The Only Hero

Father, you know how each one of us to some extent struggles with being one person in church and with our Christian friends

and another person when we're away from church and away from our Christian friends.

Father, you know how much that describes some of our lives.

And so, Father, we ask that your Holy Spirit would use your word today in a powerful way to speak into our lives.

And that, Father, you would grip us with the beauty of the gospel and what Jesus has done.

You would grip us with his unfailing love.

And as we are gripped by the gospel, that you would grow courage within us to swim against the tide for the good of this city and your great glory.

And we ask this in the name of Jesus, your Son and our Savior. Amen.

Please be seated.

One of my regular people that I talk to is an atheist.

And about once a month or so, it works out that I happen to be at the Starbucks,

or as somebody said, I should start calling it St. Arbux to make it sound more holy.

And I'm there.

And so, about once a month at least, he happens to be there on a Friday morning.

And he'll ask me about once a month or more what I'm preaching on this Sunday.

He's an atheist, right?

So, it's always very interesting.

It always provokes some type of conversation.

So, he asked me on Friday morning.

And just so you know, I often don't know on Friday morning exactly what I'm going to say on Sunday morning

because I haven't finished listening to the Bible deeply.

So, he asked me this Friday.

And I said, well, I'm not actually sure.

It's a very unusual text.

And then I said, but I'll tell you what the story is that I'm going to preach on.

So, I told him the story.

And I gave him a brief summary of the story.

And when I was finished, literally, he went like this.

Whoa, I didn't know stuff like that was in the Bible.

And then he said, but you know, it doesn't matter what's in the Bible

because no story written 2,200 years ago in a very different culture can have any relevance to anybody's life today.

So, I had a brief conversation with him about that, which maybe we'll touch on in a moment.

But let's look at that story that made him go,

whoa, I didn't know they had stories like that in the Bible.

And so, we're looking at Esther chapter 2.

Esther 2 · chapter mention

Esther chapter 2.

Esther 2 · chapter mention

And we're going to be looking at the story in verses 1 to 18.

And just as you may be turning to that, and in a moment the text will go up on the screen,

the way to think of this sermon series in the book of Esther is imagine that you're watching.

We're using the book of Esther to make a series of scripts for different shows on a Netflix series.

And each episode has to be an episode that you can watch and enjoy and be challenged, etc.

But also, there's an overarching story that all of the nine episodes will work to bring home different truths.

Anyway, so that's what we're doing.

So, this is really episode 2.

And in episode 1, which we looked at last week,

just a, you know, we won't do the skip intro thing,

which lasts about a minute on most of those Netflix shows.

What happened last week is we were introduced to King Euserus,

which I didn't pronounce his name correctly.

I have a hard time pronouncing his name.

But it's about King Euserus, who's the emperor of Persia.

And one of the things that you need to know, I talked about it last week,

one commentator said that you can start to understand the beginning of Jewish humor

if you understand parts of the book of Esther.

Because the book of Esther is talking about something which is very, very, very serious.

It talks about rape, it talks about sex trafficking, and it talks about genocide.

But there's still some humor in it, puns.

And so the Jewish writer of this book, he chose as the name for the king

a name which in Hebrew sounds like headache.

So all the way through the story, when you're reading it,

if you were a Hebrew speaker back then,

it would sound as if they were calling him King Headache to make people smile.

We know him as King Xerxes, who was the...

How many of you have seen the movie 300?

I asked you this last week, only a small number of you.

We are Sparta.

Yes, that's the king that they take on in that movie,

is the king that's mentioned in this story.

And the first episode takes place three years before the movie 300, so to speak.

And so we see King Xerxes and all of his glory and his splendor.

But when we're watching it, it's a little bit like when one of us watches a movie about the Civil War.

And maybe you see Birmingham, Alabama, just after Fort Sumter has surrendered to the Confederate forces.

And everybody's jubilant and everybody's celebrating.

And they're there in their finery.

And you can see the riches and the splendor.

And they're going to kick the North's butt.

And they're going to win.

And they're going to triumph.

And we watch it.

We watch it.

And we know they're all going to lose.

They're going to lose.

And so chapter one is set by this.

You see all of King Ehuserxes, King Xerxes' splendor and glory.

But they put in this very subtle thing about the year that this happens.

And we know this happens just a couple of years before he invades Greece.

And he loses.

And he'll come back.

And a man who's been defeated.

And this second episode that we're looking at takes place after he's come back.

Actually, sort of before and after he's come back.

And he's been defeated.

So it's a different type of King Xerxes.

And let's kick up.

Oh, and one other thing about it is while he's drunk for seven days, he has a conflict with one of his queens.

And as a result of that conflict, because she refuses to obey him, he banishes her forever.

Now we caught up.

Episode two, verse one.

After these things, when the anger of King Hedek had abated, he remembered Vashti.

That was his queen that he'd banished.

And what she had done and what had been decreed against her.

Then the king's young men who attended him said,

Let beautiful young virgins be sought out for the king.

And let the king appoint officers in all the provinces of his kingdom to gather all the beautiful young virgins to the harem in Susa, the citadel, under custody of Hegai, the king's eunuch, who was in charge of the woman.

Let their cosmetics be given to them.

And let the young woman who pleases the king be queen instead of Vashti.

This pleased the king, and he did so.

Now we have to pause here.

What they've just described is horrific.

This is not sending out a casting note to see what beautiful young women want to be on the show The Bachelor, which is horrific in and of itself, by the way.

But that's a different sermon topic.

This is the forced taking of young women from their home throughout the entire empire.

It is the king deciding to use the bureaucracy, the police, and the military of the state to seek out beautiful young women and take them against their will, away from their family and friends, and to bring them to the capital.

And Herodotus, because this king, headache, he's done this several times.

Herodotus said, a Greek historian, that 400 young women, 400 young women would be taken.

Some scholars of the ancient world think that the number that he might have taken in something like this might have approached 1,500 young women taken from their homes by force to go to the capital.

It's horrific.

And it's in this context that we're going to meet the person that the book is named after, Esther.

Let's continue, verse 5.

Now, there was a Jew in Susa, the citadel, whose name was Mordecai, the son of Jair, son of Shemai, son of Kish, a Benjaminite, who had been carried away from Jerusalem among the captives.

So who had been carried away from Jerusalem among the captives carried away when with Jeconai, king of Judah, whom Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, had carried away.

Now, just sort of pause there.

That's a lot of Jewish names.

And a lot of times when we get a lot of these Jewish names, our mind, if you're like me, your mind starts to just sort of blank out a little bit.

And so what's going on here is, first of all, for ancient Jewish readers, Minam Mordecai is a very, is a sort of a common Jewish name, but it's a shocking name.

Because what his name is, is worshiper of Marduk.

He's a Jewish man who's named as a worshiper of Marduk, the god of the Babylonians.

And the story tells us that this man who's named the worshiper of Marduk is a fourth generation Jew in exile away from the Jewish homeland.

That's the whole thing about the son of this, the son of this, the son of this.

So there have now been, Mordecai is the fourth generation of those Jewish people who had been taken away by the Babylonians out of the promised land, out of the holy land, to live in a foreign empire.

Fourth generation.

And the other thing which is going on in this story is this, by this, by them giving these timelines, what they also tell you is this.

Those of you who read the Bible, there's this overarching story in the Bible.

There's sort of an underlying timeline which tells this overarching story.

And I'm not going to go into it.

You can talk to me at coffee hour.

I can talk to you a little bit more about it if you'd like to know.

But if you read the book of Ezra, it's a book in that part of the Bible which we call the Old Testament before Jesus.

It's all the books before Jesus.

And if you look at the first part of Ezra, the first part of Ezra describes how King Headache's father gave permission for the Jewish people who want to go back to the promised land.

But that's King Xerxes' father.

And obviously Mordecai is not one of them.

He didn't want to go to the promised land.

He wanted to stay in the winter capital of the empire of Persia.

And one of the things which is really interesting about the book of Esther is it doesn't comment on it.

It just tells you this is what's gone on.

Some of the Jews, at great cost to themselves, went back to the homeland.

Mordecai is not one of them.

He stayed in the capital.

In fact, he stayed at the very heart of the capital.

It would be really like saying that rather than going back to the promised land,

he not only lived in Ottawa, he lived in Centertown or the Glebe.

He didn't live in Canada.

Good grief.

Who lives in Canada?

You know, he's living in Centertown, the Glebe.

He's living downtown where it's nice.

That's where he chose to live.

That's Mordecai.

But the book's not named after Mordecai.

But now we learn about Mordecai to learn about the person that the book is named after.

But learning that Mordecai is a fourth generation in exile and that he's named after the god,

as a worshiper of the god of Babylon, Marduk,

it's very interesting then when we meet Esther.

Look at verse 7.

So Mordecai was bringing up Hadassah, that is Esther, the daughter of his uncle,

for she had neither father nor mother.

The young woman had a beautiful figure and was lovely to look at.

And when her father and her mother died, Mordecai took her as his own daughter.

So when the king's order and his edict were proclaimed,

and when many young women were gathered in Susa, the capital, in custody of Higai,

Esther also was taken into the king's palace and put in custody of Higai,

who had charged the woman.

And the young woman pleased him, the young woman Esther.

That young woman Esther pleased Higai and won his favor.

So Higai quickly provided her with her cosmetics and her portion of food

and with seven chosen young women from the king's palace

and advanced her and her young woman to the best place in the harem.

Esther had not made known her people or kindred,

for Mordecai had commanded her not to make it known.

And every day Mordecai walked in front of the court of the harem

to learn how Esther was and what was happening to her.

Now just pause.

Remember here I told you that there's somewhere between 400 to 1,500 young women

who were rounded up against their will and brought here.

Harem's very huge.

Probably many, many rooms.

Just crowded.

And what we're seeing here, it's very, very interesting about her name

and one other thing here in the story amongst other things.

She has two names.

She has a Jewish name and she has a Persian name.

And there's some debate in scholars as to what the source of her Persian name is,

but I'd say the best scholarship says that her name,

she's named after Ishtar,

the Persian equivalent of the goddess Venus,

the god of love and war.

And so she has a Persian name named after Ishtar.

She has a Jewish name.

And she decides that when she gets captured,

she's only going to go by her Persian name

and she's not going to go by her Jewish name.

Now what this means is,

many of you know the story in Daniel.

And if you remember,

those of you who know the story of Daniel,

the very first chapter is how Daniel is captured by the Babylonians

as they're taking over Israel and Jerusalem,

or Judah and Jerusalem.

And Daniel and his friends,

when they're brought into captivity,

because they're healthy and of noble family,

they decide that they're going to make,

I mean one thing which they don't usually tell us about Daniel is,

probably what happened to Daniel is,

they took his testicles out to make him a eunuch.

Which often doesn't get taught in Sunday school,

but that's what they probably did to him.

But they took out Daniel and his three friends

and the other Jewish men,

they take out their testicles to make them eunuchs,

to train them to be officials in the bureaucracy of Babylon.

And those of us know the very first story is,

some of you know what is it that Daniel and his friends do?

They refuse.

They say we're Jewish people.

We refuse to eat your food.

We're going to follow our dietary laws.

Esther's not Daniel.

Esther wasn't keeping kosher.

Esther wouldn't have been doing anything

that would have showed that she was Jewish

or one of God's people.

She wouldn't have been saying her Jewish prayers

in such a way that people would know she was Jewish.

She wouldn't have been keeping the Sabbath.

She would have been eating the same food that was unclean.

And she was going by a Persian name,

not a Jewish name.

Now, by the way, a couple of things.

One of the reasons I think that Christians

have to read the book of Esther,

I mean, it's good to read the book of Daniel,

but you know what the fact of the matter is,

is that most of us are far more like Esther

than we are like Daniel.

Esther's living a compromised life.

In fact, none of us even know anybody like this.

But I've been told that in some churches,

there's a problem.

Not ours, of course,

but in some churches, there's a problem

where people are very good with their Christianese

and their evangelical talk

and everything when they're in church,

but then when they go to work

or when they go home,

they live a radically different life.

We don't know anybody at all who's like that, of course.

It's a completely foreign problem to us.

But many of us struggle with that, don't we?

I mean, I'm being facetious.

Many of us struggle with being one thing

when we're with other Christians

and very another thing when we show up at work

or we play hockey, we play basketball,

when we go home with our wives and kids,

a radically, quite a significantly different person.

And, you know, in many ways,

most of us have probably not been Daniels

all of our lives.

Many of us have been more like Esther.

By the way, the book of Esther is going to show

in a couple of episodes

her conversion moment, so to speak,

which is key to the book.

And next episode,

we're going to talk about

Mordecai's conversion moment,

by the way.

But right now, what they're showing

is that both of them,

Mordecai and Esther,

have lived compromised lives,

identifying with their pagan culture

rather than being the people of God.

And that Esther in particular,

who, by the way,

this situation she's in,

we're going to talk a bit more about it in a moment,

it's a horrific situation.

She was forced away from her home.

And one of the things which is so wonderful

about this text, by the way,

one of the things which is so

spectacularly wonderful about this text

is that it just reports it.

Like, many people read it and say,

well, why doesn't the Bible condemn this?

It's sex trafficking, right?

Like, why doesn't the Bible condemn this?

Like, why doesn't the Bible describe how,

you know, Esther,

like, why doesn't Esther go on a hunger strike

and rather die than do what's being demanded of her?

Like, why doesn't,

like, why doesn't she,

like, all these things and,

you know, but the fact of the matter is,

is, you know, what do we know?

The little we know about things like sex trafficking

is that for all we know,

many of these young women

who got put into this situation,

their parents were happy.

I mean, isn't that how lots of sex trafficking happens?

The parents contact the authorities.

Would you consider taking her daughter?

And in some of the families,

it might very well be that the daughter

hated the parents so much they wanted to do this.

Because, you know, the fact of the matter is,

is that reality is very messy, isn't it?

It's very messy.

And one of the things which is so powerful

about this story,

its enduring power,

is that if we were to try to improve it

by making a little comment

about how all the women were crying

or all of the parents were crying

or all, you know, or Esther did this,

you know what it would do?

It would turn it into a greeting card

that would trivialize the story.

It would turn it into a greeting card

that would trivialize the complexity

of what was going on.

But even though what's going on is complex,

it's horrific.

She is, with no exit other than death,

under the power of the most powerful empire

in the West,

and all the way up to India.

So what happens to her?

Well, let's look at verse 12.

Now, when the turn came for each young woman

to go into King Ahuserus,

King Headache,

after being 12 months under the regulations

for the woman,

since this was the regular period

of their beautifying,

six months with oil of myrrh

and six months with spices

and ointments for women,

when the young...

Now, just pause here.

I'm going to read it again.

But what's being described here

is completely and utterly abhorrent

and evil.

The king of Persia

has used the army

and the bureaucracy

to find somewhere between

400 to 1,500 young women.

He's brought them against their will

to come into his capital

to be under his care.

And he's lavished...

Well, he's lavished.

He's lavished a year of preparation

so he can have one sexual encounter with them.

One sexual encounter with them.

And that's what's about to happen to Esther.

And really,

when these young women are captured,

it's like a sentence of death to them.

Because

they will spend one night with the king,

as we're going to see in a moment,

and then they don't go back

to the harem of women

who are being prepared

to spend one night,

one sexual encounter

with the king.

They go into another harem.

And it might be that they spend

the rest of their lives

never even ever

going to see the king again.

Ever.

It means they have been denied

the possibility of marriage,

of children,

of a normal life.

It is horrific.

It is unspeakably evil.

And there's another thing

I want to say

before we go anywhere further for this.

And this is a very, very, very,

very important lesson for us.

We look at it

and we see that this is horrific

and it's a broken world

and a broken system.

But if you lived in Persia,

Persia was the best country

in the world.

And what was going on

is what all reasonable people

believe and think.

Like, everybody knows

that it's all right

for kings to do things like that.

And not only is that something

that just everybody knows,

but the intelligentsia,

the artists,

would say,

well, of course,

what do you expect?

He's the king.

Of course, this is how

the world works.

You see,

this is the thing

for us in our day.

Now, Canadians,

we're not very proud.

We wouldn't say

that we're the best country

in the world.

We would maybe acknowledge

that Norway or Sweden

were a bit better than us.

Maybe Switzerland.

We're like a thousand times better

than those dummies

down south of the border.

Like maybe a million,

billion, trillion, quadrillion.

So we're too humble

to say we're the best country

in the world,

but we're up there

in the top four.

Sweden, Norway,

Switzerland,

maybe above us.

And we live in the best culture

and there's all sorts of things

in our culture

that everybody just knows.

Everybody knows.

Everybody knows

that if a woman

wants to have an abortion,

she should have an abortion.

Like if you don't know that,

like everybody knows

that if a person's

having lots of pain

and suffering

at the end of their life,

that they should be able

to ask a doctor

to kill them.

Like everybody knows that.

Like how come

you don't know that?

Everybody knows

that naturalistic evolution

explains everything

that exists

and if you don't know that,

like really?

You don't believe that?

Like do you not

brush your teeth as well?

Like is your IQ

that of a turnip?

Like everybody knows that.

Now by the way,

when I mentioned

the thing about abortion,

just a point here,

there's a very good chance

that at least one of us,

just if you're here,

you know,

it says church,

but if we could ever

change the name

from church,

what we should rename

ourselves is not

the collection

of the perfect,

not the collection

of the holy,

not the collection

of the virtuous,

but the hospital

for sinners.

A church

is a hospital

for sinners.

And there's probably

at least one of us

here who's either

had an abortion

or contributed to abortion

and I didn't bring that up

to push you away.

I brought it up

because that's in fact

something which needs

to be talked about

in our culture

and all I would tell you

if you're here

and you've had an abortion

or you've helped

somebody have an abortion

is that Jesus loves you

and I'm not saying

that to trivialize anything

and he died for you

knowing that you

would do bad things

and this is an invitation

for you to pour out

your heart to Jesus

because you need

to talk it through

and you need to know

his grace and mercy.

So I just want to encourage you

if that describes you

that you just,

you try to talk to somebody

who looks like there's

a kind face

and they'll listen to you

and they'll love you.

But the point is

this horrific thing

at the time

wasn't viewed as horrific.

It was viewed

as just what everybody knows.

Just the way the world works.

The way the world should work.

Powerful men should have

more than one wives

and should have concubines.

They have sexual urges.

They should be able

to act on it.

And we know they're wrong

and it's a powerful thing

for us to realize

that lots of what gets said

that just everybody knows.

It's a wake-up call for us.

I'm not saying

that we should be,

there's so much stuff

we could learn

from the gay

and lesbian movement

because at the heart

of that movement

was them saying

we're queer

and we're here

and we're not going away.

We're queer,

we're proud

that we're queer

and we're here.

Now we can't say

we're Christians

and we're proud

because that's like a sin.

We're Christians

and we're humbly here

and we're not going away.

And we just disagree

with all sorts of things

that go on in the world

and we're not going away.

And we should just,

we have to learn

to start to go against

the tide

in an upfront way.

Not in a proud way,

not in an angry way

necessarily,

but just

I don't believe

those things.

I don't think those things.

I'm a Christian.

I follow Jesus.

And we have to start

to learn

to be more comfortable

to just be publicly

swimming against the tide

and books like Esther

help us to understand that

in a very,

very powerful story

where when you actually

look at the text

and you realize

it's not like

what often gets talked

about by preachers

because there's

unspeakable evil

and Esther is trapped

in unspeakable evil

and it's going to lead

to her conversion moment

in a couple of episodes

but not today.

So let's get back

because the text,

I've sort of jumped ahead

of that.

Look at verse 12 again.

Now when the turn came

for each young woman

to go into king headache

after being 12 months

under the regulations

for the women

since this was

the regular period

of their beautifying,

six months with oil of myrrh

and six months

with spices

and ointments for women,

when the young woman

went into the king

in this way

she was given

whatever she desired

to take with her

from the harem

to the king's palace.

Here's the part.

In the evening

she would go in

and in the morning

she would return

to the second harem

in custody of Shazgaz,

the king's eunuch,

who was in charge

of the concubines.

She would not go

into the king again

unless the king

delighted in her

and she was summoned

by name.

He doesn't even know

their names.

Night after night

a different concubine,

a different woman

doesn't know

their names.

They might have never

even seen the king again

for the rest of their lives.

This is unspeakable evil.

And it's not just,

I don't want to trivialize

the evil to the women,

we cannot trivialize

the evil to the women.

We cannot,

there,

I am not,

this is just not,

but,

nothing that I say next

is meant to,

the evil to the women

is atrocious.

But there's also

a broader social evil

that goes on

because it means

that there's 400

to 1,500 young men

who will never have a wife.

polygamy,

all polygamy,

serves rulers

and emperors

by creating

a large group

of young men

who can be sacrificed

in war.

And it is

fertile ground

for men

profiting

from prostitution.

You see,

the evil

of what goes on

in this,

and it's what happens

in every country,

anytime there's a type

of an evil

that goes on

in the culture,

the evil

isn't just this

tiny little

singular evil,

but the evil

spreads

just as abortion

corrupts

everything

it touches.

verses.

Verse 15.

When the turn

came for Esther,

here she is,

a young woman,

she's trapped,

and she's going

to be brought in

for her one night

with the king.

When the turn

came for Esther,

the daughter

of Abahel,

the uncle

of Mordecai,

who had taken

her as his own

daughter to go

into the king.

She asked for

nothing except

what Haggai,

the king's eunuch,

who had charge

of the woman,

advised.

Now Esther

was winning

favor in the eyes

of all who saw

her.

Just pause here.

You know,

this is what's so

wise about the

Bible.

It just reports

what's going on.

It doesn't try

to trivialize this.

It doesn't say

this is a good

thing she's doing

or a bad

thing it's doing.

It's not saying

that this Jewish

girl who tried

to flirt her

way to be

one of the

400 or 1500

that would

become the

queen.

It's talking

about one

story.

It's not

tame,

but it's

the critique

of it is

in the

dispassionate

telling.

without going

into what

might be

going through

Esther in

the right

way or

the wrong

way and

all of that

type of

stuff.

It would

turn it

into greeting

cards.

It would

turn it

into political

slogans,

but it just

records.

Verse 16,

when Esther

was taken

to King

Headache,

into his

royal palace

in the

tenth month,

which is the

month of

Tibet, in the

seventh year of

his reign.

At this point

in time,

it's four

years after

chapter one,

or episode

one, four

years after.

It's after he's

been defeated

by Persia.

The king

loved Esther,

that woman

named after

the Persian

goddess of

love and

war, hiding

her Jewishness.

The king

loved Esther

more than

all the

women, and

she won

grace and

favor in

his sight

more than

all the

virgins.

So he set

the royal

crown on

her head

and made

her queen

instead of

Vashti.

Then the

king gave

a great

feast for

all his

officials and

servants.

It was

Esther's

feast.

He also

granted a

remission of

taxes to

the provinces

and gave

gifts with

royal generosity.

So just

a couple of

takeaways from

this.

I mean,

you know,

I spend

more time

trying to

help you

understand and

hear the

story than

my own

words because

this is

God's word

and my

words are

my words.

And it's

far better

that the

story grip

you.

But if you

could put up

the first

point,

Andrew,

let's be

honest,

there is a

powerful

allure.

I know the

grammar of

this sentence

isn't great,

but I

couldn't fix

it.

There is a

powerful

allure to

the path

of silence,

compromise,

and conformity

so that you

will be

accepted.

Isn't that

true in our

culture?

There's

something very

powerful and

alluring about

this idea.

if I just

am going to

be silent,

and if I'm

going to be

silent about

being a

Christian and

about what

I think,

and if I

just sort of

compromise,

and if I

just learn to

conform,

I'll be

accepted.

You know,

I have

my,

I've been,

I'm a slow

learner,

and I have a

parrot,

and for some

reason I keep

calling it an

African grey,

but it's not

an African grey,

it's an

Amazon.

And anyway,

it's a,

well actually I

don't really have

it, but my

daughter and my

wife have it,

it's a parrot

about this big.

Okay,

and in the

biological world,

we took that

parrot and we

made a chicken

suit, a duck

suit for it,

made out of

duck feathers

and a little

duck head,

and because it's

a parrot,

we trained it

how to quack

like a duck.

Well that would

sort of be

amusing for

people, you

know, we put

our parrot in

a duck suit,

and it wanders

around on the

floor quacking

like a duck,

but on a

biological level,

it's still a

parrot.

But at the

moral and

intellectual level,

we become what

we put on.

In other words,

for human beings,

when we,

not, I mean,

not literally,

obviously, but if

you quack like a

duck, poop

like a duck,

walk like a

duck, look

like a duck,

you're a duck.

And C.S.

Lewis, his

least favorite,

people who read

C.S.

Lewis, the novel

people like the

least is Till We

Have Faces.

The novel he

loved the most was

that novel, Till

We Have Faces.

and it's all

about a woman

who wears a

mask and she

eventually comes

to look like

the mask.

And he's

capturing a

very, it's a

very powerful

novel and it

just describes

how we become,

what we do.

And so, you

know, if we

think, well, I'm

just going to be

silent about this

issue and I'm

going to be

silent about this

issue and I'm

going to compromise

on this issue

and I'm going

to conform on

this issue and

before you know

it, you're not

actually a follower

of Jesus.

But we sort of

think that we

can be.

When I was part

of the Diocese of

Ottawa, there

would be several

people that,

you know, when

different things

were going on in

the Diocese of

Ottawa, that were

just wrong and

virtually nobody

would speak against

it and there

were several

people with

great qualifications

who were

evangelicals and

they just were

silent but

because they

would say they're

becoming silent

because they can

get on this

committee or in

this key position

and then they'd

eventually make

change.

But they

compromised and

they compromised

and they compromised

and they compromised

and when they got

into that position

there was always

one more level

they could reach

and so they

would compromise

and conform and

at the end of

the day,

they were a

liberal.

Their backbone

was removed,

given a different

one.

There's a powerful

allure to the

path of silence,

compromise, and

conformity so that

you will be

accepted.

Second point,

but what does this

story show us?

The path of silence,

compromise, and

conformity makes you

promises that will

not work out.

Esther went by

another name,

Mordecai went by

another name,

Esther still gets

captured.

We're going to see

this part of what

makes the book of

Esther so important

is that what's

going to happen

in the next,

not this episode,

not this next

episode, but the

episode after that

is the plan to

have genocide to

kill every Jew

is going to be

put in place.

That's going to be

what drives the

last episodes of

this story, the

plan by the

Persian government

to kill every

Jewish person.

And the fact of

the matter is,

is the path of

silence and

compromise and

conformity does

not deliver what

it promises,

either in terms of

effectiveness or

your peace, nor

your eternal

destiny.

By the way, I'm

not saying that as

if I'm, this is a

time now I wish I

got off the stage

and was down

there.

Let me just share

with you, sorry,

two minutes.

I got into this

hour and a half

long conversation

with a guy

yesterday.

It was so funny.

Here I am, on

one level I pray

for opportunities to

share the gospel,

and I go into

the coffee shop

and I get down,

I'm going to be

working on my

sermon for this

morning.

I get five

minutes into it,

this guy starts

talking to me.

It ends up to

me in an hour

and a half.

By the time it's

over, I am so

exhausted, I can't

work on the

sermon.

And it's far

ranging about

creation, about

God, but we get

into this one part

of the conversation

because he's into

chakras and auras

and all of that

type of stuff.

And he challenges

me about whether

Christianity can

account for that

type of stuff.

And I want to

try to win him

and I'm trying

to defend things.

And he says we

have no account

for that type of

stuff.

And in my mind,

I say part of

what we Christians

would say, and I

don't want to say

it because I want

to be silent because

he's going to think

I'm a knuckle

dragging, narrow

minded fundamentalist.

And then probably

in heaven I'll find

out one of you

were praying for

me that exact

moment so that I

had courage because

I didn't have it

in my flesh.

And I said, well,

part of what we

would say that what

you're seeing is

demonic.

It's demons.

He goes, whoa.

Now the interesting

thing is it didn't

end the conversation.

You see, that's

always the thing

about compromise,

right?

The devil whispers

into me enough and

says, if you say

something like demonic,

he's going to think

you're stupid.

He's going to think

you're blah, blah,

blah, blah.

You shouldn't say

something like that.

You can't.

I said, natter away.

And I just said, well,

that part of how we

would account for it is

it's you're experiencing

demons.

They're only leading

you away from God.

We still talk for

another 40 minutes

after that.

And he wants to

talk with me again.

What I'm just

saying to you,

when I make these

points, I'm not

saying that I'm

somehow some

superstar.

I am so

Canadian and

I, like you,

have a sinful

flesh.

We need to pray

for each other

that we learn

to bear witness

to Jesus

unashamed of the

gospel and the

whole counsel of

God.

God.

And willing to be a

fool for Christ.

Next thing, if you

put up next point,

this is really a

thing to remember

because many people

will read the book

of Esther as if

Esther is a hero.

There's only one

hero in the Bible,

folks.

It's Jesus.

Jesus is the only

hero in the Bible.

In fact, part of

what is so

important about

what those books

in the Old

Testament that

prepare us for

Jesus, part of the

way they prepare us

for Jesus is that

every, I mean,

they're sort of

heroes with all

very small letters

with lots of

quote marks and

caveats around

them.

But you look at

all of them and

all of them, you

see they're sinful.

All of them, you

see they fail.

All of them, they

do something which

is wrong.

All of them, they

do something where

God has to deliver

them.

And then you come

to Jesus.

And then you read

the rest of the New

Testament after Jesus

and you see Paul and

he fights with Barnabas

and you see, you

know, you hear about

this person and that

person and you see

the things that you

see the fights and

the messiness and all

of that type of stuff.

And what shines

throughout all of it

is Jesus.

Only Jesus is without

sin.

Only him.

All of the Bible is

preparing us to

understand Jesus.

Completely different

than any prophet or

apostle.

Patriarch or patron.

If you could put up

the next point,

please.

What do we see in

this story?

This story is so

wonderful because it

touches at a

fundamental level a

deep fear that many

of us have.

It's the lie.

You see, one of the

things I try to pray

when I prepare for

sermons is I say,

what lies does this

text come against?

What lies that

Canadians easily

believe does this

text come against?

And a common

complaint, whether

it's the rich, the

one percent, whether

it's the Republicans,

whether it's the

Democrats, whether

it's the conservatives,

whether it's the

liberals, whether it's

Islam, whether it's

Christianity, whether

it's Buddhism, is that

the many sacrifice for

the benefit of the

few or even the

one.

In the world, often

the many are

sacrificed for the

good of the few.

In the gospel, the

one sacrificed

himself for the good

of the many.

The one sacrificed

himself.

The many are

sacrificed for the

good of the one or

the few.

people.

But this is preparing

us to see how

radically different

Jesus is.

He is the one who

willingly dies

himself and offers

his life himself,

not for his own

benefit, but for the

benefit of all who

will receive what he

has done.

And if you could up

the final point, one

of the things which is

so powerful about this

story is, you know

what?

You know what's

described here?

One of the things I

said to my atheist

friend on Friday

morning is I said,

you're wrong.

This story could be

written today.

This story is going

on with Boko Haram.

This story is going

on in the streets of

this city.

This story is as

contemporary as

anything you could

possibly imagine.

And it's all part of

a larger story

preparing us to

meet Jesus.

And the very

realism of the

story, that there

are, you know, we

understand how the

power of the state

with its police and

its judiciary and

its soldiers can be

used to enforce

that which is

atrociously evil.

This is the

earth today.

It is a realistic

story about real

people and it's

helping us to

understand the

real God offers a

real gospel with a

real savior for the

real you in the

real world.

world.

Not the God

described or that

we fear in our

imagination as a

God who will

sacrifice many for

his causes and his

glory, but the

God revealed in the

person of Jesus in

the words of the

Bible that describes

the one who will

sacrifice himself for

the many.

And the real gospel

is that it really did

happen, he really did

come, he really did

die, he really did,

his perfect life will

stand for your

imperfect and

compromised life and

his death will pay

the punishment that

your compromises

deserve and he

really does it and

he really dies and

the grave is really

empty on the third

day and he really

does appear and it

really happened.

He's a real savior,

it's real news that

comes from God for

real people like you

in your real world

that he will take you

for himself when you

put your faith and

trust in him.

And for those of us

who compromise after

we are his, we have

this great confidence

that he has done it

all to make me right

with him and he will

never let me go and

he will never forsake

me.

It's all done by him

and that I can turn to

him every Sunday when I

gather with God's people

or in my private

devotions and say

yesterday or this week

I screwed up again

God.

I compromised myself

here and I compromised

myself here and I

compromised myself

here and I'm sorry.

Thank you for Jesus.

Help me to learn to

walk with Jesus in this

real world without

compromise and for your

great glory.

Please stand.

Lord.

If you have never called

out to Jesus to be your

savior, you should do it

now.

Stop listening to me.

Just say, Jesus, be my

savior and my Lord.

I thank you that you died

for me.

The real me in the real

world, I thank you that you

died for me.

Be my savior.

Be my Lord.

Thank you that you will

never let me go.

Just pray it in your own

words right now.

But for all of us, let's

just do some business with

God.

Father, thank you so much

that you know who we

really are and you know

what we're really like and

you know our compromises

and you know those times

when we don't compromise,

Father, because we don't

always compromise.

You know our growth.

You know how we're going.

Some of us are going

downhill and backwards and

some of us are moving

forward.

Father, you know us.

You know us as a motley

collection of people and

all sorts of conditions of

life and of holiness and

of sinfulness.

Thank you, Father.

You know each of us as

individuals.

You know us as a whole and

still you love us.

And thank you, Father, that

you are always more willing

to hear us when we

confess to you than we

are to confess to you.

You're always more willing

to hear us and you're

always more willing to

give us help than we are

to ask for help.

So, Father, we ask for

your help.

We ask for your mercy.

We ask for your grace.

We ask that you would

grip us with the gospel.

Grip us with the gospel

that we might start to

live lives of courage,

to swim against the flow

in a way that loves people,

seeks their best,

and brings you great glory.

And we ask this in the name

of Jesus and all God's

people said,

Amen.