Good morning church family and a special good morning to my friends at our second campus. I don’t think we do the ladies of our lives justice, so I want you to stand up and let’s really appreciate our wives and mothers. Happy Mother’s Days, Ladies! We appreciate you greatly.
We’re doing a short series on courage, entitled Fearless: Possessing a Lionhearted Righteousness. It’s based off of Proverbs 28:1: “The wicked flee when no one pursues, but the righteous are bold as a lion” (Proverbs 28:1). We are looking at some of the more familiar stories of the Old Testament for inspiration. Today, I want to tell you one of the most interesting stories in all of Scripture. It is a story that is as fascinating as it is controversial – the story of Esther. The book of Esther was hated and forbidden by the Nazis. Nevertheless, Jewish inmates read in the days before their death at Auschwitz and Dachau among other death camps. Jews recited the book from memory and they read it in secret. Both the Nazis and the Jews understood its message – God would deliver His people.
The Setting
Esther’s story takes place in the ancient Persian Empire, who maintained a powerful rule over the known world from the mid 500s to the early 300s BC. The Persian Empire ranged from modern Pakistan and modern Turkey to what is today the islands of Greece and even North Africa. As you scan your world history during this time, you’ll note that the Chinese philosopher Confucius was alive during this day. Our story is set in the ancient city of Susa, which is modern Iran. But the story is interesting and fascinating for all of its sudden twists of plots. The moment you think the story is going one way, it turns like a roller-coaster and you jerked off in another direction. Let’s dive in.
King Ahasuerus
Our story begins with a king and the events of Esther occur over a ten year span of time. There are essentially five characters to our story and the first is the king himself. King Ahasuerus (A hass u where us) is the Hebrew name for King Xerxes. History tells us that that he was the tallest and most handsome of the Persian kings. He was ruthless and a brilliant leader and warrior. But key to our story is this fact: the ancient historian Herodotus tells us that he was also a jealous lover.
The beginning our story has to do with an elaborate banquet. This banquet followed on the heals of a 180 council that displayed the immensity of the king’s vast wealth. Even in our oversized Hollywood publicity world, King Xerxes’ party is opulent (Esther 1:6-7). “It was in the midst of this immense party that the King decided to call on His queen: ‘On the seventh day, when the heart of the king was merry with wine, he commanded Mehuman, Biztha, Harbona, Bigtha and Abagtha, Zethar and Carkas, the seven eunuchs who served in the presence of King Ahasuerus, 11 to bring Queen Vashti before the king with her royal crown, in order to show the peoples and the princes her beauty, for she was lovely to look at’” (Esther 1:10-11). This was a party for the men to get drink and in the midst of his intoxication, he brags about the beauty of his queen. Finally, Xerxes decides to show everyone just how beautiful she is and calls for her.
Queen Vashti
Queen Vashti is a Persian queen who receives the king’s request: “I want you to come and stand and exhibit yourself before thousands of drunk men.” He had paraded his livestock and wealth in front of them and now he wanted to parade his greatest possession – his queen. But the queen refuses to dress up in front of a horde of drunk men. After an impromptu cabinet meeting, she is quickly banished from her throne and she is heard from no more. The king quickly sends men off throughout the empire to find the most beautiful young women in the Persian Empire. Some scholars feel that as many as a thousand women were brought together for the king to choose from. These ladies didn’t have a choice in the matter but were simply “taken” to the king (Esther 2:8).
Mordecai
I want to introduce you to Mordecai, our third character in our story. Mordecai is a Jew living in Persia. The Jewish people were conquered, captured, and forcibly brought out of their land to Persia. “Now there was a Jew in Susa the citadel whose name was Mordecai, the son of Jair, son of Shimei, son of Kish, a Benjaminite, who had been carried away from Jerusalem among the captives carried away with Jeconiah king of Judah, whom Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon had carried away. He was bringing up Hadassah, that is Esther, the daughter of his uncle, for she had neither father nor mother. The young woman had a beautiful figure and was lovely to look at, and when her father and her mother died, Mordecai took her as his own daughter” (Esther 2:5-7).
Esther
Esther is the protagonist of our story and she is a young Jewish girl who becomes queen of all Persia. Esther is an orphan; she is Mordecai’s younger cousin and he takes to raise as his own daughter. Esther is one of the young ladies brought to the King as a possible replacement for the queen. When she was taken by the king, Mordecai instructed her not to say anything about her Jewish identity or her beliefs. Esther was a secret Jew for much of the story (Esther 3:10). As I said, the girls were brought to the capital to see who suited the king. Of the eight select few women who won the king’s favor, they were put through a yearlong program. This program included making sure they ate the right foods and they were provided with cosmetics. Now, every single one of the girls went in to spend their one night with the king, everything turned on that, because depending on what happened that night, four things could happen for the rest of their lives. First, is if he didn’t really like them, so he sends them back to be permanent concubines, but he never, ever calls them again. They’re not allowed to go home and they’re not allowed to get married. This is the king’s harem. He basically never calls them again, so they are essentially banished probably at about the age of eighteen to permanent widowhood, as it were. Second option, the king might say, “I do like this one,” so she becomes a concubine he calls every so often when he feels like it. The third option is if you’re really, really, really lucky you might be one of the two or three women he actually marries, so they are his wives and so your children become heirs to royal prerogatives. Lastly, if you’re really fortunate and you’re the one he most favors, you become the queen.
Now Esther becomes the new queen: “the king loved Esther more than all the women, and she won grace and favor in his sight more than all the virgins, so that he set the royal crown on her head and made her queen instead of Vashti” (Esther 2:17). The little orphan girl becomes queen of the greatest empire of the world at the time.
A Plot Against Xerxes
I need to tell you a side story for a moment. Mordecai would sit at the king’s gate when he overheard a plot against the king. Two men who served neared the king were fed up with Xerxes and were about to kill him. Mordecai overheard their conversation and told those higher up the chain of the command than he. The story was investigated and the two men who were hung on the gallows in short order. “When the affair was investigated and found to be so, the men were both hanged on the gallows. And it was recorded in the book of the chronicles in the presence of the king” (Esther 2:23).
Haman
Haman is the last of our five characters and he is the antagonist, or the villain of our story. He is second only to the king and queen in Persia at the time. “And all the king’s servants who were at the king’s gate bowed down and paid homage to Haman, for the king had so commanded concerning him. But Mordecai did not bow down or pay homage” (Esther 3:2). Only Mordecai refused to bow down to Haman. This enraged Haman to the point that he gets the king to sign an edict to eradicate all the Jewish people (Esther 3:8-11). This elaborate plan is set in motion to kill every Jew in the Persian Empire but nobody knows the queen is actually a Jew. A date was set to kill, destroy, and plunder all the wealth of the Jewish people. With the king’s decree, every Jew was in danger inside the Persian Empire. Mordecai puts on sackcloth to mourn the turn of the events and he sends word to his cousin, Esther, “You must act.” “All the king’s servants and the people of the king’s provinces know that if any man or woman goes to the king inside the inner court without being called, there is but one law—to be put to death, except the one to whom the king holds out the golden scepter so that he may live. But as for me, I have not been called to come in to the king these thirty days” (Esther 4:11). She says in effect, “You know it is a punishable offense … a capital punishable offense, possibly … to go to the king unbidden.” If read between the lines, she’s saying, “I got here because the last queen was too bold. You’re asking me to throw away everything! You’re asking me to throw away everything! How can you do that?” She replies, “I cannot speak to the king unless he calls for me.” Mordecai doesn’t like Esther’s response so he sends these chilling and fateful words to the queen.
And this is the high point of the story: “Then Mordecai told them to reply to Esther, ‘Do not think to yourself that in the king’s palace you will escape any more than all the other Jews. For if you keep silent at this time, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father’s house will perish. And who knows whether you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this’” (Esther 4:13-14)? It’s really quite an argument. What he is really saying is, “If all the Jews are killed, you’ll be sniffed out, and you’ll be killed too. If the Jews aren’t killed, then you’ll be sniffed out, and you’ll be a traitor.” Mordecai’s speech works and Esther musters up the courage to walk before the throne of the king. She goes into the king’s presence and the scepter is extended – her life is spared. But she doesn’t ask the big question right away. No, she is subtle. He holds out the scepter and says, “Queen Esther, what do you want?” She says, “I want a banquet with you and Haman and me.” The next day he comes to the banquet, and in the middle of the banquet, he says, “Queen Esther, what is your wish?” She says, “I want you to come to another banquet tomorrow. I will throw the banquet for you, Haman, and me.”
The Haman Side Story
After the first banquet Esther throws for her king, Mordecai leaves the palace strutting his way home. Haman’s ego is stroked because he alone is being invited to eat with the king and queen. After eating in the palace, he then encounters Mordecai who fails to bow again. Haman is so vexed by Mordecai’s failure of respect that he has gallows built to hang Mordecai by. Only that very night the king cannot sleep. So Xerxes calls for the book of memorable deeds or the chronicles of his rule and reign. It’s here that he is reminded about Mordecai’s brave act to stave off the assassination attempt of his life. It’s here that Xerxes asks: “What honor or distinction has been bestowed on Mordecai for this?” The king’s young men who attended him said, “Nothing has been done for him” (Esther 6:3b). The assistant replies that no act has been done. It just so happens that it is early in the morning when no one is usually in the palace at this time. He asks Haman, “What should be done for a man who the king delights in?” Haman loves him some Haman and thinks the king is speaking of him. Haman says, “You should throw such a man a parade where the man rides your horse and your robe. Then you have someone go in front of this man and announce, ‘This shall it be done to the man whom the king delights to honor’” (Esther 6:9b). And the king agrees with all of Haman’s plans. And he asks Haman to be the man who goes before none other than Mordecai himself in this parade! No sooner is the parade over than Haman is rushed off to the second banquet that Esther throws for the king and Haman. Finally, after three days, she says here’s my petition, “Save my life. Spare my life. I’m about to be destroyed. Please save my life.” “For we have been sold, I and my people, to be destroyed, to be killed, and to be annihilated. If we had been sold merely as slaves, men and women, I would have been silent, for our affliction is not to be compared with the loss to the king” (Esther 7:4). An assault on the queen would be an assault on the king.
The very gallows that were built to hang Haman’s archenemy Mordecai on are now used to hang Haman from. Talk about your irony. Esther’s story ends with the Jews being saved: “Now in the twelfth month, which is the month of Adar, on the thirteenth day of the same, when the king’s command and edict were about to be carried out, on the very day when the enemies of the Jews hoped to gain the mastery over them, the reverse occurred: the Jews gained mastery over those who hated them” (Esther 9:1). In fact, an ancient celebration of this day happens every year and the holiday is called Purim. Purim is the Jewish celebration of God’s deliverance of the Jewish people.
Three Take Aways
1. Pride Goes Before the Fall
Pride is looking in the mirror and singing “How Great Thou Art.” “Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall” (Proverbs 16:18). Haman is the most vivid and sustained case study in the Bible of everything the Bible says about pride and humility and what happens to people who let pride rage unchecked. At one point in the story, we read Haman listing his accomplishments for all his friends and family, but he complains about the one thing that galls him: “Yet all this is worth nothing to me, so long as I see Mordecai the Jew sitting at the king’s gate” (Esther 5:13).
Today is Mother’s Day and in a recent nation-wide poll, the average American parents gave themselves an “A” or a “B.” However, they gave their neighbor a “D.” Mistakes are easier to see through the window rather than the mirror, don’t you agree? Parenting is the attempt to create really good adults. And one of the key essentials in parenting is teaching and modeling the value of humility.
Pride acts like carbon monoxide. Pride will destroy you and don’t even know it. Pride is hides itself from you – it is odorless. Pride in your life is injecting embalming fluid into your life.
1. Pride Goes Before the Fall
2. The Value of Women
If you were reading the book of Esther to a group of little precocious eleven year-old girls and one of the girls said, “My goodness! Back in Persia a man’s worth was determined by the size of his wallet and the beauty of her anatomy determined a woman’s worth. Thank goodness we don’t live in a place like that anymore!” They were consumed with appearances. And it’s not just women for the Persian culture is much like a man’s world today: Your net worth is your self-worth. There’s our world today: beauty and bucks.
Compare Daniel (last week’s message) to Esther for a moment. Daniel and his friends, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, were brought into a pagan court in Babylon … They were Jews, and they were brought into a pagan court. Up front they said, “We’ll serve here, but we’re going to follow the Mosaic dietary laws.” They let everybody know there were Jews. They let everybody know they were going to still follow Torah. They were going to be good members of the court, but they were going to follow Torah. She broke all the dietary laws. You say, “Okay. Well, the dietary laws?” Yeah, but then she sleeps with a man she is not married to yet. Then she marries an unbeliever. All of these things are absolutely gross violations of the biblical law, and therefore, she has completely sold out. You say, “Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. She’s guilty. You’re right, but what could she do? She was guilty. It was wrong, but what could she do?” But that’s just the point: God calls us to be fearless and not compromise on His principles. The world is impacting you more than you realize and many of us have compromised just as Esther and Mordecai. We are pressured into keep our beliefs private and secret out of fear. We need a fresh wave of courage among believers today.
3. The Silent Sovereignty of God
Esther has no mention of God – not one. There’s not even a religious reference mentioned in the book. And this is intentional for the story wants you to see God’s handiwork in play even when it seems He is absent. “Now the LORD said to Abram, ‘Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed’” (Genesis 12:1-3).
Yet, God chooses to save His people in an ordinary way this time – no “miracles” necessary. Don’t miss the “ordinary” work of God in search for your desire for miraculous work of God. For often it is precisely in the ordinary and mundane workings that God turns the hinges of our lives to His will. What If? What if the King hadn’t gotten drunk? What if the Queen had done what she was asked (Esther 1:10-12)? What if Mordecai had not have heard about the possible assassination plot of the king (Esther 2:21-23)? What if the king had honored Mordecai right away? Don’t mistake God’s seeming silence for His absence.
Closing
Yet, No matter how badly you screwed up the beginning of your life and no matter what horrible moves you’ve made, you can’t write yourself out of God’s final script. There is no plan B. Jesus doesn’t love you because of something you did for Him. Instead, God showed His love in showing us the ONE He gave up for us.
