Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / June 14th, 2015 | Route 66 - Esther

Transcript

June 14th, 2015 | Route 66 - Esther · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

0:00
SPEAKER_00: On the news last month, I thought Karen's a lot like Esther, who is is the heroine in today's story.
0:08
SPEAKER_00: If if you haven't been here at church, we're doing a Route 66.
0:11
SPEAKER_00: We're a Bible church.
0:12
SPEAKER_00: We're going through the Bible, 66 books of the Bible.
0:16
SPEAKER_00: And I knew that I would be preaching on Esther in just a few weeks.
0:22
SPEAKER_00: Because Karen, by flinging herself and risking her life onto those six-year-olds, in a sense, I thought it's a little like Esther, who risked her life, very well could have died, but she, in a sense, gave up her life, or at least risked her life, to save a very helpless nation which was on the cusp of being totally destroyed.
0:40
SPEAKER_00: So wanted to show you that news story and and as an introduction to the book of Esther today.
0:47
SPEAKER_00: In my view, the uh the best way to capture this book is with this title, Even When God Seems Absent, He is Present.
0:56
SPEAKER_00: Now I must say though, uh, as I came up, I've got to throw in a couple shout-outs.
1:01
SPEAKER_00: I was surprised to see a couple of people.
1:03
SPEAKER_00: Uh we already have uh a couple of missionaries who are here this morning, been and dying, Clary, and uh they're doing some Sunday school classes right now.
1:12
SPEAKER_00: But I saw Corey Verge.
1:13
SPEAKER_00: Am I right?
1:14
SPEAKER_00: Corey is right back in the corner from Indonesia.
1:20
SPEAKER_00: So if you want to.
1:23
SPEAKER_00: And then I saw Lazarus.
1:25
SPEAKER_00: He walked out of the tomb.
1:26
SPEAKER_00: Now, actually, I saw Doug Masterson over there.
1:29
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if you know he's in the was in the back row over there, Doug and Leote.
1:33
SPEAKER_00: Just astounding after his uh major surgery in Kansas City that that he would be here.
1:39
SPEAKER_00: So I I had to give a shout out to those two people.
1:42
SPEAKER_00: Now, all right.
1:43
SPEAKER_00: Back to the book.
1:44
SPEAKER_00: And I decided, listen, um, I I know that uh very few of you read this book last week, and some of you may not be familiar with the story.
1:52
SPEAKER_00: So I am actually going to do some Bible.
1:54
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna, Bible church, we're gonna do Bible reading this morning.
1:57
SPEAKER_00: Now, all of the Bible that I'm going to read, I've gone ahead and put on the screen uh up in front of you.
2:03
SPEAKER_00: And and so you uh you you can follow along in your Bible or you can follow along with the Holman Christian Standard Bible up on the screen.
2:10
SPEAKER_00: This is a very, very interesting story that takes place uh actually, uh, the first uh first story in chapter one starts in 483 BC.
2:20
SPEAKER_00: We we know that because we know that this great king Xerxes ruled from 486 BC to 465 BC.
2:29
SPEAKER_00: And so the book begins with the words these events took place during the days of Ahazuerus.
2:34
SPEAKER_00: We know him better as Xerxes today, who ruled 127 provinces from India to Cush.
2:42
SPEAKER_00: Cush is Sudan or Ethiopia.
2:44
SPEAKER_00: Now, this was a great time in world history.
2:48
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
2:48
SPEAKER_00: Rome is just uh beginning to uh get strong up in Europe.
2:53
SPEAKER_00: Greece, Socrates is about to be born.
2:56
SPEAKER_00: Uh, in fact, he is born, I think, on in 480 BC.
2:59
SPEAKER_00: And so the age of philosophy with Socrates and Plato is beginning up in Greece.
3:04
SPEAKER_00: Uh, Judah, as you know, has been conquered, and many of them are here in Persia, but 50 years ago, a number of them were allowed to go back and rebuild the temple.
3:14
SPEAKER_00: So worship has started back in Jerusalem.
3:17
SPEAKER_00: But now Persia, Jerusalem is just one of the provinces of Persia.
3:21
SPEAKER_00: So uh over in China, Confucius is uh gonna die this year, and Sun Tzu is in the middle of writing the Art of War.
3:28
SPEAKER_00: So this is a great time in history, but you may know it if you follow warfare as the date of the Battle of Thermopylae, which is in a way uh the greatest single last stand battle of all time.
3:42
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you have followed some of the movies.
3:45
SPEAKER_00: Uh there's been several movies made about this, the 300 Spartans back about 50 years ago, the movie 300 more recently.
3:53
SPEAKER_00: That guy right there would be Leonidas, the uh the captain of the 300 Spartans during the third and last day of that battle.
4:03
SPEAKER_00: And the story goes that that our king, and this is actually true, Xerxes I, uh, went up to Greece, and uh Herodotus wrote about it in the Persian Wars uh this very century, went up to Greece, decided he would conquer Greece.
4:19
SPEAKER_00: And he had Xerxes had like, Herodotus said over a million troops.
4:23
SPEAKER_00: Historians figure only a couple hundred thousand.
4:26
SPEAKER_00: But but but the Greeks tried to hold them off at this narrow pass, Thermopylae, with only about 5,000 men.
4:33
SPEAKER_00: But several hundred of those men were Spartans who were great fighters.
4:37
SPEAKER_00: And as the war proceeded, it got down to the third day, and you ended up with really just these 300 willing to die, and they did die, to protect that pass as long as possible from all of these Persian hordes.
4:51
SPEAKER_00: And the fact of the matter is that while Persia conquered there, they were deeply bloodied and defeated in some ways, even though they won.
5:00
SPEAKER_00: They lost thousands of troops.
5:02
SPEAKER_00: And uh then they ended up uh getting defeated a few years later at the Bay of Salamis when some of their 1,200 ships got sunk.
5:10
SPEAKER_00: Well, our story, this story of Esther, takes place surrounding those events.
5:15
SPEAKER_00: And you have to understand that though the battle of Thermopylae and the battle against the Persian wars against Greece are not ever mentioned in here.
5:24
SPEAKER_00: Chapter one happens right before Xerxes goes to Greece.
5:29
SPEAKER_00: He's gonna throw this huge party, this sort of recruitment party, for the whole province to try to talk as many soldiers and kings as he can who are underneath them to go up to Greece.
5:40
SPEAKER_00: And so that's how the book begins.
5:42
SPEAKER_00: In those days, King Ahazuierus reigned from his royal throne in the fortress at Susa.
5:48
SPEAKER_00: He held a feast for all his officials and staff, the army of Persia and the nobles, officials from the provinces, and he displayed the glorious wealth of his kingdom for a total of a hundred and eighty days.
5:59
SPEAKER_00: So this is a basically, again, a recruitment party.
6:03
SPEAKER_00: And uh and we read that at the end of this time the king held a week-long banquet in the garden courtyard of the palace for all the people from greatest to least present in the fortress of Susa.
6:13
SPEAKER_00: Royal wine flowed freely, no restraint placed on the drinking.
6:18
SPEAKER_00: And I will insert here is a verse I didn't mention.
6:21
SPEAKER_00: Um He gave a personalized gold goblet to every single person there.
6:27
SPEAKER_00: I think, sort of as a bribe to get them fight with him up in Greece.
6:31
SPEAKER_00: Every one of them different, every one of them we know inscribed with a special.
6:35
SPEAKER_00: There's actually one of them in a museum overseas.
6:38
SPEAKER_00: And so a number of the people who are at this banquet are going to go up and are going to appear in one of those Hollywood movies that you're gonna see.
6:45
SPEAKER_00: So um, they're gonna die up in Greece.
6:48
SPEAKER_00: So, anyway, on the seventh day when the king was feeling good from the wine, he commanded to bring his queen Vashti before him with her royal crown.
6:56
SPEAKER_00: He wanted to show off her beauty to the people and the officials because she's very beautiful, but Queen Vashti refused to come at the king's command.
7:04
SPEAKER_00: Not a good idea.
7:06
SPEAKER_00: King became furious, asked what should be done, and so the men sat around deciding what should be done.
7:13
SPEAKER_00: And the winner was the guy who said this: if it meets the king's approval, he should personally issue a decree, uh, et cetera, et cetera.
7:21
SPEAKER_00: Vashti's not to enter his presence anymore.
7:23
SPEAKER_00: Her royal position is to be given to another woman, and they all approved the proposal.
7:28
SPEAKER_00: He followed the guy's advice.
7:30
SPEAKER_00: So that's the setting.
7:32
SPEAKER_00: All right?
7:33
SPEAKER_00: Now we move to chapter two, and I think the battle, uh uh the battles have happened in Greece, and Xerxes has come back sort of a whipped pup, and uh he's he's downcast.
7:45
SPEAKER_00: Sometime later, we read, the king's personal attendant suggested let's make the king happy, let's have a beauty contest.
7:52
SPEAKER_00: Let a search be made for beautiful young women for the king, assemble all of them to the harem at the fortress of Susa, give them beauty treatments, then the young woman who pleases the king will become queen instead of Ashti.
8:04
SPEAKER_00: The suggestion please the king.
8:06
SPEAKER_00: Really surprising.
8:08
SPEAKER_00: And he did accordingly.
8:11
SPEAKER_00: In the fortress of Susa, there was a Jewish man named Mordecai.
8:17
SPEAKER_00: He'd been taken into exile from Jerusalem back when King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon took Judah into exile.
8:24
SPEAKER_00: Mordecai was the legal, he was from the tribe of Benjamin.
8:26
SPEAKER_00: He was the legal guardian of his cousin Hadassah, beautiful Hebrew name.
8:31
SPEAKER_00: They called her, they'd given her the name Esther, which means star in Babylon, because she didn't have a father and mother.
8:38
SPEAKER_00: The young woman was extremely good looking.
8:40
SPEAKER_00: When her father and mother died, Mordecai had adopted her as his own daughter.
8:44
SPEAKER_00: So Esther, being pretty, was taken to the palace with the other women and put under the care of Heggai in charge of the women.
8:51
SPEAKER_00: The young woman pleased him.
8:53
SPEAKER_00: That is Esther pleased him especially, gained his favor, so he accelerated the process of the beauty treatments.
8:59
SPEAKER_00: Two pedicures a day, not just one.
9:02
SPEAKER_00: And the special diet that she received, two salads a day.
9:06
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
9:07
SPEAKER_00: Half a salad, whatever.
9:08
SPEAKER_00: He assigned seven female servants to her from the palace and transferred her and her servants to the harem's best headquarters.
9:17
SPEAKER_00: Esther did not reveal her ethnic background.
9:19
SPEAKER_00: She didn't tell, she didn't say she was a Jew or her birthplace because Mordecai had ordered her not to, knowing that's toxic information.
9:28
SPEAKER_00: Every day Mordecai took a walk in front of the courtyard to learn how Esther was doing and to see what was happening to her.
9:34
SPEAKER_00: Esther finally was taken to King Ahashuirus in the tenth month.
9:38
SPEAKER_00: He was going through the girls, checking them out.
9:41
SPEAKER_00: The king loved Esther more than all of the other women.
9:44
SPEAKER_00: He placed the royal crown on her head, he made her queen.
9:46
SPEAKER_00: He held a great banquet for all everybody, Esther's banquet.
9:50
SPEAKER_00: He freed his provinces from tax payments.
9:52
SPEAKER_00: He gave gifts worthy of the king's bounty.
9:55
SPEAKER_00: Now, during those days, when Mordecai was sitting at the king's gate, these are the last verses of chapter 2, two guards plotted to assassinate the king.
10:04
SPEAKER_00: Mordecai overheard them.
10:06
SPEAKER_00: And when Mordecai learned of the plot, he reported it to Queen Esther, and she told the king.
10:11
SPEAKER_00: And when the report was investigated and verified, both men were hanged on the gallows, and it was recorded in the historical record.
10:20
SPEAKER_00: After all this took place, King Ahazuerus honored his number two guy, Haman the Agagai.
10:26
SPEAKER_00: He promoted him in rank over all the other officials, and the entire royal staff at the king's gate bowed down and paid homage to Haman because the king had commanded this to be done for him.
10:37
SPEAKER_00: How grating would that be?
10:38
SPEAKER_00: Well, there was one guy who didn't bow down.
10:41
SPEAKER_00: Mordecai wouldn't bow down or pay homage.
10:43
SPEAKER_00: And when Haman saw that Mordecai wasn't bowing down or paying homage, he was filled with rage.
10:48
SPEAKER_00: And when he learned of Mordecai's ethnic identity, Haman decided not to just do away with Mordecai alone.
10:54
SPEAKER_00: He decided to destroy all of Mordecai's people, the Jews, throughout the whole kingdom.
10:59
SPEAKER_00: That would include Jerusalem.
11:02
SPEAKER_00: Haman informed the king there's one ethnic group scattered throughout the peoples in every province, live in isolation, their laws are different.
11:10
SPEAKER_00: It's not in your best interest to tolerate them.
11:12
SPEAKER_00: If the king approves, let an order be drawn up authorizing their destruction, their extermination.
11:19
SPEAKER_00: I can't read that without thinking that just eight, ten days ago, Melody and I were in the Czech Republic visiting a concentration camp because Haman and Heydrich and Eichmann had drawn up an edict, a decree to kill all of the Jews.
11:37
SPEAKER_00: Very similar.
11:38
SPEAKER_00: And Haman said, I'll pay 375 tons of silver to the accountants for deposit in the royal treasury.
11:46
SPEAKER_00: The king removed his signet finger from his ring, and he gave it to Haman, the enemy of the Jewish people, and he said, The money and people are given to you to do with as you see fit.
11:58
SPEAKER_00: And letters were sent by couriers to each of the 127 provinces, telling the officials to destroy, kill, and annihilate.
12:06
SPEAKER_00: Any one of those is probably sufficient, but all three of them together you're really done in.
12:12
SPEAKER_00: To destroy, kill, and annihilate all the Jewish people, young and old, women and children, and plunder their possessions on a single day, the thirteenth day of Adar, the twelfth month.
12:21
SPEAKER_00: Now, chapter four.
12:23
SPEAKER_00: When Mordecai learned all that had occurred, he tore his clothes, put on sackcloth, went in the middle of the city, cried loudly and bitterly.
12:29
SPEAKER_00: In fact, there was great mourning among all the Jewish people in every province.
12:33
SPEAKER_00: They all fasted, wept, lamented.
12:35
SPEAKER_00: They lay on sackcloth and ashes.
12:37
SPEAKER_00: And Esther, interestingly enough, does not know what's going on.
12:41
SPEAKER_00: She's there with the other pretty girls, and there's no CNN in that department of the palace, have no idea what's happening.
12:47
SPEAKER_00: So she has to summon one of the king's eunuchs assigned to her, and dispatched him to Mordecai to learn what he's doing.
12:55
SPEAKER_00: How come she's seen him outside the king's gate in ashes?
12:59
SPEAKER_00: Mordecai told him everything that happened, as well as the exact amount of money Haman promised to pay for the slaughter of the Jews.
13:06
SPEAKER_00: And Mordecai also gave him a copy of the decree, ordering their destruction, so he could show it to Esther and explain it, command her to approach the king, implore his favor, plead with him personally for the Jewish people, for her people.
13:20
SPEAKER_00: But Esther responded in verse 10 listen, this will get me killed.
13:27
SPEAKER_00: All the officials and people know one law applies to every man or woman who approaches the king in the inner courtyard who hasn't been summoned.
13:34
SPEAKER_00: The death penalty.
13:36
SPEAKER_00: Only if the king extends the gold scepter will that person live.
13:39
SPEAKER_00: And I've not been summoned to appear before him for 30 days.
13:43
SPEAKER_00: Mordecai's response was famous.
13:46
SPEAKER_00: Don't think that you'll escape the fate of all the Jews just because you're in the king's palace.
13:50
SPEAKER_00: If you keep silent at this time, liberation and deliverance will come to the Jewish people from God.
13:57
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't say God, does he?
13:59
SPEAKER_00: This is the point in this strange and unique book where you would more than any other time expect that the word God would show up.
14:09
SPEAKER_00: But the name of God never appears in this book, not once, making it in that way the strangest book in the Bible.
14:16
SPEAKER_00: It does not even appear here where you would expect it to appear more than any other place.
14:23
SPEAKER_00: Deliverance will come to the Jewish people from another place, but you and your father's house will be destroyed.
14:29
SPEAKER_00: Who knows?
14:30
SPEAKER_00: Perhaps you've come to the kingdom, to your royal position for such a time as this.
14:36
SPEAKER_00: And Esther's reply to Mordecai, okay.
14:39
SPEAKER_00: Go and assemble all the Jews who can be found.
14:42
SPEAKER_00: Fast for me, don't eat or drink for three days, day or night.
14:44
SPEAKER_00: I and my servants will also fast.
14:46
SPEAKER_00: After that, I'll go to the king, even if it's against the law.
14:49
SPEAKER_00: If I perish, I perish like Karen.
14:52
SPEAKER_00: She flings herself, in a sense, on top of the children to save them.
14:57
SPEAKER_00: And on the third day, chapter 5, she dresses up in her royal clothing.
15:01
SPEAKER_00: The king's sitting on his royal throne in the royal courtroom, facing its entrance.
15:06
SPEAKER_00: As soon as the king saw her standing in the courtyard, she won his approval.
15:10
SPEAKER_00: The king extended the gold scepter in his hand toward Esther, and she approached and touched the tip of the scepter.
15:17
SPEAKER_00: What is it, Queen Esther?
15:18
SPEAKER_00: The king asked her.
15:19
SPEAKER_00: Whatever you want, I'll give it to you.
15:21
SPEAKER_00: If it pleases the king, Esther replied, Would you and Haman come today to a banquet I've prepared?
15:27
SPEAKER_00: The king commanded, Hurry, get Haman, let's do it.
15:30
SPEAKER_00: So they go to the banquet.
15:31
SPEAKER_00: Esther prepares.
15:32
SPEAKER_00: And while drinking the wine at the banquet, the king asked, Whatever you ask, it'll be done.
15:37
SPEAKER_00: Whatever you want, even to half the kingdom, it'll be done.
15:39
SPEAKER_00: And she answered, This is my request.
15:41
SPEAKER_00: If the king approves of me, if it pleases the king to grant my request, may the king and Haman come to a banquet I'm going to prepare for you tomorrow.
15:51
SPEAKER_00: She puts it off.
15:53
SPEAKER_00: Wonderfully, providentially.
15:56
SPEAKER_00: She puts it off.
15:57
SPEAKER_00: Tomorrow I'll do what the king has asked.
16:00
SPEAKER_00: And notice what happens in between the banquets.
16:03
SPEAKER_00: Two things, chapter 5, 9 to 14, that day Haman left full of joy and in good spirits, but when he saw Mordecai at the gate, and Mordecai didn't rise or tremble in fear at his presence, Haman's filled with rage.
16:14
SPEAKER_00: He goes home, he cries, he whines, his wife, all his friends told him, Build a gallows 75 feet high.
16:21
SPEAKER_00: Go to the king in the morning and ask to hang Mordecai on it.
16:23
SPEAKER_00: Then go to the banquet with the king and enjoy yourself.
16:26
SPEAKER_00: The advice pleased Haman.
16:28
SPEAKER_00: So he had the gallows constructed.
16:31
SPEAKER_00: Bad idea.
16:32
SPEAKER_00: Chapter 6.
16:34
SPEAKER_00: That night sleep escaped the king.
16:36
SPEAKER_00: So he ordered the book recording daily events to be brought and read, and they found the written report of how Mordecai had informed on the two guards when they planned to assassinate him.
16:46
SPEAKER_00: And the king said, What honor and special recognition have been given to Mordecai for this act?
16:51
SPEAKER_00: And the attendants replied, Nothing has been done for him.
16:56
SPEAKER_00: King heard noise.
16:57
SPEAKER_00: King said, Who's in the court?
16:59
SPEAKER_00: Haman was entering the outer court of the palace early in the morning to ask the king if he could hang Mordecai on the gallows.
17:06
SPEAKER_00: He'd prepared for him that morning.
17:08
SPEAKER_00: King's attendants answered, Haman's there standing in the court.
17:11
SPEAKER_00: Have him enter, the king ordered.
17:12
SPEAKER_00: Haman entered.
17:13
SPEAKER_00: King asked, What should be done for the man that the king wants to honor?
17:17
SPEAKER_00: And Haman thought to himself, would the king want to honor more than me?
17:23
SPEAKER_00: Haman told the king, Well, have them bring the royal garment the king himself is worn, and a horse the king himself has ridden.
17:30
SPEAKER_00: Have them clothe the man the king wants to honor, parade him on the horse of the city square, proclaim before him, This is what's done for the man that the king wants to honor.
17:39
SPEAKER_00: And the king told Haman, Hurry and do just as you proposed.
17:43
SPEAKER_00: Take a garment and horse for Mordecai the Jew, who's sitting at the king's gate.
17:48
SPEAKER_00: Don't leave out anything you've suggested.
17:50
SPEAKER_00: So Haman took the garment and horse.
17:53
SPEAKER_00: He clothed Mordecai, paraded him to the city square, crying out before him, This is what's done for the man the king wants to honor.
18:02
SPEAKER_00: Chapter 7.
18:04
SPEAKER_00: The king and Haman come to feast with Esther the queen, and once again on the second day, the king asked, What do you want?
18:12
SPEAKER_00: Anything, even to half the kingdom, it'll be done.
18:15
SPEAKER_00: And her answer, if I've obtained your approval, if the kings please, would you spare my w my life?
18:22
SPEAKER_00: And would you spare my people?
18:25
SPEAKER_00: For my people and I have been sold out to destruction, death, and extermination.
18:31
SPEAKER_00: Naturally, the king is blown away.
18:35
SPEAKER_00: Speaks up and asks, Who is this?
18:37
SPEAKER_00: Who's the one who would devised such a scheme?
18:40
SPEAKER_00: Esther answered, The adversary and enemy is this evil Haman.
18:46
SPEAKER_00: Haman stood up, terrified before the king and queen, and angered, the king arose from where they were drinking wine and he went to the palace garden, and Haman stayed behind to beg Queen Esther for his life, because he realized now the king is planning something terrible for him.
18:58
SPEAKER_00: And just as the king returned from the palace garden to the house of wine, drinking Haman's falling on the couch where Esther was reclining.
19:06
SPEAKER_00: Haman, Haman.
19:08
SPEAKER_00: Not not good.
19:09
SPEAKER_00: This doesn't look good.
19:10
SPEAKER_00: And the king exclaimed, Would he actually violate the queen while I'm in the palace?
19:15
SPEAKER_00: As soon as that statement left the king's mouth, Haman's face was covered.
19:20
SPEAKER_00: That's bad when they do that to you.
19:23
SPEAKER_00: And Harbona said, There's a gallows 75 feet tall.
19:27
SPEAKER_00: Just happen to know there's a gallows 75 feet tall.
19:29
SPEAKER_00: Haman's house that he made for Mordecai, who gave the report that saved the king.
19:34
SPEAKER_00: The king commanded, hang him on it.
19:37
SPEAKER_00: They hanged Haman on the gallows, he'd prepared for Mordecai, and then the king's anger subsided.
19:44
SPEAKER_00: Wow, is this a great story or what?
19:47
SPEAKER_00: Now you still have the problem, of course, of the fact that the Jews are going to be exterminated, and that is a royal decree, so you can't take it back.
19:56
SPEAKER_00: So uh the king, uh Esther says, Well, what do we do about this?
20:01
SPEAKER_00: The king says, Well, why don't you and Mordecai write another decree that'll sort of balance it off?
20:06
SPEAKER_00: And they do.
20:08
SPEAKER_00: A national decree that spread you can defend yourself, you can kill those who try to kill you.
20:13
SPEAKER_00: And so we have chapter 9, verse 1, on the day when the Jews' enemies had hoped to overpower them, just the opposite happened.
20:20
SPEAKER_00: The Jews overpowered those who hated them.
20:21
SPEAKER_00: They killed 75,000, didn't lose anybody, and it became a day of feasting and rejoicing, Purim.
20:28
SPEAKER_00: And then we end the book with Mordecai the Jew, then became second only to King Ahashueris.
20:34
SPEAKER_00: I hope someday you get the opportunity as I've had to celebrate Purim with the Jews.
20:38
SPEAKER_00: It's been celebrated every year since 475 B.C.
20:42
SPEAKER_00: It's a delightful, one of their favorite holidays.
20:45
SPEAKER_00: It's full of food and drinking.
20:47
SPEAKER_00: They send wine and food to each other because the Jewish philosophy is they tried to kill us, we won, let's eat.
20:54
SPEAKER_00: And so there's a lot of food, you know, a lot of gifts to charity.
20:59
SPEAKER_00: And then they read through the book of Esther and they all loudly boo and blow whistles whenever Haman's name is mentioned, or they all cheer, you know, when Esther's name is mentioned.
21:09
SPEAKER_00: It's a wonderful holiday celebrated late winter, early spring.
21:12
SPEAKER_00: It was in March, uh, mid-March of this year.
21:16
SPEAKER_00: And uh and that's a holiday that dates from this date when the nation of Israel was spared.
21:24
SPEAKER_00: Now, this is an absolutely remarkable story, but it is far more than just a story.
21:30
SPEAKER_00: It's far more than history.
21:32
SPEAKER_00: Whereas I put on your study sheet, I think the key to this book hangs in the fact that the name of God is not even mentioned one time in this entire book, even when you would expect it to be mentioned, which is why some rabbis suggested this book should be eliminated from the canon of scripture, at least recognized to have an inferior brand of inspiration.
21:54
SPEAKER_00: But I suggest to you this morning that rather than have an inferior brand, it has an extraordinary.
22:00
SPEAKER_00: Brand of inspiration because without even mentioning the name of God once, it reveals to us two incredible, incredible truths about God.
22:10
SPEAKER_00: Truths that stand against the dark background that the characters in this book are far away from God.
22:15
SPEAKER_00: For these are people, these Jews are people who did not go back to the land of promise when God said, go, 50 years before.
22:22
SPEAKER_00: Zerubbabel, with Cyrus's decree, takes 50,000 Jews back.
22:27
SPEAKER_00: But there are Jews that said, you know, we have we're living in ease here.
22:30
SPEAKER_00: We have established a banking system.
22:32
SPEAKER_00: We know they had done a lot of financial stuff there.
22:35
SPEAKER_00: We're just gonna stay here.
22:37
SPEAKER_00: And in a real sense, you could say that the name of God departed the land of Persia with Zerubbal, with those godly Israelites who went back to the place where God said, The name, my name, dwells in Jerusalem.
22:51
SPEAKER_00: And you might say that the name of God had departed from Persia, and those Jews who were there, in a sense, had stopped naming the name of God, stopped hearing the name of God.
23:04
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
23:05
SPEAKER_00: And the wonderful message of this book, then?
23:09
SPEAKER_00: The question of this book is what happens?
23:11
SPEAKER_00: What happens to people who are God's chosen people, God's children who stopped naming the name of God?
23:18
SPEAKER_00: For who of us doesn't know people like that?
23:20
SPEAKER_00: Who of us doesn't have friends or family members who once trusted Jesus Christ?
23:25
SPEAKER_00: They trusted his name and came by faith into a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ.
23:32
SPEAKER_00: But now, maybe for days, maybe for weeks, maybe for months, the name of God is not mentioned by them.
23:38
SPEAKER_00: They do not pray just as there is not one prayer in this book.
23:42
SPEAKER_00: And they may not even hear the name of God, for they do not come to a place where the name of God is sung about.
23:47
SPEAKER_00: They do not hang around the kind of people that speak of the name of God.
23:51
SPEAKER_00: The only time they hear the name of God is in profanity.
23:54
SPEAKER_00: And the question is, what happens?
23:56
SPEAKER_00: How, what's God's relationship to these people who were once close to him, who once who have named his name, who are his true people, who no longer name the name of God.
24:10
SPEAKER_00: And this book answers in a remarkable way that even when God seems absent, God is present.
24:18
SPEAKER_00: It strikes me it's a little bit like one of those large doll houses, you know, that an eight or ten-year-old girl, you know, loves to stand.
24:25
SPEAKER_00: She never walks in the house.
24:26
SPEAKER_00: She's like God with the nation Persia.
24:29
SPEAKER_00: She's never inside the house walking around, but she reaches in and she rearranges the furniture and she rearranges people.
24:36
SPEAKER_00: And you see that in this book.
24:37
SPEAKER_00: In this startling lucky coincidence that Vashti would decide not to go to the banquet.
24:43
SPEAKER_00: So she's deposed.
24:45
SPEAKER_00: And then and then hundreds, maybe thousands of beautiful young virgins are amassed, and there's just one that was chosen, and it's Esther.
24:53
SPEAKER_00: It's a Jewish girl.
24:54
SPEAKER_00: The Mordecai outside the gate.
24:56
SPEAKER_00: The lucky coincidence that he would overhear this plot by two guards against the king, and it would get reported.
25:03
SPEAKER_00: So that when Haman decides he's going to destroy the Jewish people, we have Esther throwing a banquet, but then deciding, just coincidentally, that she's not going to tell the king what she wants the first banquet.
25:16
SPEAKER_00: And in the intervening 24 hours, Haman builds a gallows to kill Mordecai, and the king can't sleep.
25:26
SPEAKER_00: And he finds out, he realizes he's never done anything for the man who saved his life.
25:31
SPEAKER_00: You have coincidence after coincidence after coincidence.
25:35
SPEAKER_00: And you can imagine standing there inside the palace as you watch Haman hanging on his own gallows, and the Jews later succeeding and saying, wow, those Jews really are lucky people.
25:48
SPEAKER_00: But the fact of the matter is that this book tells us that our Almighty God is a God of providence who watches over and protects his people, even when his people have stopped naming his name.
26:03
SPEAKER_00: For God says, I will never leave you or forsake you.
26:06
SPEAKER_00: And though you deny me, I will not, I will remain faithful to you, for I cannot deny myself.
26:13
SPEAKER_00: Well, you say, wouldn't that make you casual about God's grace?
26:17
SPEAKER_00: And and and are you sure that they're Christians?
26:22
SPEAKER_00: Well, I'm not talking about the teenager who gets dragged to church by his girlfriend and sits there as the pastor drones on, and the pastor goes on as long as I am, you know, apparently, you know, for an hour or whatever, and he leans over and says, Are you sure this is the only way to go to heaven?
26:39
SPEAKER_00: I'm not talking about people who are confused about the way to heaven, because somehow think that by going to church or being honest or sincere or somehow working.
26:46
SPEAKER_00: No, they've given away that pretense.
26:48
SPEAKER_00: They realize, I'm talking about people who realize they're lost sinners and they need Jesus for salvation.
26:53
SPEAKER_00: And so they came to Jesus Christ and they trusted his son as their savior.
26:57
SPEAKER_00: I'm talking about people who are truly believers, but then something happens in their life.
27:02
SPEAKER_00: Maybe money comes in, like it did with these people in Persia, and they wander away, and they wander away from the fellowship of God's people.
27:10
SPEAKER_00: And I'm telling you that this character trait of God, this incredible faithfulness, which is so unlike you and me, this amazing, glorifying attribute of God should come to us and break our hearts.
27:22
SPEAKER_00: It should come to every drifting away Christian and say, How can you stay away from a God like that?
27:29
SPEAKER_00: It should rebound in our ears as we pray for our sons and daughters and good friends who've wandered away, and we should say, Thank you, Lord, that you're still watching over them.
27:37
SPEAKER_00: Would you please draw them back to yourself?
27:40
SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of lessons, there's a lot of uh phrases about this in the hymns that we sing.
27:47
SPEAKER_00: This idea that the God of providence is working to protect his people.
27:52
SPEAKER_00: I think of the famous poem, Behind the Dimno, this is the last uh words of one of the songs in our hymnal, Behind the dim unknown stands God within the shadows, keeping watch over his own.
28:06
SPEAKER_00: Can you say amen?
28:07
SPEAKER_00: Isn't that a wonderful promise?
28:11
SPEAKER_00: I know not where his islands live.
28:14
SPEAKER_00: John Greenleaf Whittier, their fronded palms in air.
28:17
SPEAKER_00: I only know I cannot drift beyond his love and care.
28:22
SPEAKER_00: Thank you, God.
28:24
SPEAKER_00: Or this, this is a this is a song right out of our hymnal by William Cowper.
28:28
SPEAKER_00: God moves in a mysterious way his wonders to perform.
28:31
SPEAKER_00: He plants his footsteps in the sea and rides upon the storm.
28:35
SPEAKER_00: Judge not the Lord by your feeble sense, but trust him for his grace.
28:39
SPEAKER_00: Behind a frowning providence, faith sees a smiling face.
28:45
SPEAKER_00: Or in one of my favorite songs from my childhood, and perhaps yours, though I forget him and wander away, still he doth love me wherever I stray.
28:54
SPEAKER_00: Back to his dear loving arms would I flee when I remember that Jesus loves me.
29:01
SPEAKER_00: It is remarkable that in a book that never once mentions the name of God, you have a lesson like this about the God of providence who watches over people and cares for them.
29:14
SPEAKER_00: There's another lesson, however, a secret that's hidden in this book, and it is that the God of prophecy is working to exalt his son.
29:21
SPEAKER_00: How in the world, you say, do you get a message about his son Jesus Christ in this book?
29:26
SPEAKER_00: Well, the clue to this message is found in the last verse, really, that that almost last verse of the book, that the king honored Mordecai.
29:35
SPEAKER_00: Mordecai the Jew was second only to King Ahazui, famous among the Jews and highly popular with many of his relatives.
29:43
SPEAKER_00: He continued to seek good for his people and to speak for the welfare of all his descendants.
29:49
SPEAKER_00: Literally from the Hebrew, great Mordecai was great among the Jews, in favor with or esteemed by his many kinsmen, seeking the good of his people and speaking shalom, speaking peace to all his descendants.
30:06
SPEAKER_00: And my suggestion to you is that in 400 BC, when the children of Israel got this book, heard this story, and read that verse, their pulses quickened because this was the last book written in the Old Testament.
30:18
SPEAKER_00: There's some argument about that, but even if it wasn't, we do, we know that it was one of the last books written.
30:23
SPEAKER_00: And by this time, the prophets had spilled the beans about the Messiah.
30:27
SPEAKER_00: Daniel, Ezekiel, Jeremiah, Isaiah had pointed out the Messiah is coming.
30:32
SPEAKER_00: He's going to be this kind of an amazing character from heaven.
30:35
SPEAKER_00: And so all of a sudden, they're reading that there is a Jew.
30:40
SPEAKER_00: His name is Mordecai.
30:42
SPEAKER_00: And this Jew is great among the Jews, and he's highly esteemed by his kinsmen, and he seeks the good of his people, and he speaks shalom, speaks peace to all his descendants.
30:54
SPEAKER_00: And the Jews go, wow, wow, you know what?
30:57
SPEAKER_00: We know there is coming soon, or coming in the future, another Jew greater than this Jew, who is going to be second only to the great king of kings, and he will be highly esteemed among his kinsmen, and he will seek the good of his people, and he will speak peace to all of his offspring, to all of his seed.
31:16
SPEAKER_00: And so all of a sudden you see that this is a book.
31:19
SPEAKER_00: It's like the author takes you to the end of the book, and then he says to all of the readers, listen, this Mordecai is more than Mordecai.
31:26
SPEAKER_00: This Mordecai is a picture of the great Messiah who is about to come, the one that you have been expecting for all this time.
31:35
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you should turn around and read the book again.
31:39
SPEAKER_00: Maybe there's more here.
31:41
SPEAKER_00: And you say, uh, well, what other characters in the book might be more than they appear?
31:46
SPEAKER_00: Well, Haman, of course, right?
31:49
SPEAKER_00: For Haman is the one who hates Mordecai, this Jew, so much that he hates all of the Jews.
31:54
SPEAKER_00: He's the great enemy, consumed with hatred for God's people.
31:58
SPEAKER_00: But he gets defeated by Mordecai, right?
32:00
SPEAKER_00: And he gets replaced.
32:02
SPEAKER_00: His place of preeminence is taken by Mordecai.
32:04
SPEAKER_00: Who does Haman remind us of?
32:07
SPEAKER_00: Well, he reminds you, doesn't he, of the little whore in the Antichrist and Daniel.
32:12
SPEAKER_00: It's no accident, I don't think, that in Hebrew numerology the name Haman adds up to 666.
32:17
SPEAKER_00: Because Haman represents the great enemy of the Jewish people, that great enemy that we think of today as Satan, who is consumed by hatred for the Messiah, and therefore is consumed by hatred for the Jews.
32:30
SPEAKER_00: But finally he will be destroyed by the Messiah himself, and Messiah will take his place as the preeminent ruler of the world.
32:39
SPEAKER_00: And if Mordecai is more than Mordecai, if he's Jesus Christ, and if Haman is more than Haman, if Haman is the Antichrist, then Esther is surely more than Esther.
32:49
SPEAKER_00: Think of her beauty, think of the fact that of all of the virgins of all of the world, the great king chooses her to be his bride.
32:59
SPEAKER_00: And all of a sudden you think that yes, she does.
33:01
SPEAKER_00: She stands for the nation Israel.
33:03
SPEAKER_00: For God says, Israel, you are my beautiful virgin, the virgin of Zion, and I have chosen you over all of the nations of the earth to be my own, to be my own special bride.
33:14
SPEAKER_00: And God, just like King Ahaz, we showered her with gifts of splendor and gifts of his favor.
33:22
SPEAKER_00: She's an ideal daughter of Zion, Esther is, who risks all to save her people.
33:31
SPEAKER_00: And because the king loves her, her enemies cannot hope to prevail.
33:36
SPEAKER_00: Because the king loves her, they are doomed to fail.
33:40
SPEAKER_00: And you see, and I say, wow, there's such a message here.
33:45
SPEAKER_00: This book tells us about an amazing God of providence, who's always working to protect his people.
33:52
SPEAKER_00: But more, there's a message here about the God of prophecy who's working to exalt his son.
33:58
SPEAKER_00: And finally, one day we'll do that.
34:01
SPEAKER_00: In fact, this book is like a bud, its petals, it flowers that opens, and all of a sudden, the whole message of the Old Testament is captured in this book.
34:12
SPEAKER_00: The past, the present, the future.
34:14
SPEAKER_00: For in this book we find the story of a nation chosen and favored by the great king, but hated, hated by its great enemy.
34:23
SPEAKER_00: But finally the enemy is defeated, and Mordecai is exalted to the right hand of the great king.
34:31
SPEAKER_00: And as we stand before this book, we stand before a God who wants to glorify and exalt and honor the Lord Jesus Christ before us.
34:42
SPEAKER_00: It's no wonder that Jesus, as He as He walked on the road to Emmaus, said, the whole Old Testament testifies of me.
34:49
SPEAKER_00: Search the scriptures, I'm there.
34:52
SPEAKER_00: And this book, like every other book along Route 66, testifies of the glory of God and the beauty of our Lord Jesus Christ.
35:02
SPEAKER_00: And it calls you and I back to repentance, back to closeness to this God who cares for us so much that even though last week you and I wandered away, last week we didn't name his name as often as we should have.
35:18
SPEAKER_00: He still watches over you.
35:20
SPEAKER_00: He loves you.
35:22
SPEAKER_00: He will never leave you or forsake you.
35:27
SPEAKER_00: His love never gives up.
35:29
SPEAKER_00: It never runs out on me.
35:32
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
35:33
SPEAKER_00: Heavenly Father, we thank you for this wonderful story of your love and your faithfulness and your grace and the prediction that all will end well in the end, for you are in charge and you will conquer the enemy and you will bring glory to your son Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray.
35:56
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
36:51
SPEAKER_01: Your love never fails and never gives up, never runs out on me.
36:58
SPEAKER_01: Your life never fails and never gives up, never runs out on me.
37:05
SPEAKER_01: Your love.
38:54
SPEAKER_01: Never runs out on me.
38:56
SPEAKER_01: Yes, your love never fails, it never gives up, never runs out on me.
39:04
SPEAKER_01: Your love your dismiss