FBC Morning Light – April 6, 2022

A good Wednesday morning to you. We are in the middle of the week. I hope your week is going well, and I trust

God is blessing you this week and giving you strength to do the work he's called you to do, and that the work of your hands is prospering.

I mentioned yesterday that we're going to spend just several days in a row in the book of Esther, because I think it's an important book that is misunderstood, this book in the

Old Testament. Usually the book of Esther is presented in a way that exalts

Esther and extols her as a great woman and so forth.

I don't want to take away from that necessarily, but I do want to get it in proper perspective.

I want us to understand well the conditions and the situation and the character of the individuals involved.

For example, yesterday we pointed out that Esther got involved in this beauty contest for the king to become the next queen.

There is debate as to whether or not this was totally voluntary or if this was forced.

If it was forced, the way it worked was the different officials would go throughout the kingdom,

Ahasuerus' kingdom, and they would look for beautiful women, unmarried women, young women, probably mid -teens or so, and they would snatch them up and take them to the palace for this beauty contest.

If that's the case, then Esther didn't have any choice but to be where she was.

Here's one thing I want us to understand and to get a significant contrast between Vashti and Esther.

I pointed out yesterday that the king gave this order to Vashti that he really had no right to make.

He ordered her to come before a room full of drunken men to display her beauty.

He wanted to exploit her for his own gratification, his satisfaction. He had no right to do that, and she had every right to say no.

She was principled enough to say, I am not going to do that. You do to me what you want to do, but I am not going to do that.

She didn't. In contrast to that, whether or not this beauty pageant was voluntary or involuntary,

Esther gets brought into the situation where she is being compelled or choosing to, whichever the case.

I'm not going to say dogmatically which way it is, but let's suppose she didn't have a choice but was under house arrest, if you will.

She was brought into this harem of women who were preparing themselves to go before the king with the possibility of becoming the next queen.

In that process, these young virgins were going to lose their virginity to the king.

Esther was a Jewish woman. The king was a pagan king.

She had every spiritual authority to refuse to say,

I'm not going to do that. Do to me whatever you will, I am not going to do that.

Nevertheless, she didn't have the strength or the spiritual integrity or background or character, whatever it was, to do that.

I want to point that out to show a contrast between Vashti and her principled decision to refuse the king's demands, and Esther and Mordecai, for that matter, who went along with all of this in the hopes that maybe she'd win the contest, and if nothing else, she'd be cared for for the rest of her life by being in the king's harem.

I think you can make a pretty aware decision as to which was the morally correct decision for her to have made.

She should have followed Vashti's example. Nevertheless, she didn't. What's coming in chapter 3 is this plot by Haman to kill all the

Jews. Why did he want to do that? Why did he have such a hatred for the Jews? Let's work our way backwards here.

Haman wanted to kill all the Jews. He hated them. Why did he hate them? Because Mordecai refused to bow down before him,

Haman, who was second -in -command under the king. He had a very powerful, responsible position in the kingdom.

Mordecai refused to bow down. This bowing down was not a worshipping.

It wasn't treating Haman as if he was God. This was the homage and respect that was always offered to those in high places of authority in a kingdom.

Mordecai refused to do that. When Haman investigated to find out, why is this guy who's really in the king's court, why is he refusing to give me the honor that I'm due?

When Mordecai was interrogated about this, he says, I'm not going to do it. I'm a Jew, and I don't bow down to anybody but God.

It seems to be his attitude. He never uses the name God. He just says, I'm a Jew. Mordecai's refusal to kneel before and give homage to Haman resulted in Haman's hatred of all the

Jews and led him to come up with a scheme to have all the

Jews in the kingdom exterminated—genocide. Why did

Mordecai refuse to kneel and pay homage to Haman? He apparently was in the king's gate.

That means he had some lesser position in the court, it seems. You have to be pretty naive to think that Mordecai never bowed down before Ahasuerus, the king.

He absolutely did. If he hadn't done that, he'd have been dead already. Why did

Mordecai refuse to kneel before Haman? We have a little insight into that at the end of chapter 2.

At the end of chapter 2, there was this plot that was hatched by a couple of the king's servants to assassinate the king.

Mordecai caught wind of that plot. He found out about the plot, and he informed the king through the proper channels.

He let it be known that there were a couple of the king's servants who were going to assassinate him.

That report was investigated, and it was found to be true. Those two would -be assassins were executed, the king's life was saved.

Mordecai saved the king's life. That's how it's written at the end of chapter 2.

When inquiry was made in the matter, it was confirmed, and both of those servants were hanged on a gallows, and it was written in the book of the

Chronicles in the presence of the king. That record in the book of the

Chronicles of the king is a foreshadowing of something that's to come in the future here.

But note right now, Mordecai saves the king's life, the assassins were executed, and then the next thing it says, the beginning of chapter 3 says, after these things,

King Ahasuerus promoted Haman, the son of Hamadathah the Agagite, and advanced him, and set his seat above all the princes who were with him.

So get the connection here, get the sequence of events. Mordecai saves the king's life, uncovers this assassination plot, saves the king's life, and right after that,

Haman gets promoted, not Mordecai. I think what the

Scriptures is telling us here is that Mordecai's refusal to kneel before Haman is really rooted in a matter of jealousy, that he didn't get the position that was rightfully his.

Oh, how destructive envy and jealousy can be.

We may think it won't hurt us, but it'll hurt not only us, but who knows who else.

We need to beware of that plague. So, here we go, through the book of Esther.

Our Father and our God, we pray that you would challenge us and warn us against being envious of those who get what we think we deserve, lest we hurt ourselves and others in the process.

We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. All right, well have a good rest of your day.