Quick Note – Esther 9:1 – God Will Win

Esther 9:1 – Now in the twelfth month, which is the month of Adar, on the thirteenth day of the same, when the king’s command and edict were about to be carried out, on the very day when the enemies of the Jews hoped to gain the mastery over them, the reverse occurred: the Jews gained mastery over those who hated them.

Because Haman the Agagite was angry that Mordecai the Jew did not bow down to him and give him honor, he sought to destroy all the Jewish people.  He then went to the Persian King Ahasuerus and convinced him to allow a law to be written that would give everyone throughout the Persian Empire the opportunity to kill, destroy, and annihilate the Jews on the thirteenth day of the month of Adar (Esther 3).  It was on that day Haman thought he would get his revenge.  However, through God’s grace and the courage of Esther, who pleaded for her people to the king, a new law was instated that allowed the Jewish people to defend themselves from any attack on that day (Esther 8).  So on the day when the Jewish people were supposed to be defeated by their enemies, they conquered them instead.  It was victory snatched from the clutches of defeat. 

This story reminds me of another time in the Bible where victory was found in the depths of despair.  When Jesus was nailed to the cross and killed, the Devil thought that he had won.  He thought that he had defeated God, that salvation for mankind was done for, and that there was no longer any hope.  However, three days after His death, Jesus rose from the dead, proving that He is God and has victory and power over sin and death.  He nailed sin to the cross, paid for our punishment, and gave us eternal life with him.  He even restored the relationship with God that was broken by sin, so that we could now be in good terms with God.  Sin did not win; God did. 

This should bring encouragement to us as Christians, who are currently living in a world where it appears like wickedness is winning.  Satan seems to have his clutches on everything.  What is right is now considered wrong and what is wrong right.  Things that were inappropriate in the past are now widely accepted.  Christians are being treated like they should hide their faith lest they be persecuted.  But amid all this trouble, we can be sure that God will have the victory in the end.  The book of Revelation makes it clear that in the last times, wickedness and sin will look like they are prevailing, but our Lord God will have the victory.  So let us not fall into despair, but let us take joy that in the right time, God will win. 

Quick Note – Esther 3:8 – Foreign Law

Esther 3:8 – 8 Then Haman said to King Ahasuerus, “There is a certain people scattered abroad and dispersed among the peoples in all the provinces of your kingdom. Their laws are different from those of every other people, and they do not keep the king’s laws, so that it is not to the king’s profit to tolerate them.

When you go to a different country, it is important that you check some of the laws and customs of that place, lest you accidentally break them.  For example, I believe that it is illegal for one to chew gum in Singapore to keep the place clean.  It is also illegal to feed the pigeons in Venice, Italy at St. Mark’s Square.  And even in a town in France called Sarpourenx, you aren’t allowed to die unless you’ve already pre-purchased a burial plot in the local cemetery.  Although these laws may sound weird, there are reasons for them, and it is certainly important to follow the laws of that place.  (Referenced from Far & Wide website – https://www.farandwide.com/s/weird-laws-world-4961c1ede8d749bf)

However, if a law goes against the commands of God, we should always obey God first.  This is why in Acts 5:29, when the high priest told Peter and the apostles to no longer speak the name of Christ, Peter responded by saying, “We must obey God rather than man.”  It is more important to follow God’s laws than to follow the laws of the world.  That doesn’t mean that you can just break whatever law you want to and sin whenever you desire and use God as an excuse.  No!  Rather it means that if the law goes against what is written in the Bible, you follow God first.  But if the Bible does not address it and there is no indication as to how to rule based on God’s character as described in the Bible, then you should obey the law.  Regardless, because the laws of this world often go against the laws of man, Christians will stand out, because they don’t follow the customs of this world. 

Look at what happened to the Jewish people in the book of Esther.  The Jews were not to worship anyone except the Lord their God.  Although bowing down to a person can simply indicate reverence and respect, it could be mistaken for worship.  So very often, the Jews would not bow down to anyone.  However, when the Persian King Ahasuerus promoted Haman the Agagite to power, the servants of the king were told to bow down to Haman.  Rather than appearing like he was worshipping Haman, Mordecai, Esther’s cousin, a Jew, refused to bow down.  Because of this, Haman became furious and sought to destroy the Jewish people.  He told the king that laws of the Jews were different from those of every other people in the Persian Empire and for that reason, they needed to be eliminated.  They were seen as different because they followed God’s laws – laws that were different from those of the world’s. 

Just like the Jews in the Persian Empire, we as Christians follow a different set of laws from those of the world’s.  The world tells us that it is okay to indulge in sexual immorality, to commit adultery, and to divorce; but God abhors these things.  The world tells us that to aggressively use others and to deceive is the way to get honor and power, but God tells us to act with meekness and humility.  The world tells us that we should seek money and power, but God tells us to seek His kingdom first.  Because our goals, our methods, and our desires don’t align with this world’s, we will be looked upon as different.  And that is a good thing.  We shouldn’t look the same.  Our laws should be different.  They should feel foreign, because we follow God, which the world is diametrically opposed to.  So let us not feel ashamed of our faith, but rather let us be proud to stand different, to have a foreign law and to follow it. 

A Precedent of Disobedience

Esther 1:16-18 – “The Memucan said in the presence of the king and the officials, ‘Not only against the king has Queen Vashti done wrong, but also against all the officials and all the people who are in all the provinces of King Ahasuerus.  For the queen’s behavior will be made known to all women, causing them to look at their husbands with contempt, since they will say, “King Ahasuerus commanded Queen Vashti to be brought before him, and she did not come.”  This very day the noble women of Persia and Media who have heard of the queen’s behavior will say the same to all the king’s officials, and there will be contempt and wrath in plenty.’”

Being that I am not yet a parent, I cannot comment on the validity of this statement, but I believe that one of a parent’s biggest fears is to hear the words, “I learned that from you!” when scolding his child for doing something wrong.  These words are usually the child’s one way ticket out of a harsher punishment than he deserved, because he invokes the unwritten clause of “You can’t punish something, you did yourself.”  When a parent is hit with this predicament, he is presented with a lose-lose situation; he can either not punish and allow the bad behavior to continue or punish and be labeled a hypocrite by his child.  It is because of moments like this that I am afraid of one day becoming a parent.  Could all my past mistakes one day come and haunt me, leaving me speechless when I try to discipline my kids?  But when it comes down to it, the best way to avoid this type of issue is to not make the mistake in the first place.

In our passage today, we are told of a king who had a similar predicament except it was an issue with his wife and the consequences of his decision would affect the whole kingdom.  The book of Esther tells the story about this king – King Ahasuerus, the ruler of the Persian Empire.  The book begins with King Ahasuerus throwing a party for all his officials and servants from all the 127 provinces that he ruled over.  At this party, he wanted to show-off his beautiful queen, so he called for Queen Vashti to present herself to the crowd to which she refused his command.  In turn, the king was enraged and had to decide what he was going to do, which is where our passage picks up today.  He could either not punish her, let her insubordination continue, and set a precedent of unpunished disobedience in his kingdom; or he could lose his wife and continue to show that obedience to the king and his officials mattered.  He chose the latter.  The queen’s disobedience could have literally set an example for all the people that it was okay to disobey.  That was one serious act of disobedience!

It is sad to say but many Christians today are like Queen Vashti, in that, when the Lord gives us a command, we choose to disobey.  We refuse to follow His principles, His rule, His law, and we expect to get away with it “by grace.”  And we still have the nerve to call Him our King.  We forget that sin is an offense against God.  Next time, you have the choice to disobey consider these things.

1.  It is true that our Lord is a forgiving and loving God, but He is also just and holy and must punish sin.  That sin was punished on the cross.  Jesus Christ went through an awful lot of pain and suffering for you, and that pain not only being physical but emotional and spiritual as well.  Jesus Christ did all this for you, how can you disobey someone who loved you that much?  Also, remember that disobedience will come with consequences whether you like it or not.  Queen Vashti was banished from the kingdom.  God won’t ever abandon His children, but there will still be consequences.
2. What you do sets an example to the world.  Just as Queen Vashti’s disobedience was an example for all other women in the empire, we as Christians, if we choose to disobey, set a precedent for all unbelievers to assume that it is okay for them to disobey as well.  How can we expect the world to obey God, if we refuse to obey our own Lord?  You can’t expect a person to obey your king, if you don’t yourself.  It is like the example about the parent and the child above.
3. When you disobey God, you give the world a reason to call Christians hypocrites and refuse Christ’s redemption.  One of the most common excuses for people when refusing Christianity is that “Christians are hypocrites.”  Whenever we disobey, we solidify this way of thinking because we become an example of a Christian who does not do what he preaches.  We actually become hypocrites.  I’ve once said that it is better for a Christian who disobeys to tell people he wasn’t one, because at least, his disobedience would not reflect on all other Christians.  I sometimes still stand by this statement.

As with Queen Vashti’s disobedience, our disobedience, as disciples of Jesus Christ, is one serious matter.  Our disobedience reflects badly on our faith and our Lord.  So my pleading with you as a fellow disciple is, don’t disobey.  Don’t set a precedence of disobedience for the world to follow.

Victory in Despair

Esther 9:1 – Now in the twelfth month, which is the month of Adar, on the thirteenth day of the same, when the king’s command and edict were about to be carried out, on the very day when the enemies of the Jews hoped to gain the mastery over them, the reverse occurred:  the Jews gained mastery over those who hated them.”

We can all surely remember the numerous cartoons we used to watch every Saturday morning.  In many of these cartoons, there was a hero that usually encountered some sort of problem where all hope seemed to be lost.  Right when the dire situation gets worse though, the show then cuts to a commercial break.   But suddenly right after the commercial break, we find that everything has suddenly changed.  What seemed to be a hopeless situation is now an opportunity for the hero to shine and save the day.  For me, this scene repeated over and over again as I watched the Power Rangers every day.  They always seemed to be losing as the bad guy got stronger, then all of a sudden the tides changed, and they came out victorious.

This scene can also be found in the Bible in the book of Esther.  This whole book tells the story of the deliverance of the Jewish people from destruction due to the God’s working through the life of Esther, a woman who became the Queen of Persia.  Although the word God is not mentioned even once in the whole book, His hand can be seen throughout the whole story.  To summarize the book, what happened was an evil and narcissistic man named Haman sought the destruction of the Jewish people because one Jewish man, Mordecai, refused to bow to him, for he was Jewish.  (He probably refused to bow down because he saw bowing down to Haman as a form of worship, and the Jews were to worship only the Lord their God, just as we Christians should only serve one Master, Jesus Christ.)  Since Haman was a man of high position in the court of the king, he sought the king’s support to destroy these people, to which he was given the king’s approval.  When the word went out that on the thirteenth day of the month of Adar, all the enemies to the Jews were to annihilate the Jewish people throughout all 127 provinces of the Persian empire, the Jews began to weep for all they could see was despair – their destruction was imminent, for the law of the king could not be overturned.  Fortunately, for the Jews, they had an inside “man” or should I say woman, Esther, Mordecai’s cousin and the current Queen of Persia.  Esther then went to plead for the life of her people, to which, she was granted her request by the king.  When the king found out what Haman had done, though unintentionally, for Haman did not know Queen Esther was also a Jew, Haman was hanged and killed.  Unfortunately, law was still law, and the thirteenth day of Adar was still assigned as a day for the enemies of the Jews to kill the Jewish people; therefore, a new law was instated which allowed the Jewish people to fight back against their enemies.  Due to this new law, that thirteenth day of Adar was no longer a day of despair for the Jewish people, but a day of victory, for all who opposed the Jews were smitten and killed to the point where 75,000 enemies were killed in one day.  A day of despair became a day of victory.  A day that was supposed to be rejoicing for the enemies became a day of rejoicing for God’s people.  God had worked all things out for good for His people.  The people then used the next days to celebrate what the Lord had done for them, establishing the holiday of Purim for future generations to observe, reminding them of this deliverance.

This story is actually a wonderful reminder for us as Christians of what happened on that Good Friday, where Christ died for our sins.  On that day, when Christ was beaten to near death, nailed to the cross, and crucified, left to encounter shame, pain, and ridicule, all hope seemed lost.  It was at that moment that evil appeared to have won.  The Devil and his minions were clearly rejoicing thinking that they had gotten the last word.   They had finally beaten God.  They had finally shut Him down.  Yet in the midst of all this pain, suffering, and evil, we find that it was not a moment of despair but of victory for the Lord, for although He was suffering, He opened the door of salvation for all those who would believe on His name.  It was at that moment that we were all given new life through His shed blood.  It was at that moment we were given forgiveness and justification for our sins.  It was at that moment we were given victory over death.  Just like the Jewish people, we as Christians and disciples of Jesus Christ should take the time to reflect and remember what Christ had done for us.  Instead of just remembering this just once a year like the annual Purim, let us take the time every day to reflect on the sacrifice of Christ and the victory He brought on that day.  No longer need we be in despair, for Christ has gotten us the victory.