Holy Scriptures and Israel

Guest (Male): Shalom! Holy Scriptures and Israel is a ministry designed to share with the Jewish people the good news of the Lord Jesus Yeshua the Messiah and to instruct Christians on the Jewish roots of their faith. And now, teaching God's word from a Hebrew Messianic perspective, here is Gideon Levytam.

Gideon Levytam: The study of Esther Chapter 2 and Chapter 3. So a time when we're not going to get rewarded for things that we have done right, we should let it be. And we will find out later on in Chapter 6 how he eventually was rewarded by King Ahasuerus. But at this point of time, Mordecai was not rewarded at all. It was recorded in the chronicles of the King Ahasuerus and it was settled for a while.

Now I want you to notice that between Chapter 2 and now Chapter 3, another five years passed by. You notice it says in Chapter 2 and Verse 16 that the things that have happened here, that Esther became queen, it says in the seventh year of King Ahasuerus's reign. But then if you notice in Chapter 3 and Verse 7, it says that in the first month, that is the month of Nisan, in the 12th year of King Ahasuerus. Now we really find out that between Chapter 1 and Chapter 2, there are at least three or four years. Between Chapter 2 and Chapter 3, there are at least five more years passing by.

And I want you now to notice that in Chapter 3, we find out a few things that are very important. First of all, in Verses 1, 2, 3, and 4, we have a promotion of a wicked man by the name of Haman. In the synagogues and in our Jewish schools, and in Israel and so on, whenever we mention the name Haman, we always say "boo!" because Haman was very well known to be the hater and the enemies of our own Jewish people.

And you notice, brothers and sisters, that we are introduced here the first time to this wicked man by the name of Haman. In Verse 10, he is called the Jews' enemy, *tsorer ha-Yehudim*. But let's just look over and see what the scripture teaches us about the rise of Haman to such a great position. First of all, in Verse 1, we see the promotion of Haman the Agagite. We read in Verse 1, "After these things, did King Ahasuerus promote Haman the son of Hammedatha the Agagite, and he advanced him, and he set his seat above all the princes that were with him."

Now look at this, the promotion of this man by the name of Haman. Now it is so important because the Bible is adding to his name. It says here, "Haman the son of Hammedatha," and it's also added the word "Agagite." He was Agagi. Where do we get the thought of Agag? In Hebrew, *Agag*—*Ayin, Gimel, Gimel*—it really has to do with the man that is a descendant of a tribe that came out of the people of Esau, who were a tribe called Amalek.

The giants, or a nation or a tribe that throughout Israel's history were always going against the Jewish people. In fact, if you just turn with me to Exodus Chapter 17, please, I would like to read a couple of verses there where the first time we find that nation oppose the people of Israel. You see, after Israel, our nation, came out of Egypt after 430 years as slaves in Egypt, when the twelve tribes of Israel were traveling in the wilderness, guess who came against them? It was the Amalekites, the people whom this Haman was a descendant of.

Look, we read in Exodus Chapter 17 and Verse 8: "Then came Amalek, and he fought with Israel in Rephidim. And Moses said unto Joshua, 'Choose us out men, and go out to fight with Amalek.' He continue and he says, 'Tomorrow I will stand on the top of the hill with the rod of God in mine hand.' So Joshua did as Moses had said unto him, and he fought with Amalek. And Moses and Aaron and Hur went up to the top of the hill."

"And it came to pass when Moses had lifted up his hand, that Israel prevailed. And when he let down his hand, Amalek prevailed. But Moses's hands were heavy, and he took stone and he put it under him, and he sat thereon, and Aaron and Hur stayed up his hands, the one on a one side and the other on the other side, and his hands were steady until the going down of the sun. And Joshua discomfited Amalek and his people with the edge of the sword."

And listen, beloved brothers and sisters, what the Lord said to Moshe and to the people of Israel in these next verses. The Lord says in Verse 14, "The Lord said unto Moses, 'Write this as a memorial in a book, and rehearse it in the ears of Joshua. For I will utterly put out the remembrance of Amalek from under the sun.'" And Moses built an altar and he called it in the name of Jehovah Nissi. For he said, "Because the Lord had sworn that the Lord will have war with Amalek from generation to generation."

Now pause with me, think with me for a moment. The descendant of Amalek is this man by the name of Haman the Agagite. Agag was the king of the Amalekites. And God said to Israel, "From generation to generation, I'm going to fight, I'm going to have a war with Amalek. And Amalek ultimately will have to be destroyed from under the face of this earth."

Now spiritually speaking, beloved brothers and sisters, Amalek or giant is a picture of the old nature, of the flesh of ours. And you see, beloved brothers and sisters, one of the greatest problems that you and I have in our spiritual walk with the Lord is this old nature, the Adamic nature that each and every one has. That's why every day we have a fight.

We as believers in Yeshua the Messiah have two natures. The new nature says, "I'm going to walk with Yeshua. I will submit to His word. I will live for Him." The old nature says, "No, no, no, you don't need to walk with God. You live in the flesh, you have your own way, you do your own thing, and don't walk with the Lord." And we have constantly a struggle between the new nature and the old nature.

You see, like we read in Galatians Chapter 5, "Walk in the spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit lusteth against the flesh." And you see, in Amalek, in Agag, we have a representation of the flesh, this old sinful nature that we have. That's why we constantly fight. That's why we constantly hate and jealous and lust and covet and do all the wrong things that we should not do. But why do we do it? Because we have this old flesh, this old sinful nature.

And God says, "I will utterly destroy Amalek from the face of this earth." And God said that He will have war with Amalek from generation to generation. You see, this is the lesson that we learn from the Tanakh, from the Old Testament, concerning the Brit Chadashah, the teaching that we have today in this present-day dispensation. The Amalek is a representation of our old nature. And as long as we allow our old nature to have its own way, we will never be successful spiritually.

"Walk in the spirit," Paul said, "and ye shall not fulfill the lusts of the flesh." Out of the abundance of our old nature come all kinds of things that dishonor God, and God wants us to honor Him. And therefore we ought to walk in the power of the spirit of God rather than to allow the old sinful nature to have its own way. Paul said, "I know that in my flesh," Romans Chapter 7, "dwelleth no good thing." Yeshua said, "Flesh and blood shall not inherit the kingdom of God." To Nicodemus He said in Chapter 3, "That which is of the flesh is flesh, and that which is of the spirit is spirit. You must be born again." This is the lesson that we learn here.

So what happened? How come we find a man by the name of Haman already in Persia again rising up? And you will notice in a moment, seeking to destroy the Jewish people. Well, it all started when the Jewish people came out of Egypt. It was already then that the first nation that attacked Israel was Amalek. And you and I know very well that when we became believers in Yeshua the Messiah, the first you might say problem that we have is our very own flesh.

Oh yeah, we are saved, but the world draws us and the flesh lusts after everything else. Oh yeah, we want to walk with the Lord, but the old nature says, "No, it's my way. I'm going to do my thing." And we are struggling every day, every day. Young people, older people, doesn't matter how old you are, you and I live in this world that we have this constant struggle. Amalek, the old nature, and you might say Israel, the new nature, the nature that God had given to us as the Holy Spirit of God as believers in Yeshua the Messiah.

Now please go to the book of Deuteronomy with me, Chapter 25 for a moment. And notice what it says there in Verse 19. Before Israel entered into the promised land, God said to our people Israel at the end of the verse, "Thou shalt blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven; thou shalt not forget." In other words, Israel, you have to destroy Amalek because Amalek will rise up and constantly going to be a thorn in your side.

And you see, this is again—the lesson is very clear. The old nature, when we let it have its way, it always causes us to go astray and to stay far away from the things of God. Amalek, the flesh, must be blotted out, must be judged every day, brothers and sisters. As far as God is concerned, we are now new creations. Second Corinthians 5 and Verse 17: those that are in the Messiah Yeshua are new creations; old things have passed away, all become new. Therefore Amalek, the flesh, has to be totally blotted out.

But now turn with me quickly to First Samuel Chapter 15 for a moment. The King of Israel did not completely destroy Amalek. According to First Samuel Chapter 15, I'm not going to read everything there, but in Verses 1 to 9, Samuel said to Saul that he ought to destroy Amalek. But he didn't listen to him. And here I want you to see where we get the word Agag, the Agagite. Listen to this.

Samuel also said unto Saul, "The Lord sent me to anoint you to be a king over this people, over Israel. Now therefore hearken unto the voice of the word of the Lord. Thus says the Lord of hosts: 'I remember that which Amalek did to Israel, and how that he waited for him in the way as Israel came out of Egypt. Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all they have, and spare them not; but slay both men and women, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.'"

Now do you think Saul the King of Israel will listen to the words of the Lord? Well, look what it says here in Verse 8 of First Samuel Chapter 15: "Saul took Agag"—here where we get the first time Agag—"Agag the King of the Amalekites alive he took him, and he utterly destroyed all the people with the edge of the sword." But it says in Verse 9, "But Saul and the people spared Agag," and so on.

In other words, King Saul the King of Israel did not submit to the voice of God and he allowed the King of the Amalekites, Agag, to remain alive. He should have destroyed him according to the voice of the Lord, but he didn't. Very similar to you and I. We should have put our flesh and reckon it as dead, but we don't. We allow this old sinful nature oftentimes to rise up. We have pride rising in our hearts. We have self-will rising in our hearts. We allow the old nature to have its own way and we don't submit to the word of God.

It is exactly what happened in our nation's history. It happened to us in our own life. Had we listened to the word of God, we would not have many of the problems that exist in our own personal life, in our family life, in our relationship, in so many areas in our life. Had we submitted to the word of God! Israel didn't. The church many times doesn't. And we also in our own personal life don't do so many times. And that's why there are many challenges that come into our own life. And so back to Esther Chapter 3.

And now we find out that after Haman the Agagite had been advanced, he was placed above all the princes that were at the King's palace, then we find out that all the King's servants were bowing to him. It says in Verse 2, "And all the king's servants that were in the king's gate they bowed and they did reverence to Haman, for the king had so commanded concerning him." All the servants of the people that lived in Persia, they were bowing. Can you imagine Haman passing by? Everybody's fall on his knees. The Hebrew word here *likroa u-le-hishtachavot*, to actually bow and worship him with their face to the ground and say, "Oh Haman, Haman." He became like a god.

You see, Haman became a picture of the Antichrist of the future day, that when he's going to seek to be like God, Second Thessalonians Chapter 2, standing in a temple claiming to be God. And you see here everybody's now bowing before Haman, but there was someone that didn't want to bow before him. And that was who? Mordecai ha-Yehudi. It says here again in Verse 2b, "But Mordecai bowed not, nor did him reverence."

Why? You might ask Mordecai, "Wait a minute, Mordecai, why don't you? Everybody else bow before Haman, but why don't you bow?" Well, even though Mordecai the Jew was not in the place where he should have been, Jerusalem, in the temple, yet Mordecai ha-Yehudi, Mordecai the Jew, knew very well that according to the book of Exodus, when God gave our nation the law, the Torah, God said to our people of Israel in Chapter 20.

He said, "Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven images, nor any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them." So Mordecai the Jew knew very well his, you might say, the law, the Torah that God had given our nation Israel. So he was not in the right place, he should have been in Jerusalem, but somehow in the inner depth of his heart, he knew very well the Torah taught our nation Israel, the Jewish people, that they are not to bow.

And therefore Mordecai did not bow, neither did he any reverence. Now that of course immediately reminds me of the three boys in Daniel's time in Chapter 3, who did not want to bow to the image that Nebuchadnezzar did set up. And you remember why everybody—the voice, the sound of all kind of voices of music was given—everybody bowed towards that image. But there were three boys who did not even bow. And you remember what happened before them, they end up throwing them to the fire because they did not want to worship an idol.

Later on Daniel in Chapter 6 of the book of Daniel, he also did not want to stop worshipping the God of Israel. And every morning and every evening he opened the windows towards Jerusalem and he worshipped the true and living God. And it is so interesting to see these Jewish men that took a stand for God even though they were in Bavel, away from the city of Jerusalem. Well, Mordecai stood. And everybody bowing? No, Mordecai remained standing. He would not bow to him.

He knew very well that worshipping man is wrong. But he also knew very well that Agag, the King of the Amalekites, was called by God to be destroyed ultimately. And he was the enemies of the people of Israel and therefore he would never bow to him. Well, there is a price to pay when one takes a stand for God. And so in Verses 3 and 4, the king's servants came to Haman and they told him about this man by the name of Mordecai. And they told him that he was Jewish.

Notice that, it says, "Then the king's servants which were in the king's gate said unto Mordecai, 'Why transgressest thou the king's commandments?' Now it came to pass when they spake daily unto him, and he hearkened not unto them, that they told Haman to see whether Mordecai's matter would stand; for he told them that he was a Jew." Somehow in some of the conversation with the rest of the pagan servants there of King Ahasuerus, Mordecai told them, "You know why I don't do that? I'm Jewish. And we have been taught in our law not to worship idols or any man."

And again I would like to suggest, brothers and sisters, that's why it was very difficult for the Pharisees to acknowledge the Messiahship of Yeshua, because they said to him, "How you being a man, makest yourself God?" That's why they took stones in John Chapter 10 and they wanted to stone him because he claimed to be divine. And of course we know very well that this is a truth that we find throughout scripture, that God entered humanity in a person of the son, and that Yeshua ha-Mashiach is none else but the eternal son of God who came into this world and was willing to pay the price for the sins of this world.

So it is fascinating to imagine what happened there in Persia in those days. Well, Amalek is a picture of the flesh. And you and I should learn a lesson from that. Unfortunately, we're not always learning. As long as we will allow the old nature to have its own way, we will never be able to grow spiritually. The flesh must be put down. The flesh must be reckoned as dead. We are to walk in the power of the spirit of God rather than to allow the old sinful nature to have its own way.

And every time we will allow the flesh to have its own way, we will be defeated spiritually, even though we belong to the Lord and we are saved and forgiven. We will never be able to live a victorious life as long as we allow our sin nature to have its own way. Well, so what Haman is going to do now? Every time he passes by, he sees that Jewish man. And every time he sees that Jewish man, he's the only one who is standing while everybody else is on their knees worshipping him.

So Haman had a plan. He had a plan like many, many people had a plan throughout the history of the world: I've got to get rid of this man. I've got to get rid of his people. I've got to get rid of the people that are known to be the Jewish people, the people of Israel. And so in Verses 5, 6, and 7 of Esther Chapter 3, we have the plan of Haman to destroy all our Jewish nation, our Jewish people. And so we find out, notice, and I'm reading now in Verse 5, Haman was very angry.

He was so upset, it says, "And when Haman saw that Mordecai bowed not, nor did him reverence, then was Haman full of wrath." The Hebrew word says *vayimale Haman cheima*. He was hot. He was so angry. "I cannot allow this to happen. I cannot allow that everybody have to bow their knees before me, I am the one who is second to the king." But he passes by, everybody's down, Mordecai's up. Everybody's down, Mordecai's like, you might say, like a sore thumb standing up and saying, "I will not bow my knee before you."

So notice what it says here, beloved brothers and sisters, it says in Verse 6, "And Haman thought scorn to lay hands on Mordecai alone." First he wanted to destroy Mordecai alone. But then the people who were serving there in the King's palace, they said, "You know what? He belongs to the Jewish people that we have throughout Persia." So the moment he found out that he's Jewish, it says in Verse 6b, "Wherefore Haman sought to destroy all the Jews that were throughout the whole kingdom of Ahasuerus, even the people of Mordecai."

Brothers and sisters, listen to that. This is so real. You know, when we—those of us who are Jewish know this very, very well in the history of our families and our people. Throughout the whole history of our nation Israel of the Jewish people, we always had those that wanted to finish with the Jewish people. You remember what we sing at Passover: "This is what stand. For not only one rose and try to destroy us. Rather in every generation they were they that tried to destroy us, but the Holy One, blessed be His name, saves us from all our enemies."

*She-be-chol dor va-dor kamim aleinu le-chalotenu, ve-ha-Kadosh Baruch Hu*—and the Holy One, blessed be His name—He saved us from all our enemies. I mean, I remember as a little boy singing that with my grandparents and my parents in the synagogue but also at the home around the table at the Passover. It was such a song that moved our hearts.

Guest (Male): You have been listening to Holy Scriptures and Israel with Gideon Levytam. Gideon teaches God's word from a Hebrew Messianic perspective. For more information about this ministry, write to Holy Scriptures and Israel, Box 1411, Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, L0S 1J0, or visit our website at holyscripturesandisrael.com. You are also invited to Gideon's weekly Bible teaching on Fridays at 11 AM and 7 PM, and Saturdays at 1 PM at Willowdale Christian Assembly Hall, 28 Martin Ross Avenue in Toronto. Holy Scriptures and Israel is made possible by your prayers and financial support. If you would like to support the program, visit holyscripturesandisrael.com. God bless you. Shalom, shalom!