Answers Bible Curriculum: Lesson 6 - God Uses Esther

This morning, we're gonna be going into an area that we've been talking about quite a bit over the last few weeks and, and, and Mike brought it up a lot last week, and that's the providence of God. And we're talking about, how God in His sovereign way works through men to accomplish his purpose. And so, we're gonna be in the book of Esther, and, that is a story of, of God's providential care, his actions and how he accomplishes things. We'll be getting into that.

this opening question that I put up here, if God controls all things, how can our actions have real meaning? That's actually the subtitle of Wayne Gruden's chapter in his systematic theology on Providence. And so if you have access to his, his book, that's about 40 pages just on Providence., and it's, it's got a lot of, of, of good things and we do, I do have a A quote, later on this morning, be looking at, at, on just, just how we're to see Province and actually does relate with some of the things that Mike was talking about last week.

But if God controls all things, how can our actions have real meaning and, and how does that all work together?

And what we're gonna see demonstrated in the, the story of Esther is God using people to accomplish his purpose. it, it's a, a, a, a, a really wonderful way of looking at it. Proverbs 21:1 is the verse that, that, is the theme of, of these, this section of our lessons. The king's heart is in the hand of the Lord.

Like the rivers of water, he turns it wherever he wishes. And we're gonna see this dramatically displayed in this story today, that the king's heart is in the hand of the Lord. But it's not just the king's heart, there's gonna be a lot of hearts, a lot of people that are, that God impacts and, and actually moves their hearts in directions that he desires. Both the, the heroes of the story and the villains of the story, are all gonna be impacted by the providential hand of God.

And so, that's what we'll be seeing in this, in a very dramatic way in this story. So today is lesson 6, God uses Esther. And, next week we'll be into visions from God and, and Daniel and looking into some of, of the, How these visions play out in the history of mankind and, and the part of the story that we're in today with Esther is part of that whole vision scenario. It's, it's the, the moving or the building, the rise and fall, I should say, of empires.

And, so we look at that next week, but this is one, gonna be in one of those empires. And they'll be looking at. OK. I guess I'm supposed to talk about this slide cause it's not moving.

So we're gonna be doing review, study, and application. And I am stuck right here. OK, we're having technical difficulties, so please don't adjust your sets. that tells you how old I am, right?

OK. this is the timeline that Mike had from a few weeks ago and it does show us where we are, from where we've come, but we are clear down to, into the post-exhilic period after Babylon has fallen to the Persians. And, so that's on the, the timeline. Timelines are great.

I like timelines, they help me. I need a picture sometimes of, of, of things and so it gives us a picture. Of where we are in Old Testament record. In the book of Esther, by the way, which comes before Psalms, right?

You have, in fact, it comes before Job, and so, understanding how the Old Testament is laid out, you have the historical section first, and, and Esther actually is at the end of the historical section. and then, and so you have the, the history that begins with Adam and Eve in Genesis and goes through the patriarchs in, in the end of Genesis, and then you get into the history of Israel. And then, we've come now through all of the 1st and 2nd Kings, 1st and 2 Chronicles, and so into the exile period, and, then Ezra and Nehemiah is a post-exilic period, and then that's the period that Esther falls also, so Esther comes next.

Then we get into the poetical books with Job and all through Psalms, Proverbs, and so on, and so it takes a compl it goes into the Old Testament is divided that way.

And so, in case somebody's confused as why is Esther, here, where does it fall in the time? This, this helps us to understand where that falls. All right. Israel, just in review, and what we've covered so far, it, they're the fulfillment of God's covenant with Abraham.

They have been divided and ultimately scattered. So in the fall of a nation. We find that God is still faithful and untroubled in keeping His covenants and fulfilling his plan of redemption for mankind. And again, we'll, we're gonna be seeing that demonstrated in this story today.

Babylon, the Empire of the Middle East, has been supplanted by the Mido-Persian Empire. Cyrus, the Persian king has ordered the release of Jewish people back to their homeland along with the temple treasures, and that's what Mike covered last week that, that They have gone back, been released by Cyrus and, and actually, Cyrus has provided, made provisions for them, through his edicts for them to go back and begin to rebuild their city. And Nebuchadnezzar in his last conquest there had completely leveled Jerusalem.

It was rubble.

That's what was there. The walls were down, the temple, temple was down, all of the, the courtyards, the, the public squares, everything was destroyed. And, and so Jerusalem was gonna have to be rebuilt and, in, in, in many ways, as they go back to it, it's, it was unlivable, so the people had to live in, in, in areas around it and you, we find that in the story of Nehemiah where they're actually going to be drawing lots for people to move back into the city. cause it's, it's just so much work to be done and so they're just piles of rocks strewn everywhere and so it's, it's gonna take a lot of work.

But that is what is, is going on at this time. That's where we are. Now, The issue of Providence, before we get into the actual story of Esther, I wanna talk about what that means. And so Wayne Gruden has, has, like I said, it's almost 40 pages in his, systematic theology on this topic.

So this is just one little piece of it, but I thought this was helpful and it actually ties in really well with what we were talking about last week with the, the law of primary and secondary cause, for how things happen. So he puts it this way, the divine cause of each event. Oh no, I'm sorry. I'm on the 2nd slide here.

Providence, it's the doctrine of concurrence. That affirms that God directs and works through the distinctive properties of each created thing, so that these things themselves bring about the results that we see. In this way, it is possible to affirm that in one sense, events are fully 100% caused by God and fully 100% caused by the creature as well. However, divine and creaturely causes work in different ways.

One of the things that prior to, to his writing the statement that he talks about is that, that God usually works through his, his created beings and, in particular, what we're thinking of as, as human beings to To, to bring about his plan. So in his power, in his providence, his sovereignty, he is able to, to work through human agents to accomplish his purposes. And, and that's what he mostly does. We do see exceptions to that.

One of the big exceptions that we look in history at is the flood, right? God didn't use human agents to cause the flood, to destroy the earth. He intervened in a, in a supernatural way. There are supernatural interventions.

for God to to carry out his plan to make things happen. But his normal way of doing things is through human and even through the human will. And so that is, is what he normally does. The divine cause of each event works as an invisible behind the scenes directing cause and therefore could be called the primary cause that plans and initiates everything that happens.

But the created thing brings about actions in ways consistent with the creature's own properties, ways that can often be described by us as secondary causes of everything that happens, though they are the causes that are evident to us. So we see people making decisions, doing things, and so that's what we observe. And in, in seeing those things, we attribute to them as they're the cause of a certain event. But behind the scenes, behind all of that.

Is God working? And, and the classic story of that in the Old Testament is Joseph being sold by his brothers into slavery. And Joseph's view of that after all of those things, after they're reuniting years later was, you meant it for evil, but God meant it for good, right? And so God was the primary cause and he used the, the evil that was in the hearts of the brothers to accomplish the purpose of sending Joseph to Egypt.

for the salvation of the family. That was, that was God's purpose, that was God's plan, and that's what God did. And so God used the human agents, and is able to use even the evil that is in our hearts to accomplish his purpose. That is how amazing the sovereignty of God is and how great his power is.

And so we've talked about this in the past, that God is not threatened or his plan is not threatened. By the, the whimsy or the weakness of human will or human nature, because God always accomplishes what he has set out to do. He has that power to do it. And he's not just an observer of human events, an observer of his history, and, and so therefore, because he has foreknowledge, he knows what can happen and so he can give visions to someone like Daniel to predict future events.

and, and because God knows what's gonna happen. It's not just the foreknowledge, it's actually the sovereign hand of God that's doing the work. God has chosen to do those things, God chooses to make those things happen. He's active.

And this is another part of our understanding. of our own lives and what we go through and, and so on. And God is not just an observer. of, of, of, of our lives and what's happening, but God is an active agent in making things happen.

And, and so our faith is in a God who knows what he's doing. He's all wise, he's all powerful, he knows exactly what to do, and everything is for a purpose. God doesn't waste anything. He, he uses every event for his purpose, and so in his providence, he is accomplishing his plan, and, he's, he's, far more than, than the God, the, the way people many times see God.

There was a, a very popular song, recorded by Bette Midler years, several years ago that, that he's at, that describes God as being at a distance. From a distance, he sees this and that in our world. No, that's not God. But that's the explanation that many people struggle with, with God is if he's, if he's involved, then why all this?

Why the evil? Why the suffering? Why all of the things that we go through? Why is it this way?

God must be far away. And, and, and just letting things roll and go along. But that's not what the Bible describes God as. God, the Bible describes God as being intimately involved in working providentially in the affairs of mankind.

So then how do we explain evil? We've talked about this in the past. We explain evil by Genesis chapter 3. That is because the reason why we have trouble and struggles, and why we have pain and sorrow, why we have war and conflict, because we chose that.

We chose that path. What God has done is chosen to go with us, and to, to lead and, and to take this so that it doesn't just end up in extermination, but it ends up with life for humanity. God is rescuing us. But we chose this path and so we, we have to own it.

There, there does have to be something that we own in as far as our sorrow and the evil that we experience in this life. By the way, that's all just extra. You don't have to pay more for that. all right.

Before we jump into Esther, I do, I have a couple more extras. The I was thinking about this morning. We're going to be seeing, in, in this story of Esther, a, a marriage actually. we're not gonna see the wedding, but we're gonna see a marriage and, and, and how it worked, worked in the ancient world.

And as I, I spent a lot of time reading and, and trying to get some historical background of, of this time and, and so on. And then, and so just getting immersed in that. And then this morning in my own personal reading, I was reading Ephesians chapter 5, where God is describing marriage between a man and a woman who are submissive to their roles as husband and wife, and it was such a breath of fresh air. It was like, whoa, this is peaceful.

This is loving. this is, this is a, a, a relationship with wonder in it. And it, it was such a contrast and And then one of the things that we need to, as, as we read the book of Esther, understand is, is this is, this is man's manipulation in, in, in his working of relationships, and they're broken, they're messed up, and they have, they have issues in the, in, in the way they live and so on. That's not God's plan.

That wasn't God's plan for marriage. God has a different plan than he's given to us and so it's I just, I was just really reminded of that this morning in reading this and then Another thing too, we're, we're seeing the Jewish people scattered. They're scattered throughout the empire. And.

Yet God is demonstrating here, His power, Not only to, to the Jewish people but to the Gentile world as well by his protection of the Jewish people. Because that's what this story is about, is God's providential protection of the Jewish people. And so, that, that's going to be a big part of our story today. All right.

Esther chapter 1, and we'll read the 1st 5 verses to get started. Now, it took place in the days of Ahazurus, the Ahazurus who reigned from India to Ethiopia, over 127 provinces. In those days, as King Ahazurus sat on his royal throne, which was at the citadel in Susa. In the 3rd year of his reign, he gave a banquet for all his princes and attendants, the army officers of Persia and Media, the nobles and the princes of his provinces being in his presence, and he displayed the riches of his royal glory and the splendor of His great Majesty for many days, 180 days.

So this is the this, the, the setting. The stage is set for this whole story for how it happens. King Ahazuris, is believed by most, Historians to be Xerxes the first. There is some disagreement on that, some, believe that it's Darius, And others believe that it's, it's Arctic Xerxes, which would be Xerxes' son.

but most of the, The commentators that I read and, and even historians that I read online connect Ahazurus with Xerxes. And the events of, Esther actually fit really well within, this time frame. In the 3rd year of Ahazurus, it says, there, there's this big meeting. It's a 6 month of, banqueting, but there's really a lot more going on here than just eating food.

And, from, from history, it tells us that it, it was actually a planning stage for the invasion of Greece. Xerxes. Ranged from 486 to 465. In 492, which was just a few years before this, his father had led an invasion of Greece, prompted by Greek support of, of one of the, the regions in the empire, attempted rebellion against the Persian rule, and, so his father who was Darius the First, led this invasion.

The invasion failed and, what was determined from that failure is they didn't have enough army, a big enough army. And so they needed more troops. Darius died and, and Ahazurus or Xerxes the First became the king and Xerxes was the the, the son of Darius, as I said, the second ruler of the empire. Cyrus was first, we talked about Cyrus last week.

Xerxes was the son of the daughter of Cyrus. And so because of those connections, Xerxes was the, the son of Darius that became king, and, and so he was the then the third ruler of this empire. He is described by Herodotus, the Greek historian, as being vain, foolish, fickle, and hot-tempered. And we're gonna see all of that here.

In, in this story. and, and that's actually not that, those traits are not that uncommon in world rulers, right? but anyway, that's how he is described. His father, Darius the Great, Built a palace that was, that was a pretty good size.

In fact, in the, in the late 1800s, a, a group of archaeologists uncovered the, the foundations of it. And the foundations of this palace was over 2 acres. This is a big house. And that was, that, and that explains why when you read through this passage, you, you find for instance, the difference in the celebration, we're gonna find the, the men celebrating in one place and the women eating their, their fest, their, they're feasting in another place.

This is a big place. And so the men were out, generally outside will be reading a little bit. In this outside area, the women were inside in a large hall, but this is a, a big enough place to be able to house all of that. We also see story later on in the story where Esther says she hasn't seen the king for 30 days.

How is that possible? Well, you can lose each other in a house that's 2 acres. they don't measure in square feet, they measure in acres, and, and so that's, that's the, a big difference. So, Anyway, that's, that's one of the, the things that takes place here, and just setting the stage of where we are and what it's like.

They have this 6-month feast. They're planning this invasion and what is, is happening here is Ahazuris is persuading all of these other leaders of the provinces to go back and start raising the army and it's gonna take about, it's 3 to 4 years to raise this army. the army that he ends up taking in his invasion of Greece. according to, to, I think it was Herodotus that, that gave these figures was 2 million men.

There's a big army for that time, 2 million men. 10,000 ships. So he's gonna take the involvement of the whole empire. To, to put this army together to go and invade Greece.

All right. Let's go ahead and pick up in, in verse 10. This is after the 6th month, they add another week of celebration for everybody and it says on the 7th day, which is the last day of that celebration, when the heart of the king was merry with wine, he commanded. His eunuchs, 7 eunuchs who served in the presence of King Ahazurus to bring Queen Vashti before the king with her royal crown in order to display her beauty to the people and the princes, for she was beautiful.

But Queen Vashti refused to come at the king's command, delivered by the eunuchs. Then the king became very angry, and his wrath burned within him. there's no explanation given to us here as to why she refused to come. And so there's lots of speculation.

And some of it's actually pretty reasonable. One of the explanations I read was she could have been pregnant and didn't wanna go. I don't know if that's it, but that's one of the explanations. There was a, a decency factor.

That what the king was requesting was indecent and she was refusing to go. That could have been it. In fact, one of the things you think about is you got this large group of men who've been drinking now for 7 days. And she just, she doesn't want to go be part of it.

And I can understand why. And so, anyway, there could have been that a decency factor that's, that's not there. Another reason was that it was actually a violation of Persian custom. The Persian custom was that, that men would do their celebrating in one place and women would do it in another place.

And this was a violation. Of it. another explanation is that you have, The women in, in their place of, of feasting for 7 days. And what are they gonna be talking about?

They're reprobate husbands. they're no good husbands, and all that. That's an explanation. We don't know if that's it, but it's, it's not beyond reason to think that that could be it, and she's, been getting this, this sense of, of, I'm gonna make my stand and so that could have been it.

In any case, what Ajazurs did by doing this was create a no-win situation. And that's what a lot of people do when they're in a foolish moment. In a foolish moment, we can create no-win situations. Where if she does it, It's not a win.

It's not a win for him either. If, if he, if she doesn't do it, it's, it's a loss as well. There is, there is no winning in this situation, but he very foolishly, created this situation. And so, there are consequences.

And so that's what we'll read about next. Pick it up in verse 13. I'm sorry, go down to verse 19. And this is what they decide to do about it.

He says, if it pleases the king, let a royal edict be issued by him and let it be written in the laws of of Persia and Media so that it cannot be repealed, that Vashti may no longer come into the presence of King Ahazurus, and let the king give her royal position to another who is more worthy than she. When the king's edict, which he will make is heard throughout all his kingdom, great as it is, then all women will give honor to their husbands, great and small. This word pleased the king and the princes, and the king did as Mamuin proposed.

So he sent letters to all the king's provinces, to each province according to its script, and to every people according to their language, that every man should be the master in his own house and the one who speaks in the language of his own people.

OK. So, they, they solved the problem. With a law, a law that cannot be revoked. So Vashti has her title removed from her.

She's no longer queen, she's just subjected to the regular harem that's there and, and she no longer has her position of, of high honor that she had before. And then also the edict says that, that men rule. So they all went home with their t-shirts that say men rule on them. And they felt really good about themselves and they could go home and get ready for war.

And so yeah, it, it all worked out real well for them. So that was, that's the setting. But one of the things to observe is, as we're going through this and we see very human actions, very human responses to actions. these, these are things that are not out of the order or unusual, and this is nothing that we've never seen before.

this is all very just normal human behavior. Through all of this, Everything from, from Vashti's action to, to the king's action, all of these things. are working To bring about the providence of God. His providence is through all these normal human things that are going on.

That God has a plan because he knows down the road. There's going to be an event. That, that a special person is going to need to be the hero of. And that brings up another thought I had, that it's, it's A little, it's, it's very interesting to me that, that in this culture where the men have established that they rule.

That God chooses a woman to be the hero. And I, I just think that that tells us a lot about God, that God has, has a way of setting on edge. what we think, is solid. And he, and he says, no, it's not, it's not the way you think it is all the time.

And so God gives us a, a, a, God gives us an opportunity to rethink, to reexamine our, our views and, and, the, the, the foundations of our thinking to, to try to draw us back to our relationship with him and, and, and who he is. OK, let's move on to chapter 2. And we'll pick it up in verse one. After these things, when the anger of King Ahazurus had subsided, he remembered Vashti.

All right, let's stop right there for a minute. After these things, we're gonna find that this is, a few years later, this is actually after, the, the war with Greece. The after these things. and what happened with the war of Greece?

I don't know how many of you are familiar with any of this. I wasn't very familiar with it until I started doing the reading. But Xerxes or Ehazurus took his troops. Over to Greece and And Herodotus records a lot of this and, and some of it is, is, is factual.

Some of it seems like fantasy. so there's, there's a, it's a very interesting story. but he, he takes his troops over, there's, that's when the Battle of Thermopylae is, with the, the Spartans, which was made into a very famous movie, a few years ago, but, they, go through and Greece at the time, if you remember from your history, is really just city-states. So, he goes from city to city and as he's, conquering these cities, the, the remnants of survivors are fleeing down south and, going toward Athens and then, across to Somalis, I think is the name of the place where they end up.

And, and he eventually takes his, his army which is huge. He, he, he, he, he outnumbers the, everybody there. And, So he has them pushed across. He's he's gone through Athens, burned it with fire, and, And that, this is another demonstration of his character.

He regretted it afterwards, but he did it in a fit of anger. Burned Athens with fire and but that was his, he was very fitful and a, and a very quick-tempered person. Well, they get to this place where the, the Greeks are across this bay area. And they, they're gonna have to go on ships to get there.

He has a, a woman advisor and then the men advisors. The woman advisor gives him good advice, and he doesn't take it, which is just to surround it, cut off his supplies and starve them out. He decides though to go with what the men say and they attack. They end up losing most of the army in the, in storms and the ships and so on.

They lose the battle and they have to go back defeated to Persia and they get back to Persia, starving, many died on the way, from disease and so on, and he comes back, humiliated. From this battle. And that is the Ahazurus that we read about in chapter 2, verse 1. He's come back and one, historian I read said they, they described as he remembered Vashti.

coming back, that she was the queen, she was the one he had, he, she's the one who's the mother of his children. But the law of the Medes and Persians, which cannot be changed, She cannot be elevated back to the position of queen. And so we get then this scenario that is brought up that we'll have a beauty contest. And And we'll get a new queen.

And so that's, that's what brings this into play, and that is what's, what has happened for this time. And so we also find that Down, let's picked up in verse 5, it says, now there was at the citadel in Susa, a Jew who was, whose name was Mordecai, the son of Jaer, the son of Shemia, the son of Kish, a Benjamite. Who had been taken into exile from Jerusalem with the captives, who had been exiled with Zeaniah, king of Judah, whom Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon had exiled.

And if you remember there were 3 deportations, this is the second one.

And so, the, the tribe of Judah, the tribe of Benjamin, they were the two main tribes that were, that were, that formed the southern kingdom of Judah. And he was a Benjamite. And Kish is a very Benjamite name. that was the, the name of the father of King Saul, who was of the tribe of Benjamin.

just, that's interesting to me, may not be to you. he was, it says there in verse 7, he was bringing up Hadassah. That is Esther, his uncle's daughter, for she had no father or mother. Now, the young lady was beautiful of form and face, and when her father and mother died, Mordecai took her as his own daughter.

One of the things, it seems that Mordecai did this, being a very prudent man that he was, as, as we see demonstrated throughout this story. That he changed her name when it came time to do so from Hadassa to Esther. Esther is a Babylonian name, Hadassa was a Hebrew name, and in order to hide her ethnicity for her protection, changed her, gave her a Babylonian name to go by. And so that is the, that's probably, the, the purpose of this.

In verses 15 to 20, we find that, that Esther is chosen. she's the one that, that has the, the, the, the greatest interest to the king and so she's the one who's brought in and, and proclaimed as queen, the next queen for King Ahazurus. And so, those are the events that take place to bring us up to this point. And again, we are observing the providential working of God.

God is, is working through these advisors that's, that, advise the king to have this beauty contest. and it's all for the purpose of getting Esther into a place of influence, to be able to accomplish a purpose that God has. So we see God working again. Now, in, in a verse.

21 to 23. we find that there is a plot to, by a couple of the, people that work in the palace to, kill the king, and Mordecai hears about it, and sends a warning, through Esther, and, so Mordecai is actually given credit for saving the king's life, because he reveals the plot. And that is recorded, it says, in the Chronicles in of the King's palace, and that comes up later in the story, and then in verses 5 to 7, we, we get a new character. In this story, his name is Hayman.

And Hayman is, is a person who's part of, of the court, part of probably an advisor or so on, and, and for whatever reason, And we're not told the reason, but he is elevated to a very high position. by the king. He calls him an agaagite. That's a hard one to say.

but it's believed that he is a descendant. of King Agag, who was the king of the Amalekites. And the Amalekites were the nation that God had commanded King Saul to destroy. King Agag was the king at that time.

And Saul was to, to destroy the whole thing, the, the whole nation. however, there, and they, they were destroyed eventually, at least the ones that were there, but there were, probably people as part of, of that group, people group, they were in other locations that did, did not get destroyed apparently because Haman shows up in this story. And, The Malekites, by the way, were descendants of Esau. And so, we remember the, the issues between Jacob and Esau, and those issues never went away.

And so we find this, this strife that goes on, all through generations, clear to this time. Haman, began to be resentful of Mordecai because Mordecai would not bow to him when he walked by. We're not told why Mordecai wouldn't bow to him. But I'm guessing it's because he knew him.

that's, that's my thought because Mordecai also was part of the, the king's court. He had easy access there. He continually kept in contact with Esther, and so, he probably knew Haman from before he was elevated to this position and knew that he was a scoundrel and that he wasn't worthy of, of the honor and so just refused to do it. So Haman comes up with this plan.

And the plan is to destroy not just Haman because he could have just gone with Haman or with Mordecai rather, but His plan was to destroy all of the Jews throughout the whole empire. That was, he wanted to make a big deal out of this. And so his, his resentments were not just against Mordecai, they were far deeper than, than Mordecai. They were, and so he allowed the issue of Mordecai to be, to, to create this big issue and create this this edict by the king, that all of the Jews would be destroyed, their properties taken.

And, and, and, and so that would be their plan. That was his, his plot and Mordecai's reaction. was to, to, clothe himself in, sackcloth and mourn, as did many of the Jews in, in the, the capital there of Susa. And then as the message went out throughout the empire in the other places where the Jewish people were, there was great mourning.

Esther didn't hear about it right away, so, so, Mordecai got the message to her and her reaction was, and, and his message was, you need to do something. And she says, how can I do something? I can't go before the king without being summoned, and I haven't seen him for 30 days. And his, his response is, is very classic.

one of the, the most interesting quotes in all of it, and that is, who knows, but that you are come to the kingdom for such a time as this. And that is the, the, the message that gets through to Esther. And so her response again is classic, that, that she would go, and she says, 3 days of fasting. But I will do it.

And if I perish, I perish. And so that is her, her response in, in this story. And so, again, we see, here we see a an understanding of Providence, that something is working because Mordecai, even though in, in the book of Esther, God is never mentioned. What we see is recognition.

Of, of, of God and the power of God through the actions that they take. The fasting, why would they fast? except to, to gain favor with God. And so, that is, that is what they do and, and, and they are, and one of the things that Mordecai says is if you don't do it to Esther, we will be rescued some other way.

And so, there is, again, this, this recognition of Providence that even they have So Esther has a plan and we don't have time to go into real detail on this. It's a, the, but the way these events transpire is one of the most amazing stories in history. And it's worth reading if you haven't done it this week, but Esther's plan includes After her fasting of 3 days, she puts on her royal robes, goes out and stands in the court. The king sees her, and so she puts herself at risk.

because if he doesn't invite her in, she is to die. That's, that's the law. But he invites her in and then she invites him and Haman to a banquet. They go that afternoon to the banquet, and then she, asks for another banquet.

For the next day. And so, that's, that's her plan is to, through this series, to not just be up, upfront and, and, and and blurt it all out, but to, to give it time to try to gain favor with the king. Her plan works very well. And again, it's providential because there are other things that God's gonna do in, in this whole series of things that's going to expose Haman and create the, the ability for this great rescue.

And so in verses 9 to 6, we see Haman's folly, in, in that he goes home thinking from the first banquet thinking, wow, I'm really somebody. I, I, I'm really a ride because even the queen recognizes me as being someone who's important because I was the only one along with the king to go to this banquet, and I got invited to another one tomorrow. So he's, he's really happy and, and, and And, celebrating this with his family and, and so on, but he's really bugged about one thing and that Mordecai still won't bow to him.

And, so his wife advises him to build this gallows, that, that he should ask the king the next day to hang Mordecai on that gallows.

So he does. So he, he hires his construction workers and they build these gallows, for, for Mordecai to be hanged on. The next day, he, he shows up in the court, but what he doesn't know is that God is working, and God has kept the king up all night with bad dreams and so on, and he can't sleep and he goes and reads the chronicles and finds out and remembers that Mordecai has saved his life. by revealing the plot to have him killed.

And so, the next morning, Hayman's coming into the court to, To ask for Mordecai's hanging and instead, the king interrupts him and says, what would you do to reward someone who is worthy of great honor and, and, and Haman thinks it's about himself and so he comes up with this, this thing of leading him around the streets, on a horse and, and, and, they would, proclaim great honor to this person and And the king says that sounds like a great idea. You do that for Mordecai. And so what a turn of events.

Mordecai is now beginning to feel like, oh, things aren't going and he's a, a big believer in, in a fatalist.

You can, you can read that with his responses. and, the, the things aren't just going right. but he, he, he goes ahead and does what the king's, king asks. He goes home and he's in, he's just in terrible shape, emotionally, his wife says, you're toast, dude.

And, and so, Haman, he's, he's, and, and, and just at the end of that conversation, the, the messengers come from the king to go to the 2nd banquet. Go to the 2nd banquet, the king asked Esther, what can I do for you up to half the kingdom? And Esther says, saved my life. And the king's, that got the king's attention.

And so then she explains what is going on and he says, who's done this? And she says, that guy. And Haman is just undone and, and as you read the story, you, you, you see the power of the emotions and, and the responses. So he's exposed and, and so anyway, the king is so angry, and what ends up happening is that Haman is hung on his own gallows.

And then in the next day or two, all of his sons are as well. And The, the new edict goes out. That would, would allow the Jewish people to band together and protect themselves against anyone who would come and try to kill them. And in what we then see.

Is, that Over 75,000 people are killed throughout the empire, which tells us some things that we'll get into in just a little bit about how, how things were in, in the life of the Jews in, within the empire. But what we see here is, through all of these events, God's providential hand, that Esther was in the palace for such a time as this, that all of these events take place according to God's time. And, it's interesting when Haman begins to, to develop this plan. He's at the beginning of the year, and the day that he had by the roll of dice.

this determines is at the end of the year. They have 12 months roughly. To, to, actually come up with a, a, a plan of defense or, or to, to deal with what's going on. So it wasn't like it was going to be the next day or the next week.

God made it, God ordained it, so there would be this, this almost a whole year. before, the, the Jewish people would have to rise up and defend themselves. So again, we see God's providence. God's providence is, is in every single aspect of this story as it comes out.

And by the way, that's pretty normal. God's providence is, is in every aspect of our lives too, right? We see him working every day in the different things that we're involved in. And so, that is, What is going on, but We do see In getting to application.

Well, there, there are some things about the Jewish life, That we see. And one of the things that we see is that there are large numbers of Jewish people that have not gone back to Israel. Large numbers that are scattered throughout the empire. And From, from the reading I did, most of them were, were probably in the major city centers like Babylon, but they would have been in Susa, in the capital cities, the, the larger cities.

there would be the biggest population pockets, but some of them are also out in the countryside as, as it it describes. but they were there and they were living quite well. They, in fact, were prosperous enough that their properties were coveted by other people. So that when the, the, the edict went out and declared that their properties could be confiscated, they could be killed and their properties taken, that was very appealing.

So the, the Jewish people were, were doing quite well. And they also had freedom, a, a, a, a large level of freedom as being part of this empire. In, in that they could choose their business, what business they worked in, they could prosper by their business, they could move around from, from place to place. So he did have a large amount of freedom.

But they also had to deal with the anti-Semitism that Just seems to naturally crop up wherever they go. And we see here that anti-Semitism is not new. Nor are the causes of anti-Semitism new. it, it seems to go wherever they are and As you look through history, even later history, than this, you, you see it coming and it's, it, to me at least, it always seems irrational.

it, it's, it's different. There's, there's always been amongst people prejudice and so on that, that, because that we're sinful people and we, and we, we have sinful reactions to things. But this is beyond that. And one of the things that, that we need to see is that Satan has never ceased in his war against God to to try to destroy Israel.

And he does it by instigating hatred. And he's done that, since the covenant to Abraham. And so as we look through the history of Israel, we see it. I was I, I read a book about a year and a half ago about the Six Day War in 1967.

And it's, it's a great book and it has very, very good detail about it. It's called The Lion's Gate. You open up the, the cover, just open the cover, and on the inside of the cover, there's a map of North Africa all the way over to Iran. And then countries north of that.

And all these countries, we're banded together to fight against this little sliver of property, this little sliver of real estate called Israel. They, in, in that year, they had all made agreement, covenant together that all of these nations would fight against this little sliver of land. Why? Why that hatred?

Why would that be? It's, it's not rational. It's this little tiny sliver of land, and you got all of Northern Africa, all around Arabia, clear over Iran and up north. Why?

It, it makes no sense to me. That this little sliver of land. would be thought to they want to drive them into the ocean. But it's irrational.

That it, there is something behind it. There's always that person behind it, and that is Satan. And, and I believe that, that the anti-Semitism to a great extent is, is satanically caused. We also see the providential hand of God that was at work in ancient Persia also holds sway over our contemporary times.

In this story, we see The hand of God working, working, working, but we also see Him working in our times as well. If you read the news or listen to the news, that's not the fake news. if you can discern between what's real and what's not, but you, you can really tell what's going on. It's not blind comfort that we take.

Knowing that God is moving pieces. That, that he's doing things, because he's moving history to a direction, to a point. He is accomplishing his purpose, and he never fails in accomplishing his purpose. And just like he didn't fail here, he doesn't fail there.

And so the heart of the king, is in the hand of the Lord. When you read the story of Esther, there was also God working in the heart of, of many of the people too, because it talks about a great dread that fell upon them, because of the Jewish people that, that they did not, many of them did not attack the Jewish people because this great dread fell upon them. God put that there. God does that and God does things in our world today.

God has not abandoned. The world. God is working and doing things, and he's accomplishing his purpose and we take, we should take great hope in that. And we should also see things from a certain perspective.

And, and so our perspective needs to be, have that, that healthy view that God is doing his work. I love this quote from Nebuchadnezzar. It's in Daniel chapter 4, he says this, all the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing, but he does according to his will, in the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth, and no one can ward off his hand. Nebuchadnezzar, one of the greatest kings that ever lived, one of the smartest engineers that there ever was.

said this after God humbled him. And he understood that the God of heaven rules everything. And so our, our response should be the same. That we submit to this God, that this God is the one who is controlling life out there in the big world.

He's controlling our individual lives as well. He's doing things. Yes, he meant it, what we see. It's human reactions and actions, plans and so forth.

that behind the scenes, behind all of that, God is moving things toward a direction, including our lives. All right, let's pray. Thank you, Father, for The hope that we have in you and that The revelation that you've given to us, that you care about us, that you are all powerful, that you're all knowing, and that you always accomplish your purpose and your plan. And Lord, we trust in that, we trust in what you do.

And we just want to give ourselves to that. Lord, we need wisdom, we need discernment. And we need to understand, I ask that you help us to have that, and help us to have new understanding because of our study today in Jesus' name. Amen.

God bless you all.