Book of Esther - Part 8

Haman’s Plot Against the Jews in Esther 3

Good morning, everybody. We'll turn with me to Esther chapter three. All right, let's start with verse seven. We studied a little bit of this last time, but I want to just, it won't make sense if we don't kind of get some of the context.

So let's start with Esther chapter three, verse seven. In the first month, that is in the month of Nisan, in the 12th year of King Ahasuerus, they cast poor, that is they cast lots, before Haman from day to day and from month to month to the 12th month, that is the month of Adar.

And Haman said unto King Ahasuerus, there is a certain people scattered abroad and dispersed among the people in all the provinces of thy kingdom, and their laws are diverse from all the people. Neither keep they the king's laws.

Therefore, it is not for the king's prophet to suffer them or allow them to live, actually, is what he meant. Now, the background of this is that for some reason, Haman had been lifted up to about the highest place he could be in this kingdom, like the right-hand man of the king.

And we've studied a little bit about this man's lineage. And he came from Esau, and if you study the scriptures, you find that Esau is a picture or a type of the flesh. And you know, we battle three enemies, the world, the devil, of course, and our own flesh, the carnal part of us, the old man.

And Esau is a picture or a type or a symbol of our old man. And this man, Haman, is part of the lineage of that, so he pictures that as well. And it's a way that God teaches us through object lessons, and we can look at these men and their whole nation and how they are, and it shows us a picture of how our own flesh is an enemy and can hurt us.

And so here we have Mordecai, which is this Jewish man, who lives right there in the proximity of the palace. And the king puts out this order that everyone is to bow down and worship Haman when he walks by.

Well, Mordecai wouldn't do it. And being a Jewish man, we studied for two or three Sundays on why he wouldn't do it. And all the different verses were in the Old Testament where God talks about idolatry, and he warns his people, don't worship other gods.

In fact, God said, I've looked around, there aren't any others. I am the one true God. And he said, I'm a jealous God. And so Mordecai wasn't about to bow down to a man and worship him. Well, the other people in the court noticed that, and they were doing it, and it made him sort of jealous, but also angry, and so they told on him, basically is what they did.

And they told Haman about it. Haman found out about it, and he hated Mordecai. He hated the Jews anyway, because if you go back and you study Esau and Jacob all the way up, they fight, you know, they fight, the families fight one another.

And so he hated the Jews anyway. So Haman feels that he has the power in this nation to do something about it, and he not only wants to destroy Mordecai, but he wants to kill all the Jews. He wants to destroy the entire nation.

Of course, they weren't a nation at that time. They'd already been dispersed, and they were just living in this nation. And it's really interesting to think about that in the context of Ephesians, where the book of Ephesians chapter six talks about spiritual warfare.

And it says that we battle not against flesh and blood. In other words, our battle is never with another human. But it says that we battle against principalities and powers and spiritual wickedness in high places.

So it's like a spiritual battle going on. And so here, Satan himself had inspired the mind of Haman to destroy an entire race. Now, why do you think Satan would want to destroy the Jewish race at this point in history?

Because he knew that the Messiah was said to be coming and going to be born of this race. So therefore, if he could destroy the race in Satan's thinking, he could destroy this whole concept of God and be the victor and defeat God.

Now, how many of you think that's going to happen ever? That's not gonna happen, because God is sovereign. And Satan is like a pawn in God's hand. But Satan doesn't view it that way. And there's a lot of things we can learn from that right there, because Satan actually has this spirit about himself where he sees himself as God.

And you know, we have this thing called secular humanism, which our nation is bought into this. And really, the New Age movement, all of these things, several cult groups, such as Mormonism and others, they are teaching their people that really we will become gods.

And so therefore, we are the center of the whole universe and the whole thing centers around me. So it becomes very selfish. And so this is the way Satan is. You see, that's the spirit of the devil himself.

He really thinks that he can control everything and everything circles around him. So he even felt that he could thwart God's plan for the Messiah. And that's not the only time he made the mistake of thinking that.

He thought it when he took Jesus into the wilderness and tempted him, didn't he? He thought he could defeat Jesus Christ right there. But he didn't, why? Because even though Satan used scriptures to test Jesus with, Jesus came back, gave the proper what? Interpretation of the same scriptures.

And when Jesus gave the proper interpretation of the same scriptures, it defeated Satan, you see. But the devil doesn't give up, does he? And many, many men and women and boys and girls in this day and age on the planet Earth have that very same spirit that Satan does.

They really do think they're in control. They don't give God glory for being the sovereign God of the universe who really controls everything and whose plan actually will be fulfilled. They don't see it that way.

They think they can change everything. And people think that all the time. And so this is kind of a study, this little portion of this book of the Bible is a study teaching us that that is not true. We cannot thwart God's plan, not even for our own lives.

Why would we want to, of course, as Christians? We wouldn't want to. Isn't it true that sometimes, in our view, things go wrong? And they don't happen like we thought they should? Or they don't happen in such a way it makes us comfortable?

Or maybe we're under tribulation or trial? And really, our first thought is the wrong thought. Our first thought is, well, why would God let that happen to me? My family, right? I mean, sometimes we quickly deal with that like we should.

And we say, that's not the right way to think. Lord, forgive me. Take that away. You know, we deal with it. But so often, the very first thought is that we, you know, God, why, why? We don't always have to know the why right now, do we?

But what we find out as we live our lives is that He truly works all things together for good to those that love Him and who are called according to His name, to His purpose. And so we have to continually remind ourselves of this, don't we?

Because our life here on this planet is gonna be full of tribulation. We're gonna have some seasons of peace. You can almost watch the nation of Israel, and it's a picture of us. It's a picture of us individual, as an individual Christian, or as a family, or as a church family.

Because Israel went through times of great peace and prosperity. I mean, look at the days of Solomon. It was the greatest nation on the earth, the most wealthy nation that ever existed, perhaps, in history.

And peace everywhere. But then look at other times, like through the Book of Judges, where continually they would go into captivity and their nation be destroyed. Or look at them in 70 AD, after Christ, when the Romans came through and destroyed Israel.

And the Jews were dispersed all over the world, where they still are today, for the most part. There's a few of them in their land now, but not all of them. So we see that it's not always a time of peace, is it?

So we have a season of peace, but then we're always reminded that really we're not in heaven yet. We're in enemy territory. We're in a battle, and we're here to be trained, for one thing. And it's gonna be one tribulation after another, one trial, one trouble after another.

So don't you think it'd be wise to learn to deal with that? And the best way to learn to deal with it is from the scriptures, as we sometimes watch other people dealing with it. Now look at this, look at this.

Here we have a man named Haman, who's attempting to use everything in his power to destroy an entire nation. So look at verse eight. And Haman said to King Ahasuerus, now he'd already won this king over.

He had this king in the palm of his hand somehow. So Haman must have had amazing personality, amazing skills with people and human psychology, and many other attributes that were very good. Haman comes to the king and he says, there is a certain people scattered abroad and dispersed among your people.

Now notice the first thing he's trying to do is create a distinctive between God's people and the normal people of the kingdom. You see what he's doing? He's trying to put a division there and say, there's this group that's mixed in with your people, but they're not your people, they're really a group, and they're really bad.

And that's what he's trying to point out here. He said, they're dispersed everywhere. Now that makes them dangerous because they're all over your kingdom. You don't even know where they all are, but they're everywhere.

That's the first thing that he says. And then he says, their laws are diverse. And it's kind of interesting because if you look at the Hebrew word for that word diverse, it is shana, and it means, it can be translated perverted.

So he's telling them their laws are perverted and they don't keep your laws, they have their own laws and they're perverted and strange. And so they're scattered everywhere, which makes them dangerous.

And the last thing he says is, is therefore it's not to your profit to let them live in your kingdom. Now, there is a lot that can be learned from that that can be used for application, I believe, for us moving forward.

But let's go on and read a couple more verses first. Verse nine, if it pleased the king, let it be written that they may be destroyed. What? He said, well, just pass a law that makes it lawful to destroy this entire group of people.

You see, that's foreign to us, isn't it? To read something like that. We've lived in a little parenthetical point in time for a couple of hundred years here in the United States of America, where we have freedom.

For the vast history of the world, it has not been that way anywhere. The vast history of the world, it's been where one man could say off with your head and it's lawful for that to happen. No court case, you don't get a lawyer, it's just like one man controls every human and he owns all the land and just lets you use it.

That's the way it's been for the majority of the history of the world. And here we live in America and we're free and we have all this, we take it for granted. We don't even understand what it's been like for most people that have lived as human beings since the time of Adam and Eve.

And so this was the norm. He said, just pass a law. You're the king, just make a law and make it all right for us to kill all these people. And so he goes on and says, I will then pay 10 ,000 talents of silver to the hands of those that have charged this business to bring it into the king's treasuries.

And so he's saying, look, make the law be where we can make people rich who will kill these Jews. Whoever will kill them will make them rich. We'll give them money. Now, how would you like to be the Jews in a situation like that?

Well, picture yourself here. President of the United States says, okay, we don't like Christians, so here's what we're gonna do. I'll pay everybody who would be willing to do it to kill some of them. I'll give you money for doing it.

And they're dispersed everywhere and their beliefs are perverted. So kill them, it's okay. Now, how would you feel? And this is exactly where the Jews were at this very moment. They didn't know it yet, but this was happening behind the scenes.

And you never know, you may not know it yet. It could be happening behind the scenes right now to you and me, you don't know. Things can happen so quickly in nations today that it's unbelievable. I remember when the Soviet Union, which when I grew up, being as elderly as I am, I thought, my generation felt the Soviet Union, the communists would probably win the battle and that we would all become communists someday.

And then all of a sudden, Ronald Reagan was elected and then after he'd been there for a while, within a one week period, he destroyed the Soviet Union. It was gone, took about a week. You would never believe that could happen to that powerful nation, but it did.

So things can happen quickly and laws can change very quickly. So he goes on to verse 10, and the king took his ring from his hand and gave it to Haman. And I'll tell you what, that ring was a symbol of the power of the king.

So once the king handed that ring to this man, this man spoke as the king, whatever he said. He gives him the ring and he was the Jews enemy, the verse says. In verse 11, and the king said unto Haman, the silver is given to you, so now you can pay people to go kill all the Jews and the people also to do with them as it seems good.

And you read down through this thing and the law is passed and they go out and they announced this to the entire nation. Now drop down to verse 15 and we'll see that it kind of ends with an interesting word.

It says the post, the men that went out to give the news of this went all out and they were hastened by the king's commandment because king said, let's make this happen now, let's just get this done. And the decree was given in Shushan, that's the name of the place where the palace was and the king and Haman sat down to drink, but the city of Shushan was perplexed.

So even they were perplexed by a law such as this that was passed so quickly. A law that would destroy an entire ethnic group within that nation. And everybody was perplexed with it, but they couldn't disobey it because the king would kill them.

So they were just perplexed. I think that's interesting. Now, what I would like to do the rest of our time today is I want you to think about something and see if you see any parallels here. Turn to Matthew chapter 10 with me for a moment.

And for the rest of this morning, rather than looking back in history at something that's already happened, where a law was passed that said that God's people were dispersed everywhere, but they're dangerous and their ways are peculiar and even perverted and they don't keep the laws of the land and they are the problem.

And it's not fitting for you as king to allow them to live in the past. And let's look forward in the future and to a prophetic passage in Matthew chapter 10. Let's start with about verse 16. Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves.

I want to stop just for a second and ask you a question to be thinking about while we read a little bit here. Who is he talking to? This is Jesus Christ speaking. He says, behold, I send you forth. Now I know there's a primary group is the apostles and that's not the easy answer.

I'm not gonna give you the easy answer. That obviously is one group. But who is the secondary group he's talking to? Because this is prophetic, which means it is designed to provide information to a group of people that's larger than just the 12.

Does that make sense? So I want to ask you who that group is. Be thinking about it. Because theologians tell us in their books that it's this group or that group. But I don't want you to read those books.

I just want you to look at the Bible and look at the passage and use the passage in the plain grammar here and the context of it. And you tell me, who is Jesus talking to here? I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves.

Who is he? Who's he warning? Who is he giving this information to? But he says, be ye therefore wise as serpents and harmless as doves. Who is he speaking to when he says that? Because if the theologians are correct, who he's speaking to, then it does not even apply to me and you this morning.

We might as well not read it. It has nothing to do with us. If the theologians, certain theologians are correct. Now there are many other theologians that disagree with that. But think about it for a minute.

Does this apply to you and me sitting in this room or not? Be wise as serpents and harmless as doves. But beware of men, for they deliver you up to the councils. And that word is interesting. If you look it up in the Greek, it's actually the Greek word, sunadrion, which in English is called Sanhedrin.

We all know who the Sanhedrin is, right? It was the Jewish council of the scribes and Pharisees that decided to kill Jesus Christ. That's who this is talking about. And so it's talking about Jewish council of a group of Jewish leaders.

And then it goes on and says, and they will scourge you in their synagogues. Now this word synagogue simply means an assembly of people, specifically a Jewish synagogue or a meeting place for the Jewish religion.

It can be an analogy speaking, and I'm reading this from Strong's dictionary. He says it can be an analogy of the Christian church, meaning in that case, simply an assembly, a congregation. But in the context of this passage, as Jesus is speaking here, he's talking about councils, which is actually the word Sanhedrin.

And so I believe synagogue is a very good English interpretation. I believe it is a reference to the Jewish assembly and meeting. And so then verse 18 goes on and says, and ye shall be brought before governors and kings for my sake.

And I ask you again, who is ye? Who is that talking? Who is he warning here? Who is he giving instruction to? Now let's look at the word governors for a minute. The word governor in the Greek language here simply means a leader or a chief person of a province.

So that's like literally governor is an excellent translation. It's like, think of the governor of Texas or whatever. That's kind of what this kind of person is. And then it says, you'll be brought before kings.

Now the word king in Greek is Basilius, which literally means the sovereign of an entire nation. So king is a perfect translation there, don't you think? I mean, it's like the, it's the head man that God has put in place to run an entire nation.

So Jesus warns this group of people that you will be brought before local leaders like a governor, but you will also be brought before kings for my sake, he says, at this particular time in history for a testimony against them and the Gentiles.

Now, I want us to stop for a minute and examine these two words. Jesus is saying, there's gonna come a time when you, a particular group of people, are going to be brought before these people that he's already named.

And then he sums it up here and says, for a testimony against them, which is all the people he just named, and the Gentiles. So he adds another group there. You see that? He adds another group of people.

So now we have a group of people that Jesus is saying that this group he's talking to is gonna be brought before in a negative way, a way in which they're gonna be saying the same things that Haman said about the Jews so many years earlier.

They're gonna be saying, look, they're dispersed among you, they're dangerous, their ways are peculiar, and it is not profitable for you to let them live here or to let them live at all. Well, now, we know the word Gentiles, it's the Greek word ethnos, it means a race of people, but the use of it in the scripture, particularly in the New Testament scripture, is a reference to non-Jews, isn't it?

It's always a reference to the non-Jew. So there we have a phrase, them and the Gentiles. Now, so what is this here? We gotta look at this. There are four groups of people, then, Jesus says that this other group is gonna be brought before.

And I'm trying to ask you to tell me who the other group is. Who's the group he's talking to and warning and giving instruction to? It's gotta be a group that's not included in the four groups he just named.

Let's look at the four groups. First of all, the word them includes about three of them, and then there's the Gentiles, that's gonna be the fourth one. So let's see who these groups are. Here's the first group.

It is lost Jews, and when I use the word lost here, I'm talking about non-born-again people, okay? Because I'm bringing this into the future, and now we're on this side of the cross, so these are non-born-again Jews.

They're part of the Sanhedrin, which tells us this. These are non-born-again Jews who are Jewish leaders. Are you with me? That's the first group. The second group is, it calls it, you'll be brought before the synagogue.

Now, that is full of just Jewish people, just non-believing, unbelievers who are Jewish people. So there you have the non-born-again Jewish leaders, and secondly, you have the non-born-again Jewish people who are of the Jewish religion at whatever time this is talking about.

And then the third group, it says, governors and kings of the Gentiles, so these are non-Jewish leaders, and then the fourth group is, you're gonna be brought before the Gentiles. That's the non-Jewish regular people.

So now think about it. If you've got the Jewish leaders, and you have the normal Jews, just the average Jews, and then you have the Gentile leaders, and you have just the average Gentiles, what is the only group that God has ever created that's left, that's not included in one of those four groups?

Can you think of what group that would be? That's who he's talking to, so let's define who he's talking to. Who is it? Somebody say it. Christians, Christians. So it's born-again Jews and Gentiles who are different from the other groups because we're a family.

We're connected by the Holy Spirit to Jesus himself and to the Father, and better than that, I don't mean better than that, along with that, what I mean to say is cool, that we're connected to each other.

Popped out of my mouth wrong. It's not better than that. I mean, it doesn't get better than being connected to Jesus and to the Father as an individual, but not only that, but connected to each other as a body, the body of Christ.

That's the only group not mentioned in the four groups, so that's who Jesus is addressing, and that's who he's warning, and the theologians, many of them today disagree. They say he's only talking to the Jews here.

It's as if that this warning is to the Jews, and it's not. It's to the church. Now, the church has Jews in it. The church also has Gentiles in it, and the distinguishing factor of who that is is those who have been baptized into the body of Christ, those who are saved.

That's who he's warning. Obviously, that's who he's talking about, or we would never even read this book in church, in New Testament church, if it's talking to the Jewish nation, so it's clear that that's who this is at this point.

Now, we know that Jesus is addressing born-again people. Therefore, we can eliminate the concept that he is talking only to the Jewish nation in this passage. He is talking to his own sheep, save Jews and save Gentiles, in other words, the church.

Now, let's go to verse 19, and let's see what the message is, and here's what I want you to do. I want you to parallel this with what has already happened in history, where Satan, remember, we battle not against flesh and blood.

It's not people we need to worry about. Satan inspired a man named Haman. You might as well say a man named Hitler, because he did it again later, killed eight million Jews during World War II. Satan inspired a man named Haman to try to destroy the entire Jewish race, and the things that he told the king are very similar to what you're gonna see in this passage in the future, that kings of this world are gonna be told about us, about that group he's talking to, the church, us.

Verse 19, but when they deliver you up, take no thought how or what you should speak, for it shall be given you in that same hour what you shall speak. Listen to this, for it is not ye that speak, but the spirit of your father which speaketh in you.

Listen, if you're ever chosen by God to stand before a king and not deny the Lord Jesus Christ, because they're gonna kill you if you say you belong to him, and you don't deny him, you say I do belong to him, and here's why, the part that comes right after that is gonna be placed in your heart and mind by the Holy Spirit, and you're gonna say it just perfectly.

And it's going to be a testimony to Jesus Christ, and it's gonna glorify him and the Father, and so will your death. Does that make sense? I mean, this is what he's telling them. And he says, don't worry about what to say.

Now, he goes on in verse 21, and a brother shall deliver you, shall deliver up a brother to death. So now here we have in the same family, one brother will be like Haman, another brother will be like Mordecai, and he'll turn him in, and so that the authorities will kill him and say he's born again.

He's one of these that's dispersed out there, that's dangerous, and their laws are different. They don't keep your laws. They got their own laws, and they're peculiar and perverted, killing. And the brother turns in the brother, and the father shall turn in his own child.

You say, that'll never happen. Well, I've seen examples of that, not exactly like this, but I remember when my mentor, Dr. Rocky Freeman, who was a Jewish believer, when he got born again and he told his parents about it, who were Jewish people, his parents took a little box and buried it and said, that is the burial of our son.

He is dead to us. Can you imagine a father doing that to a son? Well, listen, listen, people that are inspired of Satan to be religious, you know what I'm saying? It's not true religion. It's not truly of the Lord Jesus, but it's a worldly religion.

They're very zealous. They're very zealous of their religion. And if your own child says your religion's false, Jesus is the way, they'll turn him in. And this is what Jesus is prophesying is coming in the future.

Goes on, children will rise up against their parents and cause them to be put to death. And you shall be hated of all men. Listen, that's all the four groups we've already named. The Jewish leaders, the Jewish regular people, the Gentile leaders and the Gentile regular people.

That's everybody in the world. You will be hated by all of them because you're the one group they hate. For my namesake, he says, but he then, he that endureth to the end shall be saved. We have to ask ourselves, what's the end?

And the end is a reference to the second coming and the rapture. So he who endures to the rapture shall be saved. Well, that's true, isn't it? But isn't it interesting that the word endure is there, which shows that we're gonna go through something before the rapture.

And I can't say what, I don't know how far. I'm not debating that today. We're like, do we get raptured at the first of the seven years or in the middle or at the end, where is that? I can't say. I need to study more.

But I can say this, we're going to endure some things before that happens. And those who endure it until that time comes shall be saved in the physical sense. In other words, you'll be raptured and brought up and changed in the air and you will never suffer physical death.

But there will be many of your brothers and sisters who will die before that happens. And this is the warning Jesus is giving. Now look what he says, this is very fascinating, talking about this time period.

But when they persecute you, who's you? That's the group that's not in the other four. That's the church, that's God's people. He says, when they persecute you in this city, flee you to another. Now listen to this, this is something probably, I don't know, if you're like me, you've never given this much thought.

Truly, Jesus says to you, you will not have gone over the cities of Israel. Now, what is he telling them to do? He's giving them some information about how to what? Survive, survive. So it's not as if it's God's will that all Christians be slaughtered.

Jesus, on the contrary, is telling us, this is coming, be prepared for it. Know what to do when it happens because when it happens, it's too late if you don't already know what to do. He said, the first thing you do is when you start to see persecution happening in the city you live in, run, flee to the next city.

For verily, he says, you shall not have gone over the cities of Israel till the Son of Man comes. Now that tells us some information. It tells us this time period between when the persecution hits the church and when the Son of Man comes is not real long.

It's not an extremely long amount of time. It's about the amount of time you could go from one city to another in Israel as it was in his day, as we studied in Sunday school this morning. I was looking at a map in my Bible while you were teaching that.

And it's a little bigger than the modern Israel. But about the time you could go from city to city, not that you'd go to all of them, but you'd flee to one or the other. Before you know it, the Son of Man will come and this time will be over and you'll be saved.

So that's kind of interesting. Now, in this same passage, it says, you shall not have gone over the cities of Israel. Now, let me ask you this. Could you then take that and use that to prove that he is only speaking to the Jewish nation here as some theologians say?

I don't think that's a plain translation or understanding of how God teaches and how Jesus teaches. To me, it makes a lot more sense that what the Lord Jesus is doing as he speaks to these 12 people who live right there in Israel, and he's teaching them this truth is coming in the future, he is simply using a geographic area that they are familiar with, saying now, if you went to that city over there, to that one, and that one, and that one, and that one, and then I'm going to come.

And it lets them understand an approximate time period that this tribulation is going to last, this part that they're in. And so he's using something they're familiar with, their immediate geographic area to the ones he's teaching right there to teach them this truth of how long the tribulation will last.

That is a very comfortable interpretation of what he's doing. It's the same way when he uses a farming example or planting seeds and teaching a spiritual truth, that's what he's doing. That is not something that properly should be used to try to prove a theory that this is only talking to the Jews.

If that's true, then none of this applies to Christians because all of it's talking in Israel. Everything Jesus ever said was in Israel to Israelis. So none of it applies to us. You see, you can't, that's nonsense.

And yet some of the greatest thinkers in the church have said and used that it is a very perilous position to base a theory on, very perilous. It's very easily picked apart by a thinking Christian. So there we have that Jesus is simply telling them when this comes to pass, they're gonna be trying to kill you.

And when you see your particular governor of your little province take part in this and he gets serious about it, he starts to lay out laws and stuff so you'd be killed, flee and go to one where that hadn't happened yet.

And then when you see it start to happen there, go to another one. That tells us a lot. Number one, it tells us you would have time to do it. You would have the ability to see it happening if you're watchful and to flee and escape and go to the next one.

You don't have to be killed. Let me tell you who's gonna be killed. I mean, you know I can't prophesy exactly, but I'm saying generally. Generally, who's gonna be killed are people who have been taught that you don't need to worry about any of this because you ain't gonna be here.

And so they're not prepared. They don't have a clue what to do. And then when it hits, they just sit there and then before you know it, they're taken away. So listen, there are gonna be, for every Christian who takes this to heart and reads it and studies it, there are gonna be 10 ,000 who don't.