I wanna ask you to take your Bibles, please, and turn with me to the book of Esther. Esther chapter one, and our Bible reading this morning is just going to be the first nine verses of this first chapter of Esther. Esther one, beginning in verse number one. Now it came to pass in the days of Ahasuerus. This is Ahasuerus, which reigned from India even on to Ethiopia over in 170 and 20 provinces. that in those days when the king Ahasuerus sat on the throne of his kingdom, which was in Shushan the palace, in the third year of his reign, he made a feast unto all his princes and servants, the power of Persia and Media, the nobles and princes of the provinces being before him. when he showed the riches of his glorious kingdom and the honor of his excellent majesty many days, even in 104 score days. And when these days were expired, the king made a feast unto all the people that were present in Shushan the palace, both unto great and small, seven days in the court of the garden of the king's palace. where were white, green, and blue hangings fastened with cords of fine linen and purple to silver rings and pillars of marble and beds were of gold and silver upon a pavement of red and blue and white and black and marble. And they gave them drink in vessels of gold, the vessels being diverse one from another. and royal wine in abundance, according to the state of the king. And the drinking was according to the law. None did compel, for so the king had appointed to all the officers of his house that they should do according to every man's pleasure. Also Vashti, the queen, made a feast for the women in the royal house which belonged to King Ahasuerus. Amen. We'll end there at the end of verse number nine. Let's seek the Lord in prayer, and then we'll come back to these verses here in this book. Let's pray. Our Father, this morning as we have our Bibles open, we pray that you would speak to us from your own word. We pray that as we consider even the very vast doctrine of your sovereignty and your providence over our lives, that you would speak to us, that you would deal graciously with each one, and we ask in Jesus' name, amen. You might not know this, but the books of the Old Testament are actually arranged differently in the Hebrew Bible than they are in our English Bible. In the Hebrew Bible, Esther comes after the book of Ecclesiastes in a section of the Hebrew Bible called the Megaloth. That word Megaloth is translated as the scrolls. And there's a series of books, Esther being the end of those books, referred to as the Scrolls. The Book of Esther is a favorite book of many Jews, even to this day, because it establishes what is called the Feast of Purim. And Jews to this day have the Feast of Purim as one of their favorite feasts. It's actually not one of the feasts that was originally instituted in the laws of Moses. The Feast of Purim does not show up until the time of Esther. There's two feasts that the Jews celebrate not part of the original Mosaic law. It's the Feast of Purim and the other one is Hanukkah. But Purim is a feast to celebrate the Jews' deliverance from being completely destroyed and annihilated off the face of the earth by the wicked man Haman. That's what they're celebrating during the Feast of Purim. Haman's decree, as I take for granted that you're familiar with the Book of Esther in general, Haman's decree in the Book of Esther was a plan to completely wipe the Jews off the face of the earth. The law was for every Jew to be killed in one day. It was open hunting season on all Jews. The law basically amounted to every single Persian being debutized by the king, being one of his soldiers, and their task on that one day was to slay all of the Jews. And you know the Book of Esther deals with that, and that plan is eventually thwarted. We'll come to look at that a little bit more later. Purim also celebrates the Jews' retaliation and victory over their enemies. Because on that day, instead of the Jews being killed, the Jews actually slew over 75,000 Persians. Some of the traditions of this feast involve exchanging gifts, not quite on the scale that we do at Christmas, but a gift exchange and also giving to the poor. There's a very common tradition that is in the synagogues on the day of the Feast of Piram, the Book of Esther is read in its entirety. And the people in the congregation, they have special noisemakers. And the name Haman occurs in the book of Esther 54 times. And as the book is read publicly by the rabbi in the synagogue, the Jews will rattle these noisemakers to drown out the very name of Haman. So every time his name comes up, his name is overshadowed by this noise. Others will take their shoes and they will write the name Haman on the bottom of their shoes. And when Haman's name is mentioned, they will stomp their feet to eventually at the end of the reading of the book, his name has been erased. The name of Haman is gone. Well, as Christians we know and we recognize the redemptive theme of Scripture. And we know that the purpose of the book of Esther is far more than to simply justify a feast that was not commanded in the law of Moses. And so, what is the purpose of the book of Esther? What is Esther about? In our Bibles, actually as you look at your Bible and you see the book of Esther, if you look on the other page, you probably have the very end of the book of Nehemiah. And so you'll know from the organization of our English Bibles that the book of Esther comes at the end of what we call the historical books. It starts with Joshua, Judges, Ruth, the Samuels, the Kings, the Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, and then the book of Esther. Ezra and Nehemiah are all set in the aftermath of the Babylonian exile. Ezra chapter 2 starts dealing with a long list of the number of people from each tribe and family that returned to the land after the decree from Cyrus, when Cyrus the Persian comes and takes over from Belshazzar, that day that Belshazzar was having his drunken feast and he saw the handwriting on the wall, that day Belshazzar was weighed in the balances, he was found wanting, his kingdom was taken from him, and Cyrus the Persian came in. And Cyrus very quickly instituted a decree for the children of Israel that had been in Babylonian captivity to be able to be released and to go back to their homeland. This was Cyrus's way of appeasing and basically making the people he ruled over like him more. All we understand at God's sovereign string pulling of history. and bringing together all things after the counsel of his will. But Ezra and Nehemiah are recording for us the story of God's providence and God's protection over a faithful remnant of people. Ezra 2 tells us that it was 42,360. that left Babylon and went back to Jerusalem to rebuild the temple, to rebuild the city, eventually under Nehemiah later to rebuild the walls. Historians estimate that there were approximately a million Jews living in Babylonian captivity. And so you do the math, just to use round numbers, that leaves in the neighborhood of 950,000 Jews that did not go back to Jerusalem. They were perfectly satisfied to stay there in Babylon, what now is Persia. They were happy to stay there. And so if those numbers that historians give us are correct, then we come to the conclusion that that faithful remnant was really small indeed. But yet God was looking over them. God was caring for them. and Ezra and Nehemiah record all of that for us. Last year, I preached through a series of messages through the book of Zechariah, and we saw Haggai and Zechariah encouraging the people as they were rebuilding the temple and reestablishing ultimately the right worship of the Lord. But then you turn a page in your Bible, Nehemiah's finished, and you come to this book, Esther. Well, Esther is a book really that tells us the other side of the story. Esther is a book that tells us the story of God's providence and God's protection over those that were not faithful to him at all. Those that were actually giving no thought at all to the Lord. Those that Ezra and Nehemiah were dealing with, they were faithful. They wanted to serve the Lord. They wanted to reinstitute the right worship of the Lord. But in Esther, we see a very different thing. We see those not faithful to the Lord, be it God caring for them. And so this morning, what I wanna do is give you an introduction to the book of Esther. And the purpose of this introduction is for another series of messages that I plan to preach through the book of Esther when Pastor Kimbrough is away in the last part of June and into July. And so we'll deal with the introduction aspect of it now. And I wanna begin by just giving you a quick overview of the story. I take for granted that you're familiar with this book. I take for granted that you read your Bible and you know the just basics of the book of Esther, but simply to jog your memory with this brief synopsis. What we have, I read the first nine verses. The book opens with Ahasuerus throwing this grand banquet. Don't read over that too quick, 104 score days, 180 day long banquet, six months of feasting and revelry. Ahasuerus was just simply seeking to put on as big a show as he could put on to prove that he was the greatest that there ever was. And we'll see a little bit more of that in a few moments. Queen Vashti was called into that banquet and she was asked to basically put herself on display so Ahasuerus could show everyone how beautiful she was. She refused to do that. And in refusing to do that was removed as being the queen. And so Ahasuerus at the council of his advisors puts on this plan to hold a beauty contest for a new queen. And so a beauty contest was held, and you know that Esther is the winner of that beauty contest. And so at the end of chapter two, though, just to slow down a little bit, at the end of chapter two, Esther's cousin Mordecai learns, overhears of a plot to kill the king. And so he reveals that plot. The plot is thwarted. And we're told there that the record of it was written down in the Chronicles of the King. It's just left hanging there. At the beginning of chapter 3, we're introduced to this man named Haman, who is promoted to a very powerful position in the country. and he is to go about the city, and everybody's supposed to bow down to him, but Mordecai refuses. Everybody's bowing down to Haman, but Mordecai won't do it. And Haman is so furious at Mordecai, he learns that Mordecai is a Jew, he's so furious not to just slay Mordecai, but he decides, I'm gonna kill every one of the Jews. And so he puts plans in place for this decree through the casting of lots. 11 months later, a decree is going to be enacted. As I said earlier, all of the Phoenician, or the Persian, sorry, are deputized, basically, to slay all the Jews. In one day, all the Jews are to die. Well, Mordecai tells Esther about this plan because Esther has now been brought into the harem preparation process, part of this beauty pageant. And it's a whole year long process of her getting all dolled up and oils and spices and her hair done and fattening her up and getting her good for the king. So Mordecai tells Esther of this plan and Esther is asked to intervene and somehow help. And so Esther invites Ahasuerus and Haman to a special banquet. Well, at the end of that first banquet, all that happens is she asks them to come back the next day for a second banquet. And this is where things get interesting. Because between those two banquets, Haman becomes even more incensed and angry at Mordecai. He doesn't know anything about the connection between Mordecai and Esther, but he's even more angry at Mordecai. And so he decides now he's going to build a 50 cubit tall gallows to hang Mordecai on. And when we, when the Bible here uses the word gallows, don't think of hanging. it was really a pole, the method of execution was a tall pole that was basically spiked on the top and the person was dropped and impaled on that pole. That was the means of execution that was used. And so even though it says gallows, it's not a noose around the neck hanging, it's you're impaled on this pole, quite gruesome, obviously. Also between the two banquets, That night, you'll find in the beginning of chapter six, Ahasuerus can't sleep. And so he lies in his bed awake, and he calls in one of his servants to read the historical records. I mean, what else is gonna put you to sleep other than maybe somebody's Sunday school class? But he reads the historical records, and what does he read but that portion of Mordecai saving his life. and it dawns on him nothing was ever done to reward Mordecai. There has to be some reward. So Haman is right outside the door and he asked Haman what reward should be given to somebody that's great in the king's eyes and Haman's like, wow, well, I'm great in the king's eyes. I'm going to get this great thing. So he offers a solution and a reward and turns out Mordecai gets that reward because he was talking about Mordecai the whole time and not Haman. Well, at the second banquet the next day, Esther reveals that Haman is the one that has made this plot to kill all of the Jews. And it's at that point that she first reveals the fact that she herself is actually a Jew. And so the king Ahasuerus commands that Haman be killed on the same gallows that he had built the day before to kill Mordecai. What a turn of events. What an ironic turn of events. And Mordecai gets that same honor that Haman thought was going to be gotten to himself. And Haman got the same end that he thought was going to be given to Mordecai. Just an ironic turn of events. You didn't see that coming. And then Mordecai is promoted to this place of great authority in the kingdom. so much authority that he and Esther together are able to devise a plan not to undo the law that allowed all the Jews to be killed because that was one of the laws of the Medes and Persians that could not be undone. But what happened was there was a new law put in place that likewise debutized the Jews and gave the Jews the right and the authority to defend themselves against any attack from a Persian. And so the Jews were spared. And on the 14th day of the month Adar in the Jewish calendar, which works out for us to be basically mid-March, the Jews killed over 75,000 Persians. And then Esther asked Ahasuerus, the king, if also the 10 sons of Haman could be executed. And they were. And then the book ends with an explanation of the Feast of Purim and how great Mordecai is. That's the book of Esther. That's what happens. So with that gist of the story, I want to dive deeper into some individual characters. And it's important for us to understand the nature of these characters as we try to shed light on the meaning and the purpose of the whole book of Esther itself. And so I want to deal with four characters. We're not going to deal with Vashti other than just mentioning her by passing. I'll talk about her more in another sermon later. But we'll look first at Ahasuerus. That's the first character we're introduced to in the book. Ahasuerus is the king of Persia. He's the most powerful man in the world. No question about it, the most powerful man in the world. In history, he's known as Xerxes, King Xerxes. And so Herodotus, the famous historian, records pages and pages of volumes dealing with Xerxes and the exploit of Xerxes. He was one of the greatest kings that ever lived. He was the grandson of Cyrus the Great, the grandson of Cyrus that came and overthrew Belshazzar that night of the drunken feast and that I already told you about. So he was the grandson of Cyrus. He was the son of Darius, Darius the Mede. This is the same Darius, you young children, you know the story of Daniel in the lion's den. This was the same Darius that threw Daniel in the lion's den. And so Darius's son, this is Ahasuerus. This is who we're talking about. Ahasuerus lived his entire life trying to live up to the reputation of his dad and especially his grandpa. And secular history, Herodotus and other secular historians tell us a lot about the character of Ahasuerus and who this man was. Cyrus was the greatest. He's called Cyrus the Great. Darius was super. Ahasuerus was, eh. But Ahasuerus wanted to be great like his dad and great like his grandpa. Eventually, Ahasuerus was murdered by the captain of his own bodyguards. But we read about this great feast in chapter one. This great feast, we're told in verse number three, was during the third year of his reign. One of the things that's very important to pay attention to as you read the book of Esther is the dates, and the dates Here in the scriptures, we're not surprised by this fact, but they coincide exactly with the dates that are given to us in secular history. The dates that Herodotus gives us and the dates here, they're exactly the same. And the events are exactly the same. And secular Bible scholars and secular historians are amazed at the accuracy of the descriptions in the book of Esther. It's written by somebody that obviously had firsthand knowledge of these events and firsthand knowledge of the comings and goings of the king and how things happened and what things look like. But you go from chapter one, verse three, all the way to chapter two, verse 16, when Esther wins the beauty contest is actually four years later. I think we can read this and think, well, Vashti's kicked out, beauty contest, and in a week or two, now Esther's queen. No, it's four years go by. During these four years, Ahasuerus assembled the largest army and navy that the world had ever seen up to that point. And he decided to attack Greece. the Greco-Roman Wars you can read about in history. Darius sought to destroy Greece and Darius failed. And Ahasuerus was convinced that he could solidify his name in history if he could only defeat the Greeks. And so he amassed this vast, massive army, massive navy, and sought to attack Greece. Well, in those four years and in that attack, Ahasuerus suffered two very devastating losses. There was a land battle at a place called Thermopylae. That land battle of Thermopylae saw 20,000 casualties of the Persians. And the Greeks only lost four, 4,000. Those are the numbers that Herodotus gives us. In the naval battle of Salamis, the Greeks were outnumbered almost four ships to one. And it was a absolute bloodbath. The Greeks destroyed the Persians. Herodotus tells us that Ahasuerus lost 378 ships in that one battle. and all the people that were on it. Herodotus tells us that most of the Persians didn't know how to swim, and they all drowned in the sea. Ahasuerus had some major character flaws. We'll see these more in future messages. But he was a man who was arrogant and proud, with arrogance and pride to spare. We'll learn that he was an absolute coward. He was a people pleaser. He was extremely insecure. He really didn't make his own decisions. He did what his advisors around him said to do. He really was a man that history records as one who was really very stupid and capricious in his actions. The second major character is Haman. Haman, I think you all know, is the undisputed bad guy of the story. Haman is the man who tries to kill all the Jews. But chapter 3 and verse number 1 tells us a little bit about why he hated the Jews so much. Look with me at chapter 3 and verse 1. After these things did King Ahasuerus promote Haman, the son of Hamadathah the, look at that word, Agagite. and advanced him and set his seat above the princes that served him. Haman hated the Jews because Haman was a racist of the first order. He was a racist in every fiber of his being. He hated, with every fiber of his being, the Jews because Haman was an Agagite. Now that might not be very significant until you understand that Haman was a descendant of King Agag. Agag, I will remind you, was the same Agag that was saved alive by Saul when Saul was told by the Lord to go and utterly destroy the Amalekites. And Saul didn't utterly destroy the Amalekites. He saved Agag the king and the best of the animals alive. The Amalekites go all the way back to the wilderness wanderings in the Book of Exodus. They persecuted the Jews in the wilderness. They would, almost like what we would call guerrilla warfare today, they would pick off the weak and the stragglers in the back during the wilderness wanderings. It was a battle with the Amalekites, where Joshua was fighting against the Amalekites, and Moses was on the mountaintop, and Aaron and Hur were holding up Moses' hands, And as long as Moses' hands were lifted in prayer, Israel prevailed, and as his hands fell, the Amalekites prevailed. This is the battle. And in the aftermath of that battle, God said in Exodus 17, 14, and the Lord said unto Moses, write this for a memorial in a book, and rehearse it in the years of Joshua, for I will utterly put out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven. And so when Israel changes and transitions to a monarchy, and Saul is the first king of Israel, 1 Samuel 15 records the Lord telling Saul to go and utterly destroy the Amalekites. And you can read in 1 Samuel 15, the Lord makes reference back to that event in Exodus during the wilderness wanderings and how the Amalekites persecuted the Israelites and that he had made a promise that he would utterly destroy them. And this was what Saul was to do. But Saul didn't do it. And he saved Agag the king alive. And Agag had kids. And Haman is one of those descendants of Agag, the king. A third major character is Mordecai. Now, by most people's estimation, Mordecai, along with Esther, are the heroes of the story. But we'll talk a little bit more about Mordecai later, but let me just introduce him to you here. In chapter two, in verse number five, we learn that Mordecai is a descendant of Kish, and he was a Benjamite. Well, now things get really interesting, and it really sheds a lot of light on this whole feud between Haman, this whole feud between Haman and Mordecai. Haman is a descendant of Agag, and come to find out Mordecai is a descendant of Saul. His great, great grandpappy was Kish, who was Saul's dad. and the lineage goes, and so the struggle is there. And Mordecai, let's just face it, Mordecai is as racist as Haman is. Mordecai hates the Amalekites, and Haman hates the Jews. And this struggle ensues in the book of Esther. The name Mordecai comes from the Babylonian god Marduk. That's who Mordecai was named after. It's very interesting when you start looking at the timeline. The events of this occur 56 years after Cyrus said, you can all go home. Mordecai was born in Persia. Mordecai didn't, he never knew anything except for Persia. He wasn't born in Jerusalem. He wasn't a captive taken from Israel into Babylon, transitioned to Persia. Now this is 56 years later. This is all Mordecai has ever known. Mordecai's parents named him after the Persian god Marduk. This man is not righteous. This man is not a God-fearing seeker of Jehovah. He's a happy compromiser in Persia. We'll see much more of that later on. But in chapter two, if you look at verse number 19 of chapter two, You'll learn that Mordecai had a job in the king's gate. Normally these men that would have worked in that place were elders of the court officials. They acted really in many ways like a judge. They were an arbitrator of arguments and disagreements. And his position there would have been to resolve disputes that were brought to him. If he wasn't able to resolve them, then it would move up the ladder of, you know, the court system, the judicial system or whatever. But Mordecai was part of that. He had a position of prominence in the king's court. And by the end of the story, we find out he's raised to an extremely high position of prominence in Ahasuerus' court. And then the last character is Esther, obviously a main character because the book is named after her. We read in chapter two, verse seven, we learn of her that she had a Hebrew name, Hadassah, but she is not known by that name in the book. That's the only time that name is ever mentioned. The rest of the time, she's known as Esther. Esther was named after the Persian love god, Eshtar, where we get our word Easter, when we celebrate Easter, that's from that same word, but that's beside the point. But that's who Esther is named after, a Greek goddess, Eshtar. She was a woman who was very cunning, she was quite crafty, but the Bible also tells us that she was beautiful. Historians of the time say that she was the most beautiful woman that had ever lived. She was gorgeous. And she won the beauty contest of all of Persia, from India to the Mediterranean. She won the beauty contest. So there's a description of the main characters, a survey of the book. I wanna finish up this morning by looking at some major themes, some major things to consider in this book really as we just come to an understanding of what is this book about? What are we to learn from the book of Esther? And I wanna walk through three major topics here as we finish up this morning. The first one that I want to show you from this book is just simply what I'm gonna call the worldliness of God's people. the worldliness of God's people. And so you remember when I began, I was talking about Ezra and Nehemiah. Ezra and Nehemiah are telling us the story of God's faithfulness to God's faithful people. And that makes all the sense in the world. And we understand that. If you're faithful to the Lord, the Lord's gonna be faithful to you. Of course he is. And again, that makes all the sense in the world. But the people in Esther are anything but faithful. They're in fact unfaithful to the Lord in demonstrative ways. Mordecai and Esther are not, as I think sometimes we think of them, they were not faithful God-fearing Jews persecuted in the land of Persia. They were themselves willing compromisers, happy to live and thrive in the land of Persia. They were that. Their parents were that. They learned it from their parents. The original captivity, let me give you some dates. I don't want to get all bogged down here, but some of you take notes, I know, and you write these down and you can do math and you can understand, but not to get all bogged down, but let me give you some dates here. The original captivity was in 597 BC. 597 BC, that's when Nebuchadnezzar comes and the first wave of captives are taken into Babylon. This story in the book of Esther, as we read in chapter one, takes place in the third year of Ahasuerus. That's the year 483 BC. So this story begins 114 years from the beginning of the 70 year captivity. Now the math gets a little goofy because there's different waves of coming in and there's different waves of going back. But suffice to say, 114 years from the beginning of the captivity is when this story starts. And that's 56 years after Cyrus decreed that the Jews were free to return and go back to Jerusalem. 56 years. And so Zachariah, 56 years ago, well, 36 years ago, because they had been there for 20 years when Zachariah begins to preach, so 36 years ago, Haggai and Zechariah are preaching to the faithful that have returned to Jerusalem, encouraging them in the work to build the temple. And you remember, this was a year ago, so I don't know if anybody remembers anything, but a year ago we were talking about Haggai and Zechariah, and at the beginning of Zechariah, One of part of Zachariah's prophecy at the beginning in his preaching was, you guys have been so focused on building your own house, you've neglected the work of the Lord. You've neglected the building of the temple. They had started, they laid a foundation, but they kind of lost heart. And he's like, you've got to get back to work here. And so they'd been there for 20 years already, but had not done the main thing they were supposed to be doing. And Zachariah is encouraging them, no focus on the main thing. That's 36 years ago. Well, those that remained in Babylon, which now is Persia, these people were there by choice. They weren't there as slaves. They weren't there under any kind of captivity. The captivity was over. They were told they could go home. They were free. Mordecai was probably not even born. when Cyrus originally made that decree to go back. Mordecai was probably just a very little boy, if born at all, 36 years old, if born at all, when Zechariah and Haggai were preaching. Mordecai is a man who was entrenched in the Persian way of things. He was part of the Persian government, not like Daniel. But he was part of the Persian government. He lived among them, worked among them, shopped among them, everything else. Mordecai was a full-blown compromising Jew who really gave no thought to the Lord at all. Think about some of the things he did. He was a man willing to give up his cousin to a beauty pageant. that in part of that beauty pageant required fornication. There was no way to participate in the beauty pageant without also entering into the fornication part of the beauty pageant. Rather than following the example of Daniel and his three friends from 110 years ago, when Daniel and Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were brought from Jerusalem to Babylon, and refused to eat the king's meat, refused to enter into the compromise and the idolatry that was being foisted upon them, and they took a stand against all that, we see Mordecai a very happy and willing participant in all of that. His personal pride, his racism, almost destroyed the entire Jewish race. Chapter three records all this. We'll look at this in another message later. But chapter three, verses one to six, tell us about him refusing to bow down to Haman. And it's not just one time, it's not like this is one event, but it's even after repeated requests to obey the king's command, Haman is belligerent in his refusal to bow down. Now some will back off from that and say, well, no, Mordecai was doing right. He shouldn't have bowed down to Haman. Haman was just a man. And to bow to Haman would have been an act of idolatry. Well, then explain the several other times in scripture where the Lord's people do bow down before kings. Genesis 23.1, Genesis 27.29, 1 Samuel 24.8, 2 Samuel 14.4, 1 Kings 1.16. We have examples of the Lord's people willingly bowing down. Abraham's the first one, bowing down to another king, giving homage and honor to who honor and homage is due. Mordecai refused to bow down to Haman simply because he hated the Amalekites. But think of Mordecai's position in the court. At some point, Haman bowed down to Ahasuerus, or he would have never gotten that job. He would have never been in the position he was in had he not bowed down to a ruler at some point. But this with Haman, this was personal, this was different, but it almost cost the Jews their very existence. You look at the compromise of Esther. Esther was willing to participate in this, We don't see Esther there in the preparatory harem stuff, refusing to eat the king's meat, refusing to go with all the stuff that was involved in this beauty contest. We see her a willing and happy participant, willing even to take her cousin's advice, don't tell anybody who you are. By no means don't reveal that you're a Jew. Just keep that hidden. Okay, no big deal. Because serving the Lord wasn't really that important to her. It didn't matter. So why make a big deal about it? So she was happy to not say anything. Some would object and they would say, well, Esther was taken here by force. She had no choice. Well, tell me what choice Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego had when they were told to bow before the statue of Nebuchadnezzar. No, they were willing to go to the fiery furnace. If they died, they were okay with that. They were not going to disobey the Lord. Daniel was a captive by force. And Daniel said, I'm not eating the king's meat. And you got to give me another option. You either have to kill me or give me another option. And let me try this other option and see what happens. And lo and behold, the Lord blessed that stand. And so we can't come to Esther and say, well, no, Esther did this by force and so it was okay. No, Esther could have stood for the Lord. She could have done right. Vashti refused. Vashti refused to go before the king and display herself for all his people to see. She wasn't slain. She wasn't killed. An interesting fact, Vashti was removed from being queen, but she wasn't removed from his presence. Because during those four years that I talked to you about, where Ahasuerus goes and he fights against the Greeks, this is an interesting story from Herodotus and from secular historians. Vashti is there with him. And during those four years, Ahasuerus has an affair with one of his general's daughters in front of Vashti. And Vashti, when they come back after the Greco-Roman or the Greco-Phoenician Wars, when they come back, Vashti, for Ahasuerus' birthday, takes that daughter's mom cuts her in pieces and gives it to Ahasuerus as a birthday present. So, you know, tell me Esther couldn't have refused and couldn't have taken a stand for what was right and godly. She didn't do any of that. She was happily amalgamated to the culture of Persia and fine with it all, as was Mordecai. They were paganized, compromising Jews. And they lived among the Persians really with no distinction from them at all. And Esther blended right in so that nobody in the harem would point and say, hey, aren't you a Jew? Hey, you're not praying to the gods like we're praying to the gods. Hey, you're not doing the things. She was doing all the things all the rest of them were doing. Happily so. Is this not where much of the church is today? Just steeped in so much compromise and worldliness that it becomes really so difficult just passing to tell a Christian from a non-Christian? Ought there not to be some distinction from the world? Ought there not to be some separation of participation? of a come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing. There has to be that among the faithful. We don't see that among Esther and Mordecai. A second thing to consider in this book is the fact that God's name is never mentioned. Eight chapters, and it never mentions the name of God. It doesn't even allude to God. It doesn't make any allusion to the temple. It doesn't make any allusion to any of the Ten Commandments. It doesn't make any allusion to any of the words of the prophets. God is conspicuously absent from the entire book of Esther. Well, the reason God's never mentioned in the book is because the people had no thought of God on their mind. They didn't think about the Lord. They didn't talk about the Lord. They didn't pray. They didn't worship him. They were compromised, pagan Persians with no thought of God. And so there was no thought of God. And so by consequence, there is no mention of God. They look to their own cunning, their own ingenuity, to get by, and they didn't factor God into the equation at all. God is absent for one reason, because to these people, God was silent. It's very different than what we read in Ezra and Nehemiah. In Ezra and Nehemiah, we see the people seeking the Lord. We see the Lord communicating to the people through Nehemiah, through Ezra, and the Lord revealing himself and the Lord active and moving and obvious that the Lord is there. But what we have in Esther is what Amos talked about, a famine of the hearing of the words of the Lord. Not a famine of food and water, but a famine of the hearing of the words of the Lord. And God was just silent. God had just turned himself off to them in any speaking way, in any communicative way, because they didn't care about him. They didn't want him. He didn't matter to them. There's not even a religious reference in here. Some will point to the fact that when Mordecai goes to Esther and says, Esther, all this is going down, fast, who knows if you've come to the kingdom for such a time as this. Most will point to that as this great statement of faith and trust in God's providence and sovereignty, who knows if you've come to the kingdom for such a time as this. One preacher I was listening to, I think maybe he carries it a little bit too far, but he said, rather than that being really a statement of faith in Jehovah, It really was more of a Obi-Wan Kenobi, you're our only hope. It was really the culmination of cunning and manipulation. And maybe there's a happy coincidence that you have entered into the palace so that you can help with this, that you're the only one that can intervene. I can't go talk to Hashuares, but you can, and go fix this. and most commentators point out the fact that there is a reference to fasting, but there's no reference to prayer. Every place else in scripture where we see about fasting, there's fasting and praying, prayer and fasting. I think it points to just a superstition of religion. Mordecai knew he was a Jew, and Mordecai was a nationalist, and he wanted to save the Jews, and he hated the Amalekites, and there was something of a religious heritage, and so the superstition of fasting was enough. But again, is that not where the church is today? The superstition of religion, the showing up at 11 o'clock, is, I mean, what more could God want from me? Go to church. What more could the Lord want? I mean, I pray when bad things happen, what more could the Lord want? And it really just amounts to a superstition of religion. God is a lucky rabbit's foot. God is a good luck charm. God is in your back pocket. And when things go south, you can get God out of your back pocket and hopefully he'll help. And that's how much of the church treats God today. And I think that's not very different from the thought process of Mordecai and Esther. And it just highlights the worldliness of them. And it explains why God's name is never mentioned in the book. They didn't care anything about the Lord, really. But the last thing I want to leave you is the fact that though God's name is not mentioned, God's providence is obvious and pervasive in the book of Esther. Listen to what F.B. Meyer says. F.B. Meyer says, though the name of God does not occur in this book, yet his hand is everywhere manifest. His name does not often occur in the daily press, which records the history of our times, Yet we may ask whether the workings of God are not also clearly recorded there. Verily, our God hides himself. And so CNN and Fox might not give credit to the God of heaven for orchestrating and manipulating the circumstances of current world affairs. but I would submit to you that God orchestrates and manipulates the circumstances of current world affairs. No different, no different at all than what he did during the days of Esther. Though the people would have been ignorant to God's dealings among them, and God working unbeknownst to them, God was working, and God was doing great things. all behind the scenes, all using the wrath of men to praise him, all organizing and manipulating circumstances for his own glory and for the good of his people. Just like he's done from the beginning of time and just like he's gonna do to the end of time. If I can leave you with one thing from this introduction, it would be this. If you don't get anything else, get this. You might not be mindful of God but God is mindful of you. You might not be faithful to God, but God is faithful to you. You might ignore him, but he does not ignore you. He never ignores his people. You might think that you're free to come and go and do your business and you're free from God. God doesn't interfere. God doesn't have anything to do with my life. I just do. I just live my life any way I please. You're a fool if that's what you think. You're an absolute fool if that's your mindset. That I can live and I can do whatever and God doesn't interfere. God will just leave me alone. You might think God has left you alone because God doesn't convict you during sermons anymore. You might think God has left you alone because you're not convicted that you don't read your Bible and you don't pray and you show up to church every once in a while, whatever. and God's not angry because God's not convicting me, you might think that God does not care, but I would submit to you God is just as active in everything in your life behind the scenes as he is if you were praying without ceasing like you're supposed to. Let me show you the most important verses in the entire book. They often get overlooked. Let me show you the most important verses in the book. Turn to chapter 6. This is the pinnacle of the entire book. This is the climax of everything. Chapter 6, verse 1. On that night could not the king sleep. And he commanded to bring the book of records of the chronicles, and they were read before the king. And it was found written that Mordecai had told of Bigthina and Teresh, two of the king's chamberlains, the keepers of the door, who sought to lay hand on the king Ahasuerus. And the king said, what honor and dignity hath been done to Mordecai for this? Then said the king's servant that ministered unto him, there is nothing done for him. Those are the most important verses in the book. The night before, Esther had asked for a feast, a dinner party, Ahasuerus and Naaman, I was afraid I was gonna do this. We have a neighbor named Naaman and I was afraid I was gonna say Naaman all the morning. Ahasuerus and Haman, were the only two people invited to this banquet. And Ahasuerus is just on the edge of his seat because Esther has asked for a favor. And Ahasuerus has promised already, I will grant to you anything you want up to half the kingdom. And so, I mean, he's on pins and needles. Esther, what do you want? And so they have this banquet and she says, come back tomorrow and I'll tell you what I want. Okay. Well, Haman is over the moon because, I mean, Haman's so prideful, he gets to come to a banquet twice with only the king and queen. That's like only the most important of the most important get to do that. And so Haman's just, he's super excited. Well, Ahasuerus, of all the nights in his life, can't sleep. He's just laying there. He has 5,000, I'm sorry, 500, he has 500 women in his harem. And he asks for a guy to come and read a history book? That night, that night, of all the things that night, come and read your history book. And of all the pages that could have been turned to, turns to that page. and reads that account that had happened like four years ago, four and a half years ago, and that turns everything. Literally in the middle of the night, think about it this way, literally in the middle of the night, when God's people were sleeping and doing nothing, that was the very moment that God stepped in and changed everything. while they were sleeping. I listened to a preacher preach on this, and he made the point, he referenced that Bible verse, he giveth to his beloved even in their sleep. Now you know the verse differently, he giveth his beloved sleep. I've studied that verse, and it can be translated that way. he giveth to his beloved even in their sleep. The major translations translate it the way we know. There are two translations that translate it the other way. But what a devotional thought anyway, even if that's not what the verse says, there's an application of that from here. Even in their sleep he provides for his beloved. If you forget God, God doesn't forget you. If you think you have run away from God and gotten away from him enough that he's not bothering you anymore, God is doing everything that happens to you. God is involved in everything that goes on in your life. If you're an unbeliever, I don't know if it should scare you or humble you, but it should bring you to repentance. If you're a believer, I can't think of a greater truth that God is doing everything that we need and he's doing it the best way it can possibly be done. He's using the wrath of men to praise him. He's doing things that we don't even know about, all for our good, all for his glory. all for the preservation and the advancement of his kingdom. And as we'll see from this book later, all eventually for the keeping of that promise of a redeemer for his people. And may the Lord be praised as we consider his providence and his sovereignty. Let's pray. And Father, we do thank you for this book of Esther. And we ask that as we would have opportunity weeks later to come back to this book, that you would teach us from it. You would encourage our hearts from the truths contained here. We pray for this afternoon as we continue on in this Lord's day, that we would know the rest that our bodies and our souls need. And we ask it in Jesus' name, amen.