A Love Smitten King and Compromising Queen

This morning, I preached in a suit at another church.

And some of you saw a picture of it and thought it was AI generated. Well this is to let you know, this is not

AI generated. Keith mentioned he'd like to see me in a suit again sometime, so Merry Christmas.

Merry Christmas to each and every one of you. I have served at this church now for 10 years, been here 12.

And I love each and every one of you, and Sybil, I love you the most. And I'm just thankful to have served with Keith and with Andy these years, and we are very different.

They're big and I'm little. I got a big beard, they got a little beard. Keith wears socks and I don't.

I normally don't wear pants and they do. And they are very smart men and I am not.

So I'm thankful for each and every year that I've served with them and continue looking forward to do that in the future.

I would ask that you would take your Bible and open it up to the most secular book of all scripture.

It is the book of Esther. And you say, well, why secular? Because God's name is never mentioned.

There's nothing mentioned about the customs of the Jews. There's nothing mentioned about their law in particular.

And it has been, in many cases, not wanted to be entered into the canon because it seems so un -Jewish and very secular.

So why Esther? Well, as I will be finishing up teaching through the book of Revelation this year,

I will then begin to teach through some smaller books to get away from a very long study that we have been in and I will teach through the book of Esther.

So as you would be watching a movie and you see a trailer, take this as a trailer for a movie or for the next

Sunday school class coming near you. And as we go through this, because I don't have time to bring everything up to speed, there are five major characters here.

One is the self -serving Ahasuerus, which his name is Xerxes. And many of us know who

Xerxes is. He was in the movie 300, where he got his tail whipped at the

Battle of Thermopylae in 480. And this book takes place between his reign of 486 to 565.

And there's a great party at the beginning of this book, which is trying to build the campaign for him to go into Macedonia and Greece so that he could then try to defeat the

Greek armies, which would lead to the Battle of Salome Plateau and obviously the

Battle of Thermopylae. So that is the background to the book. You also have Queen Vashti.

She is very significant, but in the front end. And then you have Mordecai.

Mordecai is hugely important to the development of the book.

You have Esther, whose name's actually, her Hebrew name is Hadassah.

And then you have Haman the hotshot. Haman the wicked

Haman. And that brings us to this part of the book. Now, most of us that are familiar with this book know that a great deliverance happens, but that's not where we're at in chapter 2.

So as we begin to read, I would ask that you would stand for the honor and reading of God, reverence to his word, and if you're able to stand.

I will not read the whole chapter. I will stop short at chapter 2 verse 20.

Now, after these things, when the anger of the king Ahasuerus had subsided, he remembered

Vashti and what she had done and what had been decreed against her. Then the king's attendants who served him said, let beautiful young virgins be sought for the king.

Let the king appoint overseers in the providences of his kingdom that they may gather every beautiful young virgin to the citadel of Susa, to the harem, into the custody of Hegai, the king's eunuch, who is in charge of the women and let their cosmetics be given them.

Then let the young lady who pleases the queen be queen in place of Vashti. And that matter pleased the king and he did accordingly.

Now, there was a citadel in Susa and a Jew whose name was Mordecai, the son of Jair, the son of Shimei, the son of Kish, a

Benjamite, who had been taken into exile from Jerusalem with the captives, who had been exiled with Jeconiah, king of Judah, whom

Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, had exiled. He was bringing up Hadassah, that is

Esther, his uncle's daughter, for she had no father or mother. Now, the young lady was beautiful of form and face.

And when her father and mother had died, Mordecai took her as his own daughter.

So it came about that when the command of the decree of the king were heard of many young ladies were gathered to the citadel of Susa into the custody of Hegai, the

Esther was taken into the king's palace, into the custody of Hegai, who was in charge of the women.

Now, the young lady was pleased him and found favor with him. So he quickly provided for her cosmetics and food, gave her seven choice maids from the king's palace, transferred her and her maids to the best place in the harem.

Esther did not make known her people or her kindred, for Mordecai had instructed her that she should not make it known to them.

Every day, Mordecai walked back and forth in front of the court outside the harem to learn how

Esther was and how she had fared. Now, when the turn of each young lady came to go into king

Ahasuerus, at the end of her 12 months undergoing the regulations of the women for the days of her beautification were completed as follows.

Six months with oil were completed, and myrrh, and six months of spices, and all the other cosmetics for women.

The young lady would go into the king in this way. Anything she desired was given to her to take with her from the harem to the king's palace.

In the evening, when she would go in, and in the morning, she would return to the second harem, to the custody of Shash -Hagaz, the king's eunuch who was in charge of the concubines.

She would not again go into the king unless he, the king, was delighted in her, and he summoned her by name.

Now, when the turn of Esther had come, the daughter of Ahabahel, the uncle of Mordecai, who had taken her as his daughter, came for her to go into the king.

She did not request anything except what Haggai, the king's eunuch who was in charge of the women, advised.

And Esther found favor in the eyes of all who saw her. So Esther was taken to King Ahasuerus, his royal palace, in the tenth month, which is in the month of Tibet, in the seventh year of his reign.

The king loved Esther more than all the women, and she found favor and kindness with him more than all the other virgins, so that he set the royal crown on her head and made her queen instead of Vashti.

Then the king gave a great banquet, Esther's banquet, for all the princes and the servants.

He also made a holiday for the providence and gave gifts according to the king's bounty. And when the virgins were gathered together the second time, then

Mordecai was sitting at the king's gate. Esther had not yet made known of her kindred or her people, even as Mordecai had commanded her.

For Esther did what Mordecai told her as she had done while under his care.

Most gracious heavenly father, I pray that you would give me an extra measure of your mercy, an extra measure of your grace, that you would fill me with the power of your spirit, that God you would help me to speak to your people the truths out of your word, that I would instruct your sheep to be more conformed to the image of your son, father less of me and more of you, in Christ's name, amen.

Say, well this is an interesting Christmas passage, and we will draw some application as we get to the end.

But as always, beginning, as we do an exposition, beginning in verse 1 of chapter 2.

After these things, when the anger of the king, and I will use

Xerxes instead of Ahasuerus, so we all have an idea who he is. Xerxes had subsided.

Well, after these things, we have to go after what? Well, if you go back to chapter 1, he had this gigantic party he was going to have, and it was to raise up campaign to go into Macedonia and Greece.

And it was sent out to all of this 127 provinces, which he had a vast empire that went from Ethiopia all the way to India, huge.

And he was going to throw this party. And in doing this party, he was going to do it for 180 days, and he legislated the drinking of wine.

He said, check it out, we will drink till we're full, drink as much as you want, come and have what the king has.

This is in chapter 1. And in doing so, after him and his buddies had been drunk, it says made merry, so let's just be honest, if you've drank enough in seven days, it's more than just merry.

He says, hey, check it out, I want you to go get Vashti, my queen.

Bring her to me, and I want men in here to see the beauty of her with her crown on.

Now, there is some debate among scholars, whether they're liberal or conservative, as of what this means to her to come with her crown.

It could very well mean just come with nothing on Vashti but your crown, meaning in the buff.

Or it could mean just come in her queenly attire with her crown on and be paraded as a piece of eye candy in front of all of these officers and generals of his army, because that's what is at this party.

Whatever it was, Vashti said, I'm having no part of it. I am not going to be used as a piece of eye candy, and you're not going to strip me of my dignity, and she refused to come.

And in doing so, that made Xerxes very angry. Imagine, he sends eunuchs to go get her, and the reason why they use eunuchs is eunuchs were not just men with a very unfortunate surgery, okay?

They were also men that were very good fighters. They were instructors. They were bodyguards.

These were not cowards, but they had that very unfortunate surgery so that the desires of the women that they were in charge of could never be violated because of the king.

So imagine one of those seven go, and he comes back to Xerxes, and Xerxes says, she ain't coming, dude.

And his anger is filled. There's two things you don't do. You don't defy the king.

You don't embarrass the king. And he could have put her to death, but he did not.

He listened to his advisors and said, she should be banished. Now, we know that Xerxes could have put her to death at a whim because we know through history that Xerxes was good about putting people to death.

I mean, this guy had a bridge made to go across to do an incursion into another land, and that bridge fell apart, and everybody that worked on the bridge, the architect that built it and the engineers that helped him do it, he lined them all up and killed every one of them.

So he had no problem putting people to death, but he did not do that to Vashti. And these men says, hey, we have an idea, banish her.

It says, well, after his anger has subsided, he remembered what he had done and what had been decreed against her.

So in other words, hey, Xerxes, after the liquor has subsided, he sobered up.

He remembered how much he liked Vashti and how beautiful she was and how he probably had made a mistake.

But anybody knows the law, the Medes and the Persians, they can't be taken back. And we even know that in the book of Daniel, which this would have taken place after the time of Daniel, that when

Daniel was told, hey, by Darius, whom I believe was Cyrus the Great, you can't pray.

And he prayed, we're going to throw this person into the lion's den. And in doing so, when

Darius found out that Daniel had done that, what did Darius want to do? He wanted to save Daniel from the lion's den, but he was hung on the horns of his own decree.

Once the decree is made by the king, it cannot be repealed. And just in this case, he wanted

Vashti back. But he couldn't get her back because he was hung on the horns of his own decree made by young self -serving men that talked him into that.

That is a pattern that goes through the book of Esther. Xerxes doesn't make any real decision except for you get to the end where he says, hey, this is what

I want you to do. Everything is made by people giving suggestions to him.

He was a weathervane for his lustful desires and his own whimsical feelings.

It says, and then the king's attendants who served him in verse 2 said, let beautiful young virgins be sought for the king.

Oh, so check it out. We know you're feeling bad, Xerxes. We got a good idea. How about some hot women?

That'll do it. Hot women, they'll change it all. So the king appointed overseers in all the providences of the kingdom that they may gather together every beautiful virgin to the citadel of Susa.

So what does he do? That's, hey, feed into his own ego. He says, that's a good idea. I got 127 providences.

I want you to go out and find the hottest virgins you can find. And he sends them out.

It'll bring them to the citadel at Susa, to the harem. You know what a harem is? It's where all the unviolated virgins that come in are put.

And then you have a second harem, which is the ones that after the king has consummated their concubinage or the marriage, they go to another.

So there's two harems. You have harem one full of virgins, harem two, those that had been consummated.

And he says that the king's into the custody of Haggai, who was the head eunuch.

Sends him there who is in charge of the women and let their cosmetics be given to them. Verse four, then let the young lady who pleases the king be queen instead of Ashti.

And the matter pleased the king and he did accordingly. And then you have a shift. Now there was a citadel, a man in citadel.

He was a Jew whose name was Mordecai. Hey, even the word Jew has

Gentile connotations to it. Jews was not used by the

Jewish people up until after the intertestamental. I mean, up until after the exile. And the reason being is

Jew was sort of a derogatory word to those who were of Judea.

Remember, after the exile, the only ones that came back were that of Judah. And that was what was called the descendants of Judah or the inhabitants of Judah.

And that's where the word Jew comes from. And it says here that his name was Mordecai.

Mordecai also has a... This is a Hebrewized word for worshipper of Marduk.

And if you know anything about Marduk, Marduk was a Babylonian god that most people that were taken off into captivity ended up having their name changed.

Or they were given pagan names. We can take that back to Daniel as well. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were the pagan names of Azariah, Hananiah, and Azariah.

And even Daniel had a pagan Babylonian name, which was Belteshazzar. So we know that this was common.

Well, Mordecai has that worshipper of Marduk name. Then it says he was a son of Jair, the son of Shimei, the son of Kisha Benjamin.

Huge tidbit of information. There are only two genealogies in the whole book of Esther.

One is Mordecai and the other is Haman the hotshot. And there's a reason. If you know, as we read that, you heard

Jair, Shimei, Kish. If you know anyone's name, it was a Benjamite. If you know anything about the

Old Testament, who was a Benjamite son of Kish? Saul. Bing, bing, bing, bing.

That should register something in your mind. Who was Haman? The descendant of?

He was an Agagite, the Amalekites. So here it is, Mordecai being a descendant of King Saul.

Even backs it up to Shimei. Just a little tidbit of information. Remember who Shimei was? Shimei was when

David was running from Absalom to keep from having to kill his own son who was trying to overthrow the kingdom.

As he is walking away, across the way, there was a guy kicking up dust and throwing rocks at David.

Calling him, you piece of garbage, you dog, you man of blood. That was a descendant,

Shimei, of Saul. That was part of Saul's house. It tells us that in 2 Samuel.

And one of my favorite guys in David's inner circle was

Abishai. Abishai says, that's Shimei running his mouth calling you those names.

You want me to go over there and cut his head off for you real quick? And he says, no, no, no, no, no, no. He could be speaking the truth of God.

So David spared his life. Now don't think that for some reason that David had compassion on Shimei all the way he's in because David gives his godfather speech in Kings chapter 1.

He says, hey, there's two people you got to take care of. Shimei, because he disgraced the king.

And the other is Joab. You got to take care of him because he killed a man in a time of peace. Both of them men had their demise through Solomon.

So this is an important detail. This is the descendant of Saul.

Saul was a compromiser. Saul was a man that when he was given the throne, he had a complete authority to go and wipe out the

Amalekites. And because of his compromise, he did not. He did not.

And because he compromised and did not kill everyone. Remember, he paraded back in all of the best of the lambs and the cattle and all of that.

And he paraded back in Agag, the king. And what does Samuel say? Everybody knows the great saying, what is the bleeping in my ear?

And Saul said, oh, well, I saved the best for God. And he said, no, no, no, no, no. That's not what

God said. God said kill them all. Even the cattle. And Samuel says, where's a sword?

And then Samuel, being about the age of Jack, hacks Agag to pieces.

That, who Mordecai is a descendant of. And he says, he had been taken into exile from Jerusalem with the captives who had been exiled through Jeconiah, the king of Judah, whom

Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon had exiled. Jeconiah was the second deportation.

Does it mean that actually Mordecai was taken in?

Because it's speaking of his family. Because if it was, that makes Mordecai about 120, 121 years old.

And we know that's not the case. They're trying to say, how did Mordecai get to Susa? Because his family was taken in to captivity under Nebuchadnezzar at the second deportation in 597

BC. And it says he was bringing up Hadassah.

Hadassah was Esther's Hebrew name. Her Hebrew name, it means myrtle.

And myrtle means a time of restoration, a thing of beauty and stability.

That is her name. That was her Hebrew name. And this is the last time and only time we hear of her

Hebrew name or I would even say identity.

It is consumed and wrapped up in the Persian Empire. It says this, that is

Esther. Well, what is Esther? Esther is actually Estherar. Estar.

Most of us have heard the word Estar. And it is a fertility god that was in Babylon.

And many of us, let me just go ahead and get this out of the way, has nothing to do with Esther. Okay, was it a fertility god?

Yes. But this, if you've told your kids this, told your grandkids this, repent of it.

Estar has nothing to do with Esther. Okay, nothing. You want to talk to me about it afterwards?

There's no historical evidence for that. If you say that, you're spouting off another fallacy. Now, she had no father or mother.

It doesn't mean she didn't have any genealogy, okay? It's saying her father and mother, tells us in the next phrase, had been killed.

They died or been killed. One or the other. And who raises her? Her cousin. Mordecai was her cousin.

He was obviously much older than she was. And he took her as his own to raise her up and to bring her to well age, to marry her off, obviously.

And he was her custodian, her guardian. And verse 8 said,

So, I want you to understand what is taking place.

127 providence, the pretty police goes out. They knock on the door. If you got a hot daughter, she's going.

Okay, this is what was happening. This is not Mrs. Universe pageant, where you enter and then you might get kicked out.

No, no, no. You go, well, I'll put myself in this. No, no, no. These are people knocking on the door. They get a full inspection to see if they meet the criteria to go.

This also has happened to who? Daniel and the nobilities when they were hauled off.

Remember, they had the Nebuchadnezzar's police. When they were going off into, hauled off into captivity, they would knock on the door, go into their houses.

They would do a full inspection, looking for someone without blemish so that they could be taking off into another land.

This would have been a good time to have buck teeth, a freckle or a crazy toenail or something.

Because it would have been at this point, you would have been with a blemish and they would have put you to the side.

But not in this case. If you were hot, you were without blemish, you were beautiful in form and face, to Susa you go.

Now, this has taken place in the third year. The decree went out in the third year of the reign of Xerxes.

We're going to see here in a few minutes that it's from the third year to the fourth year till Esther goes before the king.

You see how many women were in there? That's a lot of women. Going in and out of the king's hair and going into his room.

It says here, the young lady pleased. The young that pleased him found favor with him.

This is talking about Esther. Esther found favor with Haggai.

She is hauled off. She found favor with him. Let's contrast that with Daniel.

Did you see? Remember when Daniel was hauled off into captivity? Didn't Daniel have favor with those he had been entrusted?

Remember Ariok? The same thing. Ariok, they found favor with Ariok. And it says here that he was in charge of her.

Now, verse 9 says the young women pleased him and she found favor with him. He quickly provided for her her cosmetics and food and gave her seven maids with the king's pals and transferred her and her maids to the best place of the harem.

So here it is. Her favor that has been given to her ultimately by God, she now has the opportunity to stand up for herself, okay?

Just as Daniel did. She is now being taken into a place where she's going to be fed the best of the king's diet, eat what the king wants her to eat, and to have cosmetics.

Contrast that with Daniel. When Daniel was taken off and he said, hey, we want you to eat the best of the king's meat.

What did Daniel say? He said, no, no, no, not I. He said, no.

He said, I'll basically eat grass and water. I will not be defiled with the king's food.

That's not what we see here with Esther. We don't see that with Esther. Esther does what she's told.

Now, there is a part of being a submissive woman that we could say is a good quality of Esther.

And as I teach through the book whenever I get to that, there are parts of it you can say, what a good example of a woman submitted to authority over her.

Even her submission to Mordecai is good, until Mordecai puts her in a position where she should not be in, and he convinces her to do otherwise.

Zabe's giving maids to care for her in the best of the place in the harem.

Verse 10, Esther did not make known her people or her kindred. And listen to this. Verse 10 says, for Mordecai had instructed her to not make known who she was.

Under the old covenant, law of Moses, what was the two distinguishing factors that you would know that a person was

Jewish? One, they ate funny food. They ate different food. And what was the other?

They observed the Sabbath. Remember, what was the sign of the old covenant? Sabbath.

Sabbath. Sign was the Sabbath. So here it is. Mordecai's instructed her to do what?

Don't let them know that you're a Jew. Don't let them know who you are. You take your Jewish culture, your

Jewish identity, and you suppress that. Don't let them know that you're Jewish. And if you're not holding forth, if she's not taking part in the

Jewish dietary laws, you can't tell me she was taking part in the Sabbath.

That is a violation of God's law. If she would have been in Jerusalem, Esther would have been put to death.

I bet many of y 'all have not heard that. This is not a good story. This is a man who was put in charge of her and is telling her, violate the law of Moses.

Violate the law of Moses. It's no big deal. Don't let them know that you're a Jew. What would Moses have said? What did

Moses say to the guy that was out there picking up sticks to build a fire on the

Sabbath? What did he say? Stone him to death.

Sabbath violators were put to death. Mordecai encourages her, don't let them know who you are.

But every day, Mordecai walked back and forth in front of the court of the harem to learn how

Esther was and how she fared. Look, Mordecai loved her, okay? Let's just be honest.

He wanted to know what has happened. Remember, she's been hauled off for at least a year, we'll know.

At least a year, because that's how much of these cosmetics they have to get. He's back and forth.

Man, where's she at? Where's she at? Where's she at? And this also is a very good indication that Mordecai was a man of either established esteem or played some role in government because where is he walking outside?

He's walking outside the king's gate and there's two things that just regular old run -of -the -mill pagans don't do or the run -of -the -mill

Jew doesn't do. You don't walk in front of the king's palace. So we understand that Mordecai had some form of esteem or judicial or governmental place in already within the

Persian empire. And we can also think about, remember Lot? Where was

Lot at? If we all remember, Lot, he's outside the gate at Sodom and Gomorrah, remember?

Put him in a place of establishment or esteem because of his placement. This is

Mordecai. Now, when the turn for verse 12, when the turn for each of the young ladies came to go in to King Xerxes after the end of her 12 -month under the regulations for the women for the days of their beautification were completed as follows.

Six months of oil of myrrh and six months with spices and cosmetics. And the young lady would then go into the king in this way.

Anything that she desired was given to her to take from the harem in the king's palace.

So here it is. This is what they do to the women. They take these women, very beautiful.

He says, I want you to fatten them up. Look, we know what kind of women

Xerxes likes. He likes them thick because he wants them to eat. He wants them smelling good.

He wants their skin soft and slick. And he wants them smooth.

That's the kind of guys he likes... Guys? That's the kind of girls he likes. He wants them slick, smooth, smelly, and greasy.

Dude, I'm just telling you what it says. If you remember when

Daniel was taken off, what did they want to do? They wanted to feed the young men the same way.

Last thing they want to do is have some emaciated looking person walking into the king's court. But what happened to Daniel?

You remember? It says Daniel, one translation, it might be the King James. It says he was fatter than the rest.

Okay? Look, man, Xerxes wasn't having one of these European models that looked like a broomstick walking across the stage.

Okay? He wanted one formly, slick, smooth, smelly.

All right? Right here. But after they went through all of that, and he's like, man, that's a long time to get to looking good.

Now, Sibyl goes to get a mani and a pedi, and she's gone in a couple of hours. She ain't gone six months. This group of girls are gone for at least a year before they ever go into the king.

And it says, and after that time of regulation, they go in. Now, this isn't going in to have a conversation.

All right? I know we have children in here. All right? This is not going in to have a conversation. This is not going down to sit around a round table, play

Connect Four. This isn't going around here, we're going to play checkers. They are going in to his bedchamber to have sex with Xerxes.

That's the goal. Now, the one that pleases him will be queen.

I said a minute ago, this whole ordeal started in the third year of his reign. This, she will be crowned in the seventh year of his reign.

It's four years. Estimates of anywhere from 750 to 1100 women had been in to the bed of Xerxes before Esther had ever got there.

Come on, man, let's just be honest. How would you ever remember who was in there? Let's be honest.

So, if you're teaching this to your children, this is not a good story. Okay? Where we're at in today, chapter two, this is not good.

One, I would ask every man who raises his hand that has a daughter, but let's just make it so nobody feels like they're being called out.

Whoever in here has a daughter, whatever age she is, would you tell her, hey, I know that guy's rich.

I know he's got a lot of power. I know he's a pagan, but you'll be taken care of for the rest of your life.

Give your virginity to him and maybe he'll marry you. Okay? That's what

Mordecai said. Hey, I know this guy's got a lot of power, a lot of money.

He'll take care of you for the rest of your life. He's going to sleep with you one time. You're going to give your virginity to him, but then he's going to sleep with a bunch of other women too, and maybe he might call you back.

Hey, but you'll have a good Persian life. Would anybody tell that to your daughter? That's what

Mordecai did. You see the compromise that has taken place?

Just as Saul compromised. And it cost Saul, when he did not kill the

Amalekites, it cost him his kingdom. Now we're back to a same man from the same descendants who's now telling his adopted daughter to compromise her

Jewish identity. Compromise the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob who did haul us off into captivity for being compromisers for 490 years.

Then he hauled us into captivity and he gave us the opportunity to go back under the decree of Cyrus and we did not go.

Anybody make that connection? They had the opportunity to go back to Jerusalem and they did not go.

You know why? Because they loved their Persian culture. They liked being

Persian. They liked living in the Persian identity. You know, under the decree of Cyrus, which was reaffirmed by Darius the

Great, which then again was reaffirmed by Artaxerxes. Okay, Artaxerxes was

Xerxes' son, but Xerxes' granddaddy was

Cyrus and his daddy was Darius the Great. Every one of them would have paid for the

Jews to go back to Jerusalem and they didn't go. They didn't go.

They'd rather stay in their Persian identity, breaking the law of God because life was good in Persia.

It says in verse 14, in the evening she would go into him. In the morning she would return to the second harem to the custody of Shashoggaz.

What a name. And the king's eunuch who was in charge of the concubines, that's where they would go, and she would not again go into the king unless he summoned her by name.

So here it is. Here's your shot. You got one night. You better make it wild and crazy because it's going to be your opportunity to be the queen and if it doesn't do it for him, you're going to end up in the other harem where you'll probably never be called again.

You'll never have the ability to get married and in any Middle Eastern culture, the desire of a woman was to get married and have offspring.

That was going to be ended if you didn't marry the king. And then in verse 15, it says,

Now the turn came for Esther, the daughter of Abahithel, the uncle of Mordecai, who had been taken her as his daughter, came for her to go into the king.

Here it is. Here's her opportunity. She's fixing to have her night in the sun and what should the compromising

Esther have done? She should have said no. Hey, look, let's just be honest.

You have two comparisons here. You have Vashti who said,

Look, you're not going to use me for no eye candy. You're not going to use me as a sexual desire for other men to look at along with yourself.

I'm not going to do that. You're not going to take my dignity. What did Esther do here? Esther had the opportunity to say no and she did not.

You say, well, wait a minute. That could have cost her her life. You know what? Doing the right thing for God may cost you your life.

Vashti. It could have cost Vashti her life, could it not? What did she do? She said, hey, at least she had more dignity.

She had more dignity than Esther. Let's just be honest. Esther could have said, I'm not going to do that.

I'm not going to go and defile myself with a pagan man. One, that was a violation of the law of God. It was a violation to one to even intermarry with pagans.

Under the old covenant, you had to marry within the covenant. Not outside the covenant.

Here's an it. One, had an opportunity to say no about the food. Had an opportunity to say no about the beautifying treatments.

Had an opportunity. Hey, and God had given her favor with those men. Do you see that? She had form and favor with them.

All she had to do was ask. All she had to do was ask. And here it is.

Here comes her time to go in. Now, I will say this.

Here's where she is a little shrewd. All right. Here's where you'll say, okay, here's this guy, head guy.

She was put under his authority. She says, hey, you know what? I know

I'm going in here for this thing. You can take whatever you want from the harem. Whether it was a Sprite and a bag of Doritos.

Or whether it was some aphrodisiac, you know. Whether it was some jewelry.

Maybe her standing in front of those eunuchs. The eunuchs could probably have said, you know what? That's the best negligee you have.

You should probably wear that. And we're going to see what head guy does here in just a second.

Is he knows what the king's like. He's got insight. Well, I mean, we know he's got at least 750 to 1100 pre -runners before her to the king go,

I don't like that. I like this. I don't like that. Because here he goes. It says that...

Oh, where was I at? It says here that Esther was taken to the king.

Oh, I'm sorry. Back up. It says, and now when it came to Esther's turn, she was able to take anything that she wanted.

And she did not request anything except for what head guy said. Look, she's like, look,

I don't know what I'm doing. You've done this before. Whatever you tell me to do, head guy,

I'll do. Oh, God, we have to still admit there is a sweet submitted spirit about Esther that is to be desired.

And as you teach her a whole book, you can pick out those points. And we could look at, you know, there's qualities in her that are certainly good.

How she had a desire to please the king once she became queen. And how she was very submissive doing what she was told, not as a doormat, but just looking out for the best interest of the king.

And from a marital standpoint, women, if you can't help look out for the best of your king, the one whom you've been married, you should probably reevaluate.

But it's here she takes head guy's advice. The king's eunuch who was in charge of her.

And Esther found favor. Once again, she found favor in all who saw her.

I mean, we have already said at least three times right here in this chapter, she had people favor with her.

She could have asked and those people would have been, okay, sure. That's what you want. No problem. But what did she do?

She was absorbed into her Persian identity. And it says in verse 16,

So Esther was taken to the king, to his royal palace in the tenth month, which is the month of Tibeth and the seventh year of his reign.

Here it is. A lot of test driving for our desert. I mean, for Xerxes, 750 to 1100 women.

And here it is. The Hebrew hotties going in to try to change his mind. All the others. And then in verse 17, it says,

And the king loved Esther more than all women. She found favor and kindness with him more than all the virgins.

So he set the royal crown on her head and made her queen instead of Ashti.

So here it is. Just like any other night for the last four years. A young virgin goes in.

But the next morning, we have a winner. And the parade starts.

She is the Hebrew hottie is the winner. And it's over.

No more women go in. Now, the

Bible doesn't say this. So I'm having to draw a conclusion based on the rest of Scripture.

Xerxes' heart was bent towards her. She found her kind, lovely, beautiful, sweet.

Proverbs 21 says, The heart of the king is in the hand of the Lord. And as the rivers of water, he turns it wherever he wants.

And if you like the King James, it's got the good funny word. He turns it with or so ever he wills. That's awesome.

Why? What made this Hebrew girl more exciting, more lovely, more kind, more than anything than 1100 women before her?

God had the heart of Xerxes, his heart in his hand. And he was turning it wherever he wished.

Then the king gave a great banquet. Now, we know, it's obviously that Xerxes likes to party.

He had a great banquet. It was Esther's banquet. Okay, wait a minute.

Now we're going to have a party, a parade, and we're going to call it Esther Day. And we're going to have an all -day party.

And what does it say? It says here, this is funny. It says it made it a holiday in all the providences.

So 127 provinces from Ethiopia to India. It's now going to be a holiday.

And it says here that the king gave gifts according to the king's bounty.

Imagine this. They have no idea what's going on. They got a new queen. The pretty police that came and took your daughter away.

Well, now they're knocking on the door saying, hey, we got some gifts from the king. Your daughter didn't make it. But hey, another one did. And they're giving out gifts.

They're giving out gift cards to go to the Persian mall. And it says here in verse 19,

And when the virgins were gathered together the second time, then

Mordecai was sitting at the king's gate. So there is a time frame here.

It says that when the virgins were gathered together the second time.

So after the consummation of the marriage was queen, she's got the crown put on her head.

Although he found her lovely and kind and beautiful. What does he do?

He wants the ones that he used as a sexual tool and play toy.

I want you to bring them back. I'll play with them some more. I got a queen now, but I still want to play with them. And when the virgins were gathered together the second time,

Mordecai was at the king's gate. Mordecai's going, man, she's queen.

Imagine him going, but now competition again.

And in verse 20, Esther had not made known her kindred or her people, even as Mordecai had commanded her.

For Esther did what Mordecai told her, just as when she had done when she was under his care.

Don't let them know that you follow Yahweh. Don't let them know that you're really bound, not to the law of Xerxes, the law of the

Medes and the Persians. Don't let them know that you're really not under his authority. You're under the authority of Yahweh.

Don't tell them that. Don't let them know. Remain in your Persian identity.

That's not good advice. How many of you in here would say,

I don't want people to know I'm a Christian? I don't know your heart. How many of you suppress that thing that you confess here, but in the world you go, man,

I just don't want people to know they'll make fun of me. Who cares if they make fun of you?

Two things we need to look at before I draw to the third part of application. One, quit sanitizing the stories of the

Bible. We sanitize this. We tell what a great story and how good

Esther was. Esther was a moral failure. Esther had an opportunity through Mordecai to go back to Jerusalem after the captivity.

You know where she stayed? She stayed at Susa. What was the command to go back?

We have read through Jeremiah, the book of consolation from chapters 31 through 33, the last few weeks until Andy read today, what was the goal?

You're going to be released from captivity after 70 years and you go back to Jerusalem because it'll be there while I will make a new covenant like I didn't make with your forefathers, one that they made that was in tablets of stone that they continually broke.

You get back there. I will make a covenant with you that they will never break because it'll be written on your heart.

Those tablets of stone that are broken in the ark of the covenant, forget those. I'm going to make a new covenant. It'll be the one that'll be written on your heart that will cause you to walk on my ways and obey your statutes.

And Mordecai and Esther stayed in self -exile.

This is not a good story. At least not here. It's a story of a compromising queen who through the beauty of her made a smitten king.

That's why I named it Love Smitten King and a Compromising Queen. She compromised.

Hey, not only has it been four years of compromise, this whole story of Esther lasts about 10 years.

And she never brings up who and what she is until she's actually coerced again by Mordecai to make it known.

Okay, you didn't want to do it before, but now that it looks like everybody's going to die, let's tell them who you are.

Compromise. Compromise. We are not told to compromise. You say, oh, well,

Mike, this story works itself out. We know how it happens in the end, yada, yada, yada. I tell you this, under the authority of Scripture, under Romans chapter 13, you do not make provisions to carry out the lust of the flesh.

This is sinful. Mordecai and Esther, under the law of Moses, would have been stoned to death.

Hebrew tells us that under the law of Moses, under two or three witness, you execute that person with stones without mercy.

That's what would have happened. Don't sanitize the stories of the

Bible. Making Esther or anyone else or making David. David using his authority to rape

Bathsheba. Okay? He saw that young woman bring her to me.

He used his authority and his power to force her to have sex with him. Is he forgiven?

Yes. Not a good story. All through the judges.

Men, great deliverers. Gideon, great deliverer. But you know what he did? He led the people off into idolatry by saying, okay, give me your earrings and your gold.

And know what he did? He made it ephod. You know what we do? We forget about that part.

We think about the part where he went out and he laid the fleece out. And he laid it out there a few times. That was an act of unbelief too.

God had already given him the win against them. Or Jephthah, quit sanitizing it.

You know what Jephthah did. God had already given him the victory. He says, the next first thing that comes out of there,

I'll offer it to you as a burnt offering. And we go, oh, well, what he really did when his daughter came out is he offered her to a perpetual state of virginity.

And that's not what happened. It says a burnt offering. He took his daughter. He bound her up. He laid her on an altar and he slit her throat.

So I don't believe that. Well, that would be the only time in Scripture that the word burnt offering is used and they didn't actually slit the throat and burn them as an offering.

You have no leg to stand on. Quit sanitizing the stories of the

Bible. Moral failures. Moral compromise.

Every one of them. There's one hero in the Bible and his name is Jesus Christ.

One hero. There's no heroes of the Bible. He arose. There's a hero. And he was started way back in the garden in Genesis 3 .15.

And that serpent crusher's coming. You say, well, wow. How does this relate to Christmas?

But we know how the story ends. We know that God delivers the nation.

But long before it gets to here, our forefathers Adam and Eve fell in the garden.

And God told the serpent, I will put enmity between her seed and your seed.

You will bruise his heel, but he's going to crush your head. The serpent crusher's coming.

And then her thinking with the birth of Cain. That here it is, everybody reads, it says the man child has been born.

She thinks with Cain that Cain's going to be the serpent crusher. What does

Cain turn out to be? He turns out to be a murderer. He takes righteous able and a jealousy of what

God had accepted through a faith giving offering. He then murders his own brother.

Leaving the righteous line nowhere to be found. Cain being like a murderer, like the devil from the beginning.

But what does God do? God continues to be faithful that the serpent crusher's coming. And what does he do? He has

Seth. The insemination from Adam to Eve and Seth is raised up.

And that godly line of Seth continues on. And then the ungodly line that goes after their own wants and desires of that of Cain.

And that leads you to Genesis chapter 6 where it says, the daughters of men begin to have intermarry with the sons of God.

And I take that as to be the godly line of Seth begin to intermarry with the ungodly line of Cain.

And proliferation of evil goes all over the earth. And God says, the line of the seed is in danger.

I will not have it. And he's drowned the whole earth except for eight souls.

The line was saved. Then you have Abraham. God says,

Abraham, through you all the world will be blessed. Through your seed all the world will be blessed.

He's like, wait a minute. I'm just as good as dead. Them all dried up and she dried up. How's this gonna happen? The long -awaited child of promise,

Isaac. Hey, and we often forget that the line of the long -awaited

Messiah looks like it's in danger when he says, Abraham, take your only son and offer him as a burnt offering.

Which means, Abraham, you take him, you lay him on there. He's gonna be bound. You're gonna slit his throat and you're gonna light it and it's gonna burn up.

It looks like the seed is in danger. And what happens?

The pre -incarnate Christ, the angel of the Lord, when he sets him up there, what is he telling?

Put thy hand not to the lad. Look over here. I have provided a substitute. And the line is saved.

Then there, get to Jacob. And there's a promise that through Jacob's seed there would be a long -awaited king.

One that would have the scepter and it would have no end. And when it looks like through Judah, that's not going to happen because of Ur, Onan, and Sheolah.

Everybody remembers that? Once again, don't sanitize the story. Ur got struck because God said he was evil.

Ornan had sex to raise up the Levirate law and he failed to do that by ejaculating on the ground and God struck him dead.

And when Judah wouldn't continue on the Levirate law through Sheolah, Tamar then goes and does what?

Dresses up like a whore so that when he walks into the city as sheep shear in time, he'll see a prostitute.

And what does he do? He pays for services from a goat and whatever else it was. And she gets pregnant through her father -in -law.

Although what a horrible, horrible story. The line of the

Messiah was saved because of the seed of Judah. Continue on.

They're hauled off, enslaved by Pharaoh. And it looks like the messianic line, the long -awaited deliverer will not come.

And what happens? Pharaoh says, I'm not going to have none of these men being raised up to confront me and my authority.

So why don't we do this? I got a great idea. Why don't we just kill all the boys? All the babies, you just throw them in the river.

And God says, I ain't going to have it. There's going to be one of them that ain't going to be that way. And it's going to be Moses. And the line continues on.

Then you go through the time when you get into the times of the kings. You have that back and forth, back and forth.

The line being in danger, the line being in danger. Whether it be with David after the failure of Saul, where he is standing in the valley of Elam.

And it looks like the anointed Davidic king will get his head crushed by Goliath.

He walks down in the valley of Elam, in the valley of death. And he says, I will cut off your head.

I will kill you, you uncircumcised. And I will feed your flesh to the birds of the air.

And through the power of the Spirit, David goes in there. He delivers the nation from the Philistines.

But then Saul, wanting to extinguish the long -awaited Davidic king.

What does he do? Twice, through evil spirits, he throws spears at David. God says,

I won't have it. I'll send him on his way. Let him run out on the run. And then

God brings the long -awaited Davidic king to power with David after Saul is killed at Gilboa.

But then you keep going on in the kings. And it's a constant struggle between the seed of the serpent and the seed of the woman.

And the seed of the serpent looks like he's winning. Let's just get to the time of Ahab and Jezebel.

Ahab and Jezebel, Jezebel tries to kill every one of the prophets. She tries to extinguish the line that's coming.

She has a daughter. Her daughter is named Athaliah. Anybody remember the story of Athaliah?

Athaliah takes the throne after her son is killed by Jehu who was the king of Isaiah.

She takes the throne. She then goes out and kills all the royal seed of David.

The long -awaited Messiah is supposed to come through the line of David. They've all been killed. No, no, no, no, no, no.

Not one. There was one that was being wet -nursed. His name was Joash. And she grabbed him, her wet -nurse, and they ran away to the temple.

And he was preserved until the time that he was old enough to take the throne.

And then he had Athaliah killed. And the Messiah's line was saved.

And you continue on through the time of the exile. Looks like the long -awaited Messiah, the

Davidic king's not coming. Until they're told by Cyrus they can go back into the land.

And as they go back into the land, this rag -tag old guy that nobody really knows anything about, the descendant of David, his name was

Zerubbabel. And Zerubbabel goes and he rebuilds the temple. He lays the foundation.

God says, that's my guy. I know he's raggedy -looking, but he's my signet ring. I put my impression on him. He will not only lay the foundation, he'll put the capstone on it as well.

What I began in him will be completed, because I am faithful to bring about that which

I promised. And as a descendant of David, he continues on. And there's a struggle between the seed of the woman and the seed of the man.

And that brings us to the story of Esther. It looked like there was not going to be towards the end of the book of Esther that the long -awaited messianic line was going to be extinguished by Haman.

Haman hated Jews. You want to talk a true anti -Semite?

Look at Haman. Haman says, I want every one of them killed. You know why he wanted them killed? Because they killed his granddaddy.

Great granddaddy, whatever you want to call it. Agak. He says, I want them all wiped out. God says, hold on a second.

I ain't going to have it. I'm going to work through the bad choices of a compromising man named Mordecai.

And you work through the bad choices of a compromising queen. I will carry out my purposes.

My purposes will not be thwarted. I will overcome the seed of Satan.

The serpent crusher will come. The greatest reversals in some of the Old Testament is when Haman is stuck on a spike 75 feet in the air along with him and his 10 sons, and you have a 75 -foot human shish kebab.

And then you keep going on. Intertestamental time. The seed is in danger.

The seed is in danger by a man named Antiochus Epiphanes. Antiochus IV, whose desire was to destroy the

Jewish people. God says, I will not have it. And he raises up Matthias, a man who says,

I will not offer incense or a sacrifice to the

Seleucid Empire. And then a man behind him says, well, I'll do it. A Jew.

And he offers a sacrifice to the Seleucid Empire. And Matthias takes a sword out.

He kills the apostate Jew. Kills the Seleucid soldier.

And then the Maccabean Revolt begins. He said, well, what in the world is the

Maccabean Revolt? You know what Hanukkah is? Hanukkah is the remembering of what the

Maccabean Revolt did by running the Seleucids out of Jerusalem and dedicating the temple, which was a representative of the person of Christ.

And we know, you know what? Christ even worshipped in the temple and observed

Hanukkah. This festival of lights. And during that intertestamental time, the temple comes back.

Temple sacrifice goes back into place. And then it brings us to the time of Herod.

And the seed of the woman is in danger. Because Herod, the dragon waiting for him to be born so that he could consume him.

God says, I ain't going to have it. I ain't going to have it. My son's coming. And he was born in Bethlehem.

He was born in a stable. The very God of very gods.

Light of very light. God in human flesh. Fully God. Fully man. Truly God.

Truly man. Laying in the manger. Was holding everything together by the power of his word as a precious little baby with soft skin.

The long awaited Messiah was here. And when they wanted to destroy him, when

Herod wanted to kill him, what did God say? He said, you load up your stuff. Load up your stuff,

Joseph, Mary. You got to go back to Egypt. Go to Egypt. You'll be safe there. And I got some guys bringing you a bunch of money.

And so that you can get out of here. They're going to be the wise men. So you'll have plenty of money to get where you got to go. So the seed of the woman is still in danger of the seed of the serpent.

It would be for 30 years. Jesus would be under that radar. And then one day,

He would be going out there walking by the Jordan River. And His messenger, a forerunner before Him would say,

Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. The man whose thong

I am not worthy to undo. And He would then baptize the

Lord Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit would descend upon Him, filling Him to do His messianic work.

Truly God, truly man, filled by the power of the Spirit to go out and do what God called Him to do. The long awaited

Messiah had come. He would carry out for three, three and a half years, going around doing nothing but good.

Doing miracles upon miracles upon miracles. And all that they wanted to do, the religious people, all they wanted to do was kill

Him. And they got their day. They said,

We don't want Him. When they stood before Pilate, He says, Look at your king. They said,

We have no king but Caesar. Crucify Him. And they crucified the long awaited

Davidic Messiah. And when it looked like the seed of the woman had been overcome by the seed of the serpent,

God says, I won't have it. And up from the grave He arose in power and in glory.

And He ascended on high. He is the resurrected God, man. All authorities be given unto

Him, unto heaven and earth. Now you go and do what I have called my disciples to do.

Jesus Christ then ascended and is sitting at the right hand of the Father. And we are awaiting

His return. That's Merry Christmas. That's what

Christmas is about. It ain't just about being in that manger, although it's not just about being the birth of a baby, although that was huge, okay?

The birth of a baby was huge. But that baby lived a perfect life, 33 years, and then died a sacrificial substitutionary death that you and I deserved.

Therefore, we're not to compromise. We're not to sanitize. We're to bow our knee to King Jesus and live for Him to the day that you die.

So if you're in this room today and you do not know Christ, you are a lawbreaker. You have broken His law.

You deserve the wrath of God. The full weight of God's wrath forever and ever and ever.

But there is that man, the God -man, who on that cross, the wrath of God was satisfied.

And all you need to do is turn from that unbelief and turn to belief and say, God, I can't serve myself anymore.

I'll serve you. I'll live for you to the day that I die. I know I'm going to fail. I know I'm going to compromise.

But God, I know that you'll forgive me. And you put all of your faith and all of your trust in Him. And if you're a believer in this room, no excuse to compromise.

None. Sure, Esther could have said, well, you know what,

God? I did lose both my parents. No excuse. We are without excuse, believer.

We have been given the same Holy Spirit that descended upon Christ at the time in which

He was baptized. That same Holy Spirit lives and resides in you. And we are to walk in the power of the

Spirit so we do not carry out the lust of the flesh. No compromise.

Walk in holiness. For without it, no man will see

God. Let's pray. Father God, thank you so much for this opportunity to open your

Word. Father, what an amazing thing to have the written

Word of God to open it, to dissect it, to see the events that unfolded,

Father, that at times are just not real great. But God, we see how you work through the evil and sinful acts of men to carry out your purposes.

Father, we know that what you put your hand to, no man can stop it. And the coming of the

Son of God is a prime example of that. That no man could stop it. Father, you were sending in the serpent crusher.

He came into the world to put, to stop the works of the devil.

And for that, we say thank you. Father, we love you. We love you for sending your Son into the world. We love you for giving us the power of the

Spirit that we may walk in holiness. Father, once again, thank you for this opportunity to proclaim your

Word to your people. In Christ's name. Amen. As we approach to the