Springs Lighthouse Church

Pastor Brian Michaels: Turn with me to the book of Esther, chapter three. Father, we thank you, Lord, for so many things. We could spend the rest of the evening and just keep on going into tomorrow giving you thanks for all of the myriad things that you do in our lives, the way that you're using us, and the way that you strategically place us in other people's lives that we might be a blessing to them.

A lot of that is because you've given us your word, and we are committed to your word because it reveals to us who you are. So, Lord, as we study this word tonight, we ask that by your Holy Spirit, you would encourage us and speak to us, that we wouldn't just be here to amass information and learn new details, but that these things would truly impact and change our lives. Father, I pray that our hearts would be glued with attention to you in this time. May we set aside all the craziness of our day, our week, or our month by the power of your Spirit. May we just intently focus upon you. We ask in Jesus' name, amen.

We had a couple of weeks off of our Esther study while I was out of town, so let's dig right in. We’ve got a lot to cover tonight, so I want to try to not waste a lot of time going really slowly through this. Let's just jump right in. Esther chapter 3, verse 1: "After these things." Let's stop there. What things? What things are we talking about? I'm glad that this chapter begins this way because it allows us to go back and rehash through a little bit of the background so that we have an idea of where this is leading us.

King Ahasuerus—you know him more commonly from your ancient history classes as Xerxes. He is ruling the Persian Empire. It's an extensive empire. I think we lose sight sometimes of how vast the Persian Empire was. It covered all of what today we know of as Iran, Pakistan, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq, Turkey, and Iran, as well as parts of modern-day Egypt, Libya, Arabia, and the Sudan. So, it was a very large empire.

He deposed Queen Vashti, and we read about all that in the first two chapters. He tried to invade Greece, partly to avenge his father. It didn't go well. Returning in defeat, he went on a search for a new queen, and that's where Esther came on the scene. While Ahasuerus was looking for a new queen, she was an orphan being raised by her uncle, a man whose name is Mordecai. They were Jews from the tribe of Benjamin, but that fact is being held as a secret at this point.

Ahasuerus has chosen Esther to be his queen, not knowing that she is of Jewish descent. The scripture tells us that she was a beautiful and exceptional woman. Those two things don't always go hand-in-hand. She's beautiful and exceptional; she's wise and a prudent woman. Sometime after she was chosen to be queen, Mordecai overheard the plot of an assassination attempt against King Ahasuerus. Mordecai tells Esther, who goes and tells her husband the king, and so the plot ultimately is foiled.

We are now about 10 years after the end of chapter two. Between chapters two and three, it's actually been 10 years. It says, "After these things, King Ahasuerus promoted Haman, the son of Hammedatha the Agagite, and advanced him and set his seat above all the princes who were with him." This man, Haman, is now put into the position of number two in the entirety of that vast empire. This guy turns out to be an evil, murderous man, and yet he is elevated to a very high position in government, something that we are completely unfamiliar with in our society.

Of course, we see it in every governmental system throughout human history. We, without Jesus, are in a world of hurt. This man, as we're going to see coming through this text tonight, obviously cares nothing for the things of the true and living God. Yet, he is exalted to this position while, at the same time, Mordecai, who just saved the king's life, was not honored at all. If you study the history of the Persian government, it's very odd that he was not honored for what he had done.

That will come into play later on in the book of Esther. So, just tuck that into the back of your mind. At this point, 10 years after Mordecai helps to foil this assassination plot, he was never honored, recognized, or credited for that. But all of this is because God has a plan that he is working out in his time. It brings up something really important to us. I think most of us in this room right now are at a place in our lives where we understand the adage, "Life isn't always fair."

You don't have to live too many decades to start to understand that. Ask a guy like Joseph. Joseph was sold into slavery by his brothers. Then, as he's a slave in Egypt, he was falsely accused of attempted rape and thrown into prison. He ministers to two guys in the prison, one of whom ends up being executed, but one of them is exalted back to his former position with the Pharaoh. The only thing Joseph asks in return is, "When you're restored to your position, would you tell Pharaoh about my situation where I am in prison and I really haven't done anything?"

As commonly happens, he gets elevated back to his position and promptly forgets all about Joseph. That was Joseph's life. But could it be, as you study Joseph's life, that God intended a series of years of events that was training, equipping, and preparing Joseph to become number two in all of Egypt to save multiple millions of people? God had a plan to use Joseph ultimately to preserve the entire nation of Israel, which was in a fledgling state at that point.

In the process of God getting Joseph to that place, Joseph was forgotten and left out. Could it be that there are times in our lives that God allows us to be forgotten and left out, or at least to feel that way? We have to learn that even when we feel forgotten and left out by everybody else, we are not forgotten by God, and we are not left out of his plan. Sometimes we will be forgotten, and that can be God's plan and his process for preparing us for what he has in store for us.

It says here that Haman was the son of Hammedatha the Agagite. Agag was a title for the Amalekite kings, and the people of Amalek were the ones who attacked the children of Israel as they came out of the land of Egypt under Moses' leadership. They would attack and kill the weak, the stragglers, the sick, and the elderly of Israel as they were making their journey. So, there is pretty intense hostility that existed between the Amalekites and the Israelites.

Keep in mind, Haman does not know that Mordecai is a Jew, but that animosity was there. Did Mordecai know it? Probably, because it's written here in the book of Esther. The children of Israel were instructed by God in Deuteronomy chapter 25 to wipe out the Amalekites. That is really difficult for us to try and come to grips with in our day and age because we would just say that's genocide. We would have all kinds of problems with this.

The reality is that from God's perspective, he had given these people in that land 400 years to repent, and they had refused. So, God says time's up, judgment is coming, and the children of Israel were his instrument of judgment in that day. But they did not wipe out the Amalekites. Fast forward past the time of Joshua, past the time of the Judges, and into the times of the Kings. Who was the first king of Israel? Saul.

You remember that incident from which we know the passage, "To obey is better than sacrifice"? Saul was given a specific command to wipe out the Amalekites, which the children of Israel had not done before, and Saul didn't do it. He was also instructed to wipe out all of their flocks and herds, but they saved all that they thought was good that would profit them. Saul allowed Agag, their king, to remain alive. Somehow, though Samuel ultimately came and hacked Agag into pieces, the Agagites continued.

Now we see in the book of Esther, in the time of the Babylonian captivity, Saul's disobedience rears its ugly head again and is causing problems for the children of Israel. Verse 2: "And all the king's servants who were within the king's gate bowed and paid homage to Haman, for so the king had commanded concerning him. But Mordecai would not bow or pay homage. Then the king's servants who were within the king's gate said to Mordecai, 'Why do you transgress the king's command?'"

We never really get an answer to this. Why did Mordecai refuse to bow? Maybe it was his religious principle, but here's an interesting fact: never in the Old Testament law is there a specific command never to bow to a man. We're not to worship a man, obviously, but the idea of showing deference to someone was never commanded against in the scripture. Was he somehow holding on to principle? Or was it because Mordecai knew that Haman was an Agagite descendant from the Amalekites?

Because of that hostility between the two groups, he just refused. He doesn't seem to make a big deal out of it, but some people noticed. Haman finally finds out because someone goes and tells him, "Hey, did you know that Mordecai is not bowing to you?" Verse 4: "Now it happened when they spoke to him daily and he would not listen to them, that they told it to Haman to see whether Mordecai's words would stand, for Mordecai had told them that he was a Jew."

Somewhere in the course of the conversation, Mordecai tells them that he was a Jew, which leads me to believe that it's because of the Jewish-Amalekite history that he wasn't bowing. That's my conjecture. "When Haman saw that Mordecai did not bow or pay him homage, Haman was filled with wrath. But he disdained to lay hands on Mordecai alone, for they had told him of the people of Mordecai. Instead, Haman sought to destroy all the Jews who were throughout the whole kingdom of Ahasuerus, the people of Mordecai."

For Haman, it wasn't enough just to kill Mordecai for not showing him the proper respect. He said, "I'm going to wipe out his whole people." Think about again the size of the kingdom and how large the Persian Empire was. To wipe out every Jewish person throughout the entire empire, that would have been millions and millions of people. He wants to eradicate all of them. But it's been the same since the garden, hasn't it?

From the time that God said to the serpent, "I will put enmity between your seed and her seed," her seed being the promised Messiah, well, the Messiah was going to come from a people group. Who's that people group? Israel. So, if Satan can get rid of Israel, then Satan can preempt the plan of God in bringing forth the Messiah. Sometimes the only reason I can see for the craziness of antisemitism is that the Jewish people are a blessing to whatever country or nation or empire they have resided in.

And yet, ultimately, antisemitism raises its ugly head again. We've seen that satanic thing take place through generation after generation after generation. We see it here in the book of Esther. We saw it with Pharaoh in Egypt trying to wipe out the Jewish people, Herod killing all the babies to try and make sure that he wiped out the Messiah. Hitler's a classic example. But we're watching it again today, aren't we?

We're seeing this antisemitic satanic idea raising its ugly head again. Again, we sit and look at it and go, "Why?" Because it's spiritual. God loves the people of Israel; they are his chosen people. He loves us too, praise God, but that nation, he still has plans for. Paul makes that really clear in the book of Romans. He's not finished with Israel. So, Satan wants to destroy them because to destroy Israel is to destroy the plan of God.

But what are the chances that Satan's going to destroy the plan of God? Slim to none, and slim's out of town, right? Not going to happen. The Jewish people have seen the funeral of every empire that has tried to wipe them out. Today, if you go to Israel, you will be taken around and shown the ruins of the Roman Empire, and your guide will be a Jew because the Romans, though they persecuted the Jewish people, don't exist anymore.

On a more individual note for Haman, this is what pride and arrogance does to a person. He's the second most powerful person in a vast empire. How much more power and wealth did he need? And yet, one man won't show him the respect he thinks he deserves, and he's on a tirade to wipe out an entire people group. In the first month, which is the month of Nisan, they cast Pur—that is, the lot—before Haman to determine the day and the month until it fell on the 12th month, which is the month of Adar.

Haman wants to wipe out the Jewish people, but because of superstition and astrology in Persia, he tries to ascertain when is the best day to wipe out an entire people group. So, they cast lots. The Hebrew word for casting lots is "Pur." The Hebrew plural would be "Purim," which is the name for the celebration of this holiday that commemorates what takes place in this book. So, when you hear about the Jewish holiday of Purim, it is the holiday of God preserving his people against the plot of Haman.

We do know that God can work through these kinds of things. We read in Proverbs 16:33, "The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the Lord." So, can God speak through the casting of lots? Sure, he can. God can do whatever he desires. Does that mean that we, as New Testament Christians, should rely on these things to try and ascertain the will of God? I don't believe so because I know that we have the word of God and the spirit of God, and that's where we discern the will of God.

Haman wants to figure out when is the best time to eradicate the Jewish people, and the lot falls out 11 months from now. You think that made him happy or sad? I'm thinking it made him angry that he's got to wait 11 more months to accomplish this. Verse 8: "Haman said to King Ahasuerus, 'There is a certain people scattered and dispersed among the people in all the provinces of your kingdom; their laws are different from all other people's.'"

That's a true statement, isn't it? The Jewish people, following God's laws, were different from the laws that all the other people groups he had conquered in that Persian Empire followed. Again, these laws of God that the Jewish people were following ultimately served the betterment of the kingdom where they were, which makes the antisemitic idea just so crazy. But Haman wanted to set everything up to accuse them of rebellion.

"O King, there's these people all out there throughout your provinces, and they do not keep the king's laws. Therefore, it is not fitting for the king to let them remain. If it pleases the king, let a decree be written that they may be destroyed, and I will pay ten thousand talents of silver into the hands of those who do the work to bring it into the king's treasuries." Did you notice that Haman never says to the king which people group they are?

I am going to bet that King Ahasuerus had no idea the size of the people group they were talking about. He's probably thinking it's a small group of rebels who just don't want to keep his laws. And Haman says, "I'll pay money to the people who will do the work, and then everything that they gather after they wipe these people out and take their belongings, they'll bring back into the king's treasury." "O King, I just can't stand the thought of these people rebelling against your kingdom."

The king took his signet ring from his hand and gave it to Haman, the enemy of the Jews. And the king said to Haman, "The money and the people are given to you to do with them as seems good to you." You get the idea that at this point, King Ahasuerus is still stinging from his defeat at the hand of the Greeks. He just got a new wife, and now he's just like, "Yeah, whatever, just take care of it." He's almost a little bit checked out and detached from what's happening.

The king's scribes were called, and a decree was written according to all that Haman commanded. So, this decree is translated into all these languages, written in all these different scripts, and in the name of King Ahasuerus, it was written and sealed with the king's signet ring. Remember growing up hearing about the Pony Express in our country? It actually didn't last very long because it was right before the telegraph was invented.

Well, the Pony Express was not invented by Americans. It's the same thing right here. This is the ancient Camel Express. They had stables that were set about every 15 miles apart where a courier would give the message to a new courier on a new camel, and they would continue spreading this message throughout the entirety of the empire. The letters were sent by couriers into all the king's provinces to destroy, to kill, and to annihilate all the Jews.

Kill them off, and you can take some of the possessions for yourselves. This would be their version of Purge Night. They would have one night that they could go out and kill as many Jews as they wanted. A copy of the document was to be issued as law in every province, being published for all people that they should be ready for that day. The couriers went out, hastened by the king's command, and the decree was proclaimed in Shushan the citadel.

Shushan the citadel has kind of been the setting for all of the book of Esther. Most people back then couldn't read. So, they'd run through the city, announce the news, and go to probably the local inn or the local tavern and post the bill. That's why so many of our newspapers were called "The Post." It came from the posting of this news onto the local tavern door. In the Persian Empire, the same kind of thing would take place, only it would take place in the gates of the city, which was the gathering place for the people.

The king and Haman sat down to drink, but the city of Shushan was perplexed because they, for the life of them, cannot figure out what would cause the king to issue an edict or a decree like this. Verse 1 of chapter 4: "When Mordecai learned all that had happened, he tore his clothes and put on sackcloth and ashes and went out into the midst of the city. He cried out with a loud and bitter cry."

Mordecai's heart, when he hears about this decree that there is a day coming when everybody throughout the empire would be completely legally justified in murdering their Jewish neighbors, it breaks his heart. It wounds his heart. If he was worried about the threat against his life personally, all he needed to do was bow his head in recognition of Haman's position. So then, what is his heart broken for? It was broken on behalf of God's people and his people.

His people, because he recognized that they were God's people. And he probably understands that his unwillingness to bow to Haman was likely at the root of this proclamation. So, imagine him now feeling like this edict has been issued, the entirety of God's people are in danger of being wiped out, and all the Jews in Israel would be wiped out too. He realizes that his actions have probably led to this.

That doesn't mean that his actions were wrong, but that's a heavy weight of responsibility to bear, isn't it? His heart is broken. He went as far as the front of the king's gate, for no one might enter the king's gate clothed with sackcloth. He's in sackcloth and ashes, his clothes are torn, he's weeping, he's mourning with a loud and bitter cry. He doesn't enter into the gates because that was illegal. Remember Nehemiah, the cupbearer to the king? Remember how afraid he was when he came into the presence of the king and the king asked him why he was sad?

He was afraid because you didn't come into the king's presence with sadness. They did everything they could to make the king's little world what we would call today a Disneyland. No one went into his presence crying bitterly. They didn't want to see or hear anything bad around the king. Verse 3: "And in every province where the king's command and decree arrived, there was great mourning among the Jews, with fasting, weeping, and wailing; and many lay in sackcloth and ashes."

What strikes me so much about verse 3 as we read through that is, do you see one mention of prayer? There's no mention of prayer. They're scared, they're afraid, they're fasting, they're crying out, they're mourning, they're laying down prostrate on the ground in sackcloth and ashes, but there's no mention of prayer. Is it implied? Maybe, but it's not specifically mentioned. And I can't help but wonder if it's not because of their compromise and their distance from God.

Many of these Jews, when they were given the right to return to Jerusalem to restore and rebuild Jerusalem and build the temple under Ezra's leadership and under Nehemiah's leadership, most of the Jewish population didn't go back. They stayed in Persia, compromised, far from God in their relationship. So then, what amazes me about this verse? They're not apparently walking in close relationship with God, but it amazes and it thrills my heart that God works with them where they are.

What an amazing God we serve, that they would be in this condition and God doesn't say, "You guys are awful, I want nothing to do with you." He still is going to intervene on their behalf, is he not? Esther's maids and eunuchs came and told her, and the queen was deeply distressed. Then she sent garments to clothe Mordecai and take his sackcloth away from him, but he would not accept them.

She probably sends him these clothes because he could not be in a place where she could communicate with him while he was dressed like this. The next verse is going to tell her she's trying to figure out what's going on. She's secluded in the palace; she probably knows nothing of this decree. Have you ever thought about the fact that it was unlikely that Esther could read? Women in that day and age were generally illiterate.

So, the notice is given outside of the royal compound, and she probably didn't know anything about it. So, Hathach went out to Mordecai in the city square that was in front of the king's gate. And Mordecai told him all that had happened to him and the sum of money that Haman had promised to pay into the king's treasuries to destroy the Jews. He also gave him a copy of the written decree for their destruction, which was given at Shushan, that he might show it to Esther and explain it to her, and that he might command her to go in to the king to make supplication to him and plead before him for her people.

I wonder if this was the first indication that Hathach, the eunuch that was attending Esther, the first idea that he got that she was Jewish, or whether he was that trusted. Verse 9: "Hathach returned and told Esther the words of Mordecai. Then Esther spoke to Hathach and gave him a command for Mordecai. All the king's servants and the people of the king's provinces know that any man or woman who goes into the inner court of the king who has not been called, he has but one law: put all to death, except the one to whom the king holds out the golden scepter, that he may live. Yet I myself have not been called to go in to the king these thirty days."

"Tell my uncle, you know how this works. I can't just go into the presence of the king and ask him what he's thinking. If I do, and he doesn't hold his scepter out towards me, I'll be put to death. And I haven't seen him in 30 days, Unk. I haven't seen my husband in a month." The king saw whom he wanted to see, when he wanted to see them. He had a harem of concubines. If he didn't want to call his wife in to see him for a month, that was no problem for the king.

They told Mordecai Esther's words. And Mordecai told them to answer Esther: "Do not think in your heart that you will escape in the king's palace any more than all the other Jews. For if you remain completely silent at this time, relief and deliverance will arise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father's house will perish. Esther, God's going to take care of his people. I don't know how, and I'm scared to death. I don't see how God is going to preserve his people, but deliverance is going to come from somewhere."

"There are still promises to Israel that God had to fulfill, and Mordecai is trusting. Yet who knows whether you have come to the kingdom for such a time as this?" Could it be, Esther, that God brought you to this place at this moment in time for this very work of God? Think about that with Joseph. All that you've gone through, Joseph, being sold into slavery, being barely rescued from being killed by your brothers, being falsely accused and thrown into prison, so that one day you would be raised to the place of second-in-command.

Esther, all the hardship that has brought her into this place: born in a foreign land, losing both her parents, being taken forcibly into the king's beauty pageant, being taken into the king's bed whether she wanted to or not, she had no say in the matter. It's all been to bring her to this point in time, at this place where she can make a difference. God records our struggles and our tears, doesn't he?

What does the Psalmist tell us? Psalm 56, verse 8: "You number my wanderings; put my tears into your bottle; are they not in your book?" God keeps a record of all of these things. What does that mean for us? It means that God has allowed us to be born into this land, to be here in 2026, in this community, for such a time as this. Look around this room right now and tell me that it doesn't make you want to chuckle that God knew that this group would be here at this moment, in this time, in this place, for ministry in 2026.

Things are getting really weird in our country and in our culture. The hypocrisy, the outright insanity. How do we respond to it? Could it be, who knows, whether we have come into this kingdom for such a time as this? We have the message of the good news of Jesus Christ. We have the message of hope for people that don't know their right hand from their left, good from evil. We have the answer. I believe that's the case.

Father, thank you so much for your word. Thank you for the encouragement we derive from it because, Lord, we often look around and we don't understand completely what you're doing. But we do know that you love us. You demonstrated that at the cross. You have saved us from darkness, from death. Lord, you didn't just do that so we would be pew potatoes, but Lord, you did that so that we could be about your business.

Lord, excite us and encourage us for the possibilities that you may lay in front of us in the coming year. Lord, keep us from responding in our flesh. Our flesh rears its ugly head and we just want to be angry and strike out at the insanity, which accomplishes nothing. But Lord, help us to remember that our battle is not against flesh and blood. The battle is taking place in the spiritual realm.

Lord, as a congregation of people, as a people who are called by your name, may we truly be a lighthouse in our community to warn of danger and to lead to safe harbor. God, use us for your glory and for others' good. We pray in Jesus' name, and all God's people said, amen. Right on. All right, God bless you guys. See you this weekend.