TiL- Esther 3:8-15

Statesmen who stand by principle rather than seeking their own comfort and welfare are rare.

They are needed. And we need to train up our children, men, women and children who are who have the moral guts and have the moral character to stand strong, even if everybody else is against them.

Good evening, everyone. Welcome to Truth and Love podcast. We're so glad that you are with us.

And Dan, it's done it again. It is not is not going on Facebook.

It is going on YouTube only. So what I want to try to do here is there we go, is copy the link and I'm going to paste it real quick to the best of my ability.

So we can move right along. How are you doing? You doing OK today?

I'm doing great. I think I'm going to be for a while because my my allergies decided that they wanted to jump up and attack me when

I got home from work. But we're going to make it. Well, you your family's been pretty sick.

Have they recovered? They doing well? Two weeks ago, we had a stomach bug and we were not doing well at all.

We're doing we're doing a lot better now. And then last night or yesterday, about.

About three thirty four o 'clock, the wind was so strong up here that I heard a tree fall somewhere in the woods around our house.

And then maybe 20 minutes later, the power went out. We didn't get power back to almost eight thirty last night.

Yeah. So I was able to squeak out a text message because when I'm at home, I don't have service unless I have the

Internet. So I was able to find a high spot and we got a text message saying I wasn't gonna be able to make it yesterday.

Yeah. And so as you see, the lights are on, the Internet's working and we're back at it this evening.

Yeah, that was that was the reason for my post last night. You know, our lives are just like everybody else's life happens.

Stuff comes up, power goes off, people get sick and we're just not able to keep our schedule, even though we really want to.

But we're thankful to be back together. This is like I said, this is truth and love. We get that from Ephesians chapter four, verse 15.

But speaking the truth and love, we are to grow up in all aspects into him who is the head, even Christ. And so that's that's our aim.

And our goal is to speak the truth, but also speak the truth and love, because we know we know who we are.

Apart from Christ, we know what God has saved us from. We we don't proclaim to be anybody, just just beggars who know where to find bread.

And it's exponentially even greater than that. We are dead men who've been made alive by Christ, enemies who've been made his friend because of what

Christ has done. And so we have no cause to speak in a way that's where we're better than anybody else or look down on anybody, anybody else.

We want to speak that truth. We want to speak it in love. So that's that's what we want to do.

Hopefully, folks will tune into the YouTube tonight live so we can have some comments. Or maybe some questions, so if you're joining us, leave a comment, question.

If we can pray for you, just let us know that too. All you have to do is type me. You don't have to say what it is. We'll publicly we'll we'll see that and we'll pray for you.

Before we get into Esther, we're going to this is Esther chapter three, part two. We're going to look at verses seven through 15 tonight.

But quickly, just a little introduction. I want to try to talk on maybe some current issues of the day to make it a little more interesting.

We threw out a few things, maybe talking about the end of school and what what kids could be doing at the end of school.

Let's see. Juneteenth was yesterday and also June 19th is also Charles Spurgeon.

From my understanding, Charles Spurgeon and John MacArthur's birthday on June 19th.

So happy birthday to John MacArthur and Charles Spurgeon. We can talk about Father's Day and it was

Father's Day. Happy Father's Day, Dan. Happy Father's Day, Rob. And you're about to have a new one.

Yep. Is your wife doing OK? Yeah, she's doing pretty good.

Baby's healthy. She's healthy. That's fantastic. But Dan wanted me to talk about just briefly some of the things that went on at the

Southern Baptist Convention the other weekend. And I posted a few things and rubbed a few feathers.

And I can I can appreciate because I can appreciate where I came from.

I was born and raised and I've remained in the Southern Baptist Convention. And, you know, that's

I think that's part of part of maybe what scripture would call us to.

The gospel would call us to Danny. Excuse me, Dan. Claude even mentioned it last week in the

Labor's podcast concerning church membership. No, last time was church discipline.

The time before that was church membership. And he expressed that his thoughts were church membership should be similar to marriage, to where we make a covenant.

We go into an agreement with the church that we we should kind of stick it out.

Now, there are reasons for leaving a church. And there will be reasons for for leaving a convention and moving to a different association or convention.

And those would be doctrinal issues. And some people have have made that leap from the

Southern Baptist Convention. Some people, I think Dan would be one of them.

And maybe you could talk about that, Dan, what your what your reasoning was then.

And I think there's going to be more to come. It seems like, you know, listening to some of the chatter, there may be more to come leaving the

Southern Baptist Convention. Is that something you want to mention real quick? Well, I was only really a part of one

Southern Baptist Church. The situation for us leaving was weird.

And I don't think it would speak to the the situation going on now.

But I would like to say this. The church that we were a part of is seems to be doing really well.

And I just love to see it. I love to see the updates, seeing some of the kids that we had in youth group growing up and loving the

Lord. Some of them, they're they're starting a school there.

Good stuff. So, no, I'm not I'm not going to dog on Southern Baptist churches, even if the convention seems to be iffy, suspect at some points.

Because because really what one of the weird things about the Southern Baptist Convention is that each church still remains autonomous while coming together to do certain things, which

I guess is. The big issue, you know, we're going to be us and you're going to be you, but we're going to come together, pool our money in order to train ministers and churches and share the gospel.

But at what point are the ones that we're linking arms with? Should we not link arms with them?

No. How far is too far? Let me edit that comment real quick.

You said at what point I'm going to say at what cost? There's that, too.

Yeah. There's a lot of money involved, a reputation, a whole bunch of different stuff.

Well, not not just monetary or reputation wise, but doctrinally. Sure. You know, what doctrines are you willing to compromise on?

What what doctrines are you willing to look past and disagree on, which which are disagreeable and which ones aren't?

I mean, that's that's a conversation that we're should be having and many should be having.

Not how many can we look over, but, you know, which which ones, which ones define us and are our standards that we should hold to to keep us together.

And those lines are being blurred day by day. It seems like there were there were several things.

And of course, admittedly, and I think I saw this accusation thrown out there online, you know, talking to people who were making comments about what happened that weren't actually there.

Was it on Twitter? Was it on Twitter? It could have been. Twitter is a dumpster fire anyway.

But yeah, you have that accusation out there. You know, if you weren't there, you can't speak to it.

And I'm sure that there was a lot of fellowship, a lot of camaraderie, a lot of love that was shared, hugs, handshakes.

And and I would have been a part of all that as well. And I would have enjoyed the the mission's testimonies, the the the commissioning of missionaries.

You know, probably a lot of heartwarming, good, good stuff that was gospel centered,

Christ centered. And in no doubt, there's so many of us that are.

Christ centered and care deeply about the gospel and about evangelism and missions and the kingdom.

Many, many out there, even even with people that we disagree with. And I've heard I heard that comment as well.

I believe it may have been from Tom Askew, you know, people we disagree with that he has friends with that I have friends with within the convention.

And that's that's kind of the whole nature, like you were talking about with SBC, where we can have disagreements yet come and pull our resources together.

But then the conversation that we're talking about needing to happen is, you know, those those disagreements.

Which which doctrines can we look over, which are standard? And, you know, you made a good comment before we came on.

There's some of the commission that that want to look over some doctrines and call them secondary issues. But the difference between you and I is, you know,

I'm still currently in a Baptist church, more specifically a Southern Baptist church.

You're in a more you're in a Presbyterian church. And the difference there between the two of us is baptism and the nature of baptism and the the practice, the actual physical practice of baptism.

Do you guys sprinkle poor? What what's your method?

Yes. OK. Yes. Depending on who you are and what you want, my pastor anyway, will do all all of the above sprinkle poor.

I mean, if you really want to, he'll find some water and dunk it. OK, so Southern Baptists and I would say that all

Baptists, that's one of our distinctions is baptism, believers, baptism by immersion.

And they hold to both tightly without any without letting go or loosening at all.

Baptism of believers and by immersion has has to be both.

But yet, as you said earlier, that's a secondary issue.

Yet that that's one that has become our standard. And we can't we would not allow a

Presbyterian church into the Southern Baptist Convention because of baptism. And you're the nature of your practice of it.

And so which which secondary issues are we going to, you know, be our standard and which which are not?

I kind of understand when you put Baptist in the name, perhaps that would be one that you would want to say.

But yeah, I mean, there's there's other stuff. A the

Presbyterian former church government. I mean, we're having next week we're having or not next week, tomorrow,

Wednesday. I don't know. Sometime this week is the RPCNA Synod, which is the equivalent of General Assembly in the

PCA and the OPC. Roughly the equivalent. There's some nuance there, but we won't get into all that.

Right. If we were to to. If our church were to join the

Southern Baptist Convention as a reformed Presbyterian church, and we were to call together different pastors and hear a case of church discipline that had gone beyond the church level, nobody in nobody would be looking at us funny like, why are you trying to cause together your autonomous?

Well, no, we're kind of all together in this. We're a Presbyterian. No, you're not. See, that would be it would be a little bit.

It's still a secondary issue. It's not going to put one or the other out of the kingdom, but it's something that would separate.

So I guess. Yeah, you're right. Which secondary issues are. I don't know.

You think of animal farm. Some people are more equal than others. Which which secondary issues are more secondary than others?

Yeah. Yeah. One of the ones that come up or should they be defined differently?

Is it not that we're going to do secondary issues, but we're going to have a set of distinctives that you must hold to the primary and secondary issues.

Right. I don't know. Seems like those things should be defined. Then let the chips fall where they may, rather than so in discord, because some people are screeching one way, some are screeching the other.

There's a I bet you probably a large swath of people in the middle plugging up their their their ears and wishing mom and dad would quit fighting over it.

Let's just get back what we came here for. Yeah, exactly. I don't know how you can't help but expect these things to happen, because,

I mean, we have those things that are. Distinctive of Southern Baptists that that are non -negotiable for Southern Baptists, which is that believers baptism by immersion, the autonomy of the local church.

I think there may have been one or two more that some others have thrown out there. I know we try to be known as people, people of the book, and so we have a high regard of Scripture or supposed to.

You know, those things are non -negotiable for for Southern Baptists. But then the other standards that they lay out for fellowship, like if you go on to the website and you want to you want your church to become a part of the

Southern Baptist Convention, you have to check a box that says we agree to.

Hold closely, I can't remember the wording exactly, so I'm going to mess it up, but hold closely to the

Baptist Faith and Message 2000. Well, you've got you use that that qualifying word there closely.

What what does that mean? How closely? How loosely?

An introvert is way further away than to an extrovert. Yeah, exactly. And so how can you expect not to have these these squabbles within the convention, which which to an degree, if they're done rightly?

And I think Tom Askew spoke to this, too, in one of the videos that I watched. They can be useful and helpful and needed, and we wouldn't call them squabbles.

We would call them doctrinal conversations amongst people who disagree and they don't need to.

You know, I've heard of I've heard of them happening behind closed doors.

You know, the top dogs, you know, I think and this wasn't in the

Southern Baptist Convention, but I remember in one of in one thing that I heard one of the podcasts

I listened to years ago. I think it was years ago that John MacArthur, R .C.

Sproul and some other guys, you know, they they got in a room and they just talked about doctrinal issues.

And I think there was some heat involved, some heated debate in that.

And heated debate is good, too, if it's if it's done properly, with love and respect.

And I think that's what was being called for. So that we can and there's going to be a purpose.

The purpose is to help us make our make our path more clear, make our fences and boundaries more clear and not less or not more blurry.

It seems like we want to keep the lines blurry so that we can not offend people and keep keep the big givers in our good graces, which is which is a bad motivation.

So all these things, ultimately, all these things that I see happening that I that I watch that I've heard this year and over the years, it just to me, it boils down to it boils down to the scripture.

And how we interpret it, how we're going to obey it. You know, if we don't have a high view of scripture, we can look over doctrine easily.

And if we don't have a high view of scripture, then we can interpret it how we want to. So I think all these issues are just symptoms of a greater problem that we have.

What were you going to say? I don't know. It was a good what you were saying. No. Oh, yeah.

We're supposed to be united as a people, but the unity that comes is a unity in the truth of scripture.

I forget where it's in the New Testament. Oh, I don't know.

I still don't know. We hold the the the the how do you put it?

We're all delivered to the saints. Yeah. You're going to say we hold these truths up.

No, no, no, no. That's a completely different document altogether. Yeah.

The the we have a bond of unity and peace because we have one faith, one

Lord and one baptism. We have it based on truth. Paul said in Corinthians that he was glad that there was disagreements among the people there.

So that way they would know who's in and who's out. Know who know who is truly

Christian and who is not. So. It's it's

OK for us to have some some differences, but those differences.

It's at a certain point. You. You can't just.

It has to be in areas that are difficult where the passages are difficult to interpret or having to pull from across the board of Scripture in order to understand the doctrine.

Not where there is a clear command and you're saying, well, I'm not going to believe that clear command because I want to do something else.

I'm going to call it a cultural difference to justify my case. Yeah. Which happens way too often.

That's that's like the go to if I don't like what the Bible says here. So that was a cultural context back then.

That doesn't apply to us in the same way. You hear that across the board from the abortion issue.

You hear about homosexuality. Hear it about female pastors and elders.

You hear it all over. Like this seems to be a favorite go to. Oh, that was then. This is now. Right. The Bible may have said that that was

OK to not have female pastors, but it also had that little space in between the lines that you didn't read.

It says after the first 2000 years, you just whatever goes. Read that part.

You should have. It was that was one of the verses that was left out by the new the new translators of the

NIV and the ESB. That's why you need to hold to the 16. No, I'm kidding. I'm going to get myself in trouble with somebody.

It's probably related to that 2000 year gap in the 70 weeks of Daniel.

It's tucked in that gap. Yeah, exactly. Well, just just to wrap up the

SBC. I mean, this this podcast is for the the church go where the pastor local churches in our community.

And so there may be a ton of us out there that just even

Southern Baptist churchgoers and even Southern Baptist pastors who just aren't paying attention.

We need to pay attention, especially if we want to associate with somebody. We need to pay attention to what's going on. So we need to look at what happened in the past couple of conventions.

We need to look at what's going on in the future and just and some of those issues that we need to look and see how they're going to handle those issues.

One that was brought up in last convention, but it wasn't brought up in this convention where they it seems like they messed up the issue of critical race theory.

The the issue of abortion that we need to see what's going to happen with the

Southern Baptist stance on, you know, abolition, abolishing abortion.

How they define pastor and how they deal with ordaining women as pastors, because now they want to they want to split.

That office that we find in scripture, you know, those words are interchangeable in scripture, pastor, elder, bishop, shepherd, those words are interchangeable in scripture, but it's one office.

And we're going to start seeing folks try to either split split it up to where you have a you have a lead pastor who can only be a man.

But then you have, you know, your children's pastor, your youth pastor, your music pastor, your facilities pastor, your audio visual pastor that can be, you know, any gender.

Or if they don't want to go that route, you know, they'll they'll ordain someone as a as a minister or a director or something.

I've been having women directors that are just thinly veiled pastors for decades. I do have a small bit of advice that I think would do well for just the local the local church goer, local

SBC or maybe even a small church SBC pastor. If I were you,

I would put my money and effort into my local association and my state association far more than the national convention.

The national convention may be helpful for certain things like like seminary or even pooling resources for other certain things, but I wouldn't.

Really, the you can affect the most change is at the local level where you're going to drive down to one of the churches in your association and talk to people across the table where if you're going to get in a fight, you can punch each other and then take each other out for whatever.

Baptists go out for after a fight. I don't I don't know, a cup of coffee or something and a piece of pie.

But the people that you're going to get dirty with, like you're going to end up getting spit on with these brothers in in all sorts of situations.

They're going to be close. You're going to drive by each other's homes. No. So and so lives here.

Those are the people that you want to spend time with because you need to build a strong relationship with the people around you.

It's that's more important than building a strong relationship with a national convention that is just far and away.

For instance, our presbytery, the Atlantic Presbytery, is a fairly tight knit group of people.

We've got churches from New York down through, I think, Maryland.

I could be wrong. Don't quote me on that. There's about 11 of us, 11 or 12 churches.

And I was traveling one Sunday. We just happened to find a reformed Presbyterian church.

We pulled in. He said, hey, how are you doing? We're good. We just came up.

We were members of the Walton Church. The Walton Church. How's Bill doing? I just saw him the other day. Let me text him real quick and see if no, because we're having communion this morning.

Let me text him and let him know that you're coming on. You're here. And we had communion with the church there, and it was great.

But we talked to those people. We pray for one another, and they're close by.

So if I were you, I would really take my efforts and put them locally.

And if you're going to work together outside of your church, you're going to pool your resources. Do it with somebody local.

You have a lot more control over that situation than you do over a national convention. And then if everybody would kind of keep their head to the ground and do what they're supposed to, a lot of those national issues would kind of just go away.

Right. I was trying to find and maybe you can remember what the name of the association is. But I'll bring it up here and just there it is.

I found it. So just one last thing that we need to pay attention to moving forward as Southern Baptists is the abuse issue that come up or come out two weeks before the convention and how they handle it.

We have a book, and we need to handle it biblically. We don't need to handle it according to the world or to some agency that's in the world and how they tell us to do it.

They may have just like anything out in the world because God created everything. You know, there's truths out there.

But we have a book and we have a God who tells us how to handle things, and we need to handle it biblically.

And like I said, some may compare to some of their suggestions. But time needs to be taken to handle it biblically, and we need to see how the convention is going to handle it.

Speaking of we were talking about Presbyterians not being able to come to the

Southern Baptist Church, I did notice in response to the convention and all the talk that's been happening,

Gabriel Wrench, who's a member of Christ Church in Moscow, Idaho, and they do the

Cross Politics podcast, he was reaching out to those who were considering leaving the convention.

And it must be, I don't know what they call it, a communion. They call it a communion.

It must be what their church is a member of. It's called the

Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches. And he said that this is a communion where both

Baptist and Presbyterian are welcomed and fellowship together. They do have a

Presbyterian hierarchy to their denomination. But yeah, you can be a church that's a

Baptist church, and as long as you send your people to Presbytery and act Presbyterian above the church and act

Baptist in the church, everything works out just fine. I did go to the website and watch their promotional video.

And there was a whole lot of baptizing of babies in that video, which to a

Baptist, it was kind of hard to watch. But the sentiment and the fellowship that's going on there seems to be really genuine and good.

Kind of like what we did here, you and I, getting together around God's word and talking about it, studying it together.

So are you ready? I guess that's a denomination where if you're a

Reformed Baptist, but you're more Reformed than Baptist, that'd be the way to go.

That's how I was. I was always more Reformed than I was Baptist. And then I just became

Reformed Presbyterian altogether. That's the thing that I don't get about Southern Baptists or the

Baptist churches that I grew up in. I've always heard we're people of the book.

We want to be known as people of the book. We want to go by the book. But yet our devotion seems to be tied more toward being

Baptist or being Southern Baptist than the book that we claim to hold so tightly to.

I've never understood that, never understood it. And I want to hold to the scripture above denominational titles.

So that's where I stand. So you ready to jump into Esther? Yeah, let's do it.

Good deal. So we're in Esther chapter 3. We're going to start in verse 7 and go to the end, hopefully, in the next 30 minutes.

But this is, it may not seem like it if you read through it.

But from my understanding, this is a pretty exciting passage.

And just a little bit of introduction. Just want to remind everybody, one of the reasons why we went to Esther is because it's tied.

It has a purpose of being. There's a purpose for it in the Old Testament. Not just to learn about Esther and having a devotion about for such a time as this.

You were raised up for such a time as this. There's more to Esther being in scripture than just those little devotional things that we get.

It's put together with Ezra and Nehemiah. And it's at the end of that 70 -year exile that Israel was in.

And Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther are at the end of that, where they're going back to Jerusalem, fulfilling that prophecy.

And we see, if we look closely and study, we're seeing other prophecies, like from Ezekiel, being fulfilled.

That we believe people oftentimes misread and see those prophecies way into our future.

Which some of them may still be. But they do have a fulfillment that we see here in Esther.

And we want to help look at some of those things that some people may look over when they're reading through their

Old Testament. That we should see these things being tied together, when oftentimes they're not.

And we've already talked about some of them. Ezekiel 37, 38, 39, Haman, and Daniel.

Like we talked about the time with Daniel and the 70 years of exile. So we are learning this history and we're trying to learn it accurately and correctly.

So we don't mess up our eschatology. So a lot of good reasons for looking at Esther.

At the beginning of Esther chapter 3, Haman decides not to bow to Mordecai.

For some reason, even though Haman... Excuse me, I got those backwards.

Even though Mordecai saved the king, applied to kill the king, The king,

Xerxes or Ahasuerus, decided to promote Haman over Mordecai for some reason.

We don't know that reason, but he did. And so Haman wanted some honor.

And people were supposed to bow in honor to Haman. Mordecai did not.

He didn't bow in honor to Mordecai. And there was nothing wrong with that. It wasn't for worship.

It was just honoring your leader, honoring your king. Just a form of showing respect and honor.

So there was nothing wrong with it. Except for the background. Another reason why we want to study

Esther and study the Old Testament is because of the history of Mordecai and Haman.

And the reason why he didn't back down. And we're going to get into more of that tonight.

But earlier in Esther, Mordecai told Esther, Don't tell him you're a

Jew. But here it finally comes out. Mordecai does not bow because he's a

Jew. We've delved into that pretty deeply so far in the other podcast.

If you want to go back and listen to that. So that's where we are in Esther chapter 3.

And we're going to pick up in verse 7. Let me read a few verses, and I'll let Dan give us some commentary.

In the first month, which is the month Nisan, in the twelfth year of King Ahasuerus, Hur, which is

Persian for lot, where they roll dice, cast the lot, was cast before Haman from day to day and from month to month until the twelfth month.

That is the month of Adar. Then Haman said to King Ahasuerus, There is a certain people scattered and dispersed among the peoples in all the provinces of your kingdom.

Their laws are different from those of all other people, and they do not observe the king's laws.

So it is not in the king's interest to let them remain. If it is pleasing to the king, let it be decreed that they be destroyed, and I will pay 10 ,000 talents of silver into the hands of those who carry on the king's business, put it into the king's treasuries.

Take it over, brother. Oh, so yeah,

I'm saying allergy season hits late up here. So yeah,

Haman's a piece of work. So he goes to figure out what day he wants to commit genocide against the

Jews. And so he just nonchalantly rolls dice or cast lots or however, until he rolled snake eyes basically on a certain day.

And then that day was the day the following year that he was going to, I think it was the following year, that he was going to go out and get the deed done.

But listen to the way he puts this. So he puts on his salesman hat here when he's talking to the king.

He says, oh, king, there's a people and they're dispersed everywhere. In all the provinces, all over the place, they're everywhere.

They're like cockroaches. You may think that they're not there, but they're there. They've infested your entire kingdom.

Man, that dude sounds like Hitler. Hey, there's a people here.

They're screwing up everything. They're sprinkled all throughout. They're ruining all your stuff. They have different laws than we do.

They don't listen to your laws. He's trying to paint them as a lawless people, where if he would have just looked at the laws of the

Jews, he would have realized that those are some very just laws. In fact, one of the reasons why the law of Moses was given to the people was so that way the other nations could look at their laws and say, hey, look how just these laws are.

If he would have just looked at the laws, he would have realized that, okay, well, maybe we could take a page out of their book.

They're doing something right here. So he says, you don't need to put up with it.

If you do, they're going to infiltrate and take over and ruin your kingdom, the whole thing.

The money's going to go. The infrastructure is going to crumble. Gas prices are going up.

You know, everything. It's going to be like, you remember the

Lion King? Yeah. Mufasa is ruling, and everything's wonderful and great.

And then some dirty dealing happens, and Scar takes over, and like three months later, everything stinks, and everybody's poor.

Yeah. Sounds familiar. I know, right? Anyway, he was saying, that's going to be your kingdom.

Mufasa is going to get killed. You're Mufasa. You're going to get killed. Something's going to happen. You need to wipe them out and wipe them out now.

Now, this is a part that is really interesting because it's weird the way that the words are put in here.

If it pleased the king, let it be decreed that they be destroyed. Okay, so number one, decree that they're destroyed, and I will pay 10 ,000 talents of silver into the hands of those who have charge of the king's business.

They may put it in the king's treasuries. I'll hand over $10 ,000 to your financial advisors.

Do with it whatever you want to, king. Just sign the papers. Now, there's some debate.

Where is this money coming from? Does he hate these people so badly that he's willing to pay 10 ,000 talents of silver in order to commit genocide against them?

Possible, but it goes on. Where are we at? Verse 10. So the king took his signet ring from his hand and gave it to Haman, the

Agagite, the son of Hamadathah, the enemy of the Jews. And then he said this. He said, the money is given to you.

Now, I thought Haman was given the king money. How is the king now giving it to him?

Is the king saying, oh, you're right. You're doing so well. Don't worry about paying me the 10 ,000.

I'm going to pay you the 10 ,000. That seems kind of silly to me, but I'll show you why.

I'm going to propose something else, and I'll show you why here towards the end of the chapter, why

I think that there's another solution to this. What's that?

Just looking at some of the commentaries, that's where I didn't understand where they were coming from. They wanted to say that Ahasuerus or Xerxes had just come through all these wars where he had been defeated, and so he's lost a lot of money in all these wars, lost a lot of men, lost a lot of money paying for all these wars.

He's quick to go with this plan so he can recoup some of this money, but just like you read in verse 10, he really doesn't care about the money.

He's like, here you go, Haman. You can have it. I think he does care about the money, and here's why.

I've thought about this for a long time. I don't know. I could be wrong, but look at this as if Haman is playing on Shark Tank.

He's going to somebody who has the bankroll. He's got the money. He's got the coffers. He's got the men.

He's got the means to get this done, and he says, hey, all you got to do is sign the decree.

Sign the decree. I'll take your people. I'll go out there. I'll wipe out the

Jews. I'll plunder the Jews, and you don't have to do anything but sit back. I'll do all the work for you, and after I plunder them, 10 ,000 talents of silver is yours.

So what does the king say? Cool. I'll bankroll you. Here's my army.

Here's some money. Do what has to be done, but when we're done, I'm going to come out 10 ,000 talents of silver in the positive, and you can keep the leftover.

It's almost like it's a business transaction. We're going to do some wheeling and dealing. You're going to make some money.

I'm going to make some money, and when we're all said and done, these people will be done and gone. You won't have to worry about them in your kingdom anymore.

You'll be 10 ,000 talents of silver richer, and I'll be richer as well. So I'm thinking he's thinking of it like a win -win -win situation, no

Jews, money for us, and that just makes sense to me because at the end of the chapter, verse 15, it says, and the king and Haman sat down to drink.

What did they do? They were enjoying that deal. Passes a law where they can do some insider trading.

The Republicans and Democrats both get together at the bar down the street, take a couple shots, saying, man, we snooker these

American people. They're going to end up suffering for it, but we're going to be filthy, stinking rich, which is why you've got people making $100 ,000, $175 ,000 a year, but they're all worth millions.

It's this scenario playing out, which also, if you think of the American context, you see people bipartisanly passing laws or making executive orders.

The last half of this sentence will make a lot of sense. It says, and the king and Haman sat down to drink, but the city of Susa was thrown into confusion.

What is this guy doing? I don't understand. Where did this come from? Why are they doing it?

This doesn't make any sense. They're right. It doesn't make any sense unless you put into your data set that they're trying to make money.

Haman's got a vendetta. He hates these people. He's wanting to be rich. He's wanting to pull back enough money to reclaim some of his fame from his family that has been stolen from him when his whole family was wiped out.

Here's a chance for him to get money and get revenge. It seems like the perfect scenario for him to wipe out the

Jews, get paid, get drunk with the king. He's my buddy now. What's the king going to tell

Haman no to? Nothing. I don't know. That's how I see it.

Here's another option, too, since we've already made it to verse 15. I'll skip to 15 to make a point.

You can go back through the rest of them. I can make my point when we get to verse 15.

But before you move on, just a couple things that I noticed in those verses that we looked at.

This is just a silly insight. You're talking about the one day that's designated to kill all the

Jews, even destroy Jerusalem. It made me think about Star Wars. I can't remember if you're a fan of Star Wars or not.

Are you? Okay. You remember when Emperor Palpatine, it was finally time to get rid of all the

Jedi. They went over all their communicators, and he said, I can't remember what it was, 66 or something.

It was coordinated all at one time that they were taking out the Jedi. That's what it made me think of.

They were trying to do it all at one time. Of course, they had to go from India to Asia, everywhere.

It took a while to get the communication out there, but they were going to do it all on this one day. It just made me think about Star Wars and taking out the

Jedi. It's also funny that Mordecai's day just happens to be three days before these people are wiped out.

Yeah, exactly. Let's see. What was the other thing?

This conversation between Mahasuerus and Haman, to me, it just shows, of course, your scenario and what you were explaining shows the conniving,

I don't know, it's not wisdom, but they have some ability to think connivingly or whatever.

Cunning. Cunning, there are some smarts there, but there's also some ignorance and some deceitfulness in all this.

You have the king, well, Haman presents this offer to the king.

First of all, he's being super deceptive. He finds out Mordecai's a

Jew and he's a mortal enemy of the Jews. The only law that's being broken, or I don't even know if it's a law, whatever it is,

Mordecai didn't honor Haman by bowing. That's the only thing that's happened. He definitely made a mountain out of a molehill on that one.

A mountain out of a molehill. In fact, if you look at the history, they did their time.

They fulfilled prophecy. They were in exile for 70 years. Up until this point, probably because of Israel's or the

Jews mixing in so well with them and worshiping the other gods, that probably had a lot to do with them getting along with each other.

But you really don't see a lot of tension. In fact, they were released.

They were released to go back home. And so I don't understand the tension that the king would have had or he would have seen the

Jews being against him and his laws because up until this point, they seemed to be getting along fairly well.

In fact, so well that they were released and they could go home. See, that was part of their plan.

Whose plan? The Jews' plan. You've got to lull them into a false sense of security so then you can strike.

Oh, yeah. Sure. That's the way he put it, too. They're everywhere. They're sneaky.

Yeah. So he's presenting the Jews as these big, huge lawbreakers, exactly like you said that he made a mountain out of a molehill, when really it was just his personal vendetta with Mordecai not bowing down in honor.

And correct me if I'm wrong. How do you see this? I know in verse 10, it says that the author of this book tells us that Haman is an

Agagite, the enemy of the Jews. But up until this point, do you think that Ahasuerus knows that he's talking about the

Jews? Is there some deceit there with Haman where he's not divulging that he's talking about the

Jews? He just says there's a people. Oh, he probably told them. Okay.

Yeah, he probably said there's a people. Who? The Jewish people.

I don't think you get to be king of Assyria without asking a couple of follow -up questions at least.

That makes sense. That was one of the points in some of the things that I read that at this point he was being deceptive and not divulging that it was the

Jews that he was talking about. But like you said, it makes sense that he would investigate and be in the know of who he was.

He definitely didn't bring up the small situation that made him want to kill all the Jews. He tried to spin it off like there's a national security threat.

Right. This national security threat here is the Jewish people. You need to wipe them out.

And not only do you need to wipe them out, but you need to get rich off of it, which is why in the verse 13, it says, kill all the

Jews, annihilate them young and old, and plunder their goods. So here, we'll kill them all, take all their stuff.

Right. Let me just read down starting verse 11.

And it was written just as Haman commanded to the king Setraps, to the governors who were over each province and to the princes of each people.

Each province, according to its script, each people, according to its language, being written in the name of King Ahasuerus, sealed with the king's signet ring.

Letters were sent by couriers to all the king's provinces to destroy, to kill, and to annihilate all the

Jews, both young and old, women and children. In one day, the 13th day of the 12th month, which is the month of Adar, and to seize their possessions as plunder.

Crazy. Yeah. Well, to me, this is kind of the exciting part of the text.

And I can't remember where it was. I know we talked about it before in a different podcast, but there's the promise of silver here.

And is this the part where we've talked about before, that another book of the

Bible speaks to this as far as the prophecy goes, that these armies will bring back silver?

And there's some animals, there's silver and gold involved.

And where do they get that? Well, they were given those things by the king who released them from exile, and now they're going to be getting them back.

Is this tied into that? Can you recollect what I'm talking about? Vaguely, but I don't think so.

You're talking about when they left out of Egypt. They left out of Egypt and they were able to, in a single day, they left and they plundered the

Egyptians on the way out without actually fighting them. The Egyptians were so happy to see them leave that they just took all their stuff.

Like, here, take everything. We don't even want it anymore. Just get out of here before you kill any more of our children. I should have looked it up.

So I apologize for being a bad podcaster here. It has to do with eschatology.

I'll look it up and we'll bring it up later. I can't remember where it was.

Yeah, I don't know. But I do feel like this part here where it's describing to us all the different provinces because this kingdom stretched out.

It was huge. And so it was so big that there were different languages, different dialects, different, you know, they had different rulers, governors, princes, all kinds of different leaders.

And so they had to translate it and write the letter in different languages, different dialects, and send it to all these different places.

And from my understanding, this takes us to the

Ezekiel passages, where the armies, this is the Haman, the prince whose armies will surround

Jerusalem. And, of course, in the end it was thwarted. Israel was protected.

But this goes to that prophecy that many are looking for in the future, with Rosh being

Russia, and they're coming down surrounding Israel. But in reality, those verses are pointing back to Haman being the prince.

And you can see that in chapter 3, verse 1, King Ahasuerus promoted

Haman, the son of Ahimdapha, the Agagite, and advanced him and established his authority over all the princes who were with him.

So he was the chief prince. Yep. Which is what is prophesied, the chief prince, which is what

Rosh means. And here he's sending word to all the different provinces.

This one day we're going to take them out. Yeah, it's definitely right there.

Oh, earlier I called this the Assyrian Empire. I was wrong. It's definitely the Persian Empire.

Don't listen to me. But, yeah, it's all lining up, the whole gathering for battle, getting ready to wipe out the

Jews, the people of God. This is what Ezekiel was talking about. And I think that's important for us to note and capture here and reiterate.

So if you're listening and if you hear somebody talking about end times, you hear somebody talking about eschatology, and one of the places that they go is

Ezekiel 37, 38, and 39, and they use that and they want to talk about, you know, look at the world around us.

Look at what's going on today. This is fulfilling Ezekiel. Take into consideration that Ezekiel is being fulfilled here in Esther and all the different evidences that we can see that this fulfillment is happening and not going in our future.

One of the guys that I mentioned that I listened to who does a really great job explaining scriptures is

Pastor Philip Kaiser. I don't know how to pronounce his name, but I'm not going to list all of them.

But in his sermon, he lists 15 different evidences making the connection between, you know,

Ezekiel and Haman, the Agagites, and many different other connections between Ezekiel and how it's being fulfilled here in Esther.

And I think it's just too many to ignore. And so when you hear somebody talk about eschatology in times and Ezekiel, consider

Esther and take a look at it for yourself. Do you have any other commentary or thoughts on 11 through 13?

No. Well, let's look at these last two verses.

Hey, we're doing pretty good on time. Verse 14, a copy of the Edict to be issued as law in every province was published to all the peoples so that they should be ready for this day, which is interesting because, you know, these laws that are put into place, they can't be reversed.

Right. Once it's the law of the king, and, of course, he gives Haman his signet ring, which gives him the equal power, basically.

You know, whatever Haman says, it has the backing of the king, it has the king's authority. So it's going to be interesting.

It's going to be a good story to read how God is going to save Israel if this law cannot be revoked.

And then verse 15, the couriers went out, impelled by the king's command while the decree was issued at the citadel to Susa.

And while the king and Haman sat down to drink, the city of Susa was in confusion.

Yeah, they had no idea what was going on. Well, and I've already brought up why

I thought the city would be in confusion. And you can share your opinion whether you think

I'm on track or not. So if there's not been this conflict up until this point with the

Jews, and now all of a sudden there's this immediacy in the total annihilation of a people group, it seems fair that there would be confusion in the city.

Why all of a sudden are we, why are we wanting to destroy them? It doesn't make sense. We've been at, you know, there's been no conflict thus far.

You send them home. Not only did you send them home, it wasn't Xerxes, was it?

It was a king prior to him. I can't remember which one.

Darius, it was Darius. But Darius sent them home with goods, with animals, with gold and silver.

And there's that, you know, that prophetic connection that I was talking about. So, you know, if there was conflict, if there was tension, why would they be released?

Why would they be given these goods to go back and flourish and rebuild their temple?

I see that as a fair assessment of why they would be confused.

Yeah. Does that make sense? No, yeah. It makes a lot of sense. It actually makes a lot of sense why Haman would do it that way, too.

Because if you think about it, the people would be confused. And what people do when they get confused is they speculate. They'd start speculating.

Well, he let them go back over there to their homeland. He gave them, you know, let them build some temple.

There was an issue there. They didn't want it to be done.

Maybe they're fighting. Maybe they've been plotting ever since then. You know what? Maybe our king does know something that we don't know.

It probably would have stirred up a pretty tough division between the people.

It would have. I mean, where would they go? The whole kingdom's out there to get them.

And the kingdom is pretty much the entire known world at that point. So, yeah, it kind of makes sense that Haman would do something like that.

It would cause a people to speculate themselves into hating a certain people.

Well, if the king says so, it must be an issue. If we're all going to kill them on a certain day, then there must be a plot.

Or they must be having something up their sleeve. And we need to go and take care of this. So, they must have been confused at first.

But that confusion would have, in the next few weeks and months, turned into conspiracies and conspiracy theories and all sorts of stuff to the point they got whipped up in a frenzy.

Would they be ready to go? And this is just speculation on my part.

But the text just seems to imply that we can see here

Haman is being cunning. He is being clever. He has an agenda.

He is an enemy of the Jews. We know what his agenda is, and we can see his plot.

We can see his deceitfulness. We can see his cunning. And we can see, to a lesser degree, and maybe because of the author and maybe because he was being painted in a little better color, but to me anyway, it seems like Mordecai may have found out that Haman was an

Agagite before Haman knew that Mordecai was a Jew. I don't know.

He probably knew, but the tension comes to a head when all this was revealed and then he didn't bow.

But it makes me think about Mordecai, and it seems like he's plotting and planning too.

He has his hand in Esther and how she acts, information that he's able to get information to the king.

He's kind of coaching Esther in what to say and what not to say, not divulging that she is a

Jew. And maybe, and here's part of the speculation, maybe it's because it's part of his plan.

Here he has Haman, a sworn enemy of Israel, of the Lord, of the throne of the

Lord, Scripture says, that maybe the only way to finally get rid of the

Agagites is through the king. And the way through the king is through Esther.

And if you have Haman deceiving the king and wanting to kill his queen, that would be a good way to destroy your enemy there.

So I don't know if that was going through Mordecai's head, if that was part of his plot and his plan, but it just…

Do what? That sounds like some 4D chess right there. I think you're probably on to something with Mordecai seeing an opportunity to at least get the king's ear.

Because he knew that if he was going to be a man and protect his family, the way that you protect your family is through power.

So he wanted to have power, but I think he wanted to yield that power for good. Haman, on the other hand, wanted that same power, but he wanted to wield that power for revenge and evil.

So you really are seeing two people seeking the same thing, but seeking it for vastly different reasons. I don't know if Haman was trying to…

I don't know how… There was enough different things that happened where I don't think…

I don't think Mordecai was out to pick a fight to kill off the Agagites. I guess he could.

I mean, there's people smarter than me out there, but I don't know if we can make that leap.

It's a leap. It's a leap. Wanting to have power, but wanting to have power for a good reason.

Yeah, exactly. But what we do know is Esther is a book of God's providence,

God's protection, and we know that just like we read in the

Proverbs, as we were talking about Haman casting lots, the

Lord is in charge of the lot that's cast. He's in charge of…

He's sovereign. He's in control of everything, and he had a plan from the beginning to redeem his people.

And I'm not talking about specifically not just Israel, but through Israel, the

Messiah, so that his children of all ages from all walks of life, from every tribe, every tongue, every nation could be saved.

And so that's why we have here this account of God preserving, protecting his people so that the

Messiah, the King of kings, could come through this people so that we might be saved.

And so we must realize that we are… We're in exile because of our sin.

And we need a Redeemer. We need a Savior. We need a King.

And that King and that Savior is available because of what he has done.

He came into this world from the outside because nothing in this world could redeem us.

God himself put on flesh and become a man, and that man's name is Jesus Christ.

And he came and lived a sinless life. He died on the cross taking on our sin.

He took the wrath of God on our behalf so that he may glorify the Father through redeeming a people.

And that can be you. And so we would call out and urge you and plead with you to turn from your sin, turn from this exile, and submit to the

King. Put your faith and trust in Jesus Christ and what he did on the cross. Because Jesus claimed victory.

He rose from the dead. He ascended to the right hand of the Father where he sits in the place of authority interceding for us today.

He's ruling and reigning over the nations, and he is growing his kingdom. And there's going to come a time where all men everywhere will have to stand before the

God of the universe, the Judge of the world. And the Judge of the world will always do what's right. And if it's sending us to hell, it will be because it's what's right, no matter how hard that is for us to grasp.

Or he will save us because we are found in Christ and him alone.

So we would urge you to turn from your sins and put your faith and trust in Jesus Christ. And so we're thankful for Esther, and we're thankful to understand and read about his providence and protection for his people.

Any last thoughts? No, that summed it up pretty good. Good deal. Would you mind to close us in prayer?

Sure. Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for today, for giving us a chance to look over your book, to look through the book of Esther today.

I pray that you would cause your spirit to work in our hearts to understand these things, to put them deep within, to remember your good covenant -keeping promises, and that we would trust in you all the more.

In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Amen. Thank you guys for watching. We really appreciate it. Give us a like, a follow, and a share if you don't mind.

And also remember that Jesus is king. Go live in the victory of Christ. Go speak with the authority of Christ and continue to go out there and share the gospel of Christ.

We hope to see you soon. I'm going to play our outro video. Have a good evening.