Deliverance in the Mess

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Don Filcek; Esther 9:1-19 Deliverance in the Mess

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Well, good morning. Good morning. Welcome to Recast Church. I'm Don Felsick. I'm the lead pastor here.
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And I just want to say thanks for coming to worship God this morning. If you can check out the stuff that we handed you when you walked in the door, there's a connection card there.
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And if you'd be willing to fill that out and turn that in in the white basket, that would be awesome. On the backside of that is an opportunity for you to put prayer requests, any kind of interaction.
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There's even some check boxes there. If any of that applies to you, you can check that off. But if this is your first time with us this morning and you fill out one of those cards, please turn it in again in the white basket back there.
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And then there's a free coffee mug for you. Just our way of saying thanks for coming and joining with us. And we recognize that it can be kind of tricky or make you nervous to kind of visit a place for the first time.
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And so we're just grateful that you're here with us. Thank you. And then also, one other thing you received when you walked in is an offering envelope.
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There's a black box back here on the corner of the desk. Here at Recast, we don't pass an offering plate primarily because we really want your giving to be between you and God.
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We don't want anybody to give because, oh no, there's this plate in front of me and I feel like I've got to throw something in it. We want it to be out of gratitude for what
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God has done for you, recognizing how he's blessed you. And so we want that giving to be voluntary and, as the note on the front says, cheerful out of joy.
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So that's kind of the introduction for this morning. A reminder that there is a meeting immediately following this for those who are interested in working with our youth ministries that are kind of taking another different turn this summer, or if you are a parent who have kids that are in middle school or in senior high.
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And that's going into. So if you've got a child who is just wrapping up fifth grade right now, that's going to be pertaining to you as well.
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So you can stay after the service this morning and be involved in that. But jumping back into the book of Esther here,
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I like to introduce the topic for the morning and kind of where the text is going, so that we can kind of get our hearts and our minds focused on God's word.
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Because I really am of the conviction that God's word is what changes and transforms our lives.
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Just as Kyle and I were together praying this morning, that was just a conviction that hit, I think, both of us at one point, was just thinking through the fact that sometimes we can call ourselves people of the word without trusting that that is the place where the power comes to our lives.
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And so I just am convicted that really when it comes down to it, it is only as God opens our minds to the word and what the word has to tell us that we are changed, right?
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And so that's why we come to God's text every Sunday when we get together. But everything in the book of Esther has been driving towards the text that we're in this morning in Esther chapter 9.
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We've been in the book for nine weeks now. And we're really drawing near the end, just a couple more messages in this book.
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But it's important for us to remember when we come to this text that the Jews had been threatened with annihilation, that they had been threatened with extinction, and that the promises of God, that very most important promise that there would be one who would come from the line of the
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Jews who would save people from their sins, that all nations would be blessed through the
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Jews, that promise is right on the knife's edge when we come to our text this morning. Because the
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Jews are set for extinction. There's literally an edict of genocide against them in the book of Esther.
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And God's promises are not going to come to pass without some dramatic change or shift. And we've been watching those shifts take place throughout this book.
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The anticipation has been building through this book. And as we come to our text this morning, we might be tempted to think something along the lines of finally the people of God are going to be delivered.
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They are finally going to be set free. But when redemption comes in our text, it's kind of messy.
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It's like you're kind of longing for it and you're excited about it and you're like, oh, it's coming, we're going to be saved, we're going to be saved.
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And then it's like, ooh, 75 ,000 people are going to be killed in our text this morning.
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And it's like, what? There's going to be slaughter and it's going to be ugly. And that is the reality of life in a fallen world.
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I mean, I think some of us have experienced that, that brokenness. Have you experienced brokenness in your life? Some things that haven't quite gone the way that you thought that they should or were going to go?
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Since Adam and Eve rebelled against God, the human race has been broken. But God, this awesome
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God who created all and everything, hatched a plan to bring about restoration from inside this broken system, from down here where we live.
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How many of you know that God being all powerful and the creator overall could have just taken the whole thing up and wadded it up into, and then he didn't have to throw it away because he could have just made it disappear, right?
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He could have just wadded that whole thing up, the whole cosmos and said, you guys sinned, you broke it. Done, start over again.
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Could he have done that? But instead, he chose to come into this broken system and to save us from within the fall, from within a sin -cursed world.
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And in order to do so, things have had to be quite messy. We think we will delight when the solution arrives, and then we come to the cross.
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The messy, bloody, abused, and beaten son of God lifted high in shame, lifted high in what appeared to be defeat.
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Have any of you seen the movie, The Passion of the Christ? Have any of you, while watching that, felt like turning your face away from those images?
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Because redemption is a mess. That's what it took to redeem us, to purchase us back from sin.
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We long for redemption, but then we sit through The Passion of the Christ, and we catch glimpses of that price that was paid, and we recoil at the sight of redemption.
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So I want you to open your Bibles, please, to Esther 9. We're gonna look at the first 19 verses here. Page 357 in the
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Bible that's in the seat back in front of you. So if you just grab that Bible from the seat in front of you, you can turn to page 357, and it's easy to find.
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And I wanna say this, if you don't own a Bible, please take that one with you. We desire for everybody to have a copy of God's Word.
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But follow along as I read Esther 9, one through 19. And let's dive in.
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Now in the 12th month, which is the month of Adar, on the 13th day of the same, when the king's command and edict were about to be carried out, on the very day when the enemies of the
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Jews hoped to gain the mastery over them, the reverse occurred. The Jews gained mastery over those who hated them.
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The Jews gathered in their cities throughout all the provinces of King Ahasuerus to lay hands on those who sought their harm, and no one could stand against them, for the fear of them had fallen on all peoples.
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All the officials of the provinces and the satraps and the governors and the royal agents also helped the Jews, for the fear of Mordecai had fallen on them.
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For Mordecai was great in the king's house, and his fame spread throughout all the provinces, for the man Mordecai grew more and more powerful.
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The Jews struck all their enemies with the sword, killing and destroying them, and did as they pleased to those who hated them.
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In Susa, the citadel itself, the Jews killed and destroyed 500 men, and also killed, now here we go, ready for this list?
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Parshandithah, and Delphin, and Aspathah, and Porathah, and Adalia, and Eridithah, and Parmashtah, and Eresai, and Eredi, and Visathah.
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The 10 sons of Haman, and the son of Hemedithah, the enemy of the Jews, but they laid no hand on the plunder.
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That very day, the number of those killed in Susa, the citadel, was reported to the king, and the king said to Queen Esther, in Susa, the citadel, the
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Jews have killed and destroyed 500 men, and also the 10 sons of Haman. What then have they done in the rest of the king's provinces?
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Now, what is your wish? It shall be granted you, and what further is your request? It shall be fulfilled.
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And Esther said, if it please the king, let the Jews who are in Susa be allowed tomorrow also to do according to this day's edict, and let the 10 sons of Haman be hanged on the gallows.
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So the king commanded this to be done. A decree was issued in Susa, and the 10 sons of Haman were hanged.
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The Jews who were in Susa gathered also on the 14th day of the month of Adar, and they killed 300 men in Susa, but they laid no hands on the plunder.
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Now, the rest of the Jews who were in the king's provinces also gathered to defend their lives, and got relief from their enemies and killed 75 ,000 of those who hated them, but they laid no hands on the plunder.
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This was on the 13th day of the month of Adar, and on the 14th day they rested and made that day a day of feasting and gladness.
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But the Jews who were in Susa gathered on the 13th day, and on the 14th day, and rested on the 15th day, making that a day of feasting and gladness.
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Therefore, the Jews of the villages who live in the rural towns hold the 14th day of the month of Adar as a day for gladness and feasting as a holiday, and as a day on which they send gifts of food to one another.
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Let's pray. Fathers, we come to an ancient text that just at face value has some gruesome carnage in it.
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It has some difficult things for us to wrap our Western minds around, some cultural differences between us and them, but primarily an issue of covenant, primarily an issue of understanding how you are working in the world today as opposed to the way that you worked through the nation of Israel in your old covenant under the
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Old Testament rules and regulations. Father, I pray that you would open our eyes to the glory of your redemption, and even though it's messy, that we could rejoice at the foot of the cross this morning recognizing that immense and awesome payment that has been made for us, and that as we come to worship you in song right now, that our hearts and our minds would be focused on you, that we would give you the attention, that we would give you the glory and you the honor, and that we would push aside all those distractions that might war against our genuine focus on you.
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Would you remove ourselves from the equation and let our voices and our hearts and our minds genuinely sing to you and you alone.
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I ask this in Jesus' name, amen. As we come to worship this morning, let's remember that this
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God that we worship is close, that when we think about redemption and we think about the cross, he has come down as one of us.
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He can relate to pain, he can relate to hardship, to scorn, to loneliness, to emotional anguish, but he also is a
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God of strength and a God of power who knew the suffering that was ahead of him and for the joy set before him endured our shame.
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So let's worship him this morning, amen. Thanks a lot to the band for leading us.
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I think there's still some more donuts and some coffee and juice, I know we just took a break, but you can feel free to get it up at any time during the message and take advantage of that.
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There's bathrooms back here if you need them. But let's dive in and get into this uncomfortable work of God on behalf of the
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Jews here. From our text last week, where we were at with the new edict that was going forward, we are now fast forwarding nine months from where we were.
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So between chapter eight and chapter nine, nine months have transpired. And we know that there have been two conflicting edicts that were set forth in the empire of Persia.
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Two that were in conflict with one another, Haman had passed an edict saying that the
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Jews are to be killed. He was the prime minister over all of Persia who hated the Jews and basically said,
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I am gonna pass an edict that all the Jews are to be killed, destroyed or annihilated. He really covered his base as well on that.
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And he said on the 13th day of the 12th month, everybody can have a free for all and kill Jews as many as they want and they need to be annihilated by the end of that day.
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But Haman was executed. We've seen this amazing turn of events that's gone on time and time again in the book of Esther.
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And Haman was executed and Mordecai the Jew is now in the office of prime minister over all of Persia.
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He is like second only to the king and that's barely. And we're gonna see even in our texts, he's increasing in power daily.
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It's just like he's growing and growing in power. And so he had this other edict passed that now is allowing freedom of assembly to the
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Jews, which they didn't have in general in Persia. So they now are free to gather together and they're also free to equip themselves with arms.
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So two things that we take for granted here in America, that's something that was granted to the Jews in the text is gonna have a significant outcome on the 13th day of the 12th month.
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I'm gonna let you know that those are two things that would be helpful if you were trying to defend your people. The ability to gather together in a large crowd, would that help?
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Yeah, I think so. And then how about the ability to arm yourself? Okay, those two
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I think kind of tie together in the sense of actually helping out the situation. And so they are officially granted permission in essence by the edict of Mordecai to formally defend themselves, to basically form a militia, if you will.
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I have to be careful using the word militia from a pulpit in Michigan, right? But a couple of you got that.
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And now that day has arrived when we get to our text. So that day, the 13th day of the 12th month, it is the day that every
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Jew in Persia has dreaded. Of course, it's been softened a little bit, but it is a day that's been marked for about 12 months from the time that Haman put the signet ring to paper and made it a law.
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It's been about 11 months that they have known that this day out in the future is our day of annihilation.
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How many of you would be maybe a little nervous approaching that day if you were a Jew? Just a little bit like, I don't know how this is gonna go down.
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Maybe even if you're not a Jew, you're still a little bit nervous about that day going down, right? I mean, Persia is gonna be an upheaval. It's almost gonna be like civil war type conditions in their nation, in their empire for a while here.
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And the Jews are, that day is approaching rapidly for them. But we're gonna see in the text, this is going to be a day of reversals.
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The enemies of the Jews are hoping for their obliteration on that day, but the things are gonna be turned on their head.
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And those who hope to destroy the Jews are themselves going to be the ones who are destroyed. And according to verse two, the
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Jews gathered to defend themselves and nobody could stand against them because the fear of them had fallen on all of the peoples.
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We saw at the end of our text last week that some were even beginning to call themselves Jews from the average
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Persian was wanting to become a Jew because of the power and the clout and the amazing things that God had done there in Persia.
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They were literally people flocking to the synagogues to figure out how they could become Jews. And so things have radically turned for them.
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Now it's obvious from what comes next that some will indeed attack them.
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Okay, so don't think that this is just a blanket popularity and everybody loves them and nothing bad is gonna happen. There is not the wholesale, but on the flip side of that, there's not the wholesale adoption of slaughter to the
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Jews that Haman anticipated when he wrote the edict, right? So it's not gonna be just everybody rising up against them, but there are some who still will.
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Not only is there little community support for the enemies of the Jews, however, but even look at the text, even the officials, the satraps, the governors, and the royal agents, think when you see royal agents, the guards, helped the
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Jews. Does anybody think that's just amazing? Like, is that just wild and crazy?
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If you've been here from the beginning, some of you have been part of this study from Esther from the very beginning when we first started, and some of you obviously have studied the text or have read it before, so you've been at least familiar with it.
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So think for a moment how far we've come in this text. The Jews were ready to be extinguished.
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They were ready to be snuffed out. Their doom was sure. Everything seemed hopeless for them, right?
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It was like there was an edict of genocide against them. I'm getting some blank stares. You guys are getting that, right?
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It seemed hopeless, and now we find ourselves in the text that literally the government of Persia is supporting the
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Jews. Is that like a radical turn of events? Is that not one of the most surprising statements in the entire book?
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Like, the government, the guards, the officials, the government leaders, the people who are heads of provinces are saying, how can we help these
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Jews to survive? That's a huge turn, and you may find yourself in what seems to be a hopeless situation right now.
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I know some of you feel very hopeless as you walk through these doors, and as you walk out, I hope that it's a little bit different for you, but when you walked in these doors, it was just like, these circumstances and the situations that I, but you don't understand what is going against me right now, right?
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You could say, Don, but you don't really know, and I know some of your situations, and I know some of you feel hopeless right now, but I wanna emphasize that nothing is beyond the scope of God.
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Nothing is outside of the bounds of His power and His authority and His ability to transform lives and to change your circumstances, or even better yet, to change you in the midst of your circumstances.
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How many of you know that not every time that we cry out to God is the solution to remove our problems, but often in my life,
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I found it's not a removal of the problems that I need most, but it's being shored up and strengthened to grow and not waste those difficult times in my life.
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How many of you know you can waste difficulty in trial by moaning and just groaning and complaining and all of that kind of stuff, or you can actually grow and flourish in hard times because of the grace of God in your lives.
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So I'm not offering like a patent solution to your problems here, but a change in your heart, and yes, sometimes
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God does reach in and transform and change our circumstances, and that's just awesome, and we ought to be careful to make sure that we give
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God the glory when that transformation happens, right? You've been through some dark times and had God work mightily on your behalf?
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Oh, on our face before God in gratitude and thankfulness to Him, recognizing and telling others about it in a sense of saying, glory to God, you're never gonna believe what
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He did in my life. He delivered me from this or this or this. Nothing is beyond the scope of God.
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Those who once were opposed to the Jews are raised up to be a source of help for them.
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When God is at work, you may find help from the most unlikely sources in your lives as well. But here, verse four tells us that Mordecai continued to grow in power.
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The people were fearful of him because he's been raised up to prime minister, right? They had seen him weeping and wailing outside of the gates of the city of Susa, where he had dressed himself in sackcloth and put ashes all over his head and his face in deep mourning, showing what was going on inside of his heart when he'd heard the word that the
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Jews were to be annihilated. So they had seen this and he's been transferred from that place to standing at the right hand of the king in royal robes with a crown on his head.
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They're afraid of him because they're like, someone is on his side. Like, you know what I'm saying? It's like some power is behind this guy.
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They might not necessarily know God, but they know something is radically going on.
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And so he is growing in power. And we already saw he was given royal robes, implying a royal standing.
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He started out at the beginning of our text, a very powerful individual. He had the signet ring, the basic signature of the king on his finger, and he was able to stamp and imprint law for all of Persia.
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Is that pretty powerful? At this time, this is the most powerful, well, it depends on exactly when in history you date this, but basically we're going back and forth between Greece and Persia over which is the most powerful nation in the world.
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But there are two superpowers, Greece and Persia. You're talking about one of the most powerful nations in the world, and he has the ability to just sign things into law there at his whim.
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Very powerful. And yet it says in the text, he's continuing to grow in power. Pretty significant statement for our friend
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Mordecai. And now we get down to it in verse five, the Jews. It says, struck their enemies with the sword.
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The phrase, they did as they pleased. How many of you think that that's a little bit awkward? Like they just did whatever they pleased to their enemies?
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It doesn't sound like maybe they tortured them or they did some, that's not what that phrase is there for. It's actually saying they were unhindered by any governmental authorities.
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They were able to just get done what they were setting out to do, which was ultimately their defense, which could be a little bit confusing, but we'll get there here in a second about was this defense or not.
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But just in the capital city alone, we see the number, they defeated 500 men and even the 10 sons of Haman were killed, which means that they stood against them as well.
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We see the 10 sons of Haman who are listed by name in verses seven through nine. I encourage you just to kind of go through and try to pronounce those yourself.
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If anybody wants to correct my pronunciation, have at it. I went into the study wondering though, if this was merely self -defense.
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Like what we've read so far up till this point in the text, does it sound like self -defense? It kind of doesn't.
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It kind of doesn't up to this point, okay? And so I actually tried to enter this study really trying to figure it out and trying to really get down to the bottom of it.
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Was it that they were going out to seek to kill their enemies? How many of you are like, that can get dicey. Like, I think they looked at me bad the other day in the marketplace.
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I think they're my enemy. Do you know what I'm saying? I mean, how many of you know that like calling somebody your enemy could just be a preference issue?
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They might not really be your enemy, but. So I think that it does matter whether this was self -defense or not, but I think we're gonna see that pretty clearly.
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Early on in the chapter, it's unclear, but things come to clarity in verse 16. So I wanna read, just bounce your eyes down to verse 16 for a second here.
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It's gonna be talking, there's two movements here. There's the focus in on what happened in Susa, and then we broaden out to what happened throughout the entire empire of Persia.
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And it says this in verse 16. Now the rest of the Jews who were in the king's provinces after we talked about Susa, they were in the rest of the king's provinces also gathered to defend their lives and got relief from their enemies and killed 75 ,000 of those who hated them, but they laid no hands on the plunder.
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Do you hear that in there? What did they gather together to do? To defend their lives.
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Okay, that's what's going on here. This is a defensive action. This is not them going door to door and rooting people out.
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As a matter of fact, I think a more accurate view of this is actual military action.
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Okay, this is not like the Jews or the Persians either way, just going door to door and trying to slaughter their neighbors.
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This is actual confrontation, clash in the city of Susa. And there's military lines drawn up and there's a battle that actually goes on here.
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And that's some of the terminology in Hebrew leads to that. The names of the sons of Haman serve very little to us in modern times other than to stretch our pronunciation and things like that.
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But one of the things that I think that they exist there, so you've got three verses basically taken up with this and it's kind of like, okay, that's a lot of text and a lot of writing and a lot of ink for those ancient people.
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So it mattered to them obviously to name them out. But I think in reality, they exist there as an echo for us of the reality of judgment.
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And I've talked about that a little bit throughout this book. They are ultimately a sign of judgment for aligning themselves against God.
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It's interesting to note that the names of the sons of Haman are easily identified by historical linguists.
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And yes, there are historical linguists who study ancient dead languages that aren't spoken by anybody.
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I know, right? But they actually can identify that these are genuine
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Persian names just by the way that they sound and the word usage and things like that. And they've actually found some of these names in scrolls and documents and engravings and things like that.
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But even more interesting is that they reflect a very narrow range of dates. So that, and the only reason
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I'm even gonna get into this is because of how reliable is this? Like have you ever, I mean, do you ever question that?
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Like, I mean, I think that you should, you should have at some point in your life. I mean, if you're gonna depend your life on this, you ought to know it and study it and know for yourself.
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But how reliable is it? Well, you can actually go to the reign of King Xerxes and some of these, the
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Persian words, the Persian names of these guys, when they were brought over to Hebrew for a short period of time, they used an
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AI in their name. So if you look at verse nine, do you see the AIs in these names? Eresai, Eredai, Vysatha.
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Just about 20 years after the reign of Xerxes under Artaxerxes, who followed him, all of those became
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Es in the Hebrew script. So whenever you saw an AI in Persian, they would translate it with an
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E in Hebrew. Are you getting what I'm saying? So we can actually date this to the reign of King Xerxes in historical documentation.
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It's just that clear. So I don't know if that does anything for you. It actually was pretty cool to me, but you guys are just kind of like going, okay, that was enough.
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I'll just move on. Some people really get geeked out on this stuff.
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I don't know who would, but at the end of verse 10 is really the first three mentions that the
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Jews did not take plunder. There are many potential reasons why the Jews would not take plunder, but it's obvious that the author wanted us to think about it, wanted to make it clear to us that they did not take plunder.
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I mean, you know that if you repeat something, like if you get a letter from your wife or you get a letter from your husband and it says the same thing in three different places in the letter, like should you pay a little bit of attention to that?
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Okay, right? I'm telling you, you should. Okay, so you should. And that's what's going on here.
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So it's obvious that to the author, it's intentional and there's a purpose, but the problem is we don't really know why.
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So the author doesn't come right out and say why they didn't take plunder. So there's a lot of potential reasons why the Jews would not take it.
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Why wouldn't they take the stuff from their enemies, which I want to point out, the edict gave them permission to.
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The actual Persian official law said they can slaughter their enemies, those who attack them, they can defend themselves, and then they can in turn take their stuff, right?
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It said that in law, so they are free to. But I think the reason that seems most consistent with the history of the
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Jews and with the context, there's a couple of different reasons, I'll say, but the one that I think is most central is it dates back to an interaction between Abraham, the father of the
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Jewish people, and the king of Sodom, and they had gone to battle together in Genesis 14, and the king of Sodom offered to give plunder to Abraham, but he declined in essence saying,
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I don't want anybody to say I have been made wealthy because of a gift from the king of Sodom.
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I don't want to point to somebody else and say I'm wealthy because of them. I want God to get the honor.
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I want God to be glorified. And so that was a part of the Jewish history that I think comes to bear here.
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The Jews in Susa do not want people to think that this attack was primarily about financial gain, and I think also there's a little bit of the fact that they do not want their success to be credited to plunder, and also
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I think that they know that taking plunder is going to make them a stench to their society and their community.
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They're gonna make more enemies by doing this. I'm gonna know that if they take, if somebody attacks them and they kill them and then they take their plunder, now their sons become their enemies because guess what, you just stole somebody's inheritance.
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So now you've created a whole ball of wax of basically an enemy machine, if you will, and so I think that there's some wisdom in that too.
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Obviously there's some speculation in what I'm saying, but they do not take plunder, and that's clear and important to the author who mentions it again, like I said, three times in the text, but I think the main point that you can take from that is that they did not slaughter for financial gain.
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They were not trying to get ahead. Verse 11 through 14 are a break from the action.
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The first day is over, and we found that they killed 500 in the city of Susa, and so now we basically get a report to the king of what happened on that first day.
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How many of you know that he probably had a little bit of interest in what had gone on in his kingdom that day? How many had been slaughtered?
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How many had been killed? I mean, like I said, it's basically civil war that's going on in his nation, and he shows that he's impressed with the power of the
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Jews. He basically says, wow, if they did this well in Susa, killing 500, I can only imagine what they did in the rest of my kingdom.
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Like, I mean, do you see any humor in that? Like, just kind of like the king saying, wow, you guys did a great job. You killed 500 of my subjects.
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I wonder what you did in the rest of the kingdom. But the king, he's losing people.
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He's losing servants. He's losing revenue, okay, on this day, and yet he still offers to help
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Queen Esther at the end of verse 12. He still says, is there anything more I can do for you? He's still with her, and she takes him up on the offer, showing that he was genuinely offering, and she asked for two things in verse 13, two things.
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Let the Jews get what they want, and let the Jews gather again tomorrow to defend themselves. I just, again, this is a historical event, real people, real lives.
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I can't help but think that Esther had some kind of understanding or some kind of knowledge that there were still enemies ready to kill
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Jews on the streets, that this wasn't over yet in Susa. And so she's got some kind of insider information that says we need another day for this.
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This needs to go down again. And not only that, but king, could you please give a massive deterrent to those who would attack us tomorrow by hanging the 10 sons of Haman?
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Gruesome. We talked about this just a little bit. There's no gallows involved in this. This is a spike, okay?
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And display these guys as a deterrent, show what happens to those who oppose the
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Jews, and make this clear. So the king issued the decree, one more day for the
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Jews to defend themselves in Susa, and the 10 sons of Haman were actually put on display.
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Yuck. And on the next day, the Jews killed 300 men in Susa.
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But all throughout the rest of the empire, now we get the report, the Jews celebrated on the 14th day of Adar.
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They didn't get the extra day. And this is gonna come to play at the end of the book, or I mean at the end of the chapter. But they celebrated on the 14th.
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They didn't get the second day of attacking. And throughout the entire empire, the Jews killed 75 ,000 of their enemies.
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Is that a good number? Is that a lot, you think? Kind of hard to put that number in perspective.
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The entire population of Persia during this era is estimated to be about 50 million people. So there's about 50 million in the entire area of Persia, which stretched all the way from India down into Ethiopia, into Africa.
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And for every 10 ,000 people, there were 15 killed in Persia. So it's a small percentage, but still a lot of funerals, right?
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A lot of death. And the author spends the last three verses explaining the practice of Purim or Purim.
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Different people pronounce it in different ways. I've heard Jews say Purim or Purim. But on two different days, it's celebrated, and it's rooted in historical events.
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And that's what the author wants to clarify for us. Why two different days in history was it celebrated?
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So the city of Susa celebrated the victory on the 15th of Adar, because they had had an extra day of defending themselves.
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And the people out in the countryside of Persia celebrated on the 14th of Adar, because they had only had the one day.
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And it's obvious to us that the author lives far enough away from the events that he needs some explanation, right?
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But he lives close enough to the events that he's still in Persia and is still talking to them when the celebration was divided.
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Does that make sense? So we, again, can kind of date when this was written fairly close to the events that are going on.
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So God gives the victory to the Jews, but it's less glorious and pretty than we might have assumed.
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There's carnage in the streets of Persia. 75 ,000 are dead. All people who align themselves against God's people, they align themselves against God's purposes, and they align themselves against God's promise.
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And they are ultimately physically judged for that. I mentioned before in this series that judgment is real and physical death exists in an ultimate sense because of sin.
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It's the result of sin that crept into history through Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden, and it's something that is reality.
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And when we go to funerals, when we see death, when we think about that, I think we've become kind of immune to it in one sense, that we watch it in our movies all the time.
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We watch it in TV all the time, and it's something that we can become quite callous to. But it is to be a constant reminder of fallenness and brokenness.
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It is to be a constant reminder to us. When you go around thinking about death all day,
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I mean, I'm not gonna encourage you to do that, but what I am saying is that it is a reality of life, isn't it?
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100 % chance, okay? I can forecast that for all of us. 100 % chance that we are going to die.
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That's going to happen to us. And so ultimately, we need to allow that to have a weight on us that doesn't crush us.
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We talked about joy and rejoicing, didn't we, last week? And so it's not a crushing weight, but it's a real looking at life and saying, what is it that matters most?
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And also remembering that we're broken people, that we are broken and that this is not the end.
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This is not the sum total of what is here. And death should remind us that there's more than just this life.
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We live in a messed up world where sin is a real force that exists out in our culture, right?
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Is there sin in our culture? Would you agree with that? Out there, out there, there's sin. There's sin in our leaders.
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There's sin in our politics. But there's sin in us, right? It's not all, it'd be nice if it was all just out there, but it's in here.
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And it's kind of rolled up and mixed in with our lives, isn't it? I mean, if we're honest with ourselves, is there a little bit of a mess inside here?
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I mean, you guys are nodding because it's me, right? But how about, I mean, think about yourselves too on that one.
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He's like, amen. We live in a messed up world where sin is real.
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And that we deserve to come under the wrath of a just and holy
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God is sensible. It's reasonable.
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Have you thought about that? It just makes sense that we would be judged.
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Just like one who has grievously broken the laws of the United States deserves to come before a judge for justice, right?
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That's us. And by nature, the role of a judge is to be ready to dole out discipline and punishment in a just and fair way, but in an authoritative way.
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True justice has a role in deterring us, right? It's supposed to anyways.
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But I look at the deliverance of the Jews in the text and it's tainted by the blood of their enemies. Think about the celebrations that are gonna happen and we'll talk about those next week.
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But how can the Jews legitimately celebrate the victory without somehow delighting in the defeat of their enemies?
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A little bit messed up there? That's the way that the fall works. That's the way that sin works, is that every celebration is tainted with a little bit of something wrong, right?
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Boy, this is encouraging. But at that point, because it is somewhat discouraging, it's important for me to point out that the point of victory and defeat is where the cross makes sense.
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That is the place where the cross comes to give hope. Because in reality, all of us deserve defeat.
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We deserve to be numbered among the 75 ,000 who were slain as enemies of God, right? I mean, if we're honest with ourselves, we deserve that.
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But at the cross, Jesus provided a way for us to be justified before the holy, righteous, just judge over all,
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God Almighty. His sacrifice was gruesome. It was bloody, it was shameful, it was graphic.
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So much that many would desire to turn their face away from it. And yet that cross is the place where justice and mercy meet.
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It is the place where the punishment I deserved was served by the Son of God and taken on His shoulders.
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My sin on Him, His righteousness credited to me. And there at the cross, all holy war from the old covenant falls away so that there is now no revenge for those who belong to Christ.
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He fought the final holy war on the cross, literally loving His enemies by giving up His life in what appeared to be defeat, and then rising three days later victorious over sin and death.
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He defeated our enemies at the cross. So God's answer to His enemies now is not physical war against them.
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And I wanna point this out. This next paragraph in my notes is borderline political.
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I just am trying my best to be careful here, but I think it is important for me to say because of the way that Americans think, no military force is
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God's chosen war machine on this planet. It's important for us to understand that.
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Does He care? Is He involved in what's going on around the world today? Absolutely.
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Is it biblically acceptable that the U .S. takes part in military action? Yes. Even Paul says in Romans 13 that the government does not bear the sword for nothing.
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There's a purpose for which the government has military power. There's a reason for that.
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But hopefully you can understand the difference between a holy God -sanctioned war where we claim that God is on our side and how that is different than the wide variety of appropriate reasons for a government to be provoked into military action.
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And at this point, by the way, I send my message out to a half a dozen people every week and then I get some feedback and stuff and I wanna know how it hits people before I just get up and say it.
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And somebody wrote back to me this week and was like, you gotta tease that out a little bit. And the more that I've thought about,
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I'm not going to for you because that just gets so political. For me to get into my theory of just war, for me to explain to you just war theory and how
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I feel about that and to get into quotes from C .S. Lewis and everything, I don't even know that when we get into things like why a government should go to war, we have gotten away from this a little bit, right?
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At that point, I'm gonna have to turn someplace else because I'd encourage you, jump in here and find the verses about the
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United States military action in Afghanistan. You're gonna find it? When is it appropriate for us and when is it not?
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You're not gonna find it here. Are you gonna find principles and some structure to place your understanding of that on?
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But how many of you know, I mean, we've got different opinions right here, don't we? About whether or not we should be at war, whether or not we should be here, whether or not we should go in there, what should we do, what should the role of the
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United States be globally? That's not what I'm here to do. I'm here to talk about the text and try to draw that out and come to a place of understanding of this because this is what's gonna change us.
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Are you getting what I'm saying? I'm open, I'm open to you guys. If somebody wants to talk with me about it later, wants to know my opinions or my thoughts about just war theory or anything like that, love to talk with you when
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I'm not standing here. Okay, are you getting it? But when I'm standing here, I'm not gonna tell you, thus saith the
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Lord on these things. That's just not, that's not wise for me. I hope you guys are understanding of that, that that's not where I'm gonna go.
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But yet, okay, so where does war theory touch our lives? Like, how does that impact you on your daily?
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Have you had a conversation at your workplace about it? Maybe, maybe not, I don't know. It's not necessarily a huge impact on our daily lives.
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I know that some people talk about it and you probably had some conversations here or there. But really, let's bring it down to where we live.
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Let's talk about it on a personal level for a minute. The Apostle Paul says the following to believers in Romans 12, 19 through 21, which by the way is just several verses removed from where he talks about respecting government and that the government doesn't bear the sword for nothing.
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In that context, he's talked to individuals first. Okay, he's talked to us as believers first in Romans 12, 19 through 21.
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And he says, beloved, that's us, beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God for it is written, vengeance is mine, saith the
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Americans. No, vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the
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Lord. I have a hard time with that. Because like, when do you not, isn't there some room for a little bit of vengeance?
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Just a smidge, like, I mean, but they said this to me or they did this to me or, wait a minute. Leave it to the wrath of God for it is written, vengeance is mine,
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I will repay, says the Lord. And then going on, quoting, to the contrary, if your enemy is hungry, feed him.
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Paul, you've lost your mind. If he's thirsty, give him something to drink.
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For by so doing, you will heap burning coals on his head. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.
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Anybody have a hard time taking that on? A little bit? I'm gonna tell you what,
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I mean, some of you have just all kinds of scenarios running around in your mind. Somebody breaks into my house and threatens my wife and kids.
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I'll tell you what, it's not gonna go well, okay? Right? And you're just kind of looking at this going,
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I don't really know how to deal with this text. And I'm gonna be honest, I struggle with it. I wrestle with this. I want to be transparent with you and say,
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I don't have all the answers. I don't know all the ins and outs. And you kind of look at the Old Testament and you go, there was one slaughter of like whole nations and Amalekites and people like that.
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And then we come into the new covenant and we get this. But I want to say this, this is what I can say that I've wrestled with and I feel completely confident in saying this.
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We are not free to keep vendettas. We are not free to go vigilante. We are not allowed to take revenge as the people of God.
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And why? I believe it's a couple of different reasons. First, the Lord is the rightful judge, not you and I.
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He is the one who will rightly judge. We actually are pretty poor at judging. Have we got a couple massive, big name cases wrong in our judicial system?
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Maybe? Maybe a couple? And a lot of smaller ones too? Yeah, we make poor judges.
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But the second thing is we have been forgiven such a huge weight of sin at the cross, each one of us.
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Because we deserve punishment but have been granted freedom. Because we were eternally condemned and have now been granted eternal life, we should practice forgiveness and grace as often as possible in our personal lives.
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Practice grace and forgiveness towards others as often as we can. This text in the book of Esther highlights the messiness of real life in this fallen world.
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The Jews defend themselves and were delivered through the slaughter of their enemies. The remedy is gruesome, but God is working through the mess to accomplish his promise to his people that he would one day send one from among their lineage who would save us from this mess,
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Jesus Christ. And he did so at the cross. And so we come to communion this week, celebrating, rejoicing, and yet equally somberly and solemnly considering the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.
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Communion is meant to be a mix of emotions. It's meant to be confusing whether you're supposed to be joyful or serious.
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Are you getting what I'm saying by that? Because how many of you know, we have been delivered. We have been set free from the bondage of sin and death.
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Glory to God. But at the same time, what pictures do we have to reflect on in our mind?
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The bloody and bruised and abused son of God, the one who came down from glory and deserved to be an ultimate, lifted high and honored, and he's taken it for us.
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It's meant to be a little bit hard for us to get our minds around. So when you hold the juice in your hand and when you hold the cracker in your hand, there should be a level of conflicting emotions within you.
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There should be some level of weight, but glory.
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Do you get it? It's an amazing thing. So if you're here and you've acknowledged
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Jesus Christ as your king and you've asked him to save you, then I encourage you to take the juice and the cracker and pause this morning and consider the immense price he paid for us that we might be forgiven.
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But if you're here and you haven't taken that step, really two things that need to be true of your life.
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You have said, Jesus, you are king. Obviously, there's all kinds of things that come into that, but primarily,
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Jesus, I believe you are king. You have to believe it existed. You know, some other things that are in there, but I believe you're king and then ask him to save you.
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That's what it means to be a follower of Jesus Christ. He will come in and he will transform and he will clean house. It's not come and give all these things over to him and stop sinning and stop doing this and stop doing this and stop doing this and then he'll like you.
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That's a false gospel. That is not true. Satan came up with that one. It is come as you are, acknowledge me as king and ask me to save you.
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And that's it. And then the transformation begins from that change inside that you find that your delight and your love and your joy changes.
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And if you're there today and you're kind of like, I've never experienced that. I've never had that internal transformation.
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Please come and see me. Come and see Kyle at the end of the service. Anybody from the band would love to talk with you if you're intimidated to talk to a pastor.
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But please, today could be the day for a transformation and a change for you.
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Let's pray. Father, I stand in awe just as I've had an opportunity to prepare this week of contemplating and considering just these two dimensions of redemption that both there's this gruesome side that demonstrates the reality of sin, the pain, the hurt and the suffering that our
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Savior went through for us. But then the glory of the result of that, that we are brought into a right relationship.
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We are restored and being restored and granted eternal life and granted forgiveness and a promise of life on the new earth with you forever and ever and with those who are your people.
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Father, I pray as we come to communion that we would be able to genuinely reflect and remember the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.
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That you'd remove distractions from us. And Father, if there's anybody here today who has not acknowledged
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Jesus Christ as King and asked him to save them based on the cross,
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Father, that you would work in their hearts. Draw them to yourself,
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Father. A work that only your spirit can do. I praise you for salvation in your