Turning Sorrow to Joy

Welcome to our women's Bible study on Esther, which we've titled When God Works in the Shadows. And today we're going to finish the book. We're going to do the final three chapters of Esther. So before we begin, let's remember where we left off. We left off with that two banquets in a row. After the second banquet, or in the second banquet, Esther told the king of her heritage. She finally told her husband that she was a Jew. She was among those who were sold for destruction. And she said that, and he said, who did this? And she said, Haman did. And so the king needed a minute, and he went outside to process this. And if you think about what his part had been in this as well. And he came back in, convicted Haman, and he was taken away. And then the reversals begin, okay? And we start starting with the gallows that Haman had built for Mordecai. But Haman himself was hung on that very gallows. And chapters 9 and 10, or 8, 9, and 10, show us even more reversals. That's kind of our theme of this last session, is these reversals, specifically with fortune and power. So let me give you a little roadmap. Chapter 8 is going to narrate the request of Esther what to do about this edict of destruction. Chapter 9 is going to narrate what actually happened, and then we'll have a little summary with chapter 10. But let's start in with chapter 8. You ready? Chapter 8, verse 1. On that day, King Ahasuerus gave to Queen Esther the house of Haman, the enemy of the Jews. So here comes our first reversal, a reversal of fortune. The house that belonged to Haman is now given to Esther, the Jew, okay? And Mordecai came before the king, for Esther had told what he was to her, and the king took off his signet ring, which he had taken from Haman, and gave it to Mordecai. Here's the reversal number two, a reversal of power. The power that Haman had is now given to Mordecai, the Jew. And Esther set Mordecai over the house of Haman. So we see reversals of fortune and power. However, fortune and power mean nothing to a person if you are going to be killed in eight more months. So there was still work that needed to be done. There was something that had to be done about this. And so Esther found her courage, and she went back to her husband again. Verse 3. Esther spoke again to the king, and she fell at his feet and wept, and pleaded with him to avert the evil plan of Haman the Agagite. And the plot that he had devised against the Jews. And when the king held out the golden scepter to Esther, Esther rose and stood before the king. And she said, I think this is cute, if it please the king, and if I have found favor in his sight, and if a thing seems right before the king, and I am pleasing in his eyes, let an order be written to revoke the letters devised by Haman the Agagite, the son of Hamadatha, which he wrote to destroy the Jews who are in all the provinces of the king. Or how can I bear to see the calamity that is coming to my people? Or how can I bear to see the destruction of my kindred? So what she's asking is, can you please change this law? Can you revoke this law? Which we learned in lesson one, cannot be done. So verse 7. Then King Ahasuerus said to Queen Esther and to Mordecai the Jew, behold, I have given Esther the house of Haman, and they have hanged him on the gallows because he intended to lay hands on the Jews. In other words, he's saying, I've started the ball rolling, but you may write as you please with regard to the Jews in the name of the king and seal it with the king's ring. For an edict written in the name of the king and sealed with the king's ring cannot be revoked. So do you see what's going on here? He says, honey, I've started this, this ball rolling, but now I'm giving it, I'm opening it up for you. Now you and Mordecai have to do whatever you can do to, you know, get this done. I can't revoke this. This is how our world works. This is the world you're living in. It cannot be revoked, but you can write a new law. And this is really a clever solution to the sticky problem here. So in verse 9, the king's scribes were summoned at that time in the third month, which is the month of Sivan on the 23rd day. And an edict was written according to all that Mordecai commanded concerning the Jews to the satraps, governors, and officials of the provinces from India to Ethiopia, 127 provinces to each province. Verse 11, saying that the king allowed the Jews who were in every city to gather and defend their lives, to destroy, to kill, to annihilate any armed force of any people or province that might attack them. Men and women included, and to plunder their goods on one day throughout all the provinces of King Ahasuerus on the 13th day of the 12th month, which is the month of Adar. A copy of what was written was to be issued as a decree in every province, being publicly displayed to all peoples. And the Jews were to be ready on that day to take vengeance on their enemies. Now, this is a brilliant solution. Can't change the law that says you can kill all the Jews. But we'll make a new law that says the Jews can defend themselves. That is really great. So they were given permission to defend themselves without repercussion, and this did not alter the original law at all. So but this original law had been out for three months. For three months, all the Persians had been told, you have permission to kill the Jews and to take their property. So can you imagine the amount of anti-Semitism that was floating in the air already? Can you imagine if someone was thus incentivized to be able to capture this great shop and all this stuff, how the taunting may have already began? It's like nine more months or eight more months or whatever, Jew, and I'm going to have your place and I'm going to have your daughter and I'm going to, you know. So there was already this thick, thickness in the air. And now here comes this decree that says they're given permission to defend themselves. Now they could have defended themselves anyway, but if a Jew, without the second edict, if a Jew would have defended themselves and killed a Persian, then they would have been guilty of murder because, but now they're given permission and now they can do that. So the king meant business and we're told how this edict went out, verse 14. So the couriers mounted on their swift horses that were used in the king's service, rode out hurriedly, urged by the king's command, and the decree was issued in Susa the citadel. And then Mordecai went out from the presence of the king in royal robes of blue and white, with a great golden crown and a robe of fine linen and purple, and the city of Susa shouted and rejoiced. The Jews had light and gladness and joy and honor. I love how the details are given here about Mordecai's clothing so that we could almost sketch a picture if we wanted to. He had become very powerful now in the Persian empire, second only to the king himself. And look at the effect that it had on the people. Rejoicing, gladness, joy. When the godly rule, there is a sigh of relief. And I want to throw up a verse from, remember when we studied the book of Judges and Deborah and Barak together had this victory over their enemy. And look at this verse from Judges 5-2 from the NIV that says, in their song, they say, when the princes in Israel take the lead, when the people willingly offer themselves, praise the Lord. This is how it is. This is even how it is in our world, right? When someone with some modicum of godliness is leading, there's peace, there's calm, there's joy, there's gladness. And you know, Mordecai, I'm sure, was not perfect as far as being an individual. But the alternative was Haman. Which one do you want? So I'm sure they were all just super happy. Verse 17, and in every province, in every city, wherever the king's command and edict reached, there was gladness and joy among the Jews, a feast and a holiday. And many from the peoples of the country declared themselves Jews for fear of the Jews had fallen on them. So now we have a counter anti-Semitism movement where they actually want to be part of the people that they were just a few minutes ago, taunting, fascinating. So now chapter 9 tells us how this day actually played out. Verse 1, now in the 12th month, which is the month of Adar, on the 13th day of the same, when the king's command and edict were about to be carried out, on the very day when the enemies of the Jews hoped to gain the mastery over them, the reverse occurred. The Jews gained mastery over those who hated them. The Jews gathered in their cities throughout all the provinces of King Ahasuerus to lay hands on those who sought their harm. And no one could stand against them for the fear of them had fallen on all peoples. All the officials of the provinces, the satraps, governors, royal agents, also helped the Jews for the fear of Mordecai had fallen on them. He's their boss, right? You kind of line up with your boss. these matters, and so everybody who was in charge was favorable to the Jews. For Mordecai was great in the king's house, and his fame spread throughout all the provinces. For the man Mordecai grew more and more powerful. The Jews struck all their enemies with the sword, killing and destroying them, and did as they pleased to those who hated them. In Susa, the citadel itself, the Jews killed and destroyed five hundred men and the ten sons of Haman, which I just said without reading all their names. The son of Hamadathah, the enemy of the Jews, but they laid no hand on their plunder. I want you to take that sentence, put it up on your shelf. They laid no hand on their plunder, okay? The Persians, again, one more time, had been incentivized to kill because they could have plunder. But yet when the Jews merely defended their right to exist, they took no plunder. I think there's a bigger story about this plunder thing that we'll get to in a minute, but first let's keep going a little bit. Verse 11, that very day the number of those killed in Susa, the citadel, was reported to the king, and the king said to Queen Esther, in Susa, the citadel, the Jews have killed and destroyed five hundred men and also the ten sons of Haman. What then have they done in the rest of the king's provinces? Now, what is your wish? It shall be granted you, and what further is your request? It shall be fulfilled. And Esther said, if it please the king, let the Jews who are in Susa be allowed tomorrow also to do according to this day's edict, and let the ten sons of Haman be hanged on the gallows. All right, Esther. The ten sons of Haman are already dead. They're already dead, but she asked them to be hanged on the gallows. If you had an image of Queen Esther in your mind, this sweet little precious Jewish girl, you might need to get out your sketchbook and re-sketch her a little bit here, okay? Not only did she have courage and wisdom, but she had grit. So let's kind of review some of the things that we saw in her. Number one, she knew that men needed food in order to listen, okay? That's good. Good job. Esther was wise enough to not blurt out everything that she was thinking or wanting in the moment, but she knew how to hold back, and she had a sense of timing, and that was good. But Esther was also an influencer, and in this moment, she wanted to send a message to the entire culture. She wanted those ten sons who were dead to be put on display so that they just weren't tucked away quietly, but that everyone knew. Now that's grit. You can make of that what you want, but that was Esther. Verse 14, so the king commanded this to be done. A decree was issued in Susa, and the ten sons of Haman were hanged. The Jews who were in Susa gathered also on the fourteenth day of the month of Adar, and they killed 300 men in Susa, but laid no hands on the plunder. There's time number two. Now the rest of the Jews who were in the king's provinces also gathered to defend their lives and got relief from their enemies, and killed 75,000 of those who hated them, but they, time number three, laid no hands on the plunder. Now when something is given to us three times in scripture, we usually say, aha, the author wants us to take note of that. I wonder why he wants us to take note of that, and, you know, one thing, just one obvious thing is that, well, the Jews were not at this for material gain. That was not their motivation in this, but I think there's a bigger story here. I think there's a historical story here that attaches to that, and we have to remember who Haman was. Haman, the Agagite, okay, a descendant, clearly, of King Agag, the Amalekites. The Amalekites who were the ancient foes of God's people, the original and ancient foes of the Jews, and in this moment, God had allowed this edict to come that said, if they're coming after you, you can defend yourselves and kill them, and Esther had displayed those sons, but they took no plunder. Now, when God told Saul, King Saul, I want you to wipe out the Amalekites and take no plunder, Saul took the plunder, and I just wonder if the author wants us to know here that these people were saying, we will not repeat what our ancient king did that was so displeasing to the Lord that God threw him off the throne and replaced him with David, and so I just wonder if they were, as a group, either intuitively or collectively had communicated and said, we will not repeat the same mistake with the Amalekites that happened before. It's not told to us. I'm just simply putting that in there, but it's something to think about, and now we have a breakdown of who did what on what particular days, so let's begin on verse 17. This was on the 13th day of the month of Adar, and on the 14th day, they rested and made a day of feasting and gladness, but the Jews who were in Susa gathered on the 13th and on the 14th and rested on the 15th day, making that a day of feasting and gladness. Therefore, the Jews of the villages who live in the rural towns hold the 14th day of the month of Adar as a day for gladness and feasting, as a holiday, and as a day on which they send gifts of food to one another, and these comments are a bit foreshadowing because we haven't read anything quite yet about this becoming a festival, but these verses give us a clue as to one of the reasons that this book was even written. This book was written as a history of how the annual Jewish feast of Purim came into being, and what began as an organic group of events, it's like, well, they're trying to attack us, so we reattack them and we kill them, it was just really organic. It became something that they commemorated over and over, kind of maybe like to us in America, our 4th of July. There was a number of organic events that just happened with the establishment of our country, and we grabbed snippets of those things in our 4th of July celebrations, like the fireworks and things like that, and we commemorated year after year, but the focus of this celebration is God bringing victory over Israel's ancient enemy, specifically the Amalekites represented by Haman, and since Haman had determined the day for their extinction by casting the poor, then the feast is called the Feast of Purim. I don't recall where I read this, so I can't give it credit, but I want to tell you a story. One time, a Jew was asked what he thought would be the outcome if his country stepped up its anti-Semitic policies, and he said, oh, probably a feast, and the asker said, can you explain that? And he said, well, when Pharaoh tried to wipe out the Hebrews, it resulted in Passover, and when Haman tried to exterminate our people, the result was Purim, and when Antiochus Epiphanes tried to do us in, the result was Hanukkah. That seems to be how God works, because God is always protecting his people, his special people from which he had chosen to bring the Messiah into the world. So the remainder of this chapter now explains the name, the purpose, and the importance of the Feast of Purim. Verse 20, and Mordecai recorded these things and sent letters to all the Jews who were in all the provinces of Ahasuerus, obliging them to keep the 14th day of the month Adar, and also the 15th day of the same, year by year, as the days on which the Jews got relief from their enemies, and as the month that had been turned for them from sorrow into gladness and from mourning into a holiday, that they should make it days of feasting and gladness, days for sending gifts of food to one another and gifts to the poor, dropped down to verse 26, therefore they call these days Purim, after the term Pur, therefore because of all that was written in the letter and of what they faced in this matter and of what had happened to them, the Jews firmly obligated themselves and their offspring and all who joined them, that without fail they would keep these two days according to what was written and at the time appointed every year, and these days should be remembered and kept throughout every generation, in every clan, province, and city, that these days of Purim should never fall into disuse among the Jews, nor should the commemoration of these days cease among their descendants, and the Jews actually do hold to this feast to this very day. Now let's be clear, this was not one of the special days that God had instituted through Moses, those type of feasts, like the feast of unleavened bread and things like that, nonetheless it was important, and this year in 2025, the feast of Purim falls on March 13th and 14th, it's not always the same, it's not like we do Christmas on the 25th, because it follows the lunar calendar, and so it moves around a little bit in spring, but it starts this way today, this is how the Jews would celebrate. celebrate it, you start with the fast of Esther. So on this day, you wake up and from dawn to sunset, you eat no food, you drink nothing. And then as soon as the sun goes down, the first thing that's involved in this feast or this festival is the reading of this book. And every time the man Haman's name is mentioned, especially the children will have little shakers or rattles or they'll hiss and boo to cover up the name, to blot out the name of the Amalekites from history, to blot out the name of Haman. And so that's kind of how it goes. And then after the story is read, then begins the festival and then begins the feast. And it would feel maybe something like our harvest festival because the children wear costumes and there's good food and there's a carnival type atmosphere. And it's a really, and there's gifts of food in particular given to your friends and also to the poor. And so that's what the feast of, or the festival of Purim looks like today. And then the chapter ends with Queen Esther confirming the celebration. I'm not gonna read it all. It just ends with the last verse that says, the command of Esther confirmed these practices of Purim and it was recorded in writing. And so now we finally get to the last very short chapter, chapter 10, which actually should prepare our minds to lift this story to an even greater platform. So let's read this. King Ahasuerus imposed tax on the land and on the coastlands of the sea and all the acts of his power and might in the full account of the high honor of Mordecai to which the king advanced him, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Media and Persia? For Mordecai the Jew was second in rank to King Ahasuerus and he was great among the Jews and popular with the multitude of his brothers for he sought the welfare of his people and he spoke peace to all of his people. A chapter 10 could feel like an anticlimax for this book. It's very satisfying. It's a happily ever after sort of feel to it. But the focus is on Mordecai. That's the subject of this chapter. He is the subject, Mordecai the Jew. And so this should lift our thinking a little bit to a new place and consider God's unfolding story of redemption that we talk about in every single Old Testament book that we arrive at. Now again, I said the subject is Mordecai. Look at why I say that. Advanced to high honor, great among the Jews, popular with his brothers, he sought the welfare of his people and he spoke peace to all of his people. All those things should remind us of a greater Mordecai who was yet to come, the Messiah. All those things are true of the Messiah as well. So here at the end, let's do this. Let's elevate this story from its intended purpose which is to give history and to explain the Feast of Purim but let's elevate it to another purpose and let's consider what it says about God's unfolding story of redemption. Let's consider how it might apply to our lives by making comparisons between the events of Esther and Jesus, the Messiah, okay? Because reversals are a very important part of our salvation as well. And this is a story of reversals. So I'm gonna give you three points to consider. The first point is this, that in the same way that there was an irrevocable law put in place in the Persian kingdom, there is also an irrevocable law that we live with in our existence. I'm gonna call it the law of sin and death. Let me show you two scriptures that explain this. Romans 6.23 and 3.23 and they say, the wages of sin is death and this applies to all of us because all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. This is a law that we live under in this kingdom on earth. It cannot be revoked, it cannot be changed, okay? It is a law, cannot be altered. Point number two is in the same way that Esther's three days of fasting ultimately brought a new law that would set the Jews free from this law of destruction, so too Jesus's death, three days in the grave and resurrection sets into effect a new law of freedom that is available for us as well. I'll call this the law of the spirit of life. And so let's go to Romans 8.1 and 2 that explains the first and the second law that says there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus for the law of the spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. Do you see how those compare? With the two laws that we saw. You can't change the first one. Nobody can say to you, you were born under the law of sin and death, but we'll just make a change there. No, the only thing that can set you free is the second law, the law of the spirit of life. So that brings us to point number three. How do we participate in this new law, the law of the spirit of life? We participate by faith. The Jews had to participate with Mordecai's law by faith too, okay? The edict said, you can defend yourselves. And by faith, they had to say, this is gonna work for us. We will do what this says. And they had to apply that by faith. And they did. What is our defense against our enemy? I'll give you one more Romans scripture, Romans 10, nine, that says, because if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. This is our defense against the law of sin and death that we are born into, that we exist in, in this kingdom that we live in. And the greatest reversal in history, the greatest reversal that ever was, was the fact that the powers who sought to destroy Jesus were in fact destroyed by him, right? And the greatest reversal in our lives is the fact that Jesus experienced the death that we deserved in order to give us the life that he deserved. And so I think that here at the end, we can see there's a lot to be said for God's unfolding story of redemption in a book that doesn't even mention the name of God. But as New Testament Christians, we can see this. We can see, oh, the reversals that we live for, that we're grateful for, that we by faith grab. We can see that they were back in this story. When Esther and Mordecai had victory over their enemies, we too have a victory over our enemy. Not only Satan, but death itself. Death is our enemy. And the great reversal that we can experience by faith, by simply saying, oh, I can, Jesus is willing to reverse what he deserved with me. He paid the penalty for me. Isn't that sweet? I love it. Father, thank you for this entire book, this study, so much that we have been able to glean and you've opened up our hearts in new and different ways. And we just wanna thank you for that, Lord. And I pray that each group that's discussing this would have just a wonderful, rich time abiding in your word. We pray in Jesus' name, amen. Amen.