never to have a family…never to be married. She had to do whatever the king said had to be done to her.
Everything centered around King Xerxes ego. I said earlier that the king could not reverse his order. We need to remember that God is in the details. In the beginning of chapter two the King sounds as if he wants to reverse his decree. Yet it was not reversible. If he were able to reverse his original decree from four years prior, Esther would not be in the story and neither would her cousin Mordecai.
Friends, God is in the details of our lives. Those little details and circumstances when you wonder where God is and what’s going on… when we look back, we see that those circumstances have a very significant impact on the direction of our life. Where God is leading us, how God is leading us. God is in the details of our lives and is sovereign over every circumstance of our life. He knows our life. He loves you so much.
In Verse 5, there in the citadel of Susa, a Jew from the tribe of Benjamin named Mordecai (who was the son of Kish. Kish was the father to King Saul, the first king of the Hebrew Jewish people). Mordecai
is a relative to King Saul. His relatives have been taken from Jerusalem into Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar.
Verse 7, Mordecai had a cousin, a young girl named
Hadassah. He brought her up because she had neither a father nor mother. Both of her parents had died. The girl was known also as Esther. She was lovely in form and features. Mordecai had taken her on as his own daughter.
I want you to briefly think about what’s going on right now. King Xerxes has 400 new concubines in his new harem. We don't know how many were in his original harem. King Xerxes is only after pleasure, self-seeking. On the other hand, Mordecai
has taken on a cousin to raise her. Mordecai is characterized as a man of great love, a man of great care, a man of great character.
It’s interesting too, because the book of Esther is named after Esther and yet do you know that Mordecai is mentioned more frequently in the book
of Esther than Esther herself? In the last chapter we're going to see how Mordecai is lifted to an elevation of high importance in the land of Persia.
So, what we have is these opposites going on. The king who is selfish, self-seeking, and arrogant. Mordecai, who's a faith-filled man, a man of great love and character. Verse 8 talks about how the king
brought out to all the girls. It was proclaimed many girls were brought to the citadel - the capitol. They were put underneath the care of one of the eunuchs. Esther was also taken to the king's palace and entrusted to the head eunuch who had charge of the harem.
Esther pleased this eunuch and won his favor and
immediately placed her in the beauty contest. This eunuch provided her with beauty treatments, special food, and he assigned her seven maids - selected from the king's palace. He moved her into the best quarters of the harem.
Can you imagine the competitive spirit that's being felt amongst four hundred or more women who are
vying for the king's attention? Can you imagine the petty rivalries, fighting, envy, and jealousy that must have been going on? And then we have Esther who is favored by the head unit and given seven other maids to serve her.
In Verse 12 we're told that King Xerxes gets one
night with the each of the women. Before young girls came up to be with the king, she had to complete twelve months of beauty treatment: six months of oil with myrrh and six months with perfume and cosmetics. Again, can you imagine being in that contest and how demoralizing and how temporary and empty that was? But God is in the details.
Verse 14 says that in the evening one of the women would go in with the king and in the morning returned to another part of the harem…into the care of a different eunuch. This eunuch oversaw all the concubines. A woman could not return to the king unless he was pleased by her and summoned her by name. So, you could spend one night with the king and potentially spend the rest of your life in the harem never knowing the love of a man, a husband…never having children, never having a family. All for the pleasure of one man.
Verse 15, in the seventh year of the king, when the time came for Esther to go in to see the king, she asked for nothing other than what Hegai suggested. Esther won favor with the king. She won the favor of
everyone who saw her. She was taken to King Xerxes in the royal palace on the 10th month of the 10th of the Tebeth in the seventh year of his reign. Verse 17 says the king was attracted to Esther more than any other woman. She won his favor and approval more than any of the other virgins.
So, he set a royal crown on her head and made her queen instead of Vashti. The king gave a great banquet.
Chapter one starts out with a 180-day banquet and now the king is giving another great banquet in honor of Esther. He did it for all his nobles and all of his officials and he proclaimed a holiday throughout the providence. He distributed royal gifts to people.
Friends, when I say that that God’s providence is in the details, think about Esther. Esther was once crushed by life, fractured by the fact that both her mom and dad have died. We don't know how they died. But Esther is taken in by her cousin, Mordecai and raised by him as his own daughter. Can you imagine the struggle that she had as a young lady?
The disjointedness that she may have had with relationships? Yet God is in the details. God had his providence in her life. God alone could take her and make her key to the salvation of the Hebrew Jewish people in the land of Persia.
You see, there's a very powerful yet simple truth in chapter 2. God has given, not just to Esther, but to you as well, everything that you need to fulfill what he has set out in your life for your purpose. Esther didn't choose to lose her parents. She didn't choose to be raised by a cousin. She also didn't choose on her own free will to go in this beauty pageant for the king. Yet nothing about it was by accident because of God’s providence.
God has His hand in everything, friends. God is not hindered by the events of the world, whether they're carnal or secular or faith filled. God is not hindered. God's presence permeates regardless of anything
within our lives. Whether it's ancient Persia, the United States of America, Michigan, or whether it's Calvary! God's presence permeates into all that we do. God is at work whether it's in the middle east, a major city, or the oval office during election time.
God is at work here in my office…your pastor's office. God is at work everywhere. When we say the Lord’s Prayer…’thy kingdom come, thy will be done…’ sometimes we think about a kingdom as a kingdom of boundaries. King Xerxes was trying to increase his boundaries. The reality is a better word for ‘thy kingdom come’ is ‘thy reign be done’.
God's reign is over all. It's over all in the board rooms, in the bar. It's in the churches and the orphanages. It's in the prisons. God's reign is over all. ‘Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.’
Friends, God is at work and He’s moving. He's touching lives, shaping kingdoms and He's never surprised what we as humanity do. He's created us. He loved us so much He sent His Son, Jesus Christ to redeem us…to buy us back and save us.
Just because actions or motives appear to be secular or unfair, God is still at work. Friends,
we need to bank on it. We need to place our lives on it. Whatever takes place, say ‘Yes, we will stay firm in the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ.’ Those who are involved may not be bringing glory to God. King Xerxes was not bringing glory to God. But God was involved with his providence. Never doubt it. God is present and at work.
Esther, a young Jewish lady was chosen to be queen in place of Vashti of Persia. God is at work in his providence, friends. God is at work in your life just as much as He was in Queen Esther's life. God is at work in my life.
The Apostle Peter says to us in 2 Peter 1: ‘His divine power…God's divine power in our life has given us everything that we need…’ Friends, I need this passage right now. With all that's going on, God's providence is within our society, the state, and within the church. His providence, His rule, His divine power has given us…me…you everything we need for life and for Godliness through our knowledge of Him…who has called us by His glory and His goodness.
Friends, may you know God's glory and God's goodness resides in the person of Jesus Christ who is our Redeemer, our Savior. And as Esther was used by Yahweh God, we'll see how she was used to save the Jewish people in some chapters to come.
Jesus Christ brings His grace in our life, His providence, His sovereign reign, to bring all to the
Glory of the Father.
In the name of the Father, Son, the Holy Spirit. Friends may the Lord bless you and keep you. May your lives be held in His providence and may you know that He is the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. Amen
