Courage from God

--- Welcome to our Women's Bible Study on Esther, which we have titled, When God Works in the Shadows, and today we're going to cover Chapters 3 and 4. And I want to begin with that quote from Benjamin Franklin that I had put in your study guide last week. Benjamin Franklin said this, The longer I live, the more convincing proof I see of this truth, that God governs in the affairs of man. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice, it is improbable that an empire can rise without his aid. And that is the truth. God is continually and always working in the shadows of our lives as well, our communities, our countries, in the small and in the large ways. And so Chapter 3 begins with these familiar words that we've faced before, After these things, this time, it seems like about five years had passed. And the most important thing that we are to receive from this chapter is about this new character, Haman. OK, and a new threat to God's people, which is actually not a new threat, but a very ancient threat. So let's get started. In verse one, After these things, King Ahasuerus promoted Haman, the Agagite, the son of Hamadatha, and advanced him and set his throne above all the officials who were with him. We're not told why or how Haman was advanced. We just find out that he was. And sometimes people get into positions of power, even in our day, even in our country. And we look at them, we go, how did you get here? Like this is happening today, right? How did you work your way up to this position? Because you don't seem to have everything it takes to get there. But maybe it's a comfort to us that this is ancient. This has been happening for thousands of years. OK. But the important part is that he was advanced. And also the important part is his ancestry. He was an Agagite, meaning a descendant of King Agag from the Amalekites. OK, we'll talk about that in a minute. But first, let's see how the plot develops. Verse two, 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. Again, somehow he wiggled his way up to be the grand vizier and everybody was supposed to pay honor to him. But Mordecai did not bow down or pay homage. And then the king's servants who were at the king's gate said to Mordecai, Why do you transgress the king's commands? And when they spoke to him day after day and he would not listen to them, they told Haman in order to see whether Mordecai's words would stand, for he had told them that he was a Jew. All right. So he told them that he was a Jew. Now, you might read that and you might have thought to yourself, Huh, I don't really remember God's people ever being called Jews in the Old Testament. At least not up until this point. This is one of the first times that the Hebrews are called Jews. There is another one prior and it's in Jeremiah during the days of Zedekiah, right at the very end before the final exile. There's one time when it is written, talked about the Jews. But the Book of Esther is one of the first places where God's people begin to be called the Jews. Now, the New Testament, it's all over the place, right? It's very common by then, but I just wanted to point that out. So Mordecai's peers, these royal officials, were asking him why he didn't bow down to Haman. Mordecai told them in answer to that question that he was a Jew. Okay, what are the implications of that? Well, first of all, Mordecai, I think, was a very faithful Jew. And there were things in the scriptures written to him that would have forbidden that. For example, Deuteronomy 5 says,

Bowing down to a man on the regular is something that was forbidden. That's why Daniel and his friends wouldn't do it with Nebuchadnezzar. But there's another reason, too, I think, and that was who exactly Haman was. Like we just said, he was a descendant from King Agag. He was from the Amalekites. Now, I sent you in your study guide on a little journey to discover that, so I'm going to do a very short briefing here in case you didn't get to it. In Exodus 17, after God delivered his people out of Egypt and they were beginning their wilderness journey, Amalek, or the Amalekites, were the very first ones to become the enemies of the Hebrews. They attacked them on the way. And that's where we get that battle where Moses has his staff and his arms up, and Aaron and Hur are holding up his arms. And as long as his arms were raised, Joshua was winning the battle. Even if you didn't know the story, you probably are familiar with that. And so, at the end of that, Joshua was victorious, and God said that he would utterly blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven, but not on that day, okay? It was a promise. So, now we fast forward 40 years to the Hebrews on the precipice of going into the Promised Land, and Moses is giving them the second law, Deuteronomy, and he said to Joshua in that, he said, remember what Amalek did to you on the way as you came out of Egypt. This is Deuteronomy 25, how he attacked you on the way when you were faint and weary. Therefore, when the Lord your God has given you rest from all your enemies, in the land that the Lord your God is giving you for an inheritance to possess, you shall blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven you shall not forget. So, these instructions were given to destroy the enemies of the Jews. All right, so now we fast forward many, many, many hundreds of years. We get to Saul, who is a king, and Samuel instructs him that the Lord said to him, I have noted what Amalek did to Israel. This is in 1 Samuel chapter 15. Now, go strike Amalek and devote to destruction the whole shebang, all the Amalekites. Well, we learned that Saul did not do that. He actually was selective about what was destroyed and what was preserved, and he kept Agag alive. And that was the deal breaker between God and Saul. And that's when God said to Saul, look, you are out. I'm going to put in a man after my own heart to rule over my people because you are not obeying me. Samuel came in and cleaned it up and actually killed Agag. But apparently, there were descendants of Agag that were left because of this. And so, that is kind of a story, a back story on how we get to this man, Haman, who will be called the enemy of the Jews multiple times in this book. Haman, the enemy of the Jews. We see in Haman a spirit that has existed for thousands of years and is still in play. We see the spirit of Haman, the spirit of Antichrist. We go from Haman to Herod to Hitler, and we still have the Antichrist yet to come. And so, the enemy of the Jews. Now, let's keep moving in verse 5. And when Haman saw that Mordecai did not bow down or pay homage to him, Haman was filled with fury. But he disdained to lay hands on Mordecai alone. So, as they made known to him the people of Mordecai, Haman sought to destroy all the Jews, the people of Mordecai, throughout the whole kingdom of Ahasuerus. So, this is the second time in this book so far that someone suggests we burn down the whole house because we saw a spider, okay? This is overreaction. One man didn't bow down to him, but the overreaction is kill them all. Kill everybody that is of his descendant because Haman was mad. And not just mad, the ESV says he was filled with fury. The NIV says he was enraged. The New King James says filled with wrath. So, his solution was not just to punish Mordecai, but to destroy all the Jews. Again, apparently overreaction was very popular in the kingdom of Persia. Do you have an overreactor in your household? Are you an overreactor? Knowing I had this rolling around in my mind, we were warming up soup yesterday, and my husband was warming up a homemade soup. I do cook. He was warming up a homemade soup, and I had a Costco soup. That's what I wanted, but we had to go one at a time in the microwave. And he's standing there, he says, we need two microwaves. And I said, that's an overreaction. I don't think we need two microwaves. We're good. You know, no, we need two microwaves. We're not going to put in two microwaves. Anyway, we're laying in bed that night, lights out. I said, we do have two microwaves. There's one out in the trailer. Problem solved. But truly, some of us are given to overreacting. It is true. We need to learn how to just take a breath. Like, it's going to be okay. Verse seven. In the first month, which is the month of Nisan, in the twelfth year of King Ahasuerus, they cast pur, that is, they cast lots, before Haman day after day. and they cast it month after month till the twelfth month, which is the month of Adder. Then Haman said to King Ahasuerus, There is a certain people scattered abroad and dispersed among the peoples in all the provinces of your kingdom. Their laws are different from those of every other people, and they do not keep the king's laws, so that it is not to the king's prophet to tolerate them. If it please the king, let it be decreed that they be destroyed. I will pay 10,000 talents of silver into the hands of those who have charge of the king's business. This is not to be seen as a bribe here. I'm not giving it to you, O king. I'm giving it to those who have charge of your treasuries, okay? That they may put it into the king's treasuries. So this is all on the up and up, right? So the king took his signet ring from his hand, and he gave it to Haman, the Agagite, the son of Hamadatha, the enemy of the Jews, were intended to get that drilled into our heads. And the king said to Haman, The money is given to you, the people also, to do with them as it seems good to you. Okay, let's review. How did Haman pitch this to the king? He said, There's a certain people, their laws are different than yours. That is true. The Hebrews were distinct. They were intended to be distinct. God's people, their laws were different. But then he said, They do not keep the king's laws. Well, that is unsubstantiated, okay? Mordecai was the one who did not keep an order to bow down. So we're stretching this a little bit. And then he says, It's not to the king's profit to tolerate this particular people. And then he gives the king this bribe, which was a lot. How was the date set to determine this extermination? Well, they cast poor, which is, we'll just call it for our sake, like rolling dice. And now, like flipping a coin isn't an evil thing. I flipped coins in my lifetime to solve problems between kids like thousands of times who gets to sit in the front seat, or you know, who chooses between which pizza we order in that. So flipping coins rolling is that's not the problem. We're intended to think here, that this casting the poor over and over until the proper information was gotten was sort of a reliance on the pagan gods. Okay, there was a superstition attached to it. There was a reliance on that there is God's behind there could have been could have been however, God is bigger than that. And I love this thing that we can know we can see it in this story. And we can know in our lives that God is in control of even people who do superstitious things. Okay, he is in control. And in fact, Proverbs 1633 says the lot is cast into the lap, but it's every decision is from the Lord. I love that. In this case, God gave almost a full year between the order and the date of destruction. That's awesome. So for the third time here in this book, King Ahasuerus listens to his advisors and does whatever they say he's supposed to do. Okay. And remember, this is so dangerous, because what did we learn in week one about the laws of the Medes and the Persians irrevocable, you can't change it. And so he just he listens to an advisor. Good. That's good. Let's do that. Move on. Verse 12. Then the king's scribes were summoned on the take note of this 13th day of the first month. And an edict according to all that Haman commanded was written to the king satraps and to the governors over all the provinces, and to the officials of all the peoples to every province in its own script, and every people in its own language. It was written in the name of King Ahasuerus and sealed with the king's signet ring. letters were sent by couriers to all the king's provinces with instructions to destroy, kill, and to annihilate all Jews, young, old, women, children in one day, the 13th day of the 12th month, which is the month of Adar, and to plunder their goods. A copy of the document was to be issued as a decree in every province by proclamation to all the people to be ready for that day. The couriers went out hurriedly by order of the king and the decree was issued in Susa, the citadel, and the king and Haman sat down to drink, but the city of Susa was thrown into confusion. This is just surreal. We have nothing that we can compare this to in our modern life in Western civilization. We have nothing that we can say, oh yeah it's like that one time. This is like so different. Let's talk about these dates here first of all. The decree was issued on the 13th day of the first month. Now if the 14th day of the first month sounds a little familiar to you, it should. That's Passover. Way back in Exodus, God says on the 10th day, this shall be the first month for you, and on the 10th day select the Passover lamb and keep it until the 14th day. So when is this edict coming out? On the eve of Passover, the day before Passover. That's like somebody coming and telling us on Christmas Eve, you know kind of, that's a holiday for a celebration, like you're all going to be killed next Thanksgiving. Like not only is the edict so weird and strange and surreal in itself, but then on the eve of your biggest holiday as a people. Interesting. Again the annihilation was to happen 11 months later, so for us it would be kind of like handling that from Christmas Eve to Thanksgiving of the next year. So the Persians were left now with 11 months to check out everybody's stuff because they could they could plunder. So it's like whose house is better, yours or yours? I think I'm gonna go with yours. So that's where they had all this time to make their plans. Weird. It's just weird to us, and what's even weirder is how this chapter ends. That the king and Haman sat down to drink. All of Susa is perplexed. They're bewildered. What is going on here? And they're in the bar drinking. Weird. But probably a good move on Haman's part to keep the king drinking and not thinking. Maybe. I don't know. But we're going to move on. Well before we move on I do want to just bring a little bit of an application for us because sometimes we look at these narratives and we think it's all just history and there's nothing for me, but there's something for me here because this problem all came up because Haman was offended. And so I want to just take a moment to talk about how do we handle offenses. Because we all have, we don't have to be an enemy of the Jews, we can just be a normal girl and have a propensity for people to offend us. Are you easily offended or are you difficult to offend? The older I get the more I forget and the less easily offended I am because I just forgot that you even said that or did that. It's like we're friends now, right? But there's a lot of great things about getting older. But anyway it's something for us to think about. And don't you find that it's one thing if someone does or says something to your face, it's almost worse when someone tells you that they said something. And that's what happened in this case. Those officials went and told Haman that Mordecai wouldn't bow down. I don't think he even noticed until somebody tattled. And that almost makes it worse. So there's a great application for us. Can we try through the power of the Holy Spirit to be women who are not easily offended? A big person can let little things go, right? And if you have to sing the song like my five-year-old granddaughter sings it, let it go with all of her lungs and all the power. Hey, whatever it takes to let it go, just let it go. But a lot of relationships can be improved or even saved if we can learn to let offenses go. I want to bring you two more scriptures that were not in your study guide related to this. We'll put them on the screen. Proverbs 14 verse 29 says, a patient man has great understanding, but a quick-tempered man displays folly. And it is a quick temper that causes us to be offended. And then Proverbs 29 11, a fool gives full vent to his anger, but a wise man keeps himself under control. Neither one of those verses said learn to let it go, but that is the point, is to learn to let it go. Chapter four. All right, when Mordecai learned all that had been done, Mordecai tore his clothes, put on sackcloth and ashes, and went out in the midst of the city and cried out with a loud and bitter cry. Obviously, there's a lot of emotions at play, but most of all for Mordecai, he knows this all started because of him. Can you imagine the weight that burden on you? Like this is all because of me. I don't know if he felt it that way. I feel it that way when I read this. He went up to the entrance of the king's gate, for no one was allowed to enter the king's gate clothed in sackcloth. And in every province, wherever the king's command and his decree reached, there was great mourning among the Jews with fasting and weeping and lamenting. And many of them lay in sackcloth and ashes. And we can only imagine the shock and the outrage and the fear among the Jews at this time. And probably not only the Jews, but other ethnic groups, because they were probably looking at this and going, are we next? You know, and that does happen. We lived through World War II. I mean, does expand a little bit. You have to remember in the Persian kingdom, this was a melting pot. The Persians, okay, so it started with the Babylonians conquering and collecting, or the Syrians, I should say, conquering and collecting, and then the Babylonians assimilated those and conquered and collected more. Like, there's all kinds of people. As for example, the Amalekites are in there. So there's all kinds of ethnic groups. But this one is being singled out. But I think it shocked everyone, really. Esther didn't know about any of this because being queen and all, she's not really out in the midst of the city all that much. She had to be told about it. Verse four, when Esther's young women and her eunuchs came and told her, the queen was deeply distressed. She sent garments to close Mordecai so that he might take off his sackcloth, but he would not accept them. So she may have sent garments to him to, like, can we get back to normal a little bit here? Or it may have been like, you're our only hope and you can't get through the king's gate unless you're dressed appropriately. So let's first start with that. Let's get you back in your right clothes because maybe you can do something about this. So Esther, since he wouldn't accept them, Esther finds a go-between, verse five. And then Esther called for Hathatch, one of the king's eunuchs who had been appointed to attend her, and ordered him to go to Mordecai to learn what this was and why it was. Hathatch went out to Mordecai in the open square of the city in front of the king's gate, and Mordecai told him all that happened to him and the exact sum of money that Haman had promised to pay into the king's treasuries for the destruction of the Jews. Mordecai also gave him a copy of the written decree issued in Susa for their destruction that he might show it to Esther and explain it to her and command her to go to the king to beg his favor and plead with him on behalf of her people. Now, this was all very smart of Mordecai. He wasn't just passing along hearsay. He was giving details about what was going on, like this is the exact amount of the bribe, and oh, here's a copy of the edict. I'm not, I can substantiate all of this. Verse nine, and Hathatch went and told Esther what Mordecai had said. And then Esther spoke to Hathatch and commanded him to go to Mordecai and say, look, all the king's servants and all 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's 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 into the king these 30 days. And they told Mordecai what Esther had said. I think Esther is beginning to realize that she might think that Mordecai maybe thinks she can do something about it, so she needs to instruct Mordecai. No, no, no, I'm not the one. I can't do anything about this because if I go approach the king, you know, this isn't gonna work. And so Esther was fearful of her future for good reason. She had a good reason. This was a legitimately fearful situation. But what we're about to read, which is the famous part of the book of Esther, about Mordecai's response to her, I love. He does not speak to her fears. He does not speak to her emotions. He does not give her sympathy. He comes right in with a logical approach to this. And I love that. There are three parts to Mordecai's statement that I think are worth noting. He gives a warning, he gives a promise, and he gives an exhortation. Let's see if we can take it apart that way. First, the warning, verse 13. And then Mordecai told them to reply to Esther, do not think to yourself that in the king's palace you will escape more than all of the other Jews. This is just a reality of the matter. This is a warning. Don't think that you're gonna get off. When all this group is purged, you will be part of it. So then he gives a promise, which is very interesting, verse 14. 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. What was he talking about? I think that Mordecai was giving the age-old promise that was given to Abraham, that all the peoples of the earth will be blessed through you. Hey, Mordecai's thinking the big picture here. He's thinking the Messiah. And he's saying, look, this isn't gonna be the end of our line right here. God will raise deliverance from someone. This will happen. But if you're not involved in it, you're probably not gonna be part of that deliverance. So that's just the way it is. And then he gives this exhortation to Esther, still in verse 14. And who knows whether you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this. In other words, when I read it, the light bulb is going on, like the sun is coming out, like, oh, who knows that God hasn't been working in the shadows all this time, all these years to place you right where he wanted you to be for such a time as this, for such a threat as this. Esther, Mordecai has, or Esther, God has positioned you. And now we finally see it. Remember last week we talked about, are you going through a chapter two experience where God has put you in a certain position or a certain place? And you're like, I don't know. I don't know what God's gonna do with this. And we said, perhaps Esther felt that way all along. What is God gonna do with this? And now Mordecai goes, you know, don't you? You can see, you can see this unfold. You can begin to see why God has done what he has done. Still, there's a lot of fear. Verse 15, what action did Esther take? Esther told them to reply to Mordecai. Okay, I get it. Go gather all the Jews to be found in Susa. Hold a fast on my behalf. Do not eat or drink for three days, night or day. I and my young women will also fast as you do. And then I will go to the king, though it is against the law. And if I perish, I perish. And Mordecai went away and did everything as Esther ordered him. And so not only do these verses create for us an incredible cliffhanger between this chapter and the next one, but they give us a great model for our life for when we face crises. And we do face crises. Okay, it doesn't have to be a crisis. Maybe it's just a challenge. It can be a health challenge. It can be a relational challenge. It can be a financial challenge. It can be, but every once in a while in our life, on the timer, these challenges come into our lives. How should we best deal with them? And I love the model we see. First, I wanna talk about five things that Esther did, how positive they were. Let's outline them. Number one, she listened to Mordecai and she embraced the reality of what was going on. We've learned that Esther had a habit of listening and obeying Mordecai, but in this situation, she didn't walk in denial. She didn't say, I don't think you know what's going on. She listened. She absorbed the information, okay? She knew what they were facing. Number two, she shared the burden. She didn't clam up, internalize it, carry it all herself. She spread it among the rest of the Jews who were in Susa. Number three, she engaged in spiritual warfare. In this case, she declared a fast. Number four, she walked in courage. She was determined to do, use the courage of the Lord to do whatever was necessary, even though it was dangerous. Esther determined to do the hard thing. And then number five, which is just as important as all the rest, is she left the results in God's hands. She said, if I perish, I perish. That's God's business. That's not my business. All right, so how can we take that and apply it to our lives when we are facing a crisis, when we are facing a challenge, when we are facing decisions that have to be made, a decision has to be made here? How do we take this model that we see in Esther and turn it into something that can be useful to us? I think it's beginning to be obvious to us. Number one, we listen to those around us who are worth listening to, okay? If you need to listen to your doctor, you listen. You listen and absorb that information. We don't walk in denial. We seek out the truth. We listen to those who understand the situation. We don't base our assessment on what's going on based on rumor. Maybe there's a relational challenge that you're facing with extended family or immediate family. We don't base it on rumors and hearsay. And he said this, we need substantiated information or we can't move forward unless we really know the reality of it. So we listen. Number two, we share our burden. We share with others. Whoever is in your life to share your burden with, to ask to pray with you. Now this is delicate because, you know, some things are delicate and you don't want to splash them all over social media and all that kind of thing. We need discernment when we ask other people to share our burden. But I think we know how to do that, okay? Number three is that we take a season to engage in spiritual warfare. Now Esther's spiritual warfare was fasting. But that's, but I think the most common point of spiritual warfare that we go to is first of all prayer. Praying over situation. Not taking action immediately until we have spent a season praying ourselves and with the people that we have asked to support us. Praying and listening to what the Lord has to say. Four, we have to have the courage to take action. Very often when people pray we might expect God to do the work and we do nothing. No, we have to have the courage to do what our season of prayer has shown us to do. That might be going and talking to a person. That might be going and having a certain, you know, we just need to be able to have the courage to say, oh that's gonna be kind of hard for me but here I go. The Lord is with me. I'm gonna take that step forward and do what God has shown me to do in this case. And then number five, we leave the outcome in God's hands. That is so important when we're taking a step with courage to do something difficult because you're probably like me. Let's just say it's there's a relational thing and you need you need to talk to someone and you you run through all the scenarios. If I say this they're gonna do this and the outcome will be this and this and this. But we need to be ready to leave the outcome in God's hands after we've taken those other four steps. So I hope that that's a useful model to you when the next crisis comes up later this week. But these are very wise steps and I just want to close with a passage. We were in Ephesians here just last fall. I just want to close with this passage that I think kind of provides a an undergirding for everything that we've just read. It's Ephesians 5, 15 to 17 it says,

Especially in your next crisis, in your next challenge, in your next difficulty. Father thank you for these chapters and thank you for everything that we can learn. Be inspired with with what we see happening to your people in this ancient culture in this time. Lord you've left us a record for a good reason. I pray you would help us Lord God to absorb that. I ask that the Holy Spirit would continue to work through what you're speaking to each one of us even in our discussion groups and you know our time even leaving here Lord. Would you please make this very useful in our lives. We thank you for your word. We thank you that we're able to gather in Jesus name, Amen. ---