The Prophet Jeremiah Part 7 | Walk Through Esther Part 1

But let's pray, and we will get started. Lord Jesus, again, as we open up Your Word, we ask that through Your Holy Spirit, You may give us a right understanding of what

You have revealed there, and that we would truly take to heart the words of the prophet Isaiah, that You speak to us words that comfort us, and that You have pardoned our iniquity, and that You have reconciled us to Yourself.

And we ask then that through the Spirit, that You would give us strength to mortify our sinful flesh, and that we may bear fruit in good works and love towards others.

And that You would be glorified in all that we do. We ask in Jesus' name, amen. Okay, so iPhone users today said, today was my first Lutheran service.

It was similar to our Anglican services. I left when they employed female priests.

Ah, okay. Yeah, so the Anglican communion that they have, like Lutherans, held on, at least in a certain part of it, held on to the historic liturgy.

And we hold on to the historic liturgy with, I like to think kind of with a gospel hand.

You know, it's not legalistic, but the way I see it is that the historic liturgy has served the church very well for two millennia, and a little beyond that, because the historic liturgy that we follow actually originally started, it was put into use, or at least the basic framework was put into use in the synagogues.

So it's the very same structure that was in place when Christ was having his time here on earth.

And I have found that there, I haven't found a better device for teaching the saints.

When we monkey with the church service, over and again, stuff somehow gets lost, or put away, or it disappears.

And so I'd like to say, I'm just not smart enough to reinvent the liturgy, so I'm just gonna take the one that I've been given, and just keep going with it, you know?

It's best to kind of go that route. All right, so I'm glad you were able to join us, and this was your first service, and it wasn't totally unfamiliar.

Some people who come out of like the NAR, or the Charismatic Church, or Pentecostalism, or today's American Evangelicalism, especially the seeker -driven variety, it seems very foreign to them, and almost

Rome, Roman. And so we have to get past some of that.

So here's what we're gonna do today. Since we're into a season, we're now far enough along in Advent that we're starting to turn our eyes kind of festively towards the birth of Jesus.

I thought that doing the rough hoe stuff in the book of Jeremiah may not be the best thing at this time, because not only are we have the birth of Christ coming up, we have the epiphany, and this is a little bit more of a joyous season.

Sometime after the first of the year, we'll get back to Jeremiah proper, but what I wanted to do was take a look at a book that a lot of people don't know what to do with, because God's name isn't mentioned once in it, not once.

You say, there's a book of the Bible that's that way? Yes, it's called the book of Esther. And Esther is a hijacked biblical text, if you would, because there's only one verse that's used in it in the purpose -driven parlance, and the verse is, you were born for such a time as this.

And by the way, that's not exactly what it says. When we get to that in a couple weeks, you'll see that that's way out of context.

But in looking at the book of Esther, there's a little bit of background information that we need to grab before we start into it, and then note then how the apostle

Peter uses the imagery of the exile to help us, to help us as Christians.

So the best way I can put it is that Esther is a book, aside from being just a really cool story, it's almost like a fairy tale, aside from that, and I'm a sucker for fairy tales,

I really am, but aside from that, it is one of these books that exemplifies what a life of faith looks like in the midst of persecution that could result in your utter demise, and which is exactly what the church faces generation after generation after generation.

Christ promises persecution, and we'll note that many of our brothers and sisters in Christ around the world, they suffer, and they are being martyred this day, and as a result of that, we recognize that as exiles, by the way, and what a great theme that is, by the way, exiles, have you been home yet?

Have you guys been home yet? You're sitting there going, well, I got a place up in Thief River, or Crookston, or Oslo, or got something in town, or Manville, right?

Those of you joining us, so Connecticut and South Carolina, oh yeah, what are you talking about? We're joining you from our house online.

No, you haven't been home yet. None of us have been home yet. That's kind of the big picture in scripture, is that despite the fact that we were born in whatever country you were born in, and you have your citizenry here, home for Christians is not here.

We're sojourning, we're passing through, and the picture of the exile is one that we were wise to embrace and recognize as one that is super important for us as Christians, because there's a day coming when

Christ will bring us to the real promised land, and we'll be home for the first time. But that being the case,

I would like to look at one of the most tortured texts in all of the

Bible. It's in Jeremiah chapter 29, and this will form a little bit of the basis, if you would, for our study of the book of Esther, because Mordecai and Esther are people of faith.

And I'll fast forward even to the end of the book of Jeremiah, so you get a picture of just how devastating

God's judgment was against the impenitent Jews in Jerusalem.

But what has happened in Jeremiah 29, 11, and you'll note that Nebuchadnezzar's attack against Judea occurred in three phases, two of them he personally led, and then the last one was led by one of his commanders.

And in each of these three campaigns, prominent and not -so -prominent

Jews were taken into captivity. But one of the things you'll see as we get back to the book of Jeremiah is that over and again,

God promises very explicitly, if you will listen to my words, if you will believe me, then you can live.

All you have to do is surrender yourself to the armies of Nebuchadnezzar, and you will have your life as a prize of war.

Now, you ain't coming back. You're gonna be gone for 70 years. But anybody who listened to the voice of Jeremiah the prophet, and they submitted themselves and surrendered to the armies of Nebuchadnezzar, they were rounded up and sent into exile.

But also note that some folks, they were kind of forcibly wrangled up, and that among the first phase of people who were brought into exile of the

Jews in Babylon were a few false prophets. And so God is going to send a letter.

Jeremiah 29 contains an epistle, and the epistle's technically not written to you.

It's not written to me. It's written to the exiles, round one of the exiles who were taken into captivity in Babylon.

Some of them faithful believers who trusted in Yahweh and believed the words of Yahweh in the mouth of the prophet

Jeremiah, and a few who, let's say, if they had,

YouTube back then had prophecy channels where they were offering up weekly and monthly and yearly prophecies.

You know, you're gonna have a suddenly, everything's gonna go great for you and weird stuff like this. So, right.

So here's Jeremiah 29. These are the words of the letter that Jeremiah the prophet sent from Jerusalem to the surviving elders of the exiles.

Here we go. Exile, that's a big theme. To the priests, the prophets, and all the people whom

Nebuchadnezzar has taken into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon. This was after King Jeconiah and the queen mother, the eunuchs, the officials of Judah and Jerusalem, the craftsmen, the metal workers had departed from Jerusalem.

The letter was sent by the hand of Elisa, the son of Shaphan, and Gemariah, the son of Hilkiah, whom

Zedekiah, the king of Judah, sent to Babylon to Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon.

It said, thus says Yahweh of armies. That's what Lord of hosts means,

Yahweh of armies. The God of Israel to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon.

So you'll note, this is the outside of the envelope. The address line is clear. This is not specifically addressed to you.

So when we get to Jeremiah 29, 11, I know the plans I have for you, declares the

Lord. Plans to hide money in my toilet wall. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

Yeah, they found money, large amounts of money hiding in the wall of one of the bathrooms at Lakewood.

Apparently there was a robbery. Somebody ditched the money there. So, all right, right.

So coming back to that, you'll see that this letter, it's not written to you. Again, it's not written to you.

You're not in the address line, and if you think it's written to you, I'd like to see your birth certificate. I know

Don's old, but he's not that old. Right, right, careful, okay.

So thus says Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon.

Note, who did the sending? God sent them. And here's what he says. Build houses and live in them.

Plant gardens, eat their produce. Take wives, have sons and daughters.

Take wives for your sons, give your daughters in marriage that they may bear sons and daughters.

Multiply there, do not decrease. But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to Yahweh on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.

Now, a little bit of a note here. People who are taken into exile are functionally imprisoned, right?

Even if they have the ability to walk around freely, they are still somewhere against their will.

And at this point, it's not Nebuchadnezzar's will that has brought them to a place they did not want to go.

It was God's will that they be in this place that they didn't want to go. But you'll note, standard operating procedure is, if you are in a place that you didn't want to go and you were being held there against your will, when you have an opportunity to free yourself, you do.

That's generally how this goes. You ever seen The Count of Monte Cristo, the movie that was done in the early 2000s based on the book, right?

The Chateau D 'If, right? Best restaurant in all of France. Anyway, I'm joking, that's not what that is.

That is so obscene. Only you get it. That was my joke. Right, the

Chateau D 'If is this island prison and the main character in The Count of Monte Cristo, he has been imprisoned for a crime he didn't commit, right?

Edmond Dantes. And first moment, he legitimately has an opportunity to get the upper hand against the prison guard, against the warden, he does.

And he kills him and he escapes. And that's kind of the point. This is human nature. But listen to what

God says. Pray, seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile.

Pray to the Lord on its behalf for its welfare. You will find your welfare in its welfare.

Oy, in other words, you're gonna be staying for a while.

Bring a lot of luggage. Make yourselves at home. Take the stuff out of the suitcase, put it in the drawers.

You're gonna be here for a while, right? Set up shops, do business. Do all the things you need to do.

That's where you're gonna do them. And so you'll note, in this sense then, do we not, according to scripture, pray for our governmental leaders?

Yeah. Is our welfare not somehow wrapped up in the welfare of our nations? It is, okay?

And so you'll note that a good tie -in with this would be like Romans 13. Romans 13, pay your taxes, pray for the emperor, things of this nature, right?

For thus says Yahweh of armies, the God of Israel. Do not let your prophets and your diviners who are among you deceive you.

Do not listen to the dreams that they dream. It's a lie that they are prophesying to you in my name.

I did not send them, declares Yahweh. And based on the yahoos that are running around the landscape today, we pretty much know how these guys were operating.

The Lord has told me, I'm getting a download that we need to keep our suitcases packed because we're going back to Jerusalem by Passover of next year.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is the way they're talking. I feel a suddenly coming on, right?

This is how they talk, right? And God says, yeah, no, don't listen to them.

Verse 10, for thus says Yahweh, when 70 years are completed for Babylon.

And you're gonna note that those false prophets initially telling them that they're going back to Jerusalem, after some time, no one's gonna be listening to them.

And by the way, some of them, you'll see this in the prophet Jeremiah later, they were killed by God in judgment as a sign that these people were false prophets.

But none of them is gonna maintain any kind of credibility when year after year stretches into decade after decade after decade on into 70 years.

They're all dying in exile after claiming that they were going back. So God is the one who gets it right.

Jeremiah is the one who gets it right. And you'll note when we get to Daniel, and we will get to Daniel after we're done with Jeremiah, that Daniel was reading the prophet

Jeremiah in exile. It was the hottest off the press book of the

Bible at the time, it was the newest book of the Bible, Jeremiah was, and a lot more faithful than the passion translation.

So just saying. All right. Passion manglement. Yeah, so when 70 years are completed for Babylon, I will visit you, and I will fulfill to you my promise, and I will bring you back to this place.

Important bit here. When we read Esther, this promise is in the background.

It's not brought forward, and it is assumed you know it. So as you read about the plot of Haman, and his scheme to literally murder all of the

Jews in exile, note that God never lies, and this promise will stand.

God will not let them fall because he's promised them to bring them back. So if you don't know your background story, you don't know your direct promises, then

Esther, you can twist it into a purpose -driven text, but it's not, all right? For I know the plans

I have for, in Hebrew here, this is y 'all, this is not you, okay?

So when somebody, you know, when an athlete, a football player, puts the eye black underneath, and puts

Jeremiah 2911 in the eye, writes it in the eye black, all right? You know, my immediate question is, well, how many of them, how many of him are there?

You know, because he says, I know the plans I have for y 'all. Who's the y 'all?

The Jews in exile, right? And so listen to what God says to them. I know the plans

I have for y 'all, declares Yahweh. Plans for your welfare, not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.

That is also part of the big background promises in the book of Esther. And you'll note,

God is faithful to his promises. He's faithful to his word. So then you will call upon me, and you will come, and you will pray to me, and I will hear you.

Another huge promise, because when you see the actions of the Jews in the midst of the plot of Haman, you're gonna note, they go into prayer and fasting mode, and they are trusting in the promises of God, and at the same time, in the midst of their, in the very imminent extermination that they were gonna experience, they called on the name of the

Lord. Although it doesn't say God's name, it's clear by their actions that they engaged in prayer and fasting, and God promised to hear them.

You will seek me, you will find me when you seek me, with all your heart, I will be found by you, declares

Yahweh, I will restore your fortunes, and I will gather you from all the nations and all the places where I have driven you, declares

Yahweh, and I will bring you back to the place from which I sent you into exile. Now then, in the types and shadows then, there is an application for Christians, but you have to be very careful how you tease that out, because the way it gets taught by men like Joel Osteen, T .D.

Jakes, Furtick, and others, is that this, I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to give you a future and a hope and all this kind of stuff, they turn this into a prosperity text, all right?

And, or prosperity and divine health. And so, well, there's the promise,

God wants to give you a future and a hope, and so if you just have enough faith, then you're gonna have divine health, you're gonna have divine healing, your breakthrough will arrive, and you're going to be a bazillionaire and have all this influence and power and all this kind of stuff.

This is what God wants to give you, this is what they claim. That's not what this is talking about.

So let me show you kind of how this works then in the New Testament as an application for Christians, and it's in the imagery of the exiles that we see this.

In 1 Peter chapter one, listen to what Peter writes.

I'll start at verse 13. Therefore, preparing your minds for action, be sober -minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Christ.

Where's our hope? Yeah, at the revelation of Christ.

Set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Christ. As Christians, is our hope fully set on divine health, wealth, and prosperity?

No, okay? What can we expect now? Tribulation, hardship, suffering, persecution, death.

That's what we can expect right now. So our minds then are fully set, our hope is fully set on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Christ, and you'll see how this then works with Jeremiah 29.

As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, but as he who calls you is holy, you also be holy in all of your conduct.

Since it is written, you shall be holy, for I am holy. And if you call on him as father, who judges impartially according to each one's deeds, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile.

Oh. You are in exile. I am in exile.

And then watch how the themes then work out, because the exile is a big theme that applies to us, and this is type and shadow then.

So note, I will visit you, and I will fulfill my promise, I will bring you back to this place.

Now, it has its immediate fulfillment for sure in the return of the Jews during the time of Nehemiah, but that's a type and shadow of God calling us to the

New Jerusalem, calling us from our exile, and you can kind of see it here. I know the plans I have for you, plans for your welfare, not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.

As Christians, do we have a future and a hope? Yes, set your hope fully on the grace that will be revealed at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

Then you will call upon me and pray to me, I will hear you, you will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.

I will be found by you, declares Yahweh, and I will restore your fortunes, and I will gather you from where?

All the nations. Wait, I thought we were talking about Babylon. Were the exiles sent to all the nations?

Not in this text, it's written to the exiles in Babylon. So you'll note then there's a universal aspect to it.

So we as Christians, we see the eschatological implications. As exiles now, we set our hope fully on the grace to be revealed at the revelation of Christ, and we can hear then

God speaking to the exiles, and we can see how then it properly applies to us.

God will restore our fortunes, talking about giving us life in the new earth. He will gather us from all nations, including the

United States and other places, and all places where I have driven you, declares Yahweh, and I will bring you back to the place from which

I sent you into exile. Those promises are key. So now you can see then how the theme of being an exile applies to us as Christians, and the story that we read in Esther has implications for us because it shows us what a life of faith looks like as an exile, living on the razor's edge, experiencing suffering and persecution, even murderously so, you get the idea.

So that being the case, we can actually begin the story of Esther, and it's not once upon a time this actually took place in history, and I love the setup here.

The only way I can describe what we're gonna see in the beginning setup of the characters is that King Ahasuerus of Babylon and his wife

Vashti, they are living the life royal, oh man. They are wealthy, they are powerful, and they are so into themselves, it's not even funny.

And that's kind of the setup here, but Vashti, oh man,

Vashti's a feminist, and it's not gonna go well for her. But here's the problem, the guys in the

Persian Empire, they're part of the toxic, the non -biblical kind of patriarchy, and they care really only about themselves.

It's the perfect setup to talk about some of the stuff that's going on in our day. So here's how the story begins. Now in the days of Ahasuerus, the

Ahasuerus who reigned from India to Ethiopia, over 127 provinces.

All right, that one, in case you were thinking about the other one. So in those days when

King Ahasuerus sat on his royal throne in Susa, the citadel, in the third year of his reign, he gave a feast for all of his officials and his servants.

The army of Persia and Media and the nobles and the governors of the provinces were before him while he showed the riches of his royal glory and the splendor and the pomp of his greatness for many days, 180 days.

This is how great I am, day one. This is how great

I am, day two. We still have five months and 28 days to go.

This is how great I am, day three, yes. Half a year, oh man.

And when these days were completed, the king gave for all the people present in Susa, the citadel, both great and small, a feast lasting for seven days in the court of the garden of the king's palace.

There were white cotton curtains and violet hangings fastened with cords of fine linen and purple to silver rods and marble pillars and also couches of gold and silver on a mosaic pavement of porphyry.

I don't even know what that is. Marble, mother of pearl, precious stones, drinks were served in golden vessels, vessels of different kinds and the royal wine was lavished according to the bounty of the king and drinking was according to this edict.

There is no compulsion for the king has given orders to all the staff of his palace to do as each man desired.

Queen Vashti also gave a feast for the women in the palace that belonged to King Ahasuerus.

And you can see the National Enquirer's covering this. It's in all the gossip magazines. I mean, the photographs are spanning the world.

Everyone's like totally into this. Oh, isn't this great? All right, you know, talk about royalty, right?

And on the seventh day, when the heart of the king was merry with wine, he's been, he hasn't been sober for a week, he commanded

Mehuman, Biztha, Harbona, Bigtha, Abagtha, these are

Babylonian names and Persian names, not Hebrew, Zethar and Karkas, the seven eunuchs who served in the presence of King Ahasuerus to bring

Queen Vashti before the king with her royal crown in order to show the people and the princes her beauty for she was lovely to look at.

Oh, let's bring her out, let's deck her out so everybody can oogle the queen.

Oh no, yeah, and this is why we don't make decisions while we're drunk.

Okay, but Queen Vashti refused to come at the king's command delivered by the eunuchs.

At this, the king became enraged and his anger burned within him.

Now, a little bit of a note here, all right, one of the things that we have to recognize in the

West is we do not understand honor cultures very well. All right, in the East, honor is everything, all right, and so Vashti has straight up not only disobeyed, she has utterly dishonored the king and he is the highest authority in the land and so this is horrifying, but when you think about it, use this as your cross -reference to understand culturally just what should have happened in the account of the story of the prodigal son.

Remember in the prodigal son, there was an older brother, right? When the younger brother came back after squandering all of his money and having to work on a pig farm and coming back, the father ran to him, hugged him, forgave him, put a ring on his finger, put robes on him, slaughtered the fatted calf and threw a party, right?

And when the older brother came back and from wherever he was working for that day and heard the sound of the merrymaking, he asked what was going on and one of the servants said, your brother has come back and your father's killed the fatted calf and what did the older brother do?

He refused to go into the party. He dishonored his father horrifyingly, all right?

What Queen Vashti does here is the same thing and the response of King Ahasuerus to being dishonored in such a horrifying way, in public way, is what you should have expected from the father of the prodigal but you know what the father of the prodigal did?

Rather than being enraged, he went outside to plead with his son.

It's a great, great comparison when you think about it. All right, so now we got a problem.

Now we got a big problem, right? Vashti has dishonored the king, she's disobeyed him. It is a crisis in the kingdom.

This is about as bad as it gets, right? So the king said to his wise men who knew the times that this was the king's procedure toward all who were versed in law and judgment and the men next to him being

Karshena, Sheltar, Adamatha, Tarshish, Marys, Parsena, Memucan, the seven princes of Persia and Media who saw the king's face and sat first in the kingdom.

According to the law, what is to be done to Queen Vashti because she has not performed the command of King Ahasuerus delivered by the eunuchs?

Then 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 peoples 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 didn't come. Who are these guys worried about?

Themselves. Dude, you got to do something because if this stands, my wife's going to show me contempt and she's going to do something.

Ah, okay, it's awesome. Okay, now a little bit of a note here, all right?

For all the talk, down with the patriarchy, okay? What we're seeing here is really not a biblical form of patriarchy but a very sinful version of it.

Now, we Christians, we embrace patriarchy. I love the fact that nobody wants to talk about this, okay?

But we embrace patriarchy knowing this, that the universe itself is run by a king.

King is a masculine monarch. Yes, I know, shock, gasp, okay?

And to make matters worse, all right, we know for a fact because it is recorded in scriptures that this king is truly a man and he's circumcised.

Oh, oh no, gasp. So are we to be little women then?

No, okay, all right? So this is what biblical patriarchy looks like.

And we'll take a look at Ephesians 5 and we're going to note then, I always like pointing this out the first, it begins with wives.

One, two, three verses. Husbands, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, yeah, that's more.

Are you telling me that men get more births than women? I maybe say men need more than women, okay?

But this is where biblical patriarchy shines and I do mean it, okay?

So listen to what it says. Wives, submit to your own husbands as to the

Lord. Now, did Vashti sin against what something God had put in place? Yes, and specifically part of the curse that God put into place in the

Garden of Eden. Part of the curse was that the woman's will would be contrary to her husband's, but God wills that her husband rule over her.

So she is going against the express will of God in her defiance, so note that.

But it's a little more subtle than this. The husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church.

His body and is himself its savior. Now, as the church submits to Christ, so also wives submit in everything to their husbands.

You ladies here, is Jesus a tyrant that you're submitting to? No, far from it, right?

Exactly. Now comes the bit that we gotta pay attention to. Husbands, love your wives and then watch the modifier.

As Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.

Oh, you mean we're not supposed to rule like we're kings and tyrants? If you're ruling like Ahasuerus, right, you are not.

Engaging in anything even remotely like biblical patriarchy. Christ loves his church sacrificially.

You wanna know what real manhood looks like? Real manhood looks like Jesus nailed to the cross.

That's the ultimate expression of manhood. And so he goes on.

So Christ, you are to love your wives as Christ loved the church, gave himself up for her so that he might sanctify her.

Having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word so that he might present the church to himself in splendor without spot or wrinkle or any such thing so that she might be holy and without blemish.

What does Christ do with his bride's sins? He bleeds and dies for them, washes them away.

He covers them, dresses her in splendor. Does Ahasuerus, does it look like he's ready to cleanse his wife's sin and rebellion?

No. Okay. So I think it's wonderful here, the contrast between King Jesus and King Ahasuerus and how they treat their rebellious wives.

The contrast is stark. And this is where biblical patriarchy is in play.

Biblical patriarchy looks like Jesus, the patriarch. Self -sacrificing, loving, cleansing, not exposing her wife's sin, covering it, forgiving it, dressing her in splendor, him purifying her.

Big, big difference. And so the contrast, like I said, is stark. So coming then back to our text, hang on a second here.

All right. So all these men, they're worried about themselves. If you don't punish

Vashti, my wife's gonna misbehave and things are gonna be terrible at my house. All right.

So this very day, the noble women of Persia 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 and plenty.

So if it pleased the king, let a royal order go out from him and let it be written among the laws of the

Persians and the Medes so that it cannot be repealed that Vashti is never again to come before the king

Ahasuerus and let the king give her royal position to another who is better than she.

So when the decree made by the king is proclaimed throughout all of his kingdom, for it is vast, all women will give honor to their husbands, high and low alike.

Again, they're concerned about themselves. Any concern for Vashti? Any desire for there to be reconciliation, mercy, forgiveness?

Is this how you love your wife? You just put her away? Wow. All right.

So this advice pleased the king and the princes, of course it did, and the king did as Memucan proposed.

He sent letters to all the royal provinces, to every province in his own script, and to every people in its own language, that every man be master in his own household and speak according to the language of his people.

And all the men said, hoo -ah! You see the difference between biblical patriarchy and this, right?

This is the world's version of patriarchy and boy is it bad. All right? So there's our setup.

Now, let me go back and do a little more pre -work for what's coming next.

I gotta go to the end of Jeremiah. And let's see here.

Do -do -do -do -do. This is the prophecy against the

Chaldeans. Hang on a second here. Yeah.

In, ah, here it is. This is the number of people,

Jeremiah 52. This is the number of people whom Nebuchadnezzar carried away captive in the seventh year.

Listen to this number, okay? All of the Jews in Judah were destroyed.

Scripture says 90 % of the people who survived, it is a tiny remnant.

Listen to this. This is the number of people whom Nebuchadnezzar carried away. 3 ,023 in the seventh year of Nebuchadnezzar.

In the 18th year of Nebuchadnezzar, he carried away captive from Jerusalem, 832 persons.

And in the 23rd year of Nebuchadnezzar, Nebuchadnezzar, the captain of the guard, carried away captive of the

Judeans, 745. All persons. The total number of exiles.

4 ,600. That is not a lot.

Total persons. Okay? Just kind of get this.

What is the dividing line for the people who lived as opposed to the people who died? The people who lived trusted the word of God and the promise that he made.

The people who died despised God and his word and didn't trust his promise. They did not think he was faithful.

They refused to submit themselves and surrendered to Nebuchadnezzar. And God was faithful. They died, those who surrendered lived.

And so when we start to look at what's coming next in this passage, this is a tragic story because Esther, this girl, she, her parents died.

Her parents died, which means they did not have faith. She lived, which means she had faith.

She's one of the 4 ,600. All right?

After these things, when the anger of King Ahasuerus had abated, he remembered

Vashti and what she had done and what had been decreed against her. And then the king's young men who attended him said, let beautiful young virgins be sought out for the king.

Oh no, we're gonna have a pagan beauty contest. Lovely, all right?

And let the king appoint officers in all the provinces of his kingdom to gather all the beautiful young virgins to the harem in Susa.

The what? Yeah, that's what it says. Okay, and yeah, that's what it means, all right?

The citadel under custody of Haggai, the king's eunuch, who is in charge of the women. Now, I want you to think about this for a second here.

As a woman of faith, do you think Esther knows full well the commandments regarding sexual immorality in the

Mosaic Covenant? Yes. She is going to be forced against her will to participate in this beauty contest.

And I'm gonna be blunt, I'll say it right now. If she doesn't win this beauty contest, she will for the rest of her life be a concubine, which is basically a glorified official sex worker.

That's what's at stake here, all right? So knowing all of this, because here's how this is gonna go down.

They're gonna take of all these beautiful virgins, they're gonna put them through beauty treatments, seven are gonna be chosen as the finalist, and each woman gets one night with the king.

And if the king doesn't make that woman official, she goes back to the harem to the higher level concubine level.

For a woman who fears God, is this any kind of future that she wants? No, all right?

And God's faithfulness in the midst of all of this is incredible.

It's absolutely the mercy of God what comes next. So, we continue.

So let the king appoint officers of all the province to gather, this is against their will, all the beautiful young virgins to the harem and soothe the citadel under the custody of Haggai and the king's eunuch who is in charge of the women.

Let their cosmetics be given to them and let the young woman who pleases the king be queen instead of Vashti, so this pleased the king and he did so.

Oh, yay, I like this, right? All right, so now there was a Jew in Susa, the citadel, whose name was

Mordecai, the son of Jair, the son of Shimei, the son of Kish, and he's a

Benjamite, who had been carried away from Jerusalem among the captives, carried away with Jeconiah, the king of Judah, whom

Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, had carried away. So he went in round one, he went in round one.

And how was he alive? He believed the words of the prophet

Jeremiah, the words of God in that prophet. And he was bringing up, and this is

Esther's real name, Hadassah, beautiful name, beautiful name, Hadassah.

That is Esther, the daughter of his uncle, for she had neither father nor mother. This is a woman who is an orphan, and Mordecai is raising her as his own daughter.

The young woman had a beautiful figure, was lovely to look at, and when her father and mother died,

Mordecai took her as his own daughter. So when the king's order and his edict were proclaimed, and when many young women were gathered in Susa, the citadel, in custody of Haggai, Esther was also taken to the king's palace and put in custody of Haggai, who had charge of the women.

And you'll note the faithfulness of Mordecai. He's not allowed to go in to see her, he has a border or a barrier, but he sends word to her day after day after day.

He continues to father her, and it's just a beautiful story, right?

So Esther was also taken into the king's palace and put in custody of Haggai.

Note, this is not by her will, this was by edict of the king, and who had charge of the women, and the young woman pleased him and won his favor, and he quickly provided her with her cosmetics and her portion of food, with seven chosen young women from the king's palace, and advanced her and her young women to the best place in the harem.

Esther had not made known her people or kindred, for Mordecai had commanded her not to make it known.

And every day, Mordecai walked in front of the court of the harem to learn how Esther was and what happened to her.

Now, a little bit of a note, and that is that we really do believe that Mordecai wrote this book. There's hints throughout the text, bits that only

Mordecai could have known that were written into the text that strongly suggest he's the author.

Verse 12, now when the turn came for each young woman to go to King Ahasuerus after being 12 months under the regulations for the women, since this was the regular period of their beautifying, six months with oil of myrrh, six months with spices and ointments for women, when the young woman went into the king in this way, she was given whatever she desired to take with her from the harem to go to the king's place.

So, these are your seven finalists that's describing the procedure. In the evening, she would go in, and in the morning, she would return.

I'll give you two guesses as to what's going on there, and the first one doesn't count, right? And she would go in in the morning, and she would return to the second harem in custody of Sha 'agaz, the king's eunuch who was in charge of the concubines, and she would not go into the king again unless the king delighted in her, and she was summoned by name.

So, that's what's going on here. That's the procedure, and Esther at this point is on the razor's edge.

She's either going to be made the queen and her union with Ahasuerus made official through marriage, or she's going to become a concubine.

There is just no middle ground here, and do you think for a second that neither her nor Mordecai were praying?

You betcha they were praying. These are people of faith. So, when the turn came for Esther, the daughter of Abahel, the uncle of Mordecai who had taken her as his own daughter to go to the king, she asked for nothing what

Haggai, the king's eunuch who had charge of her, of the women, advised. So, the idea then, she didn't even ask, what should

I take with me? She asked her advisor, Haggai. She said, well, what should I take? And he said, take this, and she took it.

Now, Esther was winning favor in the eyes of all who saw her, and when Esther was taken to King Ahasuerus into his royal palace in the 10th month, which is the month of Tibet, in the seventh year of his reign, the king loved

Esther more than all the women, and she won grace and favor in his sight, more than all the virgins, so that he set the royal crown on her head and made her queen instead of Vashti.

Then the king gave a great feast for all of his officials and servants, it was Esther's feast, and so he also granted a remission of taxes to the provinces and gave gifts with his royal generosity.

That is a huge answer to prayer. And you can see the hand of God, although it is not mentioned, it is clearly at work.

And that's the point. As exiles, do we not live in this exact same way? We find ourselves in trouble.

We find ourselves in distress. We find ourselves in a situation where, if things do not turn around, or if God doesn't intervene, everything's gonna go really bad.

So what do we do? We pray, and we have faith. And then when

God answers our prayer, we thank God, and we recognize that his hand was at work the whole time.

That's kind of the point. This is a field guide to living the life of an exile.

And so here, well, Esther has not been put into the position of being a concubine.

She's now the queen. So when the virgins were gathered together the second time, Mordecai was sitting at the king's gate.

Esther had not made known her kindred or her people as Mordecai had commanded her, for Esther obeyed

Mordecai just as when she was brought up by him. And in those days, as Mordecai was sitting at the king's gate,

Bigthon and Teresh, two of the king's eunuchs who had guarded the threshold, became angry, and they sought to lay hands on King Ahasuerus.

Now, this is the part where you can tell that he knows Jeremiah 29. Pray for the welfare of the city where I'm sending you, for your welfare is wrapped up in theirs.

Here, Mordecai has the opportunity to join in on this murderous coup d 'etat.

And if he did not trust the words of God written by Prophet Jeremiah, then he would have probably been tempted to participate in this with the idea that he could then convince the

Jews it's time to head home. But what he does next, again, only makes sense if he truly believes what

Jeremiah wrote in chapter 29. So, Mordecai had learned that these two men wanted to lay hands on King Ahasuerus.

So this came to the knowledge of Mordecai, and he told it to Queen Esther, and Esther told the king in the name of Mordecai.

And when the affair was investigated and found to be so, the men were both hanged on the gallows, and it was recorded in the book of the

Chronicles in the presence of the king. He could have led a rebellion, get the

Jews out of Persia, Media, out of Babylon. Nope, he acted for the welfare of King Ahasuerus and knows full well the commandment says you shall not murder and he shows his faith by his good works in protecting the king's life.

Now, this is where we're gonna end today, at least in the text, we'll end here. Now, I'm gonna check questions real quick because I know that there probably are some, and then we'll wrap up in just a few minutes.

Carmen says, I think somebody's trying to make their money back at Lakewood after they figured out that they were fooled. Okay, all right.

Ignorant question, well, maybe not. Let's see, when it comes to the promises of the Bible, do we just use ones in the

New Testament? I've been guilty of using Jeremiah 29, 11 and then read the verses afterwards and it made me sense.

It hasn't been until recently that I've been hearing more of the truth, so many passages of the scripture.

So, April, no, it's not a bad question. There legitimately are promises for us in the Old Testament. The issue is that what has happened in American evangelicalism, especially as a result of TBN and the televangelists, is that they twist the scriptures and they take the promises of the

Mosaic Covenant if the people of Israel were faithful and they say that those promises are for us.

And so the idea is that when you read the book of Deuteronomy, there's a section in Deuteronomy that's the blessing and curses portion of the

Mosaic Covenant and they'll take Jeremiah 29, 11 and try to twist it into a prosperity text.

But so the reality is that we did take a look at Jeremiah 29 and those verses surrounding 11 and saw then in what sense they do apply to us as Christians.

But that takes a careful exegete and somebody who is not scratching itching ears, basically promising people the world when

God hasn't promised them that here and now. Now God has promised us the new world, not the present.

So this takes careful study. So you'll note the promises of the forgiveness of our sins and God promising to not remember our sins, promising to forget our sins, that's found in the

Old Testament. And that's revealed and fulfilled in the New Testament but it's revealed in the

Old. So there are definitely promises for us in the Old Testament but anybody who's promising you health, wealth, prosperity, a breakthrough or any nonsense like that, they're twisting the scriptures and making promises for God that he didn't make.

All right, so Rachel says, I don't know how people can keep listening to those who claim that they're modern -day prophets but are so wrong in their declarations.

Answer, Rachel, it's real simple, because God sends a delusion. Read 2

Thessalonians 2. How anyone believes that Cain Ash is a prophetess of God is beyond me.

The only way to explain this is that God has sent a strong delusion on people. You know,

Jesus. All right. Carlos and MJ, we saw

Queen Esther play yesterday. The theme was mainly God has a purpose for you, such as time as this.

Yeah. Timely, timely. You're gonna see, that's not the theme of Esther.

I know how it gets used by the purpose -driven folks. This is not a purpose -driven text. This is a text about the faithfulness of God to keep his word and his promises.

That's really what it's about. So, and you can't understand it without understanding Jeremiah, and if you don't do the work ahead of time, oh, you're gonna come up with all kinds of weird connections.

All right, that's the biggest jolt. I was realizing I don't have a special calling. I was told for years by many people,

I'm not called for such a thing. What's this? We are created in Christ Jesus for good works, all right?

Not a purpose. So, you know, and I'm talking as a pastor, somebody who's actually been called into the pastoral ministry.

This is not my special purpose. This is one of the ways in which God has ordained for me to do good works in his name.

But, you know, I'm also a husband. I'm also a father. You know, I've been an employee. You know, I serve a whole bunch of people in different capacities.

We're called to good works. And the good news is that, you know, if I am hit by a bus and I'm paralyzed and I'm sitting in a wheelchair in a nursing home for 20 years before I die,

I can still do good works. You know, I can do good works in prayer. I can do good works as a patient.

I can do good works anywhere that I am. So let's get this special purpose thing off the table because this is just narcissism and it just feeds our inner narcissists when we hear stuff like that.

We're called to be repentant and believe in Christ's forgiveness, yep. All right, so how deceptive to focus on the material when the promises of God are so much better than all kinds of things that 50 years from now will end up in the rubbish dump, cleaning, forgiveness, eternally dwelling with our

God and yet so many are deceived and lusting after things. Exactly, they want the things that God created but they don't want the creator.

It's horrifying. Not that we're not grateful for the gifts, yeah. Great point, really, yep.

Warm meal, all right. This is as far as I can go because I am up against a hard timeline here.

So if we didn't get to your question as it relates to Esther, save it up and try to post it in the comments next week and I'll see if I can get to it.