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You may be seated. We will close out the book of Esther in our second reading, chapters nine and 10. Esther chapter nine, verse one. Hear now the inerrant, infallible, and inspired word of God. Now in the 12th month, that is the month Adar, on the 13th day of the same, when the king's commandment and his decree drew near to be put in execution, in the day that the enemies of the Jews was hoped to have power over them, though it was turned to the contrary, that the Jews had rule over them that hated them.
The Jews gathered themselves together in their cities throughout all the provinces of the King Ahasuerus to lay hand on such as sought their hurt, and no man could withstand them, for the fear of them fell upon all people.
And all the rulers of the provinces and the lieutenants and the deputies and officers of the king helped the Jews because the fear of Mordecai fell upon them, for Mordecai was great in the king's house and his fame went throughout all the provinces.
For this man, Mordecai waxed greater and greater. Thus, the Jews smote all their enemies with the stroke of the sword and slaughter and destruction and did what they would unto those that hated them. And in Shushan, the palace, the Jews slew and destroyed 500 men.
And Parshandatha and Dolphin and Asphata and Poratha and Adaliah and Aridatha and Parmashasta and Arisai and Aridai and Vajazatha, I'll get it, the 10 sons of Haman, the son of Hamadatha, the enemy of the Jews, slew they.
But on the spoil laid they not their head. On that day, the number of those that were slain in Shushan, the palace, was brought before the king. And the king said unto Esther, the queen, the Jews have slain and destroyed 500 men in Shushan, the palace, and the 10 sons of Haman.
What have they done in the rest of the king's provinces? Now, what is thy petition? And it shall be granted thee. Or what is thy request further? And it shall be done. Then said Esther, if it please the king, let it be granted to the Jews which are in Shushan to do tomorrow also according unto this day's decree.
And let Haman's 10 sons be hanged upon the gallows. And the king commanded it so to be done. And the decree was given at Shushan, and they hanged Haman's 10 sons. But the Jews that were in Shushan gathered themselves together on the 14th day also of the month Adar, and slew 300 men at Shushan, but on the prey, they laid not their head.
But the other Jews that were in the king's provinces gathered themselves together and stood for their lives and had rest from their enemies and slew of their foes 70 and 5 ,000, but they laid not their hands on the prey.
On the 13th day of the month Adar, and on the 14th day of the same, rested they and made it a day of feasting and gladness. But the Jews that were at Shushan assembled together on the 13th day thereof and on the 14th thereof, and on the 15th day of the same, they rested and made it a day of feasting and gladness.
Therefore, the Jews of the villages that dwelt in the unwalled towns made the 14th day of the month Adar a day of gladness and feasting and a good day and of sending portions one to another. And Mordecai wrote these things and sent letters but to all the Jews that were in all the provinces of the king Ahasuerus, both nigh and far, to establish this among them, that they should keep the 14th day of the month Adar and the 15th day of the same yearly.
As the days wherein the Jews rested from their enemies and the month which was turned unto them from sorrow to joy and from mourning into a good day, that they should make them days of feasting and joy and of sending portions one to another and gifts to the poor.
And the Jews undertook to do as they had begun and as Mordecai had written unto them. Because Haman, the son of Hamadathah, the Agagite, the enemy of all the Jews, had devised against the Jews to destroy them and had cast poor, that is the lot, to consume them and to destroy them.
But when Esther came before the king, he commanded by letters that his wicked device, which he devised against the Jews, should return upon his own head and that he and his sons should be hanged on the gallows.
Wherefore, they called these days Hurim after the name of Hur. Therefore, for all the words of this letter and of all which they had seen concerning this matter and which had come unto them, the Jews ordained and took upon them and upon their seed and upon all such as joined themselves unto them, so as it should not fail that they would keep these two days according to their writing and according to their appointed time every year, and that these days should be remembered and kept throughout every generation, every family, every province, and every city, and that these days of Hurim should not fail from among the Jews, nor the memorial of them perish from their seed.
Then Esther the queen, the daughter of Abihail and Mordecai the Jew, wrote with all authority to confirm this second letter of Hurim. And he sent letters unto all the Jews to the 127 provinces of the kingdom of Ahasuerus with words of peace and truth, to confirm these days of Hurim in their times appointed according as Mordecai the Jew and Esther the queen had enjoined them and as they had decreed for themselves and for their seed the matters of the fastings and their cry.
And the decree of Esther confirmed these matters of Hurim and it was written in the book. And the king of Ahasuerus laid a tribute upon the land and upon the isles of the sea and all the acts of his power and of his might and the declaration of the greatness of Mordecai whereunto the king advanced him, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Media and Persia?
When Mordecai the Jew was next unto king Ahasuerus and great among the Jews and accepted of the multitude of his brethren seeking the wealth of his people and speaking peace to all his seed. May God add his blessing to the reading and hearing of his most holy word.
Well, these two chapters, especially the ninth chapter a little bit off putting to modern sensibility in that the Jews were given leave to destroy their enemies and they did so. And this came by virtue of a royal decree.
Well, let's spend a moment talking about that perhaps to cure some of those modern unbiblical sensibilities. The first is let us remember that these are God's favored people that the original decree left them defenseless against their enemies.
That the second decree did not overturn the first decree but it did give the Jews leave to defend themselves against those who rose up against them and only those. We read, didn't we earlier on in the last reading last week that many of those Persians and Medes became Jews.
There was an opportunity to convert to the true religion among the Medes and Persians. And seeing the favor of God upon the chosen people at that time, many did turn to the Lord. Those, however, who refused and maintained their evil design, their evil design to destroy the Jews, they were the ones against whom the second decree was written.
And so this is nothing other than biblical self-defense below. It's not beyond that. This is not a bloodthirsty decree. Many of those Persians that were originally the enemies of the Jews for fear of the Jews became Jews and began to worship the true God.
They were like the prophet Isaiah who wrote, in that day, many shall grab the skirt of a Jew and say, pick us up to the mountain of the Lord and teach us his ways. This is what they did. But there were those who refused and the ones who continued in their refusal, such as the sons of Haman, who, because of his father's hatred of the Jews, maintained it themselves.
Well, they were given leave to defend themselves and destroy those who would have destroyed them if they could. So is this just, is this an act of justice on the part of Ahasuerus? I believe it is. Others might disagree.
They're free to disagree. But I think that when we learn what we learn about God in the scripture, that what God does is always just, and that it was indeed God who gave them leave at that time to exact their self-defense upon their enemies who even remained allied against them and would destroy them if they could.
Several times in the passages we've read here in chapter eight and in chapter nine, we read that they destroyed those who would have destroyed them, who were still arrayed against them. So no, this should not bother our, quote, modern sensibility.
We should rather learn justice here. If there were a people that rose up in this country and desired to exact their own vengeance upon another group in this country, whether they were an economic group or a geographical group or a racial group or other such things, well, then it would be right to give those who were under threat an opportunity to defend themselves rather than to give their necks to such injustice.
This, it seems, is what Ahasuerus did. And then there's the added revelatory factor that in the lineage of the Jews, the kingdom of David returns and Messiah comes to earth. And so the Lord exacted a special protection over his people at that time because of the future that he had promised to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, David, and so on.
All right, so that for the justice, I think that we can rightly say that it was indeed turned to good, turned to justice. And that what the Jews did was a good thing, not just an indifferent thing, not just an act of self-preservation, but that it was a good thing in that those that were destroyed, 75 ,000 throughout all of the provinces and 800 at Shushan the palace, that they were wicked folks and needed to go away because they had a design upon the people of God simply because they were the people of God.
And beloved, that's wickedness. Remember what the covenanted king says in Psalm 101, right? Christ in ordering his kingdom, David in ordering his kingdom. I will not know a wicked man. He will depart from me.
I'll drive him away. I'll bring him under judgment. And this is what we see here. The second thing that I wanna talk about is the irony of it all. The irony plays out even in these last two chapters when they name the days who are in.
This is how we got, it's how the whole business started. Haman was looking for a way to curse the Jews and to destroy them. And so he was looking for that best day. What's gonna be the best day of the year?
And so he gathers all of his people around him on a day and they cast lots on the calendar day after day after day after day after day. And it settles out that it's a day that's 11 months hence. Haman, do you see the irony yet?
He didn't see it yet. And so it goes on and it goes on with irony after irony after irony. And now here at the end, the irony is brought home in that the days of feasting and gladness for the Jews are now going to be remembered as lots.
Remember the lots that Haman drew against us and let's celebrate because the Lord turned that seeming threat. He turned that judgment. He turned that violence backward upon our enemies instead. They thought to do us evil and they were caught in the snare that their own hands laid as we sing about very often in the song.
So those who rise up against the people of God, listen, beloved, the Lord is not above a little bit of irony to encourage his people. And so they were encouraged. The Puritans often pointed toward Urim as a civil holiday of feasting and rejoicing and giving thanks to God as a lawful thing.
A civil holiday that is lawful, not a religious holiday, but a civil holiday. And so Esther and Mordecai being numbers two and three in the kingdom, made it a day, not a holy day, not holiday in that sense, but a day of feasting, gladness and rejoicing to be remembered the month Adar in the 13th and 14th day every year to give gifts to one another and to remember the poor.
Obviously not a day of worship, but a day of civil celebration. And so the Puritans that were in New England looked to establish a day that they thought very similar to that, a day that we call today Thanksgiving.
And so they argued for the propriety of such a day because they or we ought to commemorate the good and kind acts of God year by year. And so that's what Thanksgiving was about within the Puritan mindset, not a day of worship, but a day of civil celebration and giving thanks to God for his goodness.
In the final portion then we see Mordecai, we read about him in chapter nine and in chapter 10 and how the Lord elevated him who was loath to elevate himself. We remember the man who was not loath to elevate himself, how he was abased.
And we remember the man that was loath to elevate himself, how he was exalted. And so once again, that pattern is played out. We have it explicitly in about four scriptures that he who exalts himself shall be abased, but he who humbles himself shall be exalted.
And then the command that follows that, humble thyself therefore in the sight of God that he may exalt you in due time. Is this not what we see in Mordecai? He dressed in sackcloth. He wailed before the Lord when he heard the decree.
He refused to desert his station. He would not press his relationship with Esther. He refused all kinds of illicit advancement. And yet when the Lord did advance him, he was a man ready. Why? Because he was humble.
Oh beloved, we want humble men to rule over us in the church and in the state. Those who desire to rule, those who have an unquenchable desire to rule are typically the least qualified. Although it's not always true, very often it is.
All right, with that then let's stand and continue praising God in the singing of Psalms.