TiL- Esther 3

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Tonight, we want to look at a few things. I'm with Dan and I'm thankful for his faithfulness. I'm thankful for you and I pray that you will, you will be encouraged as we look at God's word, as we have this conversation together, as we, as we try to meet as often as we can to talk about what

God is doing in this world, what man is doing in this, in this world and what we can learn from God and his word and then apply to our lives, submit to him and live according to how he would have us to live.

This is truth and love and we get truth and love 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 we would ask that you would join us in doing that. Um, with that being said, let me, let me turn on the comments here and, uh, we may not have many live comments tonight since Facebook is acting up, not sure what's going on, but that's okay.

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But, um, without any further ado, we, uh, we do want to get on some, some relevant topics of today.

And, uh, one of the most relevant topics of course, is the tragedy that happened in Texas, the school shooting, which is, it's not the first one.

And, um, I had this thought, Dan, I, I meant to look it up. Um, I wanted to know when the first, uh, account of a school shooting was,

I want to say that it was in our recent history. Um, I don't,

I don't think this is, well, there, there was, um, let's see, there was 63 fatalities.

I think it was 63. Don't quote me on that. In the sixties, uh, the seventies had a couple more of the eighties were roughly about the same in the nineties, uh, the beginning of the nineties, they, um, uh, made all schools gun free zones.

And, um, the, the number of school shootings and fatalities went up 123 % in the nineties.

And it's just continued to grow from there. So I don't know exactly when the first one was, but I know that we were having these sorts of issues all the way back into the sixties.

Right. Wow. And like I said, this is, well, we want to, we want to use that word tragedy, right?

But here's the thing. Um, we want to come at this from a biblical, from a Christian perspective.

And, um, we use the word tragedy and everybody uses that word.

Everybody describes this as horrible, horrific, uh, that it's a tragedy. Um, but that, that is the

Christian perspective that is coming at this from a Christian perspective to use that verb, to describe it as, as a tragedy.

Um, one of the things that I thought about is, is anyone else outside of Christianity has no point of reference to, to describe this, um, this event that happened, um, because we can use the word tragedy comes from Christianity.

Um, you kind of see where I'm going there. Um, it, we're the only ones with a reference point outside of Christianity.

Um, there is no, there, there's no meaning to it. It's meaningless. Um, it's neither good.

There's neither good nor bad outside of Christianity and, and society can say, well, we get our morals from, from culture.

And, but if that was the case, it would be so relativistic.

There would be no consistency in morals that you couldn't claim morals because they would, they would change so frequently, or they would be different from one person to another.

And there's 7 billion people on this planet and everybody's morals would be different or slightly different.

And so there would, there's no way that you could hammer down, nail down any one set of, of morals because everybody's would be different.

There's, there's no objective standard outside of Christianity. And so the Christian perspective is that this was a tragedy.

We're the only ones that can call this a tragedy. What are your thoughts?

Well, I don't know as if I'd say we're the only ones, but I would say that the, the other ones who could make that claim, uh, for instance, um, uh,

Islam or even, even, uh, Jewish folks, uh, once you press them down another couple of levels, um, you would show their, uh, their inconsistency.

Um, yeah, I don't know if I claim us to be the only ones, but, but consistently we're the only ones who can show, um, why this is a tragedy.

I mean, if you just look at, uh, atheism or agnosticism, um, which is what is, you know, greatly taking over in our country.

Um, well that sort of neo -paganism, um, but even so, um, there is no, there's no grounding for morality in any of those worldviews.

Um, if you look at, at the atheistic worldview, uh, usually it comes from an evolutionary perspective where, you know, there was nothing.

And then, uh, the, the big bang happened and it caused, uh, different things to, you know, explode and, and, and move and form and, and heat and cool down and, uh, different bacterias to form that turn into other things and turn into other things.

But when you get right down to it, why is what happens to one bit of matter any different than what happens to another bit of matter?

Um, but here's, here's the thing that you, you won't find an atheist.

Well, you put, you may, but you won't find many atheists who would say, um, well, this is indifferent.

It doesn't matter. And who cares if, if people died in a school shooting? It doesn't matter because people are all just, you know, chemicals, chemical reactions and atoms bombarding each other.

So it doesn't matter. They don't believe that. Uh, the Bible actually says that they don't believe that, that they know they see the world around them.

They know the God that created them. And they, um, basically borrow from the

Christian worldview or they really, they, they recognize the truth of reality, um, even when they deny the truth of their creator.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And the same, the same goes for Islam and Judaism.

Uh, when you press them in another couple of steps, because the, um, the, the

God of Islam, for instance, uh, doesn't have the same sort of moral, um, doesn't have the same sort of moral ideals and, and, and the way that he functions and the

Christian God, because he doesn't have to forgive, um, in the sense where there doesn't have to be atonement for sin.

There is just his declaration of you're okay, or you're not okay. There's no actual dealing with sin itself.

Um, so there's really no justice in Islam, even though they claim to have a strong sense of justice.

Uh, Judaism is the same way because they deny, uh, the word, the word of God who came, became flesh.

So they don't even believe in the one true God, even though they have his law given to them, uh, they don't, they don't believe in him.

So yeah, it's, it, it, well, I wouldn't say that we're the only ones who can claim it.

I would say that we're the only ones who can claim consistently that this is a tragedy. And then

I think just about everybody would claim that it is a tragedy because it is. Um, God created these people and created us and put us in this world in order to do well, to be fruitful, to multiply, to, to look over the face of the earth and cause

Eden to spread. And we've done anything but that. Um, this is no evidence that instead of bringing life, we as humanity have brought death to those who are some of the most vulnerable among us, which is just terrible.

Right. And you, you, you make an excellent statement. And, uh, I think it's something that we should tap into, um, using the word tragedy is borrowing from the

Christian worldview is, is borrowing from the Bible. Um, and so that's what the, that's what they're doing.

Um, and you can, you can take that as, as far as you want to go. Um, you know, all the other religions that you were talking about there, they're borrowing from Christianity.

Um, when you have the debates about, you know, with different people who interpret scripture in different ways, and they want to talk about people that lived in the ancient near East and they had, they had ideas of, they had an understanding of flood stories or, um, that their

God was born of a virgin book, you know, different stories like that. And they want to say Christianity borrowed from those ancient near East.

No, it's the other way around, you know, all those cultures borrowed from Christianity. They borrowed from God and his history.

Um, and that's where they got their stories. Um, and, and to me, that brings legitimacy to the

Bible, to Christianity and to God's history and what he did.

And I'm sorry for taking that, that rabbit trail and getting off topic, but, but everything borrows from, if you're outside of Christianity, you're, you're borrowing.

If you're, you're speaking of morals, you're, you're, you're talking about history. Um, you're using this type of language, using the word tragedy.

You're, you're borrowing from the Christian worldview. And I think, um, you know, there, there's so many different ways, uh, directions that we could go,

Dan, talking about responding as a Christian to this tragedy. But I think this is really one good way that we as Christians could respond to this tragedy.

Um, you know, probably never going to this, this small town ourselves, um, to visit, um, how, how we hear where we are, where you are, um, and you who are watching where you are, how we can respond to this tragedy, um, is to help others see that using the word tragedy borrows or comes from, we can only have that, um, that reference point from Christianity.

Um, it's only a tragedy. Why, why is it a tragedy? Dan, I'll go ahead and let you take that over.

Why is it a tragedy from the Christian perspective? Uh, there's a couple different, um, reasons.

Um, one is because part of God's creation has been destroyed by, uh, us.

Um, what makes it so, so terrible, uh, is also multifaceted.

A one that they were so young, um, they were, you know, still learning life, not knowing, um, you know, which way to go, what was up or down there.

I mean, they were still getting started and there's something about the, the innocence, um, or, or the, the innocent mindset of a child, uh, where they just don't know they're, they're just ignorant and they're under the care of, of people, um, that, that when you look at a child, um, you see some of the, uh, like my four year, my four year old, for instance, he is one of the craziest, uh, most wild men out there.

Um, he is just, he just crazy, but he's also one of the, the sweetest, kindest, most gentle, big oafs

I've ever seen before. Uh, he's, he's just an incredible, um, imaging or, or reflection of some of the, the goodness of God.

Uh, that's one of the things we talk about, um, in theological terms about the Imago Dei, the, uh, the image of God, that we're bearers of the image of God, that, that when, uh, you look at humanity, we are a, a picture or a, um, to borrow from our

Eastern Orthodox for, uh, people over there, uh, icons almost of, of God himself, that what we were meant to do on the earth is to show the rest of creation, the

God that they could not see. And we've gone and, uh, snuffed out that little life, the life that, um, that God had brought into the world in order to bring, uh, joy and happiness in order to, to work the earth and to bring glory to his own name.

And we have destroyed that as, as people. Um, it's, it's, it's that against the children.

Um, it's that against, uh, our, our, our race as men, we, as, um, we have deprived creation of a specific aspect of itself.

Mankind was supposed to be wonderful and good. And yet here we are, uh, killing people.

We have deprived creation. And not only that, we have, uh, at least tried to rob

God of his glory, uh, and that he created us. So we have sinned against, um, many different people against the little ones who've died against ourselves and against our

God, our creator. Um, I kind of forgot what your question was, but I started on a vein and I kind of went with it.

You were right on target. Uh, just thinking about all the different ways that we could, um, respond to this, um, as Christians coming at this from Christian perspective.

And, and I think this is, uh, without tackling all the different things that we could do, all the different things that we could say, um, this is one thing that I think you and I could say, um, for tonight is how to approach this with anybody, um, helping them understand that this is a tragedy because we have a

Christian worldview. And so what, what makes it a tragedy from the

Christian worldview? And you were, that's what you were describing that, that these, these were children, innocent children, um, and two adults yet that God created us in his image,

God created man in his own image. So, so we, as man are, are killing image bears people,

God designed to, to bear his image, to bring him glory. And so, you know, that's how we know this is a tragedy that we are, we're destroying

God's handiwork and their purpose on this earth, their, their ultimate purpose, which is to bear his image and to bring him glory.

Right. Yeah. So I guess the way that we, as Christians should respond is, is twofold.

Uh, number one, uh, is to grieve with those who grieve, um, when people are in,

I mean, it's a, it's a tragedy. So you're there for them. Um, if, if we hear of a need, uh, you know, the families need meals or they need, uh, this, that, or the other thing, they're having trouble with burial expenses and anything that comes up, we should be the first ones there to help out.

Right. Or we can also pray, um, because we know that only God can, can calm hearts and souls, um, can calm, calm, uh, minds and, and, and, uh, emotions.

Uh, but also we need to recognize that the reason why all of this happened is because of sin.

It's not a sin that's out there. It's a sin that dwells in each and every one of us that is, um, part of our humanity.

Uh, we have sin around us that calls us to do horrible, terrible things.

And God restrains that, um, really from being worse than, than it could be.

Um, so people want to know what a solution is and maybe a practical solution, uh, and I'm not going to get into a gun control debate or anything like that, but if there are certain gun laws that just don't make sense, fix them.

I'm not saying there are, aren't, uh, we can do that practically. But one of the things that we need to remember that to fix the problem is to know the root of the problem and the root of the problem is sin.

So if we, as a, as a nation and as a, uh, human race want to see this sort of thing end, the only way that it can end is through the, the forgiveness and the shed blood of Jesus Christ to change the hearts of men, to restrain our evil, to change us from something, uh, wicked to something, uh, beautiful, to redeem us, to regenerate us, and then the spirit to guide us on through into eternity.

Because without that gospel, without the good news that Christ forgives sins, that he changes, uh, what is dirty and rotten into what is good and pure without that, without the dealing with sin, we will continue to see these sorts of things happen, uh, whether it be at school or if you look back over the last hundred or 120, 140 years, you saw us, uh, doing it in all sorts of situations.

Uh, we were horrible to, uh, slaves. We were terrible as, as humans to, uh, you think of, of, uh,

Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia. Uh, you think of, um, you know,

Venezuela, all, all over the world, uh, people doing rotten, terrible stuff to one another. The only way that that's going to stop is for God to take away our sin.

So if we really want to make a change, we as individuals need to take ownership of the sin that is within us and plead with God to forgive us of our sin.

Yeah, that's right. Yeah. And I think that's where, um, outside of the people directly affected by this, um, the conversations that we had,

I think you're exactly right. That's where these conversations need to lead to, um, is, you know, the gospel message.

And, and I don't think it's insensitive to, to have a conversation about this tragedy and, and tied into, like we were talking about Christianity is the only one that has a reference point for what a tragedy is.

Um, you brought up grieving for what grieving is, why we grieve, um, outside of Christianity.

Um, like, like you said, you know, other religions have their ideas, have their thoughts, but outside of Christianity, the truth, um, we have no reference point for grieving.

Um, why grieve if we're just, and this is something that you brought up a few minutes ago, why grieve if we're just, um, byproducts of evolution who have no meaning and purpose, um, except for the meaning of person that, that scientists and give, uh, or scientists give those who are in the process of evolution, which is survival of the fittest.

And so in that worldview, this kind of thing makes sense. You know, you're weeding out people.

Um, and I apologize. I don't want to sound insensitive. Um, but that's the truth of the matter.

That's the, that's the ideology that comes with, you know, the theory of evolution.

Right. So only in Christianity, do we have a reference point for grieving? And then those, those conversations that we have, um, at the water cooler, um, with our friends and family and we, and we bring up what is tragedy?

What is grieving? Where does it come from? And then it can lead to sinful man and lead to the gospel like you're talking about.

Yeah. So we definitely, as Dan said, we want to continue to pray for those families.

We want to pray for all those who were directly affected by this, all those who, um,

I would say just because of personal experience, um, teachers all over the

United States. Um, I don't,

I don't want to give, I don't want to talk too personally, but I believe this is hard for all teachers.

The, the anxiety that this could happen in any school. Um, the, the thought that this, the relationship that they have as a teacher with those teachers and, and them losing their life and losing their children.

Um, just the relationship of being a teacher and their compassion, their empathy for them.

Um, it's gotta be hard for, for all teachers, all over the United States. Um, we, we want to pray for the police officers.

Um, and, and all that they're having to deal with now. Um, the, the investigations, um, the people who were directly involved there and, uh, what, what, what they could have done, what they didn't do, what they did do, you know, all the questions.

Um, we want to pray for them, everything that has to do with that tragedy. Um, and of course we want to, uh, pray that, that God will not allow this again.

But of course that, that falls into, you know, part of our responsibility, um, as far as sharing the gospel and sharing the kingdom of God.

And so any last words on, on that? No, um, only because I was looking ahead at what we're going to talk about in Esther and, uh, we're going to kind of unpack everything that may have gone into this dude's head while we look at what's going on and, and, uh,

Haman's head. Gotcha. Well, I'll let you bring that up when we get to it. Um, so let's jump into Esther chapter three.

Um, and I told him that I wanted to try to hit on a relative relevant topic, uh, before we get started so that we're not, we're kind of breaking it up.

Uh, so, so each video we want to try to talk about something that's going on in our, um, in our culture and, and talk about that and see what's going on.

And from a biblical perspective, Christian perspective, let's jump into Esther, uh, chapter three, before we jump into Esther chapter three,

I want to do something that we, that we didn't do. If you go back to Esther chapter two, verse five, um, if we're studying this, we want to know the characters and in first five and chapter two, it says, now there was at the citadel in Susa, a

Jew whose name was Mordecai. And I don't think, I don't think it's later on, maybe in chapter three, that, that the people in, in this actual story who were present there, they don't start calling him or they don't know that he's a

Jew and they don't start calling him. They eventually start calling him Mordecai, the Jew, but not at first, not until it was revealed.

Yeah. Chapter three, verse four, chapter three, verse four. Now here we're, we're given the information that he's a

Jew, but the, the characters, they don't, they don't know that yet, but once they find out they begin to label him, but, but Mordecai, the son of Jire, the son of Shammai, the son of Kish, of Benjamite.

So it gives us lineage there. And I think, um, I think it's purposeful that his lineage is, is given.

Um, I think it's documented that if you follow his lineage, um, you can follow

Mordecai, you can follow Esther all the way back to King Saul. And what's significant about Mordecai being a

Jew, being a descendant of King Saul is that King Saul was given orders by God to eliminate all the

Amalekites, all of them. He wasn't supposed to leave any soul alive, but Saul did.

He was dethroned and those that were left behind, them and their descendants, there became this extra or added tension, um, because they've been enemies forever.

If you go, if you go all the way back to Exodus chapter 17, you have Moses, uh, fighting the

Amalekites and they've, they've been enemies forever. Um, the

Lord even says, uh, I didn't look up the reference, but, but God says that since Amalekites, they lifted up their hand against the

Lord, the throne of the Lord. Um, he will be at war with them from generation to generation. So you have this animosity between the two.

You have Saul given orders to, to eliminate every single one of them. He disobeys, he doesn't, doesn't do it.

And now generation after generation, you finally get to Mordecai, the story of Esther.

And then now in chapter three, you get where he's already been introduced, but we learn more about Haman.

So let me, um, let me read, let's see, first three verses after these events,

King Ahasuerus promoted Haman, the son of Hamed, Hamed, Hamed, I can't even say it.

I can't do it. Hamadatha. Hamadatha. There you go. The Agagite and advanced him and established his authority over all the princes who were with him.

All the King's servants who were at the King's gate bowed down and paid homage to Haman for, so the

King had commanded concern to him, but Mordecai neither bowed down or paid homage.

Then the King's servants who were at the King's gate said, Mordecai, why are you transgressing, transgressing the

King's command? Um, one of the things noted here that I hear people talk about is in the context, we just finished looking at chapter two and what did

Mordecai do? Mordecai saved the King's life. Mordecai is hanging out the gates.

He's hearing the gossip. Um, he gets word to Esther that there's this plot against the

King and Esther gives credit to Mordecai for saving his life. And then you get to chapter three, verse one, the

King advances Haman and not Mordecai.

I don't think that the text actually dives into that, but it's just interesting to note that there was what we think should have happened, didn't happen.

Um, so what's going on here in these first three verses, Dan? Um, well,

Haman had done something, I guess either that, or he was just really good looking or something nice to the

King. I really don't know. Um, and he was honored. Um, he was given something.

We don't know if it was a feast or a title or a robe or a crown or what.

We don't know exactly what he was giving me. He was honored in some sort of way. Um, he was elevated in the kingdom.

His seat was higher than other people's seats. He was, he finally becomes somebody.

Um, so he had a little bit of power to, to, to throw around. And I mean, if you, if you think about it, going back into his history, he remembers exactly what happened between his people and the

Jews, his people and the Jews, his people were, was wiped out except for his family who was left there to basically mourn the loss of, um, of their, their whole people.

If you, if you remember the, uh, uh, that movie, the princess bride, and he says, uh, it's towards the end, he says,

I'm going to fight you, uh, to the, to the pain. It's like, well, what does that mean? He said, well, first, I'm going to cut off your, uh,

I'm going to, you know, cut out your eyes. I'm going to get your tongue, chop your hands off and your feet off.

And, and, you know, you know, make you look all funky. It's like, then you're going to cut off my ears.

It's like, no, I'm not going to cut off your ears. What I'm going to do is I'm going to leave your ears perfect. So that way, every time somebody sees that hideous thing, and, and then, uh, the, the children are like screaming and crying whenever they see you, it'll echo and ring in your perfect ears.

It was like, oh man, that's, that's rough. So, uh, so think of, of Haman's, uh, ancestors.

His family alone was left alive to have it to, to hear and listen to the

Jewish people the rest of their lives. We killed your folks, all of your family, all of your cousins, all of your people that you grew up going to the market with, all the people that you played sports with, that you fought with in wars, we killed them all.

Every single person that you ever knew and were close to dead. And that has to be something that sticks with you as you're going on through your generations.

Hey dad, why aren't you being nice to the Jews? Well, no, they killed everybody, but great granddaddy.

Yeah. And we're, we're the only ones here to, to talk about it. We had a whole kingdom, you know, we were real people.

We were somebody and he finally gets back to a place of power.

The Agagites are on top once again. Um, and then, then the people, uh, hey

Mordecai, why aren't you, why aren't you bowing down to this dude? No, he's had, he's had a rough go of it.

Um, he's like, I know we should have killed him back then. I don't know exactly what Mordecai is thinking there.

It could have been what he was thinking. It could have been, um, or it could have been no, no,

I should have, I stopped the king from getting killed. I'm a whole lot better than this dude. Or it could have been one of a hundred thousand other different things that we just don't know about.

But there was already some tension and animosity between, between them there. Yeah. So at the end of verse three, uh,

Mordecai, he's just, he's, he's not having any of it. He's like, nah, I mean, it could have been, no,

I don't bow down to anybody, but the Jewish king and my God, it may have been that it may have been, um, no, cause we should have killed him a few years back.

It could have been, uh, because the king didn't honor me. We, we don't really know, but since we don't know,

I'd say probably a little bit of all of that rolled up into one. No, he, uh, like Paul Harvey said, this is the rest of the story there.

And, uh, he just, he was like, nah, not Haman, anybody else, maybe, but not him.

It was just too much there. Well, well the text hints at those things. I mean, you're, you're exactly right.

You already have that natural animosity, but just what would be between men, you know,

I saved the king's life and here you're advanced. So the story tells us that these things happen.

And so we can imagine that natural animosity, just, just between men and just between human beings, um, that, that would be surfacing within Mordecai, um, because the story kind of hints at that.

Uh, and I mean, it, it, it tells us what's going on.

So that's naturally what we would assume, I think. And I, I don't want to,

I don't want to say that as a, as a Westerner, uh, you know, I'm thinking that it would naturally be assumed by everybody reading it, but I, I think it's super important that we recognize, you know, the other things that you were talking about, um, the author of Esther, which you think it was

Mordecai? That probably could have been Mordecai. Um, we, we had the lineage of Mordecai so that, so that the reader could understand his lineage, um, his history.

And then here in the first verse of chapter three, we get the, you know, he could just said it was

Haman, but we have the, the history or, or some of the lineage of Haman.

We know that he was an Akagite, which, you know, just like you were talking about, and we mentioned earlier, are, are descendants of the

Amalekites, or who were the Amalekites. Um, and, and if you trace back, speaking of the original readers, um, and, and what they would have understood that we may not understand as Westerners, um, separated having this gap between when it was written, when it was originally read, um, there's a lot of missing information that we don't have, or, or we don't, we wouldn't be thinking of because we're not in that context.

And so we have to kind of know the context of what was going on, know the history, know scriptures. And the author of Esther is, is giving us, um, keys to look at it within history.

And we have a lot of that history with, within the Old Testament that we can look back to. So you have

Haman, who was an Akagite, who are the Amalekites, who we talked about earlier, you know, fought with Moses in Exodus chapter 17, who

Saul was supposed to kill. And we have that history all throughout the Old Testament. And I believe that that's what the original readers, at least the

Jews, the original Jewish readers, they would have recognized, they would have understood. Sure. When they heard this

Haman's an Agagite, we know who the Agagites were. And I got a,

I got a lot of my notes from, I want to give him credit, a lot of my notes from, um, Pastor Phillip Kayser, who has a lot of, a lot of good sermons on Sermon Audio, if you want to check him out.

He gives a lot of this history. And so I get a lot of my notes from him. And if you look at the whole lineage,

I mean, you can go back to, to Noah, Noah Japheth, whose son was

Magog, who from him come the Amalekites. And then eventually you have, you know,

Saul and his blunder, and then you have Haman here in Esther.

Yep. So I, I really think that the inclusion of these details is important for us to remember, to help us to know the history and what's going on.

And part of that tension that you were talking about also references, which is the reason why we're coming back to Esther is because we were looking at Ezekiel and we were looking at end times, we're looking at prophecy and everybody wants to talk about the, the war of Gog and Magog.

And then you have Haman, Gog there in Ezekiel, which points back to Haman. And so it, it all ties together because, and I think that's where we mess up and go down these, these wrong paths and, and get our eschatology all mixed up is because we are not, we're not reading it in the context of the original author, the original reader, and what they would have understood and what they would have seen in the

Old Testament. Right. Cause then in verse four, they just come out and they're like,

Hey, Haman, he's,

Mordecai's not, not bowing down. Oh, by the way, he's a Jew. Do whatever you want to with that information.

He's a Jew. Why would that even be in the text? Like, why would it matter unless it mattered?

Yeah. Because it does. Right. So they hit him on two fronts.

Like, Hey, we know that you're somebody now. This guy over here is not, he's not bowing down to you.

He's not paying you the respect that you deserve. By the way, didn't his people kill your people?

Maybe you could do something about that now. And it's possible.

It's possible that Mordecai felt that, you know, we're speculating from the text, but we're still speculating that, you know, he could have not bowed down and gave homage to Haman because he didn't want to disobey the

Lord like Saul did. Right. They were, they were enemies of the

Lord. Philip, Pastor Philip Kaiser, or Kaiser, I'm not sure how to pronounce it.

He points out that, you know, there was no, there was no stipulation against paying homage, you know, giving honor to the

King or giving honor to a leader. You know, we can, we can do that today. They were able to do that. But for some reason in Mordecai's heart, he wasn't going to do it.

And it could have been, he didn't want to disobey the Lord. Yeah. Let me, let me read verse four that you mentioned.

Now it was when they had spoken daily to him. And when he had, he would not listen to them that they told

Haman to see whether Mordecai's reason would stand where he had told them that he was a

Jew. When Haman saw that Mordecai neither bowed down or paid homage to him, Haman was filled with rage, but he disdained to lay hands on Mordecai alone for they had told him who the people of Mordecai were.

Therefore, Haman sought to destroy all the Jews, the people of Mordecai who were throughout the whole kingdom of Ahasuerus.

I find that interesting. So it's, you know, we're looking at it from a natural response between this animosity between men who were striving for position and now it's gone beyond that.

So it does seem that this history is in their minds because if it was just personal, he could have taken them out.

Yeah. Yeah. It seemed like it was something personal where when he found out he was a Jew, he was like, oh man,

I got something for you. Yeah. Yeah. You hear it sometimes in movies.

You should have taken care of me when you had the chance. Something like that. Kind of what you got going on here.

Yeah. Haman, it's really interesting because the book of Esther doesn't mention the name of God anywhere.

And yet what you see is a battle between good and evil with God on one side and really the devil on the other, trying to destroy the entire

Jewish nation, the entire Jewish nation, where if the Jewish nation was destroyed,

God's promises are of none effect. That means that God would have made a liar and he would have,

I don't know, he'd still be God, but he wouldn't be holy. I mean, it would destroy everything.

It would not be good. So since God is not a liar, obviously this was a plan that was going to be foiled.

But when you see that tension between God and Satan, you see the reaction of Haman is the reaction of the full force of a pagan

God. How does he deal with his enemies? Well, they must die.

How does God overcome his enemies in the long run? He sent his son to die on the cross for the sins of men, to make those who are enemies friends.

And the really interesting, the really cool part about that is that it was through the faithful efforts of one young woman where both of those situations came to fruition.

In Esther, you see Esther being faithful in the situation that she was in, just doing what she was asked to do, saying, hey, my people are going to be killed.

King, please do something about this. And he does. You think of Mary as she is spoken to by angels and she just faithfully does what's asked of her.

She carries a child and raises him and walks with him, raises him, loves him as her son.

And through her faithfulness, part of her faithfulness,

Jesus Christ is brought into the world. She's truly mother of God, bringing God into humanity, the union between God and men in the hypostatic union, the connection, the joining of flesh with God who took our flesh upon himself.

It came through God's work in faithful individuals who were just doing what they were asked to do in a situation.

Of course, you saw the same type of pagan God complex out of Herod when

Jesus came onto the earth. Let's go kill all the two -year -olds. I'm not going to have anybody who can stand up to me.

He's not going to be a king that's over me. It's the same type of thing here. Who's this guy who won't bow down to me?

I'm the king here. No, he wasn't. He had definitely had people above him, but he went after him with the full force of a pagan

God, wicked, cruel. Who knows how many good people, by good people,

I mean like solid, indispensable cogs in the wheel of this society would have just been taken out.

We know for one, the queen wouldn't have been taken out. Even vengeance of that sort always turns ugly and wicked very fast.

Absolutely. That's what we're seeing out of Haman here. I just want to remind everybody, too.

The reason that we want to take a look at Esther is because of the connections with Ezekiel, with history, why it's in the

Old Testament. It doesn't mention the name God. A lot of people just wonder why it's even in here.

It's been hard for some people to decipher why it's even in the Old Testament, why it's part of the canon.

You had devotionals out there that pick a few verses out of Esther and make some devotions out of it.

We're seeing that Esther, the book of Esther, part of Ezra and Nehemiah, play a huge role in helping us understand the

Old Testament, understand history. In this verse, verse number six that we're looking at right now, he had disdained.

He disdained. He didn't lay hands on Mordecai alone, for they had told him who his people were.

Therefore, Haman sought to destroy all the Jews. What do we have here? We just have a continuation of history.

That's a part of what Esther is all about, seeing this continuation of history.

He had the same mindset as his father and his grandfather and his father before him, that they wanted to eliminate the

Jews. That was their mindset from all of time, that they wanted to eliminate

Israel. They wanted to eliminate the Jews. It's even prophesied that they were going to come against from all sides to eliminate

Israel. That's part of end times prophecy, but it actually was fulfilled, and we're seeing that.

That's another thing that Dan wants to point out for you to see when you look at this, part of the importance of Esther is to see that these prophecies were fulfilled.

We don't have to look for a future event, a future coming war against Israel from Russia, who they say is

Gog and Magog. No, it happened here. It happened here, and it was fulfilled, but it was reversed.

The other half of that is that God promised that he would preserve his people, and God preserved his people, and another part of Esther is the fulfillment of that promise.

So it's just a continuation of history of seeing the Amalekites being the Amalekites, Haman just being who he is, and God fulfilling his promise to preserve his people, and we know why he preserved his people, so that he could bring forth his son into the world, the

Messiah. To save the world, to forgive sins.

Yeah, it makes a lot more sense to view this as another piece of the faithfulness of God throughout history to his covenant people, because his covenant people now still have an enemy that wants to war against them.

We see in Revelation 12, and I know there's some people who would put this into a different time period, but Revelation 12 talks about the bringing of the

Messiah into the world, and I really think that what you see there is that the efforts of the dragon who swipes his tail and a third of the stars fall, his efforts go, they go after the woman, and then there's a shift in the language in the text, and it kind of looks like, as time progresses, he goes after the church itself.

So what is the church going to do? Well, the church has stories of things that happened all the way back in the time of Adam and Eve.

We see the world was wicked and God was going to judge it, but yet God wasn't going to destroy his covenant people.

He saved Noah and his family alive. Abraham was told that he was going to have a son, and the son was going to be the heir of his promises, and then he was told to sacrifice his son, and he knew from the book of Hebrews that he saw that when he was told to sacrifice, and he knew that his son would rise from the dead if he actually had to go through with that sacrifice.

Now he didn't, which is great, and there was a substitute there, which also points to Christ coming.

Then you see the different times throughout the judges where there was a people who were, the

Israelites were unfaithful, and the Israelites were taken over by different, you know, the Philistines, and these folks up here, and those folks over there, and judges were brought up over and over again in order to deliver the people from their captivity.

You see the same thing when they go into Babylon, and when they cross over into Assyria, and then we read of God's faithfulness through the

Maccabean period, and this is just another one of those instances where there was a definite attack from the enemy to wipe out

God's covenant people, and yet God preserved them alive, and that is the hope that we have in the new covenant as well, that we who trust in God, that he will preserve his covenant people alive.

Even if we pass away, even if we are martyred, we still have those promises that we will be resurrected on the last day because we saw

Christ himself resurrected when he was put to death, and I'm sure the devil was very happy about that until he realized that he done messed up.

All right, I killed him. Oh no, he's back. What do I do? We know that since Jesus Christ rose himself from the dead, that even if we can fall asleep, fall into death, into the grave, that our bodies will be resurrected as well, so the covenant that God has made with us is sure, just as the covenant that was made in the

Old Testament was sure, that these people who had Haman and half the kingdom after him survived, and survived because of a

God who was never mentioned in the book, but he was there working and doing his thing. So we can praise the

Lord for this documentation. Absolutely. That we have a God that will keep his promises, and those promises that you mentioned, he'll be faithful to keep for us.

Yeah. Wow, that's amazing. What an amazing God. It actually means more to us when we recognize that it's something that's been fulfilled by God rather than a sort of weird prediction of who's going to battle against who sometime in the future.

Right. It brings so much more meaning to the text. Yeah. I'm so with you on that.

So much more meaning. It elevates God, it glorifies him, and by us being able to praise him for his promises and his faithfulness.

Absolutely. And I know those that hold that view, they can still praise him and be thankful for his promises.

But here, we're not taking it as a future fulfillment.

We're taking it as being fulfilled in the past, seeing his promises being fulfilled, and using this as one of those fulfilled promises that we can stand on.

Right. Yeah. All right, let's move on to our next several verses here.

We can look at the next several verses, and if you want to, we can do a part two of chapter three.

You want to do that? Okay. So, in verse seven, in the first month, which is the month

Nissan, which is not a truck, and I probably didn't pronounce that right. Nissan.

It's also got the Sentra and a whole bunch of other ones. I believe it's perhaps

Nissan. Nissan? Yeah. So, of course, just an extra ask, take the ass out, and you got

Nissan. There you go. In the twelfth year of King Ahasuerus, her, that is the lot, was cast before Haman from day to day, from month to month, until the twelfth month, that is the month of Adar.

The only thing that I want to say right there is, and maybe we can stop right there, it speaks to the lot, and here we go again.

We're looking at the sovereignty of God and God being in control of all things, and they're casting a lot to see when they want to proceed with this action, and they're doing it day after day after day to see, by casting a lot, to see which day, which month that they should, you know, proceed with this action, and it finally falls on however casting the lot that they work.

It was finally determined when it should be, and it takes me back to Proverbs chapter 16, verse 33.

Man casts a lot. Let me, let's see, let me read it real quick.

The lot is cast into the lap, but it's every decision is from the Lord. Right. It speaks to the sovereignty of God, so we're talking about God preserving his people, where here you have a plot to kill all of the

Jews, and they're using lots to determine when they want to proceed with this plan, this attack, and we learn in Proverbs that the lot is cast in the lap, but every decision is from the

Lord. Yeah, I don't believe that Haman was casting these lots before Yahweh, though.

Right. He's probably casting them before some fairly pagan deities.

Oh, I'm sure, I'm sure. So, even though he was casting them trying to seek the wisdom of his gods, he couldn't.

Right. Because, I mean, even if he did hear from the spiritual realm and some demons were, you know, like turning the dice a little bit or making the straws fall or, you know, however he did it.

Right, right. So, what none of the folks involved realized was that God himself was determining the day, the month that they were going to try this plan, because later on, they're like, hey, when do you want to defend yourself?

Like, how about just before they decide to destroy us? So, you know, it works out for them.

Yeah, and I think you're exactly right. You know, Haman, of course, wouldn't be, you know, seeking

Yahweh, but yeah, I think Proverbs does tell us that, you know, no matter what happens, no matter what circumstance, that God is sovereign.

He's in control of every circumstance, of every lot that is cast.

Does that make sense? Would you agree with that? Yeah. Okay, okay. Yeah, there's something else.

Are you going to move on further in Esther? Well, I was going to ask, do you want to stop there or do you want to?

Yeah, let's stop there, but let me, let me go to, oh goodness, these are out of order.

Who puts their Bible together out of order? There we go.

All right. Romans 8, 31.

What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?

He who did not spare his own son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall we not, or how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?

Who shall bring a charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. Who is he who condemns?

It is Christ who died, and furthermore is also risen, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us.

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?

As it is written, for your sake we are killed all the day long. We are counted as sheep for the slaughter.

And then in verse 37, it says something very interesting. It says, yet in all these things.

Now, what are the these things? These things are tribulation, and distress, and persecution, and famine, and nakedness, and peril, and sword.

In all these things, when those things come, and they will come, we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.

The Greek word there is really interesting. It's like super conqueror. Because he says,

I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our

Lord. And that means that no matter what happens on the face of the planet, it is for the good of the

Christian. It doesn't mean it's for the good of everyone, but it is for the good of the

Christian. And that is one of those things that is difficult to wrap your head around when things like the story of Haman happen, or when things like Texas happens.

Because you think to yourself, what do you mean? Are you trying to tell me that it's good that people were killed?

No, that's a tragedy. But what I am trying to say is that even in all those things, even when these things happen, when they come around, even when those things take place, we are more than conquerors over sin, death, and the devil.

Because, and here's why, nothing can separate us from the love of Christ.

Not death or life. In other words, the things that happen on this earth, the fact that it is something that God is using for our good, it transcends life and death.

It transcends who is in charge, who is in control, what deities think that they're there, or what demons are pulling strings behind the curtains.

It doesn't matter, really, what takes place on the earth.

It's for a benefit because nothing that happens on this earth is outside of God's control.

That takes some thinking through. It takes some, it's one of those things where you need to believe it, and then you figure it out as you go.

Because it is difficult. So what good can come from the tragedy that we saw in Texas?

I have no idea. But what I do know is that God has made it so that no matter what happens on this planet, everything has to serve the salvation of his people.

I don't know how or why things happen this particular way.

But what I do know is that that happening the end result will be better, and even then you got to think through it a lot, will be better than if, it will be better because God is in charge.

Now, I want to be careful here because I don't know who may actually listen, and I don't want somebody to think, well,

I just lost a son. How dare you tell me that this is a good thing? Well, I'm not telling you that it is a good thing in the sense that you should be happy that you lost a child.

That's a horrible thing. We shouldn't be excited about tragedy striking, but what we can have is a peace.

It doesn't stop grief and it doesn't stop pain, but it's a peace knowing that God is working all things together for good.

It doesn't make stuff hurt less. It doesn't make stuff easier.

It doesn't even make you like the situation any differently. You probably hate it.

Fine. I mean, sin is terrible. But with God in control, somehow, some way that is

God's working or through that, God is working things for good.

It's also one of those things that I hesitate to bring up now because it's usually one of those things you want to bring up when there's not a tragedy, because you want to be able to think through and learn and understand and work on it when you're having emotions and everything bombarding you.

But at the same time, I trust that God will do with his truth what he will in this particular instance.

That's right. If you didn't have what you're talking about, the sense that God is in control, the tragedy would be so overwhelming that you would have no hope.

You would be hopeless. Right. I don't know if it's any easier.

Probably not. But it seems that if I knew that there was a purpose behind a tragedy in my life, a real good, solid purpose, even if I don't know what it is,

I know that it's there, it would make it easier to swallow than if something happened and there's no point to it.

And God's just up in heaven saying, yeah, I saw it coming, but just get on with life.

Like you had no control over it. Now, obviously, we want the question then comes up, why didn't he stop it?

And the thing is that that is exactly what Christ has done when he went to the cross. He stopped sin, death and the devil.

We will see the actual stopping of it at his second coming when sin is no more and every tear is wiped away.

You want to know why not yet? I have no idea. I wish it was.

But at the same point, I wouldn't have been around. So, yeah, God wanting to draw people to himself, he's keeping the world going and he is bringing glory to himself and he's bringing goodness into the world.

Somehow, some way he's doing it. And I think it was a good point that I heard this week, and it's a good reminder for us too, that death is an enemy.

Death is an enemy to us and death is an enemy to God. And we can view death as an enemy and trust in his promise that in his economy, in his kingdom, he has promised us,

Psalm chapter 110, the last enemy to be defeated.

And like Dan said, we're unsure why it has to be the last one.

We could think through those things theologically, but the last enemy to be defeated will be death.

And that death is an enemy because it's contradictory to our

God and our Savior who is life, but it will be defeated. And we can hope in that and we can trust in that because as we've seen in Esther, God is a

God who is faithful to his promises. And his promise is that he will defeat death.

It will be his last enemy to defeat, but he will defeat it. And death will be no more.

And it will just be life. And with that being said, we don't want to leave without making this declaration that as we can pull out from Esther tonight, there's only two sides.

You've got the side that Haman's on and you've got the side that Mordecai's on. Unsure if Mordecai was a

Old Testament saint or not, but we do know that he was part of God's covenant plan to preserve his people.

And Haman was then part of a people who were enemies of the Lord. And those are the two groups that we have all throughout history.

Part of God's covenant people and people who are enemies of God.

There's no neutral ground and we can see that through history as well. You look at Noah who

Dan referenced earlier. It doesn't matter if you had people there who mocked

Noah, and I'm sure you had people there who could care less and didn't mock Noah, but who was saved on the ark?

It was Noah and his family. The neutrals perished just like the enemies of Noah did because they were both enemies of God.

They weren't part of God's covenant promise, part of his people.

You have that in Matthew 28 or 24, Matthew or Luke 17, where you have two people who were in the field, two people who were at the or who were grinding.

One is taken, one is left behind. And then you have at the end at judgment where we stand before the

Lord, you have the separation between the sheep and the goats. And I say all that to say that there's no neutral ground.

There's no neutrality. We're either in the camp of being a people who are part of being enemies of God or people who are in his covenant promise.

And we want you to be in the group of people who are part of his covenant promise, who will shout in victory when death is defeated and there will eternally be life and no death.

We can only do that if we repent of our sins, put our faith and trust in Jesus Christ and submit to him, submit to our king.

Otherwise, there will be perpetual death in a place called hell, scripture describes.

And so we want you to come to him today, repenting of your sins, putting your faith and trust in Jesus, submitting to the king.

Any last words, Dan? No, that's good. If you don't mind, would you close us in prayer? Sure. Dear heavenly father, thank you for today.

Thank you for giving us the breath in our lungs, to light the eyes.

Pray that you would guide us, teach us your word, show us your truth and lead us on home to you.

In Jesus name we pray. Amen. Amen. Thank you guys for watching. Sorry about the mix ups at the beginning.

Hopefully that some folks will catch this on YouTube and we'll be able to share it on Facebook. But thank you for watching.

Thank you for your support. Would you like it, share it and help us reach our community for Jesus Christ and the truth of God's word.

And always remember that Jesus is king. Go live in the victory of Christ.