All right, please, if you will, go ahead and turn your Bibles to the Book of Esther, the Book of Esther, Chapter 3. And we are looking at verses 1 through 15 of Esther, Chapter 3, 1 through 15. In other words, the whole chapter. So make it sweet and short and sweet and easy, right? The whole chapter. Esther, Chapter 3, beginning at verse 1. Hear ye then the word. of the Lord. After these things, King Ahasuerus promoted Haman, the Agagite, the son of Hamadathah, and advanced him and set his throne above all the officials who were with him. And all the king's servants who were at the king's gate bowed down and paid homage to Haman, for the king had so commanded concerning him. But Mordecai did not bow down or pay homage. Then the king and servants who were at the king's gate said to Mordecai, why do you transgress the king's command? And when they spoke to him day after day, he would not listen to them, but told Haman in order to see whether Mordecai's words would stand for he had told them that he was a Jew. And when Haman saw that Mordecai did not bow down or pay homage to him, Haman was filled with fury. But he disdained to lay hands on Mordecai alone, so he had made known to him the people of Mordecai. Haman sought to destroy all the Jews, the people of Mordecai, throughout the whole kingdom of Ahasuerus. In the first month, which is the month of Nisan, and the 12th year of King Ahasuerus, they cast a purr, that is, they cast lots before Haman day by day, and they cast it month after month until the 12th month, which is the month of Adar. Then Haman said to King Ahasuerus, there is a certain people scattered abroad and dispersed among the peoples in all the provinces of your kingdom. Their laws are different from those of every other people and they do not keep the king's laws. So that is not the king's profit to tolerate them. For if it pleased the king, let it be decreed that they be destroyed, and I will pay 10,000 talents of silver into the hands of those who have charged the king's business, that they may put it into the king's treasuries. So the king took his signet ring from his hand and gave it to Haman the Agagite, the son of Hamadapha, the enemy of the Jews, And the king said to Haman, the money is given to you, the people also, to do with them as it seems good to you. Then the king's scribes were summoned on the 13th day of the first month, and an edict according to all that Haman commanded was written to the king's satraps and to the governors over all the provinces and to the officials of all the peoples, to every province in its own script and every people in its own language, as it was written in the name of King Ahasuerus and sealed with the king's signet ring. Letters were sent by couriers to all the king's provinces with instruction to destroy, to kill, and to annihilate all the Jews, young and old, women and children, in one day, the 13th day of the 12th month, which is the month of Adar, and to plunder their goods. A copy of the document was to be issued as a decree in every province by proclamation to all the peoples to be ready for that day. The couriers went out hurriedly by order of the king, and the decree was issued in Susa, the citadel, and the king and Haman sat down to drink. But the city of Susa was thrown into confusion. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God endures forever and ever. Thank you for thy holy word, O Lord, we pray. Open our hearts and our minds, O Lord, to receive thy word, O Lord, and we might better understand thy word and thy will. Father, we pray as we plumb the depths here in the book of Esther and we see this attempted genocide. And Father, we ask for a greater understanding in Jesus' holy name, amen. Now as a teen, now you have to remember I was converted January 23rd of 1980. As a teen, I remember some of the old James Bond, I mean the old James Bond, the ones kids probably have no clue about nowadays, but the old James Bond movies. They are not as much action back then as they are today. Everything is an action movie now. Everything is car chases for about half an hour and whatever it might be you're watching it seems like. However, they probably had better plot lines than the old ones. However, one of the original taglines, okay, was the fact that James Bond was licensed to kill. James Bond was licensed to kill, of course, by the Queen of England and the nation of England. since he was an MI6 agent of England, all right? Now, I thought that was an interesting license that he was given by the country. He was able to do this, license to kill. But I imagine other countries around them didn't really recognize his license and their nation. I'm imagining that. But he did so in his own country. Of course, James Bond is all fictional. But the idea was that as an MI6 agent, 007, right, it was legal for him to kill someone in the name of duty to protect, you know, God and country, to protect the queen or a king. But, of course, you would have agents that would use their position, they would use their power wrongfully. They would use so to do whatever they wanted to do. They were corrupt. But imagine the wickedness that could take place if a person today, whatever society that might be, if they were issued a license to kill. Imagine the horrors that would be committed by them as well. That could take place of one doing such great evil among the people. in the name of doing good. Here in our text, we have such a wicked man who is essentially given a license to kill. He is a vile man and he is a pagan full of self-pride who will eventually and essentially be given a license to kill in his attempt to eliminate Mordecai and all of his people. Basically, he's like, I'm coming after you, Mordecai, everyone you ever loved and everyone you've ever known. Gonna kill them all, right? Simply because of Haman's overwhelming, all-powerful ego. His pride was hurt. And of course we know pride goes before destruction and it will, but he is willing to slay them all if he can, gladly so, so that he would pour out vengeance upon these people because he was hurt in his pride. And Ahasuerus, of course, he's kind of a wishy-washy king and will cave in. He won't even ask what people group these are, but he will simply cave in and empower Haman to do exactly what Haman wants to do. Because he thinks he's trying to accomplish something that may be good for his kingdom. But there's far more involved than simply wicked Haman. Nevertheless, God is sovereign over all of his creation, all of mankind, all humanity, and all creatures that are here upon the earth. He has a plan and he is working his plan out in spite. of the wicked imaginations of men. So let's consider that our first heading coming from verses one through six, and to save time, I already read the entirety of the text, but I'll make reference to it as we go. Through verses one through six, we see the evil behind genocide. The evil behind genocide. For some reason, King Ahasuerus has decided to promote Haman, the Agagite, as what we often call his vizier, his second in command. He is his vizier. Haman now has a higher position than any other officer in his court. but he's under the king, right? Now, what did he do to deserve this, to have this great position? Well, we're not really told what he did, but he is underhanded and he'll do whatever it takes because of his ambition, all right? Haman does not seem to really grasp what he's going to do, but he does have a great ambition to be in power. That is his goal, to gain more power. And he is almost an absolute power when he has the king's signet ring. And we will see that he will not stoop to do any underhanded thing to gain more prestige and power. There's nothing that he won't stoop to to do, to gain what he wants to accomplish. Of course, in that day, honor was highly desired, and this man, power-hungry evil man, will do anything to have more of that before the people. And if he gets people to bow before him, they better bow. If they say they better pay homage, or one or the other, they better do so. or face Haman's wrath, essentially. So yes, of course, I said pride does go before destruction and it will occur in this case as well. We will see that eventually as we go through Esther and God's timing here and his word. But in this case, because of his new position, all of the king's servants were commanded to bow down before Haman and pay him homage. Now notice that bowing down before those in power was not an act of worship. Okay, they're not worshiping, they're not committing worship, they're not worshiping Haman as a God or anything like that. And so the people are not worshiping Haman in that kind of manner, but they were required to do so and or they're required to pay homage in verse two. Now, what does it mean to pay homage to somebody? Well, first of all, it's not like paying money, all right, but rather it means to render honor to the individual, OK, to show respect to someone you admire. That's what it means to pay homage to somebody that you admire. Well, Mordecai has no admiration for Haman at all, but it's not because of his dislike of Haman. in that manner. Problem is, Mordecai does not admire Haman at all. And so we're not surprised in verse two when we read, but Mordecai did not bow down or pay homage. He did not do so. A little repetition for you, but. He didn't do so, he refused to do so, even though when he was put on the spot, he still refused to do so. And so to an official, this was a blazing insult, a blazing public insult to his honor and to his position, his power that he has. Well, the king's servants at the gates who knew Mordecai were surprised by this as well. And so they asked him directly, why do you transgress the king's command? We want to know, why are you doing this? And so they asked him, it says day after day, And they received no reply from Mordecai about this. And so they decided to tell Haman with their goal of being, we want to see if Mordecai is really meaning that. Does he mean what he says when he says that or he's going to go ahead and cave and bow down and obey the king's command here. In other words, they want to see if he's firm in what he said. All right. After all, he had told them that he was a Jew. And the Jews, they said, they don't observe our laws. They have their own law and all that. Can Mordecai, in their mind, can Mordecai, as a Jew, get away with this blatant defying of someone in authority over him? And by the way, we're never told that Mordecai refused to bow or pay homage to any other officer out there. And there are a bunch. We're not told they refused to do that any other time, except for Haman. And he's got a very interesting reason for that. Now realize Mordecai was a Jew and Haman, Mordecai the Jew, Haman was of Amalek. That's where he is descended from, Amalek. And Amalek is a direct enemy of the Jews and they always have been historically. Okay, so he is an Amalekite essentially, what it boils down to. Yes, he's an Agagite of Agag, who was from an Amalekite, all right? So Haman, Dr. Duguid said this, Haman was an Agagite, meaning he was a descendant of Agag, the Amalekite. The Amalekites in the Old Testament, as I said, were enemies, direct enemies of the Jews. Now remember, when the Jews came out of Egypt, remember that? Everybody remembers they came out of bondage, you know, going out into the wilderness. Well, the Amalekites pursued the Jews. They tried to attack them and tried to, you know, put them out, to delimitate them. And so because of this attack upon the Jews, God cursed them and he condemned them in Exodus chapter 17 verses 8 through 16. God cursed them and condemned them. The irony though is here again, and Amalek is again trying to kill the Jews. Yeah, Haman is using his position and power and he knows exactly what his background is as an Amalekite. He wants to do what they couldn't do and that is to slaughter the Jews. Yeah, very, very interesting indeed. Maybe he is trying to fulfill his destiny to fulfill his own wicked mind. God has said that because of the treachery of the Amalekites, there would always be enmity. There will always be a hostility between them and the Jews and there was. because they failed to eliminate them way back when when God told them to do so. So they were enemies for life. They were enemies for life. And Mordecai, now I think typically people say like, oh, Mordecai was just being arrogant. He is like, I am not bowing down before this Amalekite, this pagan or whatever. He was not just being arrogant. He viewed him, this is the enemy of our people. He has nothing good in mind for me or anybody else. So it's not just being arrogant. He's not just simply refusing to bow down. He sees exactly who Haman is. And so because of that, and on behalf of his people, It was right for him to do so. Well, Haman does finally see it for himself. Mordecai said, I'll not bow down. And the other said, you ought to, it's the law. And Haman saw for himself that he refused to do so. Mordecai does not bow down. He does not pay homage to him. So of course, Haman is furious because his precious pride has been assaulted. possibly because of his Amalekite background, he's even assaulted even more. And so he wants to not only kill Mordecai, he wants to wipe them out as a people. Genocide, total genocide of the Jewish people is what he wanted to do. And so he wants to kill them all, Mordecai and all of them together, wiped them out from the face of the earth, problem. God will send his only begotten son who will come from the Jews as promised. The Jews will not be destroyed, no matter who may plot to do so, because that is not part of God's redemptive plan. They will not be wiped out. but they will be delivered indeed. So God is sovereign. We must always know that, not Haman, not how much power that mortal man may have. God is always sovereign, not humanity. God has his redemptive plan and genocide is not on the list of things to do, all right? Now think about the history of man. There's a lot of this, by the way. If you Google it or wherever you go on the internet, you can pull something up about it. Lots of genocides and attempted genocides and human history. You have in the history of man, many of the wicked, powerful rulers, dictators, and kings, they sought to kill all the particular people. You know, Hitler tried, right? The attempted genocide of the Jews and a lot of the Polish as well, but failed. Stalin tried, Pol Pot tried. Okay, if you remember Pol Pot. Mao tried. The Ottoman Empire tried. There was a Bangladesh genocide, the Cambodian genocide, the East Timor genocide, and of course, the Armenian genocide as well. But we see the wickedness of man all throughout human history and the greatness of their sins or wickedness, especially when they gain such power like this. But ultimately, who would be behind the scenes of those wanting genocide, especially of the Jews. Who wants to see Israel destroyed? Well, Haman does, yes, but ultimately it's the devil himself. He knows the word of God. He knows the prophecies. He knows the promises of Messiah. And so, yes, he would be, you know, stimulating the mind or bringing temptation to the minds of Haman to, you know what, to be to your benefit, to slaughter them all. And of course, Haman's like, yeah, and that's my background. It works really well together. So it's behind, really the devil himself is behind this because he knows the promises of a coming redeemer who will come through the Jews. But if they are all destroyed, what would happen? That would mean that all would remain in their sins. All would go to hell. There would be no hope. There would be no redemption. And with their wicked hearts walking in the ways of their father, the devil. and they will certainly be cast into hell. And so Haman, as Jesus would say in the New Testament, was following in the footsteps of Satan. He, as he told the Pharisees, Satan is your father, right? Leading to our second heading, look at verses 7 through 11 as well. I'm doing these in groups together. Here we have second heading is licensed to kill. And of course, it's in the first month, which is the month of Nissan, not the car. of the month of Nisan and the 12th year of King Ahasuerus, and they cast lots, pure, poor, okay? So Haman began to cast lots, all right? In verse seven, day after day, month after month, he cast lots, tossing simply a roll of dice, if you will, casting lots. Why? Because he wanted to find the best day, the best month to go and slaughter the Jews and put them all out of his misery. He wanted to eliminate them all. He is superstitious, casting lots in this manner. He's superstitious, looking for a good day. Probably kind of like astrology, like people do nowadays. But he's superstitious and he is a pagan. His heart is foul, his heart is wicked, his mind is cruel. And so he tosses the lots. to pick the right time to attack. And of course, it fell to the 12th month, the month of Adar. He has been plotting. He has been planning all this time, but he wants to frame this as a good thing. Notice he didn't mention Mordecai's name directly, but he frames this in such a manner as a good thing to protect the king and country. He said, look, I just want to protect you. I want to do what's good for you, King Ahasuerus. This is for your sake. And there's a people who are disobeying your commands, your law. And he says, you're right, go and take care of this. Here is your license to go with it. All right, and so yeah. So he's been plotting and planning to do so to protect king and country in verse eight. He said to the king, there is a certain people scattered abroad in verse eight and dispersed among the peoples and all the provinces of your kingdom. Their laws are different from those of every other people and they do not keep the king's laws so that it is not to the king's profit to tolerate them. No mention of Mordecai, no mention of the Jews at all. He's simply kind of beating around the bush, being deceptive because Haman is a power-hungry wicked man. Do the Jews have different laws? Yes, they do. Have they ever been accused of being bad citizens in this country? No, they have not, not at all. In fact, it seems that most of the people we will see did not like that idea, all right? We'll see that here in a moment. Are they as disobeying the King's law? Are they really doing that? No, they're not. Actually, they're good citizens. Mordecai did disobey giving honor to Haman. But that was it, Haman's goal is the extinction of the entire Jewish race. All right, all of them, everywhere, wherever they may be, he wants to destroy them. Verse nine, he says, if it pleased the king, let it be decreed that they be destroyed and I will pay 10,000 talents of silver. Realize how much silver is that? One talents of silver, is 75 pounds of silver. And so multiply that by 10,000. Well, he's a rich man. All right. He says, I'll pay 10,000 talents into the hands of those who have charge of the king's business, that they may put it into the king's treasuries. More money going into the king's coffers. So a little bit of bribery. Well, so more money for the king. You need to get rid of the lawbreakers. And so the king says, he says this, it sounds good. Sounds good to me. You need to go do that in verse 10. So the king took off his signet ring and his royal mark on that signet ring, which he could simply emblazon into, you know, wax or something that would go in and use that signet ring and make it official documents. Signed by the king, if you will, because of that signet ring. Very powerful, all right? They gave to him and he could put the stamp on whatever documents he wanted to use. license to kill. The king said, the money is given you. Not Haman's money, that's coming to him. The money is given you, the people also, do with them as it seems good to you. Do what you will to take care of this troublesome people group. So that signet ring gave Haman the royal power of the king to carry out the very wickedness of his plans. Haman was quite literally, not just a metaphor, he's really given a license to kill, the stamp of death, if you want to call it that. How could the heart of man be so cold as chilling to think that any human being could be that evil and wicked to want to destroy an entire population of people? Okay, very, very scary. Anyone's given the right to kill a nation of peoples. Even when we say that, as one commentator would say this, and I summarize, better be very, very careful. Careful as you condemn Hayman too much. After all, we almost saw the elimination of the American Indians here in America at one time, right? Pretty close to it. Wipe out the buffalo. death of the Indians, right? I'll be very careful. Every time you go out and you vote, or however you vote, mail-in or whatever it might be, but every time you vote on a politician, you are giving him or her a royal signet to carry out his plans, all right? Such as what? The slaughter of the infants through abortion. by the license to kill, very much so. We see it in our own day. We don't always think about that, but we still see that even in our own day. Look at verses 12 through 15. Here we see, thirdly, that the edict has been signed. And verses 12 through 15 here in our text, let me go ahead and just read through that real quickly for you. Then the king's scribes were summoned on the 13th day of the first month, and an edict, according to all that Haman commanded, was written to the king's satraps, to the governors over all the provinces, and to the officials of all the peoples, to every province in its own script, and every people in its own language, as it was written in the name of King Ahasuerus, and sealed with the king's signet ring. Letters were sent by couriers to all the king's provinces with instructions to destroy, kill, and annihilate all Jews, young and old, women and children, and one day, wipe them out, and one day, the 13th day of the 12th month, which is the month of Adar, and to plunder their goods. That was his throwing of the dice and choosing a day. So a copy of the document was to be issued as a decree in every province by proclamation. to all the peoples to be ready for that day. The couriers went out hurriedly by order of the king and the decree was issued in sooth of the citadel. And I'll stop right there at this time. So the king's scribes were all summoned on that 13th day and the edict according to all that Haman commanded was written to the king's satraps, the mayors like things and governors and officials of all the peoples to make sure that was understood. It was written in every script and every written language. Okay, written every script and every language of those provinces written in the name of the king, signed, sealed and delivered. to all the provinces, by the way, all the provinces includes Judea. Don't forget that. Wipe out all the Jews in the provinces, 127 provinces, and one of them includes Judea. All right, so don't forget that. Yeah, this is a direct attack. upon the very promises of Messiah. So the command in the letters to destroy, kill, annihilate all the Jews to be done in one day, they were free then as well to go and plunder all the people, take everything they own, much like Nazi Germany did when they went in, even taking their teeth out so they gave the gold out of their teeth and pile them in barrels full of them. Millions of Jews slaughtered and they took their gold crowns or fillings or whatever they had and they collected those things. Very, very wicked and evil, but they're free to plunder them. Take everything they own. It is an edict of death that is before them. Signed, sealed, and delivered. And Haman lied to the king. They were no threat to King Ahasuerus. He lied to the king and Ahasuerus bought the lie. Didn't even look into it. Didn't even check, didn't even ask. Which group is it? He's like, just take care of it. Very, very, very careful, such a thing to say. Very wicked and evil. The Amalekites have completed his deception, this Amalekite, the deception of the king. And the decree goes out by letters and proclamations. And what does the king of Haman do? What does the king and Haman do together? In verse 15, they sat down to drink, break out the bubbly and celebrate. And that's what they're doing. The people, Surprisingly, they're thrown into confusion. It's in chaos. It was like, what's going on here? They don't agree with what is taking place. And why is there chaos? Because it seems most of the Persians in the empire were not in favor of the genocide of the Jews. A lot of them probably had public dealings with them on a daily basis. Some of them probably liked them a lot. They got along together. There's no complaints about them, you know, starting protests and riots in the streets, nothing like that at all. But a single ungodly man placed in power can create great turmoil, great destruction, and great death. And thus, the Jews will be severely persecuted and a possible killed. But God, God said he already knew this. God already has his plan, and basically God says, no. That is not going to happen. God has a plan and he will deliver his people because of his redemptive plan. His will shall be done. Jesus said, thy will be done. Thy will be done. He will send his redeemer. He will send his only begotten son. He has chosen a people from eternity to be in Christ, both Jew and Gentile, and they will be saved by faith in this Jewish Messiah named Jesus Christ. be saved by grace through faith in him, Jew and Gentile together. And so the edict of God has been signed, not Haman's. The edict of God has been signed. And of course, death is a verdict for sin on all those who are outside of Christ. All those who know not Christ will die in their sin. The edict is there. The wages of sin is death. that the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Faith in Jesus Christ, Edict of God for those who are in Christ, for those who believe in Him as they shall live. And they will live eternally in hope restored. Even though what man may do, even the plots and plans of man doing the evil that they can do, and we see such a heinous atrocities that take place around the world as young godly, they gain this kind of power and they begin to slaughter people. All around the world they do this. But we don't fear because the Lord has a plan. Even if our own government were to come against us and somehow turn it about, they began to persecute and began to somehow get up to this kind of position of slaughter that we see, thy will be done. Because we are in Christ and we are redeemed and we are the people of God. And our hope remains, no matter what man may do, because God is always in absolute control. And we already have received grace and mercy in Christ. And how will he not give us all things in his son, our Lord Jesus Christ? Let's pray together. Father, we thank you, O Lord, for thy holy word. And Father, we thank you that you are sovereign over all the affairs of mankind on this planet, Lord. Even those who may try to stop, O Lord, the work of thy redemptive plan, O Lord, that you would simply take them out of the very picture because, Lord, all are in your hands. But Father, we pray for the conversion of all those in power around the world. We pray for their redemption, Lord. We pray that the sinners return from sin and believe upon the Lord Jesus Christ for the salvation of their souls, Lord. Father, for you have the sheep and the goats And we pray, O Lord, for the draw by your Holy Spirit, the sheep into the fold, that the body of Christ, as we see it growing more and more, as Christ is the head of his church. Father, we pray it should be glorified in us, O Lord, as the body of Christ here in Goldsboro, O Lord, and North Carolina, that we will be faithful before you, no matter what man might try to do against us, whatever might assail us, O Lord, but you stand true. Thy word is truth. O Lord, your word is life, and through Christ we have life. And Father, we have no fear what man may do, for all is in your hands, O Lord, and we praise you, and we thank you in Jesus' holy name, amen. Let's all go ahead now.