"God Punishes" Esther 9:1-19 Sunday Evening Worship Service

As I prayed, the Bible is a cohesive narrative.

It does take us from Genesis to Revelation, from garden to garden.

The Bible opens in paradise and ends in paradise.

It opens with a tree and it ends with a tree.

It opens with a command of God as he walks with people and dwells with people, and it ends as God walks with people and dwells with people.

So the Bible is perfectly bracketed.

In the middle is another tree, in the middle is the cross elevated with Jesus on the cross and his glorious death and then resurrection on our behalf.

And so the Bible folds backwards and forwards from that cross, going like a pinnacle streaming down to the garden in the Old Testament and streaming down to the garden in the New Testament.

And so to find what's really happening in a narrative of the Bible, you have to understand how it fits in into that cosmic narrative, how it fits in from our progression from garden to garden.

And that's where I want tonight to talk about how Esther fits in in the Bible before we get into what actually takes place in Esther 9.

So most of what we talk about tonight will be prequel into Esther 9.

And then we'll get through about half of Esther 9 tonight and we'll pick up the rest of Esther 9, either next Sunday or the Sunday after that, Lord willing.

So the Bible, as I said, begins in the garden.

And when Adam and Eve sin, death is brought into the world.

Rather than dying physically that day, they die spiritually that day.

But God promises to them that there will be a savior.

This is in Genesis chapter 3.

Genesis 3 · chapter mention

He promises that there will be a seed of the woman, which is a prophecy of the virgin birth.

There will be a descendant from Eve who will come to the earth and who will be the Savior.

He will bear the sins of the world.

He will crush the head of the serpent.

Although he will be struck by the serpent on the heel, he will crush the serpent's head.

And that becomes the hope that is in the Old Testament, is that kind of the search for the seed, who that savior will be.

Adam and Eve don't know who the seed is.

They assume, of course, that it's Abel, their son, Abel, is promptly murdered by Cain, and so you can cross him off the list.

They name their next son Seth, which literally means seed, but Seth, of course, was not the seed.

Then you encounter Noah.

Noah's dad thinks that Noah might be the seed.

His name, in fact, even means rest, that Noah will be able to bring his people rest from the sin and rest from the affliction in the world, and that does not happen if you remember.

Noah's name becomes ironic.

He didn't bring rest, he brought a flood.

You know, the world didn't get deliverance through him.

They died as a result of him.

But if you keep your finger in Esther 9, you can flip over, and we're going to flip to a bunch of passages tonight.

You can flip over to Genesis chapter 12.

Genesis 12 · chapter mention

While your kids are in Iwana, we'll be doing sword drills over here.

No need to call it out when you find it.

But Genesis chapter 12, verse 1, Yahweh says to Abram, Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house, the land that I will show you, and I will make of you a great nation.

Genesis 12:1

I will bless you, and I will make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.

I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth will be blessed.

This is the promise that God gives in the Old Testament.

The Savior will come, not just through a seed generically, through Eve, not just through anybody, any human.

Remember, every human is going to descend from Adam and Eve.

So in that sense, the promise is wide.

But here the promise is narrowed, that it will be a descendant of this one person.

It won't be this person.

It won't be Abram.

He will not be the Savior, but it will be a descendant of his.

Moreover, that descendant will be the only hope for the world.

Anybody who blesses that descendant will be blessed, it says in verse 3.

And anyone who dishonors that descendant will be cursed.

And in that promise, that promise right there, in the future offspring of Abraham.

Abraham has no child when he's called.

He's not married here at this point.

When he's called, God has in his mind that he will marry Sarah, and then from them will come an offspring, and from that offspring will be the Savior of the world.

In that promise, all the families of the earth will be blessed.

And so Abraham goes.

He's going to take his wife in verse 5, Sarah.

He's going to take an extended family, Lot, perhaps, thinking that Lot is his brother's son, that he might be the descendants.

Of course, he's not from Abram and Sarah, of course, and that does not work out well.

Abram's going to try other efforts at getting himself a son, sleeping with his maidservant.

That doesn't go very well for him either.

You can skip over to Genesis chapter 17.

Genesis 17 · chapter mention

Genesis chapter 17, God repeats his promise to Abram.

Genesis 17 · chapter mention

In verse 7, I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring, is what the ESV says there.

That is the word for seed, after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you.

And I will give to you and to your offspring your seed after you, the land of your sojournings, and all the land of Canaan for an everlasting possession.

I will be their God.

There's a promise to them that they will have land and that God will protect them, and those that attack them will be repelled, and those that bless them will be blessed.

That's a general promise to the Israelites.

There's a specific promise in here that one of those descendants will be the Savior and will bring peace to the earth.

Both of those promises become wrapped up in one.

This is the way of saying the Savior will be from Israel.

The Savior will be an Israelite.

But we don't know how long the wait is.

We know that Isaac will be the seed that is, uh the seed that will come from Abraham and Sarah, but he is not the Savior.

And that becomes the narrative through the rest of the book of Genesis, kind of the search for the Savior, because it is not Isaac.

It is certainly not Jacob, who is kind of a swindler and a rascal.

He's even renamed Israel, which is not meant to be complimentary towards Israel.

And he is not the seed, but you can flip in your Bible to the end of the book of Genesis, Genesis 49.

Where Jacob, having been renamed Israel, and with his twelve sons, begins to bless his sons.

He assembles them together in verse 2 assemble and listen, O sons of Jacob, listen to Israel your father.

And he's going to go down the list of his twelve sons.

And these twelve sons will become the twelve tribes of Israel.

Reuben, you're my firstborn.

My might, the firstfruits of my strength, preeminent in dignity, preeminent in power.

You might think that he's setting Reuben up, that the seed, the promised savior, will come from Reuben's line, but if you know anything about the way Yahweh works, you know he doesn't work through strength, right?

If Yahweh looks at a group of twelve kids, and there's one who is the oldest and the most handsome and he looks like a king, you can pretty safely rule him out.

He won't be God's chosen king.

And so this is setting up to rebuke Reuben.

You are my firstborn, you're strong, you're preeminent in dignity.

I mean, you're the handsomest of the kids, and you're you should have the you should have the preeminence, but you won't have it.

You won't have it.

Because of his own sexual sin.

And Simeon and Levi, they're going to be ruled out here.

But we get down to the fourth son.

Genesis 49, verse 8.

Genesis 49:8

Judah, your brothers will praise you.

Your hand shall be on the neck of your enemies.

Your father's sons shall bow down before you.

Judah is a lion's cub.

He stooped down.

Or from my pre from the prey, my son, you have gone up.

He stooped down, he crouches in a lion, and as a lioness, who dares to rouse him?

The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor the ruler's staff from between his feet, until tribute comes to him, and to him shall be the obedience of the peoples.

There's echoes here of the promise back in Genesis 12 and Genesis 17, that the promise is now being funneled from all the twelve tribes, it's being funneled to the line of Judah.

Judah, of course, himself is a descendant of Jacob, one of his sons, of Isaac, of Abraham.

But the promise is that the scepter, the reigning power, will be through him.

At this point, remember, there is no king in Israel.

There is no Israel at this point.

There's twelve sons.

There's no land, they're exiled, they're headed to Egypt.

They don't have a place, much less a king, but the promise is that the seed, the savior, the king, the rulership of the world will descend from Jacob through Judah.

This narrows us down so when the Israelites escape finally their time in Egypt, and they come into the promised land, there is still the search for the Savior.

They make Saul their king, and the king will not be Saul.

The Savior will not be from the line of Saul.

Saul is replaced with David, and you know the story.

Samuel comes to find David.

He looks through all of Jesse's sons, and he goes through all the handsome ones, he goes through all the ugly ones.

He still can't find the king.

And Jesse was out with the David was out with the sheep.

They summon him and he comes in.

I want you to flip over to 2 Samuel chapter 7.

2 Samuel 7 · chapter mention

So you're jumping through the Torah, you're jumping past Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1 Samuel, 2 Samuel chapter 7.

2 Samuel 7 · chapter mention

David is now the king.

Saul is gone.

David has consolidated his kingdom.

Israel and Judah are one.

The twelve tribes are under unified authority.

David has peace.

It's a the way the narrative is set up in 2 Samuel.

You're familiar with this.

The civil war is going to come after this.

David is going to get exiled after this.

But 2 Samuel 7 happens in a relative moment of peace.

The ark has been brought back to Jerusalem, which is the biggest triumph of David's kingship.

And it's at this moment when the king lived in his house.

Look at chapter 7, verse 1, and the Lord Yahweh had given him rest from all of his enemies, that Nathan the prophet came to him.

And this is the gist of the message.

It's 2 Samuel 7, verse 12.

2 Samuel 7:12

When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, this is to David, I will raise up your offspring after you, who will come from your body.

I will establish his kingdom.

Do you see what's wrapped up in this is that David will not be the Savior, which is certainly what many of the Israelites will thought.

It says, You're going to go to your grave, and it will not be until after you die that your offspring will be raised up.

I think if you read that very strictly, you realize this is not talking about Solomon either, although Solomon, I think, tried to claim some of these promises.

You see that in 1 Kings chapter 8.

1 Kings 8 · chapter mention

I think you can rule that out.

It's not a person who is alive when David is alive.

That's how I read this.

It's after that, after David is dead and buried, then God will raise up the Savior.

He will come from David's line, though, and his kingdom will be established.

Verse 13.

And David, of course, thinks he's talking about the actual house that he had asked to build earlier in chapter 7, the actual, you know, palace for the king.

But that's not what God is talking about.

And when you see this quoted in the New Testament, it is not about David's palace.

It's about the church.

It's about God's people on earth, underneath the Lordship of Jesus Christ.

That will be built up by not David, not Solomon, by someone else.

His kingdom will be established forever.

I will be to him a father, he shall be to me a son.

When he commits iniquity, I will discipline him with the rod of men, with the stripes of the Son and the sons of men, which I don't think is a prophecy about Jesus sinning in some way.

I think either this is a referent to Solomon or it's a referent to our sin being imputed to Jesus, that he will be struck by the Father for our sin on him.

Nevertheless, even though the sins of the world become his, he's not alienated from his father.

This is the promise in the Old Testament.

The Savior will come from Eve, from Abraham, from Judah, and from David.

That's the hope of the world.

It rests on that.

Nevertheless, that's the promise.

Nevertheless, of the Old Testament, there are numerous problems with this.

Wherever that promise goes, goes with it antagonists.

Go with it those who don't want the promise to go into the world.

Now, if you just think critically for a second, why would anybody not want the promised Savior to come to the world?

And the answer is because they hate God.

That's the big picture answer.

They reject Jesus because they hate God.

There's other reasons why they reject Jesus too.

There's other reasons why they reject the Savior.

Sometimes they want their land.

They want the land that Israel has.

They want the land that Abraham has.

Sometimes they want their work.

Pharaoh didn't want the Israelites to leave Egypt because he likes their slave labor.

It's as simple as that.

The Egyptians got to choose between having the Savior come to the world or between having free labor.

They chose the labor.

There are lots of people who simply make that calculation.

They reject the Lord and they reject his Savior because it requires things from them.

He makes demands on them.

They're unwilling to pay.

And you see this at every turn in the Bible.

Go back to the first promise of the Savior was given to Adam and Eve, their son, Abel.

Abel was murdered by Cain because Cain did not want to live as God required him, whereas Abel was submitting himself to God.

And so Cain took his anger out on Abel.

That is the pattern that is repeated over and over and over again throughout the Bible.

The characters change, but it's always the same plots.

There is the promised Savior, and the nations rise up to kill him.

Because they don't want somebody from Israel in authority.

They don't want somebody from God's people in authority.

They don't want God's promise in authority.

Which is another way of saying they don't want God to be in authority.

They want to be their own king.

That's your typical way you see it in the Old Testament.

The enemies are external attacking Israel.

But there is no shortage of enemies internal to the promise either.

If you're familiar with the Old Testament, you know that the Jews are their own worst enemy.

They often disobey God's commands.

They often are reckless.

They often laugh at God's in God's face as Sarah did.

They often doubt God as Abraham did.

They often try to negotiate or swindle or get things from God as Jacob did.

And the story of Israel is not a story of faithfulness.

It is not a story of faithfully trying to lead the Savior into the world.

Rather, it's a story of hostility towards Christ, hostility towards the Savior from external enemies and from internal enemies.

You see this over and over and over again.

I mean, Egypt is the Israelites are slaves in Egypt.

They're let out of Egypt and they're ambushed in the wilderness by the Midianites.

They're worshiping the golden calf in the wilderness.

So they're doubting God from inside, and they're doubting God as the enemies are doubting God as well.

The enemies are attacking them from the outside.

They want to move directly towards the promised land.

The Midianites wouldn't let them.

They closed the pass off, so the Israelites had to wander through the wilderness to get around the long way into Israel because the other nations wouldn't let them pass through.

They did not want Israel in the promised land.

They were enemies to them.

And the Israelites were compromising themselves.

Remember the Midianites?

They wanted to go to war against Israel.

They had military clashes against Israel, but you know, God just drowned the whole Egyptian army.

So they figured out they would not be able to defeat Israel with military strength because they had God on their side.

And so they hired Balaam.

Do you remember this story?

They hired Balaam, and Balaam said, rather than fighting them with horses, why don't you fight them with women?

Introduce your daughters to them.

Let them sleep with your daughters.

Introduce your idols to them.

Let them worship your idols.

That's a way to destroy them, because then their own God will have to destroy them.

That's what the Midianites did.

And it definitely worked.

Israel fell into sin, brought in compromise that would remain with them throughout the rest of the Old Testament.

They were never able to extricate themselves from that morass of compromise they found themselves trapped in by the Midianites.

That's the problem you see over and over and over again.

They're attacked by the Philistines who hate them.

Say nothing of the physical problems they have to overcome.

They have to cross the Jordan River.

They have to defeat Jericho to get into the land.

There's constant problems.

There's personal problems too.

Think of 2 Kings 11 with Queen Ethalia.

She made it her goal to eliminate the line of David from the world.

She did not want any descendants of David left alive.

And so she slaughtered every single one of them, which would have ended God's promise, except the high priest was able to smuggle a baby away in a closet in the temple, literally, is where they hid him.

The promise to David was brought down to one person.

To one person, which is an example of the way God protected his promise despite all of those problems.

God protected his promise in the Old Testament through providence.

He miraculously and providentially worked in Israel to protect the promised seed.

He did not let the Midianites ultimately compromise and destroy them.

He did not let the Philistines annihilate them.

He did not let the Assyrians end the line of David.

Even when the Old Testament ends, there's a member of the line of David sitting at the banquet table in Babylon.

There's always the hope that is alive.

The hope lives on, providentially guarded, even when it goes down to one child, one baby, the hope lives on in that one baby.

That is God's providence.

That is God's providence.

And he does that throughout the Old Testament.

In many senses, the Old Testament is, it can be boiled down to these three things right here.

These three P's kind of give you your summary of the Old Testament.

God makes a promise for the Savior.

That promise runs into problems, which is a euphemism for everybody trying to kill him.

And God providentially protects the line all the way through until the New Testament.

Now there is a fourth word I'm going to give you tonight before we jump in Esther 9, and that is the word plunder.

That is the word plunder.

If you are not Jewish, then you're probably think that word, which one of these doesn't look like the other plunder.

I mean, everything else I see all over the Old Testament, we've heard, we've up to now, you've heard this before, right?

I mean, this is basically Old Testament 101 right here.

The new concept here for many of you tonight is going to be plunder, which is a central theme of the Old Testament from the Jewish perspective.

Because what is right along with every one of those encounters I just described is this constant motif in the Old Testament of who gets the goods, who gets the stuff, who gets the land, who gets the gold, who gets the treasure.

It's part of the promise to Abraham that the riches of the earth will come to him, that kings will be bringing their treasures to him.

And yet people are attacking him to get the treasure from him.

Lot loses all of his stuff when enemies of the covenant are attacking him.

You see this throughout the Old Testament.

And so God makes rules for them.

When their enemies attack them, they are allowed to take their stuff.

They're allowed to take their plunder.

If it can pass through the fire, if you could burn it and you still got it, then you can keep it.

If you can burn it and you don't still got it, you're not supposed to take it.

You're definitely not supposed to take any of the people.

They're supposed to be put to the when people attack you, you're supposed to put the whole people group to the sword.

You're supposed to eliminate the men, the fighting age, the women.

In many cases, they're even commanded to uh kill the children, although there's very few examples of them actually doing that in the Old Testament.

It seems that the operating principle they had is if the woman, women were single, if they weren't old enough to marry yet, or their children, they were allowed to live and receive protection in Israel.

That was kind of the rules that were set up.

But the Old Testament, as is, should not be surprising to you if you're familiar with the Israelites in the Old Testament.

It is the story of how the Israelites constantly broke those rules.

So they leave Egypt.

They leave Egypt, they're on their way out of Egypt, and they are given the ability to plunder the Israelites, or the Egyptians.

This is Exodus 3, verse 22.

Exodus 3:22

God tells them, plunder their silver, plunder their gold.

You see an Egyptian, plunder an Egyptian.

That's their life motto.

Take their stuff, take their silver, take their gold.

That's because they were so recalcitrant against letting the Israelites leave.

The Israelites were allowed to take their silver and gold.

And remember, the tenth plague, the death of the firstborn, was so severe that the Egyptians who weren't letting the Israelites get their freedom finally are paying them to leave.

Once they see the devastation the ten plagues brought, they're giving them the gold and the silver, they're not even stealing them, they're giving it to them to get them to go.

So they succeeded in plundering the Egyptians.

And yet in the wilderness they encountered the Midians.

The Midians thwart them by giving their women to sleep with them, giving them their idols for them to worship, and so God tells them, You need to destroy the Midianites.

Put them to the sword, do not let any of them live.

Men, women, this is one of the examples.

Men, women, and children.

Gold, silver, everything.

Destroy it all.

But God gives them an exception.

I think it's an interesting exception.

Number 31 is where you find it.

Anything, this is where I said earlier, anything that can withstand the fire you can keep, which is gold, silver, some kind of bronze, not the idols, but anything else that can be burned with fire and you can still have, you can take their treasure.

That's number 31.

Once they're in the promised land, they're supposed to take that treasure and put it in the temple.

It becomes a kind of a trophy, a trophy for their conquests.

What happens with Achan, if you remember?

Achan took gold and a jacket.

Jackets aren't fireproof, not a firefighter jacket, a normal jacket and gold.

Achan took that in the book of Joshua and hid it in his tent.

And so the Lord let the Israelites lose their battle.

That's how serious it was to God.

The Israelites lost their battle, and Achan and his family died.

This sets you up for 1 Samuel 15, when Samuel was supposed to capture Agag, the king of the Amalekites, and put Agag to death, and put the Amalekites to death and all their stuff to death.

He wasn't supposed to take their animals because the animals can't survive the fire.

He wasn't supposed to take anything from them.

They were all supposed to be put to death.

And Saul, if you remember, did not do that.

Saul instead took them, killed many of the people, but took the fattest of the sheep.

The tastiest looking sheep.

And their king.

He took their king.

Why would Saul take the king?

What would you want with the king?

Why don't you put him?

You think if you're going to put anyone to death, start with the king.

Well, it was a it was a power play back then.

You'd take their king and you'd make him sit at your table, you'd make him sit at your feet, you'd make him be a servant in your house.

It was a power play.

Like their mighty king is now, you know, my butler.

Fetch me my shoes, please, king.

That's what Saul was up to.

Samuel confronts Saul and says, Why didn't you do what God said?

And Saul tries to play it off.

Of course I did what God said.

And you hear the sheep in the background.

Why do I hear the sheep then?

Saul plays it cool, like a sheep?

What sheep?

I don't know what sheep or that sheep right there.

Oh, he says, I just brought that so I could sacrifice in the temple to Yahweh.

The verse we read earlier tonight in Hebrews chapter 10, that's from that exchange.

Hebrews 10 · chapter mention

Where Samuel tells Saul, God doesn't want your sacrifice.

You don't need to bring an Amalekite sheep back to sacrifice him to Yahweh in the temple.

Just do what God tells you to do.

Do what God tells you to do.

Well, because Saul did not kill the Amalekites, they became a thorn in the side of the Israelites all the way until the book of Esther.

We've mentioned this many, many times, but Haman in the book of Esther descends from Agag.

He was an Agagite, is how the book of Esther calls it.

That's an Amalekite.

So when Haman rises up and wants to put Mordecai to death and wants to eliminate the Jews in the book of Esther, it's owing back to this.

It goes back to Saul, unwilling to part with the plunder.

Saul unwilling to obey God.

And because Saul wouldn't obey God and part with the plunder, he had the kingdom ripped from him, and 600 years between Saul, by the way, 600 years between Saul and Haman.

600 years between Saul and Esther, between Agag and Haman, 600 years.

600 years of conflict and war and strife between the Israelites and the Agagites and the Amalekites because Saul wouldn't part with the plunder.

Now I want you to turn back to Esther chapter 9.

Esther 9 · chapter mention

And with those four words on the screen, we're going to walk our way through this tonight.

And I want you to see how kind of Esther 9 encapsulates this Old Testament narrative.

It's a microcosm, a little small vignette that captures all four of these threads to the Old Testament and weaves them together in a way that prepares you to worship the Savior.

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, this is the day when the Jews' enemies were given the ability to destroy the Jews.

They were going to rise up and fight and go to battle against the Jews and annihilate them.

And in chapter 8, Esther could not erase that edict, but she figured out a way to circumvent it, to preempt it, by having the king write a different edict that the Israelites could defend themselves.

So this day arrives, and the Jews are about to be annihilated, but they could at the same time defend themselves.

On the very day when the enemy of the Jews hoped to gain mastery over them, the reverse occurred.

I love that kind of language in the Bible.

They thought it was going to be X, but it was not just Y, it was the opposite of X.

It was not X.

The opposite of what they thought was going to happen ended up happening.

God turned the tables on everyone.

This is a story of irony.

We talked much about that last week.

The Jews instead gained mastery over those who hated them.

The Jews ended up victorious in this.

That's the conclusion, and we're going to walk through and see how that happened.

But the author just wants you to notice first what the masterful reverse.

Everything in Esther is about the reverse, isn't it?

That the first queen was fired and the second queen delivers the Jews.

The first prime minister is hung, and the second prime minister becomes, well, is Jewish.

The first edict is stripping everything from the Israelites, the second edict gives them all of the wealth.

This is the promised problems and then providence.

The promise is that Israel would be in the land and would stay as a people group until the Savior comes.

The problems is that Haman wants to kill them, and God providentially reverses the tables on them, and they have mastery over those that were opposed to them.

The Jews gathered in their cities throughout all the provinces of King Ahazarius to lay hands on those who sought their harm.

And no one can stand against them, for fear of them had fallen on all the peoples.

And so there's been time, weeks and months perhaps that have gone by while the fear has been mounting, where people are terrified of the Jews.

Look your eyes back up at chapter 8, verse 17.

Many people from the country declared themselves Jews for fear of the Jews that fallen them.

So people were fake converting to Judaism.

The stories of what happened with the Red Sea crossing and the army being, Pharaoh's army being drowned, were circulating, and people were terrified of the Jews.

And you know how this is a pre-social media age, too.

There was no fact checks on these things here.

And so the story just moves throughout the empire quickly and with speed that the Jews are invincible.

And so people become terrified of them.

Terrified.

Fear of them had fallen on all of the people, the text says, and all of the people.

And then, verse 3, all the officials of the providence, of the provinces, and the satraps and the governors and the royal agents also helped the Jews.

For fear of Mordecai fell on them.

They hear that Mordecai is now the prime minister.

And so all these like lesser governmental figures.

All these lesser government figures are going out of their way to help the Jews.

So we're talking like the county commissioner in this city or like the mayor's attache in that other city.

All these, you know, people trying to climb the ranks, so to speak, of the government, they're trying to climb up through the Persian Empire, they're going out of their way to help the Jews because the new prime minister is a Jew.

I don't know what the right example in American government would be, but you know, if the president is a Democrat and you work for the federal government, you suddenly have, you know, you're the biggest Democrat there ever is.

And then the other party wins the election, the president's Republican, and you are the biggest Republican that you could ever imagine.

You'll do anything to serve the president, and back and forth.

That's this kind of person right here.

There's a new party in power.

Haman is gone.

See him up there on the poll.

Mordecai is in office.

Whoa, I have always loved the Jews.

Boca Tove, everyone.

And so they're giving the police departments and the soldiers, hey, go help the Jews.

They're gonna be attacked, go help them.

All this is an effort to show everyone that they are working for the Lord.

Mordecai was great in the king's house.

Verse 4.

And his fame spread through the whole land.

Everybody knew about him, all the provinces.

The man Mordecai grew more and more powerful.

A couple words just to draw to your attention.

Um verse three there.

It says that the reputation of the Jews, the fear of the Jews, had gone around.

Mordecai had fallen on them.

It's a pun in the Hebrew, it's the same word that's used for Haman being lifted up on the pole.

The fear of the Jews is being lifted up, Haman's body is on the pole, and so now everybody is raising their fear up as well.

That's what ends up elevating Mordecai.

Mordecai grows famous and famous.

It's a kind of a pun on what happens to Haman.

He's crucified, and Mordecai is elevated.

And this is the opposite of what you've seen throughout the book, where Mordecai is constantly put down and put down and put down, and he won't bow.

Now he's elevated while Haman is crucified.

Another word that's up there in verse uh where is the word reversed?

Um that's what I'm searching for in my notes here.

Verse 1, the very reverse occurred.

That word for reverse is basically the word for Esther.

And so this is the kind of the pun of the book here is that the word reversed in verse 1 is sounds very much like the Hebrew word for Esther is from Deuteronomy 32, verse 20.

Deuteronomy 32:20

That verse in Deuteronomy, God says to the Israelites, I will hide my face from them.

I will see what their end will be, for they are a perverse generation, children in whom there is no faithfulness.

And there in Deuteronomy 32, it's the word for hidden, a hiding.

God will hide his face from his people.

The Jews believe that everything that's important was in the Torah.

And so the great mystery for the Jews is how can the book of Esther be biblical when you don't see a reference to the Torah?

And here, in fact, the feast that's coming up is not in the Torah.

It's a feast that's not prescribed by the Torah.

How could the book of Esther be biblical and it's not in the Torah?

And the answer the rabbis came up with is Deuteronomy 32.

God says, I will hide my face from them when they're being evil and wicked, and they won't be able to find me.

That word in Hebrew for hide my face, it's sound, it's the word, it's a it's not the word Esther, but it's a it sounds just like it.

And so the rabbis say that that becomes the theme of the book of Esther, that God's face is hidden, God's hand is hidden.

His face is hidden from Deuteronomy 32.20, and it's hidden using the word Esther, and that becomes the name of this book, that God is hiding himself from his people.

And that's why it's so incredible to read this, that he's hiding himself in a way that keeps his promise.

He's hiding himself in a way that keeps his people from falling to their enemies, but specifically it's hiding himself from his people in a way that displays his providence.

As I mentioned in this book, there is nobody who prays.

You don't see anybody praying in this book.

There's nobody who worships.

Nobody worships in this book.

Nobody reads the Torah in this book.

Nobody talks about Yahweh in this book.

This is a godless book.

However, it's godless for one reason and one reason only: that God's face is hiding from them.

And Deuteronomy 32 says, God's face is hiding from them because they are in sin.

This is the providence of God in the book of Esther.

His people are living in sin, and yet he is still working.

His face is hidden, but his hand is not.

His hand is absolutely at work.

Well, verse 4, Mordecai was great in the king's house.

His fame spread everywhere.

He was more and more powerful.

Verse 5, the Jews struck all their enemies with the sword, killing and destroying them.

And they did as they pleased to all who hated it.

And that phrase, they did as they pleased.

They're running roughshod over everybody.

They're taking whatever they want.

They're defeating all of their enemies up and down the block.

They're defeating them at will.

Because remember, they got the police force with them, and the government agents are with them.

They have a sizable force.

The Jews are in exile, by the way.

They're spread out all over the empire, but all these little government officials in every town are fighting for them, and the Jews are destroying everyone that attacks them.

In Susa, the citadel itself, that's just a little, you know, military outpost inside the capital city.

The Jews killed and destroyed 500 people, came after the Jews in the citadel.

500.

That's a huge amount for a little military outpost.

And also killed Parshandatha, Dalphon, Aspatha, Paratha, Adalia, Eridatha, Parmashatha, Eresai, Eridai, and Vesiatha.

Those ten names you don't know.

I practiced them on my cat earlier this afternoon.

They're the ten sons of Haman, the son of Hamadatha, who is the enemy of the Jews.

You get all their names listed.

That's interesting to me because back in Esther 5, verse 11, there Haman was bragging to his family.

Esther 5:11

Remember, he said, I have the promotion, I have my wealth, and I have all ten of my sons.

Mordecai doesn't have any of that.

Well, now at the end of the book, what happened to Haman's promotion?

Mordecai got it.

What happened to Haman's wealth?

Oh, Mordecai got that.

What happened to Haman's sons?

Oh, Mordecai killed them.

This is the ultimate reversal.

Everything that Haman bragged about back in chapter 5 has been taken from him and given to Mordecai.

Verse 11.

Oh, verse 10, you start to see this first phrase back to the final P of the plunder there.

Verse 10, you start to see it.

They killed all of those people, but they did not lay a hand on the plunder.

This is interesting because the edict that the king signed, that Mordecai wrote, told them that they could.

The edict that Mordecai and Esther had their hand on and the king's ring on said they could take all the plunder.

They could.

Your enemies come at you, take their stuff.

Even the Old Testament laws in the plunder would have allowed them to take the gold and the silver, but God here is working providentially through his people and they're not going to take it.

And I think the reason why, there's lots of guesses.

It doesn't say, but I think the reason why is because you remember where this conflict originated was with Saul and Agag, where Saul wanted to take the plunder from Agag.

And the Jews, even though they're not quoting 1 Samuel 15 right here, the Jews obviously are aware of it.

And so they defeat the descendant of Agag, and they don't touch his stuff.

They've learned their lesson from the days of Samuel.

They're not going to touch the treasure.

They could have, by right, by the king's edict, they could have taken it, but they're not touching it.

Verse 11.

That very day, the number of those killed in Susa the citadel was reported to the king.

So the king hears the news.

And so the king rushes out to find the queen and see what's going on.

Verse 12.

The king said to Queen Esther, In Susa the Citadel, the Jews have killed and destroyed 500 men, and also the ten sons of Haman.

This is the first time in the book, by the way, you're seeing the king initiate anything, and he's stoked about this.

You can picture him.

Normally, remember earlier the queen had to beg for permission to see the king.

Now the image here of the king is like jogging over to the queen, you know?

There's bloodshed everywhere.

This is great.

This is like before NASCAR races or hockey that you watch for the fights.

Like this is this kind of thing.

Because you think, all right, the king has signed two competing edicts.

You think that'd be a problem, right?

He define signed one edict that said this group can attack that group, and then he signed a different edict that said that group can attack this group.

And you think, isn't he worried that his rules contradict themselves?

And the king's like, no way, this is gonna be a great fight.

The news gets to him, 500 people died in your military outpost.

And he's like, great, what else?

Where's the rest of the bloodshed?

I mean, this guy is twisted.

He goes and finds Esther.

Earlier she had to seek him out and come up with a whole charade, remember, all the fake meals and all that to get to ask a request from the king.

Now by the end of the book, verse 12, he goes, the king goes and finds Esther to see about what, you know, all the bloodshed, and then the king asks, Esther, now what's your wish?

I'll give you anything.

This is great.

What's your further request?

I'll give you whatever you want, it'll be fulfilled.

And Esther doesn't miss a beat here.

She says, Well, if it pleases the king, let the Jews are in Susa be allowed tomorrow also to do according to this day's edict.

In other words, let the Jews keep defeating their enemies tomorrow.

Now, why would she say, just here, not nationwide?

Well, because there's no way to get the news nationwide.

But you can get the news to everyone today.

Give the Jews one more day to beat up on their enemies.

And of course, that's what the king wants.

He's like, Great, this was a great day.

I'll watch this again tomorrow.

A rerun.

Esther has a second request.

Let the ten sons of Haman be hanged on the gallows.

Well, they're already dead.

She wants their bodies.

Remember the gallows, the huge 75-foot pole.

She wants them stacked up on the gallows.

It's one pole, remember?

This is just one giant pole.

It's already got Haman's body on it, which is probably rotted by now, I guess.

She wants ten more bodies on top of that.

For everyone to see.

So the Jews who were in Susa, well, verse 14, the king commanded this be done.

A decree was issued in Susa, and the ten sons of Haman were hanged.

They went and get their bodies and put them on the thing.

Now I know some of you are seminary students and read Hebrew, and so you will like this.

This is a little Hebrew observation.

This is one of only two places in the Old Testament where this happens.

The Old Testament script, how Hebrew is written, is broken from its normal style for this list of Haman's names.

And in Old Testament manuscripts, in the Hebrew manuscripts, they take the ten names and they stack them on top of each other.

They make a column in the Hebrew and run the names on top of each other.

And there's, you know, an object marker to show you that they're the ones that are hanged.

They separate that from the words, which is the one of only two places in the Old Testament this happens.

The other is a list of kings that are killed in Joshua, I think.

They separate that marker and put it on the other side of a blank page.

So you've got a list of ten names with a little marker over here.

And it's supposed to visually look like they're piled on top of one spike, is the story.

So the actual text of the Old Testament has these ten names with a spike running through them, basically.

The Jews say when they read this, by the way, when the book of Esther is read read on the feast of Perm, they read it in one breath.

They read all the names in one breath.

It took me all afternoon practicing with the cat.

Rabbis can read all those names, rattle them off in one breath.

It just goes, like they're not even worth pronouncing correctly, is the idea, because they're all run on a stake, and they're not going to see the resurrection of the living ever again.

They are done.

Put a fork in them, put a stake in them.

It's over.

So the king let this be done.

Verse 15.

The Jews who were in Susa gathered on the 14th day of the month of Adar.

They killed 300 more men.

And again, they laid no hands on the plunder.

Now the rest of the Jews who were in the king's provinces also gathered to defend their lives.

They got relief from their enemies.

And they killed 75,000 of those who hated them.

But they laid no hands on the plunder.

75,000 people died around the empire.

Well, 75,800, if you count the citadel, died around the empire who were attacking the Jews.

This was, in very many ways, self-defense.

I mean, they only attacked those who attacked them.

It was self-defense.

That word that's translated in the SV verse 16, relief, it's the word, I already told you the Hebrew word for this, is the word rest.

It's the word Noah.

The promise back from the days of Genesis that there would be the seed of the Israelites, it would bring rest to the world, rest to the weary.

That seed is still alive.

Because do you understand?

Had Haman won, had the Jews been eliminated, the promise of God would be undone.

Had the enemies of God triumphed here, had Esther and the Israelites been eliminated, there would have been no Savior.

The line of Christ would have been over.

But God providentially protects them by reversing the tables and buried in this is just that word again, Noah.

God will give the rest, the promise of rest for the people of Israel remains.

The promise remains.

Well, this is on the thirteenth day of the month of Adar, and the fourteenth day they rested and made that a day of feasting and gladness.

But the Jews who were in Susa gathered on the thirteenth day, and on the fourteenth day rested.

So on the fifteenth day, they made that a day of feasting and gladness.

Therefore, the Jews of the villages who live in the rural towns and have the fourteenth day of the month of Adar as a day for gladness and feasting as a holiday.

And on his days which they send gifts and food to one another.

Basically, long story short there, what that verses, or two verses are saying, is that it's a two-day holiday.

You get to celebrate it over two days.

You get to feast and make merry.

The rabbis say this is the only day of the year that uh Orthodox Jews are allowed to get drunk.

And they can get drunk in their celebration of this.

So it would make sense in the Jewish mind to extend that holiday over a 48-hour period.

This holiday gets two days.

And that's their day of celebration.

We'll talk more about that day of celebration next week.

But I want to bring this all together tonight by showing you how the theme of the Old Testament is brought to life right here in this little vignette.

God has a promise that the Israelites would bring the Savior into the world.

That Savior will be from the King of Israel, from the line of David, and of course the Jews' enemies reject that, and they want to put him to death.

And in a very real way, Haman hates the Jews and he wants the Jews to die.

He wants the promise eliminated and wiped off the face of the earth.

That's the problem that rises up.

God's enemies are always against the Savior.

Yet God providentially intervenes, the hidden face of God, God hidden behind the curtains of the Book of Esther.

You cannot see his face.

Nobody sees his face in this book, and yet he is constantly awake.

His will is done perfectly and providentially.

And ironically, there are no loose threads hanging.

Every table he sets in the first half of the book, he reverses in the second half of the book.

Every villain is defeated and every persecuted person is elevated, and the Israelites are protected providentially.

And four times through this, they do not touch the plunder.

It's repeated four times.

It's a critical way of pointing out that God's people, when they're trusting in the promise of the Savior, do not want to profit from wickedness.

It is not right to profit from wickedness.

You don't take advantage of wicked people in their downfall.

Wicked people do have a downfall all the time.

That's what happens to wicked people.

And it is not right for the righteous to profit from that.

I remember a story of a Christian friend of mine who got convicted about the kind of music he was listening to.

This is when I was in college.

He got convicted about the kind of music he was listening to, so he gave to me a bag of all of his secular music.

It struck me.

I mean I was thankful for it, but it struck me.

So you're giving this up because it's not spiritually helpful to you?

Yes.

But you're giving it to me.

Also, yes.

I don't know what I'm supposed to do with that.

Sell it on Craigslist?

No, that's the same problem.

No Craigslist back then.

You don't profit from wickedness.

You don't take the plunder, and that's a principle that's alive in our own world today.

You don't profit from wickedness.

But God's promise of rest does remain.

These same outlines here remain, by the way, for the second coming of our Lord, don't they?

That Jesus came to earth the first time and he's coming back again.

The promise of his return stands.

The angels rebuke the disciples, saying, Don't stand looking up into heaven, get to work.

The one that ascended will return the same way you saw him go.

He will come back.

And of course there are enemies, enemies of the Savior, enemies that rise up against him, enemies.

You see this throughout the book of Revelation that will conspire against Israel and seek to destroy Israel so that the Savior cannot rule from them, that the Savior cannot come back, and yet we know the Savior will return to Israel.

Zechariah 12, verse 10.

Zechariah 12:10

The Israelites will come to faith in the Savior.

They will believe in him.

They will look upon him who they pierced, speaking of the Savior, and Jesus will return.

Zechariah 14, verse 4, he'll return on the Mount of Olives, splitting it in two.

Zechariah 14:4

The king will come back.

When he does, he will shake the earth, and all of the plunder, all of the silver and gold, all the wealth of the nations and of the kings will be focused on Jerusalem, where he will reign.

That is Haggai chapter 2.

Haggai 2 · chapter mention

It says he will shake the earth, and all the treasure will go to the king who is reigning over the earth from Jerusalem.

That's Romans chapter 11, verse 26.

Romans 11:26

In that day the nations will turn towards the one whom they pierced, who is reigning in Israel, and in that day the deliverer will come from Zion.

He will banish ungodliness from Jacob, and in that way all of Israel will be saved.

That's Romans 11, verse 26.

Romans 11:26

So the broad outline of this, although Jesus has come the first time, remains that he will come a second time, that he will establish his kingdom and righteousness on earth, he will reign from Israel over the nations.

But we know before then there is a time of great tribulation, a time of wrath, as the nations rise up against him.

There are enemies that will rise up against the Savior and try to thwart his coming.

And they, of course, will fail.

There are many of those who pretend they will serve the Lord when he comes back if they're scared enough.

There are many Jews that are many people in the Persian Empire that converted to Judaism out of fear for the Jews.

That's not a kind of conversion that leads to salvation, though.

We know that.

Proverbs 29, verse 25 says, the fear of man is a snare.

Proverbs 29:25

But whoever trusts in the Lord is safe.

Lord, we're thankful for the promise of your second coming.

We're thankful for this narrative from garden to garden, this cohesive book that is just described so clearly in this one chapter.

Ye made the world, the world sinned, you redeemed the world, and you will sanctify the world, and ultimately you will make a new heavens and a new earth.

You are the king of this world, although you're enthroned in heaven, and we look forward to your return to earth, well, you will be enthroned here on the earth.

As is your right.

Now your enemies are a footstool under your feet, and then your enemies will be vanquished.

We know that in heaven there will be no more tears, there will be no enemies, and there will only be the righteous.

And we are righteous through no effort of our own, no work of our own, but only through the blood of Jesus Christ.

It's his promise that he will sanctify us, it's your promise that he would come to earth to save us, which he did.

It's your promise that you would protect the seed and his line all the way until the virgin birth, which you did.

And it's your promise that he will return again.

We believe in his second coming because he came the first time, just as you prophesied.

So we look forward to the day when he will descend from the air.

With the blast of the trumpet, the dead in Christ will rise first, and those of us who are alive and remain will be caught up together with him in the air, and then we will always be with him.

We pray for that day.

In the meantime, Lord, keep us from trusting ourselves and help us serve you with boldness and gladness.

Help us repent from trusting in our own works and serve you with joy.

We ask this in Jesus' name.

Amen.

And now for a parting word from Pastor Jesse Johnson.

Thanks for joining us today.

If you're in the Washington, D.C.

area, I would love to meet you personally at Emmanuel Bible Church.

Our service times and other church information is on our website at ibc.church.

If you want information about the Master Seminary and their Washington, D.C.

location, go to tms.edu.

I hope this resource has been an encouragement to you and it helps you seek the Lord daily, serve others around you, and share the gospel of Jesus Christ with boldness.

May the Lord bless you.