SPEAKER_00: Our sermon text this morning comes from the book of Esther, chapter nine.
SPEAKER_00: We're coming to the end of this sermon series on this Old Testament book written to encourage the people of God through all generations, including this generation today.
SPEAKER_00: Quite a story, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00: How God can use a woman who ends up in a harem, her cousin who can't get inside the palace.
SPEAKER_00: And God is in control of all things.
SPEAKER_00: God knows how to get his people into the places where they can have influence.
SPEAKER_00: And God knows how to grow his people so that they have more gospel influence.
SPEAKER_00: And that's not just their day, that's this day.
SPEAKER_00: I trust and pray that you are learning how to have a growing gospel impact in your own life.
SPEAKER_00: We've talked about fast horses.
SPEAKER_00: Are you finding your horse to take the good news?
SPEAKER_00: Because people in this world, people in this city desperately need to hear the good news.
SPEAKER_00: And if we're not going to tell them, who will?
SPEAKER_00: This morning we're looking at decrees, reversals, and feast.
SPEAKER_00: How appropriate as we come to the Lord's table in just a few minutes to talk about feast.
SPEAKER_00: Hear the word of God.
SPEAKER_00: And Mordecai recorded these things and sent letters to all the Jews who were in all the provinces of King Ahashuas, both near and far, obliging them to keep the fourteenth day of the month Adar, and also the fifteenth day of the same, year by year, as the days on which the Jews got relief from their enemies, and as the month that had been turned for them from sorrow into gladness, and from mourning into a holiday, that they should make them days of feasting and gladness, days for sending gifts of food to one another and gifts to the poor.
SPEAKER_00: So the Jews accepted what they had started to do, and what Mordecai had written to them.
SPEAKER_00: For Haman the Agagite, the son of Hamadatha, the enemy of all the Jews, had plotted against the Jews to destroy them, and had cast per, that is, lots, to crush and to destroy them.
SPEAKER_00: But when he came before the king, he gave orders in writing that his evil plan that he had devised against the Jews should return on their own head, that he and his sons should be hanged on the gallows.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore they called these days Purim, after the term pure.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, because of all that was written in this letter, and of what they had faced in this matter, and of what had happened to them, the Jews firmly obligated themselves and their offspring, and all who joined them, that without fail they would keep these two days according to what was written, and at the time appointed every year, that these days should be remembered and kept throughout every generation in every clan, province, and city, and that these days of Purim should never fall into disuse among the Jews, nor should the commemoration of these days cease among their descendants.
SPEAKER_00: Then Queen Esther, the daughter of Abahel and Mordecai the Jew, gave full written authority, confirming this second letter about Purim.
SPEAKER_00: Letters were sent to all the Jews, to the 127 provinces of the kingdom of Ahasherus in words of peace and truth, that these days of Purim should be observed at their appointed seasons, as Mordecai the Jew and Queen Esther obligated them, and as they had obligated themselves and their offspring with regard to their fast and their lamenting.
SPEAKER_00: The command of Esther confirmed these practices of Purim, and it was recorded in writing.
SPEAKER_00: This is the reading of God's holy, powerful word.
SPEAKER_00: And so we place ourselves under God's authority even now as we ask Him to work in our hearts.
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
SPEAKER_00: Sovereign mighty God, although your name does not appear in this book, your fingerprints are all over this book.
SPEAKER_00: And we acknowledge that there are times in our life where we don't see you at work.
SPEAKER_00: And you seem far away and distant and removed.
SPEAKER_00: And we wonder sometimes, are you there?
SPEAKER_00: In what ways are you working?
SPEAKER_00: Father, I trust that we've been learning through this story that you're always there, that you're always working.
SPEAKER_00: And by your Spirit, we pray that you would be at work right now.
SPEAKER_00: And the minds and the hearts of every person here.
SPEAKER_00: Do your work to your glory, we pray.
SPEAKER_00: In Jesus' name, amen.
SPEAKER_00: This is a story about decrees, reversals, and feast.
SPEAKER_00: We've heard and read about the decrees because kings issued decrees.
SPEAKER_00: This is a story about decrees.
SPEAKER_00: King Xerxes, or otherwise known as Ahasherus, issued a decree of death being motivated, really being mediated by an evil man named Haman.
SPEAKER_00: We've learned about Haman.
SPEAKER_00: And Haman had a sinister evil plot that he brought about with the desire and the goal eventually of exterminating the Jewish people.
SPEAKER_00: And so Haman, using the king's authority, issued a decree that the day would come in about eleven months when all the Jews within all the provinces under the kingdom of the Medes and the Persians would be destroyed.
SPEAKER_00: That was his decree.
SPEAKER_00: Until God intervened through secondary means, he used a man named Mordecai who was able to get the king's ear through Esther, his queen.
SPEAKER_00: And once the king, Xerxes, found out about this plot, he became angry because he loved his queen, Esther.
SPEAKER_00: He wanted to protect his queen.
SPEAKER_00: He also wanted to protect her people, the Jews.
SPEAKER_00: And so through the providence of God, God's providence, he not only creates, but he preserves, he protects, he leads all creatures for his glory, for his purpose.
SPEAKER_00: He has a plan for this world and he has a plan for your life.
SPEAKER_00: Do you know that?
SPEAKER_00: Do you believe that today?
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it can get rather disturbing if you just get glued to the news.
SPEAKER_00: Or even in your own life.
SPEAKER_00: How could God be using this for good?
SPEAKER_00: But He does.
SPEAKER_00: He averted the evil through Esther, who was willing, if necessary, to leave behind the palace, who was willing to take the risk at the risk of her own life.
SPEAKER_00: Because she went in unannounced to the king, uninvited to the king, and she could have easily lost her life.
SPEAKER_00: And like Esther, gospel people today must be willing to leave their palace, must be willing to leave the comforts of life to take gospel risk.
SPEAKER_00: We can't live for safety.
SPEAKER_00: We can't live for security.
SPEAKER_00: We can't live for comfort.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, we can, but we're going to be of little use to the king if we do.
SPEAKER_00: And this life is about making our lives available to the king to lead us and use us.
SPEAKER_00: Haman's evil plot was exposed, and the Jews were spared, thank God.
SPEAKER_00: And that first decree was overruled by a second decree.
SPEAKER_00: Once the king realized the evil plot and the effect that it would have on Esther and her people, he gave Esther and Mordecai that royal power and that signet ring, and he said, You write another decree.
SPEAKER_00: You write the decree that will be helpful to saving your people.
SPEAKER_00: And so they did.
SPEAKER_00: And that was the decree that went out on those fast horses to the Jews all over the kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: In 11 months, when this was going to take place, when the people who hate the Jews are going to attack you, this decree said, you have permission to defend yourselves against them.
SPEAKER_00: And they did.
SPEAKER_00: And when the day finally came, 75,000 enemies were killed in that holy war that we talked about last week a bit.
SPEAKER_00: 75,000 enemies were killed because the Jews were permitted by that second decree to defend themselves, to take up arms.
SPEAKER_00: And there were others that joined them that were enlisted in their army.
SPEAKER_00: Decrees.
SPEAKER_00: Reversals.
SPEAKER_00: The reverse occurred.
SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of death in this story.
SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of death in the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of death, frankly, in the New Testament.
SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of death, but there's also life.
SPEAKER_00: Xerxes granted Esther and the Jewish people the right to protect themselves, to take revenge on their enemies.
SPEAKER_00: And where there was certain death, we see life was being preserved.
SPEAKER_00: And because of that, there were a feast.
SPEAKER_00: The feast of Purim.
SPEAKER_00: We've seen that that Hebrew word pure means lots.
SPEAKER_00: You know, like casting lots.
SPEAKER_00: Like rolling dice.
SPEAKER_00: Seems to be very random, doesn't it?
SPEAKER_00: Did all this really happen because the rolling of the dice?
SPEAKER_00: Well, in a certain sense, yes.
SPEAKER_00: But God, who runs and governs his world, is always behind the rolling of the dice as well.
SPEAKER_00: Nothing truly happens randomly.
SPEAKER_00: Nothing.
SPEAKER_00: As much as it seems like it's the case sometimes.
SPEAKER_00: And so there's this feast of Purim after the Jews were spared.
SPEAKER_00: Esther and Mordecai, no doubt, governed by God, led by God, dedicate this feast.
SPEAKER_00: It's a great celebration, quote, a day of feasting and gladness for the preservation of the Jews.
SPEAKER_00: And they were to never forget that.
SPEAKER_00: And so God said, I want you to run to hold this celebration every year throughout every generation.
SPEAKER_00: I don't want you to forget how I delivered my people once again.
SPEAKER_00: And oh, by the way, I want gifts to the poor.
SPEAKER_00: Every year.
SPEAKER_00: Every year when you celebrate the Feast of Purim, I want you to be generous.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: God says, just as I've been so generous to you, I want you to live a life of generosity.
SPEAKER_00: And I want you to express that generosity not only to God Almighty, first and foremost, but to your neighbor.
SPEAKER_00: And I want you to extend that generosity to those who are less fortunate than you.
SPEAKER_00: And so we come really to the end of the story.
SPEAKER_00: But I'd like to close and transition us to the Lord's table by thinking of some of the great lessons for us today.
SPEAKER_00: The two great decrees.
SPEAKER_00: What were those decrees?
SPEAKER_00: God created this world, a perfect world.
SPEAKER_00: There was no sin.
SPEAKER_00: He created a perfect world in creation.
SPEAKER_00: And so the story of the Bible starts with creation.
SPEAKER_00: But if you read your Bible in the book of Genesis, it wasn't long until sin came into the world.
SPEAKER_00: We call that the fall.
SPEAKER_00: And boy, did the world fall, and did sinners fall because of sin.
SPEAKER_00: Sin that we sinned in our Father Adam, but sin that we all know personally as well because we've all committed innumerable acts of treason against our own God.
SPEAKER_00: We have sinned against God and we have sinned against man.
SPEAKER_00: I trust you know that.
SPEAKER_00: And so there's creation, and then there's the fall, and because of the fall, God issued that decree.
SPEAKER_00: As the book of Hebrews says, it was appointed to all men, once to die, and then one day to face judgment.
SPEAKER_00: It was appointed, that's a word of decree.
SPEAKER_00: It was appointed once to all men, all women.
SPEAKER_00: There is a day with death destined for you and for me.
SPEAKER_00: That was the God's decree.
SPEAKER_00: That decree didn't come from Persia.
SPEAKER_00: That decree didn't come from King Xerxes.
SPEAKER_00: That decree came from the King of Kings.
SPEAKER_00: But thank God that wasn't the only decree.
SPEAKER_00: Just like in the book of Esther, there was a second decree.
SPEAKER_00: We read about that second decree, do we not, throughout the scriptures?
SPEAKER_00: One of my favorite places of that second decree, Ephesians chapter 1, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him.
SPEAKER_00: In love, he predestined us.
SPEAKER_00: You.
SPEAKER_00: Put your name in there, Christian.
SPEAKER_00: In love, he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the beloved.
SPEAKER_00: You have no bless, no blessing, you have no grace outside of the beloved.
SPEAKER_00: This is the table of the beloved Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: In him, Christ, we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us.
SPEAKER_00: I love that word, lavish.
SPEAKER_00: There's nothing stingy with our God.
SPEAKER_00: Our God is not a stingy God, he's a gracious God, he's a lavish God.
SPEAKER_00: The love within him flows and pours outward.
SPEAKER_00: It pours in a way that Niagara Falls can't begin to compare with.
SPEAKER_00: That's the heart of the Father toward his people.
SPEAKER_00: And so he issued a second decree as we read about in Ephesians chapter 1.
SPEAKER_00: Before the foundation of the world, God wrote his own legislation, God wrote his own decree.
SPEAKER_00: Before the foundation of the world.
SPEAKER_00: And your name was on that list.
SPEAKER_00: Christian.
SPEAKER_00: Don't ever forget that.
SPEAKER_00: Are we living today?
SPEAKER_00: Believing that?
SPEAKER_00: He decreed life to people like us, to people who would one day take refuge in Jesus Christ, because even as all die in Adam, all live in Christ, who come to Christ.
SPEAKER_00: It was the great reversal.
SPEAKER_00: I love the way the Apostle Paul put it in 2 Corinthians, but God made him who knew no sin, who never sinned.
SPEAKER_00: That was Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: But God made him who never sinned to become sin for us, so that in Christ we might become the righteousness of God.
SPEAKER_00: And that's why we're coming to the table this morning.
SPEAKER_00: The great reversal.
SPEAKER_00: The great reversal was not King Xerxes writing a second decree.
SPEAKER_00: The great reversal was God Almighty writing that second decree.
SPEAKER_00: That my people will live because of my son.
SPEAKER_00: That's why we're here this morning.
SPEAKER_00: Because we forget this all too often, don't we?
SPEAKER_00: And we we can easily live as though this wasn't true.
SPEAKER_00: We can lose hope.
SPEAKER_00: We can lose sight.
SPEAKER_00: We can lose purpose.
SPEAKER_00: We can begin to live our life as though these are all just random acts, and somehow we just got caught in the crosshairs of some world spinning out of control, no one in control.
SPEAKER_00: And that's what the enemy wants you to believe.
SPEAKER_00: The enemy wants you to believe that your life is purposeless, directionless, and the best you can do is just hang on and endure it.
SPEAKER_00: When we think that way, we have lost the sight of God's greater purpose.
SPEAKER_00: Today, as we come to the Lord's Supper, we come to the table.
SPEAKER_00: That's the ultimate, it's the ultimate type fulfilled today in Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: It's not the feast of Purim, it's what the Feast of Purim pointed to.
SPEAKER_00: Do you understand that?
SPEAKER_00: It's this table points to the greatest victim ever in the Holy War.
SPEAKER_00: We looked at the holy war last Lord's day.
SPEAKER_00: Do you know who was the true victim of the holy war?
SPEAKER_00: It wasn't the Amalekites.
SPEAKER_00: It wasn't the Jewish people.
SPEAKER_00: It was the Lord Jesus Christ Himself.
SPEAKER_00: He is the one that took the wrath of God.
SPEAKER_00: He's the one that took the sword upon himself.
SPEAKER_00: He's the one that went to the gallows that were prepared.
SPEAKER_00: The gallows that were prepared for Haman.
SPEAKER_00: First for Mordecai, but then Haman.
SPEAKER_00: The only reason we can come to this table is because Jesus climbed the gallows.
SPEAKER_00: Because we're all guilty.
SPEAKER_00: We all have sinned against God.
SPEAKER_00: There is no one who does good, no, not one.
SPEAKER_00: There is no one who has not gone his own way.
SPEAKER_00: Until Jesus came.
SPEAKER_00: We had no hope.
SPEAKER_00: And so we come to this table, to the Lord's table today.
SPEAKER_00: So one day we will sit at the great wedding feast.
SPEAKER_00: Do you remember what the feast of Purim said?
SPEAKER_00: Keep commemorating this.
SPEAKER_00: Do not cease commemorating the feast of Purim.
SPEAKER_00: What does this table say?
SPEAKER_00: What do we read in the book of Corinthians?
SPEAKER_00: Do this.
SPEAKER_00: The words of Paul, the words of Jesus recorded by Paul.
SPEAKER_00: Do this until I return.
SPEAKER_00: Don't stop doing this.
SPEAKER_00: Don't stop coming to the Lord's table.
SPEAKER_00: Because we commemorate the death of our Lord Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: It reminds us of the great decrees that God issued with your name and my name on it.
SPEAKER_00: Do this until he returns.
SPEAKER_00: First the sorrow, then the feasting.
SPEAKER_00: First the crown, excuse me, first the cross and then the crown.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, Jesus was the focus of the Holy War.
SPEAKER_00: If you read the full text that was printed in the email announcements on Friday, you'll notice that three times it's mentioned that though they were given permission.
SPEAKER_00: Permission by the king, the Jews who killed their enemies in defense, though they were given permission to take the plunder from the enemies, they didn't.
SPEAKER_00: They didn't take the plunder.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because this was a holy war.
SPEAKER_00: And just as we see back in the Old Testament, when God told King Saul in fighting the Amalekites, don't take the plunder.
SPEAKER_00: Do you remember he got in trouble?
SPEAKER_00: Because he took the plunder.
SPEAKER_00: He saved the best for himself.
SPEAKER_00: He didn't obey God.
SPEAKER_00: He said, Well, I'll devote most of it to destruction, but I'm going to keep the best for myself.
SPEAKER_00: As we've said throughout this series, there is no such thing as halfway obedience.
SPEAKER_00: There is partial obedience is an oxymoron.
SPEAKER_00: When God comes to you and God directs you and God commands you, and you know in your heart what God's calling you to do, and you say, I'm going to rewrite the orders, Lord.
SPEAKER_00: You disobey the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: The Lord when I do that.
SPEAKER_00: There is no such thing as partial obedience.
SPEAKER_00: We owe King Jesus full obedience.
SPEAKER_00: Because he gave us all of himself.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus devoted all of himself.
SPEAKER_00: All of his body was beaten.
SPEAKER_00: All of his life, all of his blood was spilt.
SPEAKER_00: So that we would have the true plunder one day.
SPEAKER_00: That's the wedding feast that Amy read about this morning.
SPEAKER_00: It might be good for you to keep your bulletin this week for a few days, maybe today.
SPEAKER_00: And just go back and read over the great wedding feast recorded in Revelation 19.
SPEAKER_00: We're coming up to the holidays.
SPEAKER_00: Thanksgiving's around the corner and then Christmas.
SPEAKER_00: These are days that are supposed to be a feast of celebration.
SPEAKER_00: What is it going to take to spoil your Thanksgiving?
SPEAKER_00: What is it going to take to spoil your Christmas?
SPEAKER_00: What can turn you into a grumbling, complaining, murmuring person over the holidays?
SPEAKER_00: How little does it take if everything doesn't go just right?
SPEAKER_00: I have to ask myself that.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm going to ask you that.
SPEAKER_00: What does it take?
SPEAKER_00: Do you understand?
SPEAKER_00: Do you see what he's going is going on here with this table?
SPEAKER_00: This is a season of feasting.
SPEAKER_00: This is a season of celebration.
SPEAKER_00: And let the celebration not cease.
SPEAKER_00: Because we look around and we see things that are not to our liking.
SPEAKER_00: We look around and we see things that we don't make sense of.
SPEAKER_00: The victory has been won.
SPEAKER_00: The victor is alive.
SPEAKER_00: And you are with him.
SPEAKER_00: And he has a seat for you at his table at the Married Supper.
SPEAKER_00: Don't lose sight of that.
SPEAKER_00: And he will turn your mourning into gladness.
SPEAKER_00: And he will turn your sorrow into feasting.
SPEAKER_00: No matter what it is.
SPEAKER_00: Are we living lives of thanksgiving?
SPEAKER_00: Are we still commemorating God's decree of life?
SPEAKER_00: Because we have Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Because the victor rose from the dead.
SPEAKER_00: The victor, though crucified, was raised from the dead and is reigning today at the right hand of the Father.
SPEAKER_00: This is his table.
SPEAKER_00: We are his people.
SPEAKER_00: And we have been called to celebrate the new life that we have in him.
SPEAKER_00: That's why we're here.
SPEAKER_00: And that's why we ask him to give us that gospel perspective today.
SPEAKER_00: Would you please pray with me?
SPEAKER_00: Oh Father, I pray that your Spirit will touch our hearts, that your Spirit will renew our minds with your word, that your Spirit will open up our lives to see, to see what's in our hearts.
SPEAKER_00: Father, where we grumble, where we complain, where we're hopeless, where we think that you've lost control, forgive us.
SPEAKER_00: Forgive us.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, give us eyes to see.
SPEAKER_00: That you are just as much in control of our world today, and you are just as much in control of our lives personally now as you were in the days of Esther.
SPEAKER_00: Give us eyes to see.
SPEAKER_00: Give us hearts of faith to believe.
SPEAKER_00: Keep us prayerful.
SPEAKER_00: Keep us hopeful.
SPEAKER_00: Keep us thankful.
SPEAKER_00: May we see every day of our lives the great victory that the great victor won on our behalf.
SPEAKER_00: We're here this morning to say thank you, Father, for sending your Son to say thank you, Jesus, for giving your life and for giving your spirit that we might have life.
SPEAKER_00: We offer this in humility and thanksgiving to you now, as an offering to you right now, Father, in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.