What We Can Learn From Esther

I spent sometime listening to one of my favorite individuals who has a teaching ministry. He is a professor at the Reformed Theological Seminary in Oviedo, Florida.
His name is Dr. Steve Brown. I have mentioned Steve before in an article.
I don't necessarily agree with everything Steve has to say, but I don't know of anyone that I do. I do as always take the good, and throw away the bad. Whenever we speak, God reveals truths and then there is often our own opinions, subjective views and more involved. It is by listening we can build upon a foundation of truths and formulate what God has in store for us to learn, and by sincere study of scripture, so that we might know his will and to gain the mind of Christ, so that we may be transformed in our thinking from the ways of this world.

Steve tells a story that I have to share about the days Clinton was caught having illicit sex with his intern Monica Lewinsky. There was a mother sitting near by and a Rabbi when the Rabbi overheard the mother say, "What do I tell my children, how do I tell them what "The President has done"? The rabbi sitting nearby speaks up and says to her, tell them about the men of the Bible - David, Abraham, Jacob, Jeremiah, Hosea and others.

Steve thought at that moment about Peter the hypocrite in the New Testament as well and of course himself.

Esther is a book of lessons for us about evil. We can learn from it, now that the Gospel story has been told in the New Testament.
What is the lesson here for Christians?
The first lesson is that one has to know what evil is before they can ever recognize good.
We as believers often forget from whence we have fallen. Where we are in the secret places that only the Father knows about, our past, present or future.

Where evil lies at our doorstep, and we must not forget when we come together to fellowship, the reason that the pagans aren't standing beside us, in our presence isn't we are good, but that He is good. Thus we as believers know evil, because we first saw it in ourselves and then we saw what we deserved and found Him who didn't deserve what we did, who paid the price we could not pay. No, we stand in fellowship as a believer only when we have first seen our own reflection in the mirror of evil and then partaken of the Grace of God.

The religious are never saved, until they have kissed the demons of their own evil will they ever come to recognize the need for a Saviour. We can't get better, for there is no good in us in the first place. Only the resurrected life of Jesus Christ transforms us as He lives His life out through us. Christ in you, is the hope of glory.

The book of Esther offers us important lessons that we must know about evil.

First, we are not former beggars, but present beggars that have been given bread.

If we look into evil in the book of Esther we see that often the most evil people are God's own people. This story as well doesn't ring well with the religious for it is full of evil by God's own people and by the enemy of God's own people.

Remember the prostitute who had sinned much was forgiven much in the New Testament.

The religious do not see their own failure but think because of their works righteousness they are good. They look down on those who have had the joy of finding a Saviour, knowing their own demons and how much they needed deliverance and found it. They love much because of it. Those with little love for others and only themselves must first kiss the demon of their own lives before they too will realize the Grace of God.

Let's look at some key things in Esther.
We have a young lady who is Jewish one of God's chosen people, whose cousin, Mordecai decides to take her in as his one of his family to raise her because of parental absence. She is described as absolutely beautiful.
She is taken before the king because of her beauty and her being a virgin, so that the King can choose his new harem and one to become Queen in replacing his Ex.

The King is doing this because he is irate with his wife for acting like a Gloria Steinhem. She over ruled his authority when he asked her to basically to come over to his party that he was holding for himself and some good old buddies. He wanted to show off her beauty. Who knows to what extent in that day and age.
She refused to go and do as he asked, she had her own thing going. She was having her own little party with the girls. She was an "independent woman".
The king was so upset about her actions and afraid that other women would follow, he made it an edict that "the man should be master of his home". This edict was passed to all the men of his kingdom.
Reaction, not response.
Men! Can you remember a time when we have we been guilty of that before?
We have to set down the rules to the wife or else, we often feel. So, we go on our high horse that "we're the boss!" "Do what I say or I will replace you"
Does that sound familiar in America?

Anyway, the King in his vengeance toward his wife sets out to have all the beautiful virgin women in his kingdom brought to him to be part of his harem and to come before him.
Esther is brought in, made a part of his Harem of Virgins, but she does more than that she seduces the king greater than all the others in his harem to become more than just a harem girl. She makes it to the top (she is the successful kind of girl who knows how to get to the top) and she becomes the Queen. She gains his favor over all the rest.
She never tells the King until the end of the story that she is one of God's people- the Jews, and keeps it hidden until the perfect timing of God.

Sensuality and lack of testimony are two sins we can point out right away when we want to sit in the chair of judgement of others sins.

We soon find a close partner or advisor of the King, Haman who is not Jewish, who wants to kill off all the Jews, especially Mordecai, who would not pay him the respect he felt he deserved and desired. Mordecai just wouldnt bow down in his presence.
Evil again comes in to play it's part to this story.
Haman plans and he convinces the King to send out a decree against all the Jews for purpose of their death and destruction. He makes the old, their a threat to your rule argument, they aren't like us, they believe differently, talk differently and at differently. We can't have that.
Mordecai goes into mourning and makes a big noise about it while covered in sack cloth and ashes. The Jewish people follow suit.
Esther ask why? She gets her servant to get the answer from her people, then proceeds to plan how she might get before the King a hearing when not invited to save her people and Mordecai, which was a very serious thing to do to go before the king uninvited with an issue, and if the king didn't hold out his scepter to you the law was death. It would be like jumping over the fence at the Whitehouse and running across the Whitehouse lawn just to go tell the President something. You are going to die, I guarantee before you reached the doorstep you would catch a bullet in the back.
Only because of her beauty does she earn the Kings favor in the situation and he extends his scepter to her, whereby she proceeds to ask the King if he and her and Haman will attend a party she is going to give in honor of Haman. They come, then she plans a second party like the first where the Kings agrees he will attend along with Haman and just her again, because she so pleased the King at this first one.

Haman is jubilant over his special relationship with the two. On his leaving he runs across Mordecai again and it inflames him with more anger, then he goes home on a bragging binge about you guessed it, himself.
Anger comes easy while intoxicated and bragging does to. I never met a drunk that didn't think they were six foot tall and bullet proof.
I too in my day of drinking the cup while it was red, would feel the same way.

Anyway, Haman's family tells him to build a gallows in the morning and have Mordecai hung on it, then go to the party. So he built the special hanging place for Mordecai that day.
That evening King Xerses (Ahasuerus) is trying to go to sleep so he ask for a boring book basically to have read to him until he would fall asleep, he hears "the chronicles", which aren't the biblical book we are familiar with, but his own kingdoms records and he reads the story about Mordecai, saving his life at a point in time from a plot by two of his doormen to kill him. So the king asks, was this man ever honored for being the hero he was in saving his life? The answer of course was, "No"!
So on the next morning Haman goes to see the king, he goes there with the intent purpose of asking for permission to hang Mordecai. Haman, the one that has plotted against God's people and desires nothing more than like Hitler tried, to wipe out the entire race of Jews (God's only chosen under the Old Covenant), because of his hatred of Mordecai who doesn't give him the honor he wants from all men walks in and he is asked a question by the King.
"What is to be done for the man whom the king desires to honor?
Haman thinking egotistically as usual, thinks the King is talking about him, and goes on to name all kinds of things that would enrich "him" personally that the king should do. At the last moment, he finds out all the robes and finest horses he suggested be given to such a man- thinking he is the man, aren't at all to go to him, but to Mordecai. He is left mourning and covering his head.

The second party starts that day that Esther had planned and Haman comes over to drink some wine with Esther and the King. Esther reveals to the king that she is Jewish and that someone has planned to kill her and her people the Jews. She then reveals it is Haman. Not only does this get the Kings anger going being more than a little intoxicated, but he walks out into the garden only to find on his return, Haman has fallen across the couch onto Esther's lap to beg for mercy, and the King believes he is assaulting her, so he calls for Haman's death immediately.
Haman ends up dying on the very gallows that he had built at his home for Mordecai and the other Jews. The rest of the story is on how the king removes any threat for the Jewish people and how he honors Esther, her uncle Mordecai and the Jews.

I have told you bits and pieces because my motivation is to get you to read your Bible, and to read this book, it is a wonderful story if you don't read it through religious eyes.
Read it in light of the New Covenant of God's grace and election of all that believe that are now His chosen people. For there is neither Jew nor Greek, bondsman or freeman nor male nor female, for we are all one in Christ.

I would like you to read it so that you might see 3 key points made here about evil.

I want you to read it to understand who we are in Christ, who we were before we came to know him, and the extent of tribulation we will face as believers from evil, and the outcome of the battle we find ourselves in.

Haman's persistence to destroy all the Jews is because Mordecai won't honor him.
So, lesson one- We learn of the persistent and horrible nature of evil. Esther 3:6
When you go back you find Haman is a direct descent from the Agatite, who had been historically "bad to the bone". They were persistent in evil.

Evil is always persistent and horrible. It is especially for God's people, because if we won't honor the evil found in this world, we will find ourselves pursued by the enemy. He cares way too much for himself to not have you enrolled in his little wicked army. So thus, through much tribulation we enter the Kingdom of God.

Lesson Two - evil has always been directed at God's people.

It is persistent to steal, kill and destroy His people.

The very last lesson to know is that persistent protection is always there from God our Father, in His timing and in His way.

Look at Esther 4:14 and 10:3.

The Father in the worst of our circumstances already has a plan with a good outcome.

Jesus came to us individually in the worst of who we are and what we have done. Then the Father doesn't quit at that, he persist in making all things for those that love God, work to the good. Patience and knowing who we really are, evil people who deserve nothing but destruction like the rest of mankind, and knowing salvation doesn't come from us but from God our Father through Jesus Christ. He is our deliverer.
Evil will not quit in this world until Jesus returns, evil will not quit persisting after us, it will not be appeased until it can conquer our spirits and raise the flesh to it's self centered position one again.
Evil is often found with God's people, but he restores us as He did any of these that we read of in the Old Testament or the New.
It will always persist after those that are His, which "we are now His chosen", "His royal priesthood".
The facts are that the enemy Satan, and the world and the flesh they combined have it out for you, if you are a Christian.
The facts are that in this day and age, as Corrie ten Boom said, "persecution of Christians is greater today than even we can find described in the book of Revelations." She knew this, she had traveled and seen the persecution of our brothers and sisters in nations like China, Saudi Arabia and more. She too had known persecution in her life time as a Jew under Hitler and then as a Christian.

The final most important fact to know is to recall that the battle has already been won by our Lord and Savour Jesus Christ and the final facts of the wars' outcome are known.

Let us look at Colossians 2:9-15 and Revelations 20:10

Present Truth
... for in him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily, and in him ye are made full, who is the head of all principality and power:
in whom ye were also circumcised with a circumcision not made with hands, in the putting off of the body of the flesh, in the circumcision of Christ; having been buried with him in baptism, wherein ye were also raised with him through faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead. And you, being dead through your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, you, I say, did he make alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses; having blotted out the bond written in ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us:and he hath taken it out that way, nailing it to the cross; having despoiled the principalities and the powers, he made a show of them openly, triumphing over them in it.

Future Truth

.. And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where are also the beast and the false prophet; and they shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever.

Now my hope is that you have kissed your own demons and recognize that they for you as a believer hold no power over your life, for your life is now hidden in Christ Jesus with God the Father. Covered by His blood, set free by his death and most importantly His resurrected life within us, we are more than conquerors in Christ Jesus who gave his life for you and me.
A life to the grave and a life to resurrection.
Evil awaits every corner, no one is safe from it on their own. Our only victory lies in the hope within us, Christ who comes to live in us through the person of the Holy Spirit.
Don't laugh, don't judge others when you see them overtaken by evil. We love to make comments as Protestants about what is going on in the Catholic church with the priest, but don't forget we have our own, Jimmy Swaggerts and Jim Bakers and other men that have fallen prey to the lure of evil.
Kiss the demons in your own life (see yourself in a mirror), and then find deliverance from God from the evil that awaits and lurks around every corner to steal, kill and destroy, For without the Father's mercy and grace, you too will fail.
Evil is persistent, but God's deliverance and plan for us is more persistent, as the "victory has already been won".
Fall into the arms of Jesus, and know this, though we are just beggars at the table like all men, God has given us bread to eat, and wine to drink - his life for us.
Eat of Him and drink of Him who will come to sup with you, if you but just answer the door to His knocking on your heart. His promises are ours, and when we read the Old Testament in light of knowing the New Covenant of Grace, it becomes a story for us all to read and to learn from. It is a shadow and just a story until you know Christ and then there is so much gold in the simple story of a beautiful girl that we can learn from. We must remember we have to know the enemy to defeat it. Evil is our enemy, and God's holiness, His righteousness and His truth given to us freely who do not deserve it, are our only weapons against this dark world we live in.


Dr. J.