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Providence family, it's so good to see you today. If you're a guest with us, we are honored that you have joined us on a really special weekend. And uh I want to start by um by just praying, okay? Father in heaven, we bow before you and we thank you for the freedoms that we enjoy, even freedoms to be able to meet in public and to worship you. And we know that the freedoms that we enjoy and the blessings that we enjoy, we know that they come because others have sacrificed. And so on this weekend, when we pause and we we honor and we seek to remember people who have not only served this nation but gave their life to serve this nation, that we can enjoy many of the freedoms that we that we do have. We pray for their families. God, whether they died long ago or even recent, we pray for families around the whole country, maybe even in this room, who grieve the loss of a loved one, who feel the weight of that pain. We ask that you would give them comfort and grace and strength. We pray for those who are here who have um folks in their life, friends or loved ones who are serving. We ask that you would protect life. We know that there's no greater love than to lay down our life for a friend, and therefore no one is ever loved like you. For Jesus, you died for all of us. And so we acknowledge you, and now as we open your word, we ask that you would speak to our hearts. Would you open up our hearts as we open up your word and do that special miracle that only you can do to give us understanding, to give us courage, to give us interest, to give our hearts alertness. Pray for those who are experiencing mistreatment. Pray, Father, that you would use this passage and these words to encourage their hearts today and to inspire faithfulness in their life. We pray all of this in Christ's name. Amen. If you have a Bible, turn with me to Esther chapter 2. As you turn there, let me just remind you that early in the Bible, when man first sinned against God, broke fellowship with God, it was God who made a promise to send a rescuer, a son, to be born of a woman who would rescue the world, the Christ, and that he would be born in the Jewish line. In order to fulfill that promise, throughout the whole Old Testament history, what we find is that God went out of his way to protect that Jewish line so that his promise could be fulfilled. And most of the times when we see God at work in the lives of the people of Israel in the Old Testament, he's saving them out of tremendous risk, and he's doing so very dramatically. Lots of miracles, lots of um, like like it's it's it's um like many of the stories you would say they're flashy. You can really see the power of God, you can really see his promises fully come to bear on people's lives. In Esther, it's very different from the rest of the New Test uh of the Old Testament in that what you find is a salvation, but it's not dramatic, it's providential. We're thrust into the setting of some a few Jews that were living in Persia. And it's interesting, there as they get there, the the um, so there's 167 verses in Esther, and 190 of those verses, I'm sorry, in those 167 verses, 190 times the king of Persia, his name is Ahasuerus, is mentioned, either by name or his title. So he's a central figure in the story of Esther. But what's so interesting is that God is not mentioned a single time, not by name. And yet, when we say that he moves providentially, what we're saying is that it's God moving, his hidden hands, all of these events stringing them together in order to accomplish his saving purposes within the world. And so we began in the first chapter, and we're told there that it was the third year of the king's reign. And in the third year, he threw two elaborate feasts. The last day of the second feast, he got drunk and he required his wife, the queen Vashti, to parade her body in front of the room of drunken men. One of the things you find about this king, Ahisweris, which is his name is also Xerxes, is that he had uh definitely an appetite for lust, and that he had absolutely no problem within his heart objectifying people who were made in the image of God.

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It's a truly a tragic. It's a beautiful story that's found in tragic circumstances.

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But she refused to do so, and so he deposed her as queen. Suddenly, when we get to chapter two, we're told that these events take place four years later. And the king's young men, his friends, they say, We have an idea. He had just suffered a tremendous loss to the Greeks, lost all kinds of his army, his navy, his money, and he comes back and there's and there's and there's no queen. So they say, We know how to encourage you. This is what we're gonna do. In 127 provinces, all of your provinces, from India to Ethiopia, we're gonna send out in your name officials. And what they're gonna do is they're gonna seek out young, beautiful virgins, and they're gonna take them and put them into custody into a harem in Susa, your capital city, and that will not only satisfy your lust, it will also allow you the opportunity to choose your new queen. Well, one of these young, beautiful virgins was a Jewish woman named Esther. Esther had been an orphan. She had a very kind older cousin who adopted her, took care of her. His name is Mordecai. And then the hidden hand of God, we're told in chapter two, which is where we were at last week, is that God gave favor to Esther and in these broken circumstances elevated her to become the queen, positioning her in a place where she can be an instrument of salvation to the Jewish people, even before they needed it or knew that they needed it. And so we come to verse 19 of chapter 2, and interestingly, these events take place five years later. And so now Esther has been the queen for five years, and this is what we read. Now, when the virgins were gathered together the second time, Mordecai was sitting at the king's gate. Esther had not made known her own kindred or her people as Mordecai had commanded her, for Esther obeyed Mordecai just as when she was brought up by him. In those days, as Mordecai was sitting at the king's gate, Bigtham and Teresh, two of the king's eunuchs, who guarded the threshold, became angry and sought to lay hands on King Ahasuerus. And this came known to Mordecai, and he told it to Queen Esther, and Esther told the king in the name of Mordecai When the affair was investigated and found to be so, the men were both hanged on the gallows, and it was recorded in the book of the Chronicles in the presence of the king. After these things, King Ahisweras promoted Haman, the Agagite, the son of Hamadatha, and advanced him and set his throne above all the officials who were with him. And all the king's servants who were at the king's gate bowed down and paid homage to Haman, for the king had so commanded concerning him. But Mordecai did not bow down or pay homage. Then the king's servants who were at the king's gate said to Mordecai, Why do you transgress the king's command? When they spoke to him day after day, and he would not listen to them, they told Haman in order to see whether Mordecai's words would stand, for he told them that he was a Jew. And when Haman saw that Mordecai did not bow down or pay homage to him, Haman was filled with fury, and he disdained to lay hands on Mordecai alone. So as they had made known to him the people of Mordecai, Haman sought to destroy all the Jews, the people of Mordecai, throughout the whole kingdom of Ahasueras. In the first month, which is the month of Nisan, in the twelfth year of King Ahasueras, they cast Pur. That is, they cast lots before Haman day after day, and they cast it month after month till the twelfth month, which is the month of Adar. Then Haman said to King Ahasuerus, There is a certain people scattered abroad and dispersed among the peoples in all the provinces of your kingdom. Their laws are different from those of every other people, and they do not keep the king's laws, so that it is not to the king's profit to tolerate them. If it please the king, let it be decreed that they be destroyed, and I will pay ten thousand talents of silver into the hands of those who have charge of the king's business, that they may put it into the king's treasuries. So the king took his signet ring from his hand and gave it to Haman, the Agagite, the son of Hamadatha, the enemy of the Jews, and the king said to Haman, The money is given to you, the people also, to do with them as it seems good to you. Then the king's scribes were summoned on the thirteenth day of the first month, and an edict according to all that Haman commanded was written to the king's satraps and to the governors over all the provinces, and to the officials of all the peoples, to every province in its own script, and every people in its own language. It was written in the name of King Ahisweris, and sealed with the king's signet ring, letters were sent by couriers, all the king's provinces with instruction to to first um to destroy and to kill and to annihilate all Jews, young and old, women and children. In one day, the thirteenth day of the twelfth month, which is the month of Adar, and to plunder their goods. A copy of the document was to be issued as a decree in every province by proclamation to all the peoples to be ready for that day. All the couriers, it says, went out hurriedly by order of the king. And a decree was issued in Susa the citadel. And the king and Haman sat down to drink, for the city of Susa was thrown into confusion. So I I always imagine that I have two tasks when I teach the Bible. One of them is to help people understand, help us understand what it says, what it means. And that's sort of like one cliff. And on the other side is another cliff, and that is how to apply it to our life. And so what I always hope to do is maybe just a sad thing, is simply to help us to understand an old story. There's truths within this story that are pertinent to our own personal life. And so what we're gonna do is we're gonna try to understand the story, and I'm gonna keep building bridges from those those truths that we find, but to some ways for us to apply them to our own personal life. So the first thing I want you to see here is what are we trying to answer? And the answer that he gives us is to this central question. You see, some of us right now are battling all kinds of mistreatment, unjust treatment in our own personal life. And how is it that this chapter that we just read has any answer to give us hope? What is God doing when it feels like he is so far away? The first thing we find here is that God is providentially working even when faithfulness is unrewarded. Some of us are in a season of life where we have sacrificed, we have given, we have we have served, we've worked hard, we've been faithful, and someone else was promoted. Where it feels like nobody sees the sacrifices that we're making, and in fact, maybe it feels that not even God Himself acknowledges the endurance and the faithfulness that we're seeking to give. I want you to know that God is providentially working even when our faithfulness is unrewarded. The story in verse 19 begins in a very sad way. It says there was a second gathering of virgins. We don't know who these women were, nor do we know if this is the same group that we've saw in chapter two. Some people believe that perhaps all the virgins that were taken into the harem that were not selected to become queen, that this is them. Others believe that in order to satisfy the king's lust, in spite of having all of those other women, that another group of women were brought in. We don't know who they are, we simply know this. It's sinful and it was wrong. These women were objectified and they were mistreated. And the fact is, is any time that we teach anything about people in the Old Testament or New Testament when they're being mistreated, I know that there are people who are listening to what I'm saying right now, and you are being mistreated in the same categories. And I simply want you to know that God sees you, he cares for you, and he really does have the power to bring beauty out of ashes. What's interesting though is the text doesn't dwell on this group of virgins in verse 19. Instead, it calls our attention to look at Mordecai in verse 19, who was now sitting at the king's gate. Well, this is an inference to his influence within society because business within Susa was done at the king's gate. And there we're told that while he was there, that there were two officials who had access to the king who were plotting to assassinate the king. This came known to Mordecai, and we're told in verse 22 that he went and he told it to his cousin, Queen Esther, and she went and told it to the king in the name of Mordecai, meaning to give him credit. Now, this is really interesting because there's a Greek historian named um Herodotus. Oh, it's like it's an H. What is it? What is it? Okay. And he actually writes at length about how the kings of Persia treated what they called a benefactor. Now, we don't use it in the same way, but in this time, if you actually did something to display courage or sacrifice in order to protect the king or the king's interest, you were considered a benefactor. And in doing so, it's interesting is that what was most typical is that these individuals were lavished with reward and praise and honor and promotion. And the text says that none of those things were given to Mordecai. Instead, the only thing he received was a few lines in a dusty book called the Book of the Chronicles. And it says there that it was written there in the presence of the king. And so you have to ask the question was he disappointed? Now just don't forget, he's like us. He's a human being. So let's just ask yourself when you have been overlooked, when you've been unrewarded, when your efforts go unnoticed, is it disappointing to you? You say, Well, yeah, it is. And so it had to be, mildly at least, disappointing to him. But what I want you to see is this is that these words, these few words that were written in this old book are going to prove to be so monumentally significant, not only when we get to chapter six, for the preservation of his life, but for all the Jewish people. You see, in 1 Peter chapter 5, it says, Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, so that at the proper time he may exalt you. I think it's very important that we understand the proper time is typically not your time, and it's not my time. Our time is now. We see injustice, we've made sacrifices, reward is now, and when it's not now, it seems so unjust. And yet God tells us that we have a responsibility to humble ourselves under his hand because at the proper time, which is in his eyes, there's a reason that he waits. But friends, let me encourage us with this let's trust that God will exalt the humble at the right time. He really will. If you see, if you feel unseen today, I promise you he sees you. And in Psalm 37, such a beautiful passage, he says, trust in the Lord, befriend faithfulness, dwell in the land. Don't run away, don't go chasing because it's not in your time. Be faithful where you're at. Trust the Lord. And the reason is because he sees faithfulness and he remembers faithfulness and he rewards faithfulness. And one of the ways that we know that he rewards faithfulness is not only because when we get to chapter six, is his faithfulness going to be exposed and it's going to save his life and the Jewish people's life? But friends, we're 2,500 years later still reading and thinking about his good deed.

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God has the power to take your faithfulness and to make it memorable. But it will be in his time.

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The second thing I want you to see is that God is providentially working even when the wicked are promoted. So, in light of the fact that Mordecai does not receive a typical promotion, it is pretty jarring to us to meet the villain of the whole story of Esther at the moment he's being promoted. But that's when we meet him in chapter 3, verse 1. King Ahasqueras promoted Haman the Agagite. Agagite is really important because it indicates his lineage, and it happens to be one that is filled with tension with the Jewish people. Long ago, if you remember, the people of Israel are enslaved in Egypt. They're not training for war, they're not fighting wars, and so they're not prepared for wars. And God sets them free. They go out, but they're vulnerable. And we're told that the Amalekites, this people group, they see Israel in all of their vulnerability. They're not fighters yet. They're not, they like the they've been making bricks for a very long time. And they say this would be an opportune time to invade them and to kill them all because we could just take their stuff. And so the Amalekites invade Israel, and God dramatically, miraculously protects the people of Israel. Fast forward 40 years, Moses is about to die. He's speaking to Joshua, who's about to lead the people of Israel into the promised land. And do you know what he says? He says, Joshua, don't you forget what the Amalekites did. So now all of a sudden we see this historical tension, this rivalry that's deep within them. And then you fast forward another 300 years, and we get to the first king of Israel, his name is Saul. And Saul is told that you need to go and fight against and destroy the Amalekites, including their king, and the king's name is Agag. And Saul does something that the Bible describes emphatically as sin. In fact, what he does is he protects Agag's life and the best sheep. And he does so, and how he seeks to defend himself is simply to speak of the immediate benefits of keeping what he didn't kill. Friends, you just have to remember this. All through the scriptures, you what you find is that incomplete obedience is always equated as complete disobedience. Well, Agag was soon killed, but perhaps it seems that some of his line remained. And the reason is because when we get to the story of Esther, this is what we find in chapter 3, verse 10, compared to Mordecai's introduction in chapter 2. In chapter 3, it says Haman the Agagite, the enemy of the Jews. And then when we are introduced last week to Mordecai, we're told that he's the son of Kish. Kish was King Saul's father. So what do we have here? We have one man named Mordecai who is Jewish, who's from the line of Saul. And we have another man, Haman, who's Amalachite, who appears to be from the line of Agag. In other words, our disobedience often has generational effects. Well, the king, Ahasweris, commanded all the servants at the king's gate, anytime you see Haman, you gotta bow. But we're told in verse 2, Mordecai did not bow or pay homage. Say, why didn't he bow? Well, what's interesting is we only have one clue within the text. Perhaps it was rivalry, perhaps it was stubbornness, perhaps it was rebellion, perhaps it was civil disobedience. We're not exactly told, but we are told this. When the people at the gate said, wait a minute, we all bow, but you don't bow. And it says they ask him day after day. The only thing that he told them is that he was a Jew. And so perhaps, I don't know, but perhaps as a Jew, he's living in Persia, Iran, and perhaps he's looking around just like we do, and we say, okay, as Christians, we're citizens of heaven. We have king, we we have we have Christ as our king, but we're also citizens on the earth, and we have rulers. And sometimes Christ, the king, and the rulers on the earth, they don't agree with one another. So what are we supposed to do in that moment? Am I supposed to be, in his case, a good Jew or a good citizen? And the fact is, he's trying to be both, I believe. He's a good citizen in the fact that he just foiled an assassination attempt on the king. So he's done well there, but he's a Jew, and as a Jew, he refuses.

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He refuses to perhaps deify man.

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And so we're told that Haman, we're not told exactly why Mordecai didn't, but we're told what Haman did, and that is that he was filled with fury. It's interesting in the Bible when somebody's filled with something, it's an emotion, it typically indicates that they're so full of that that nothing else can fit in their heart in that moment. Not logic or reason or patience or grace or kindness or forgiveness, just rage, wrath, fury. And as such, in verse 6, it says that he disdained to lay hands on Mordecai alone, but he sought to destroy all the Jews, all of them. And so Haman did something that in our eyes that it looks really weird, to be honest with you. I wouldn't recommend, hey, if you're really struggling to make a good decision, go buy some dice, you need to cast them, and if threes are a yes, fours are a no, and see what happens, right? That's not how I would go. And yet, casting lots, in particular in the Old Testament, happens also the last time in the Bible, it was found in the book of Acts at the very beginning. It's really interesting that what he did was he went and he went with intent. I want to kill the Jews. When can I do it? How about today? And whatever reason, the outcome of how they're interpreting what they're rolling is no. Like, okay, how about tomorrow? No. All right, how about the next day? No. All right, next week, no. How about next month? No. All right, finally, 11 months from now. All of a sudden he rolls like, there it is, yes, 11 months. And so, 11 months. Little did he know, however, that Proverbs 16 tells us that the lot is cast into the lap, but it's every decision is from the Lord. So before we move on in the story, I want to try to connect us to three applications to our own personal life, this section of the story. I know three of them, okay? The first is this is let's trust God will humble the proud at the right time. If in the first point we can imagine and need to trust that God will exalt the humble, well, the flip side would also be true. And there's a lot of us who really struggle, and this is an old problem among people who are trying to walk with the Lord when we see the prosperity of the wicked. There's many times in the Old and New Testament where we find psalms, where we find prophets, where they're like, I just don't understand. I don't understand why all the people who have no regard for you, in fact, are proud against you. They're, they're they're so disappointed, they're just so sinful, they're so disobedient. And yet every time I look at their life, it just seems like things are going better for them than it is for me. One of my favorite psalms about this is Psalm 73. And there we're told that the worship leader of Israel had this deep personal tension and that he was required, his job was to lead the people to sing of the goodness of God, and yet within his heart he was struggling to believe it. Anytime, like it'd be a really, really tough thing for me to stand up and in my heart say, I don't believe anything about what I'm about to tell you right now, but I have to convince you that it's true. He believed it, and yet he was warring within his heart. And the reason he tells us, he goes, This was my problem. I looked around and I saw all these impure, wicked people, and it just seemed like everything was going great for them. And all these people who were really, really trying to honor the Lord, including myself, it just seems like things were not going so great. He even says at one point, he says, Man, I really just was tempted to say, Maybe I should just stop walking with the Lord. Is purity even worth it? And then the Psalm goes and he says, And then the Lord brought me into the sanctuary, and I was able to see my end and their end. And God was gracious to him to help him to see this is the end, this is what heaven and hell really is. This is what life is in my presence and outside of my presence. And suddenly he had a heart change. And I tell you all this for this reason, friends, is that time is going to reveal the blessing of walking and loving God. To walk with and to love God, and that time is also going to reveal the burden of rejecting him. You see, Jesus makes promises and he keeps them all. And one of his promises is in Matthew 23, and there it says, Whoever exalts himself will be humble. And whoever humbles himself will be exalted. It will take place. His justice will see to it. The second application is let me encourage us to be humble if our conscience requires civil disobedience. You see, Mordecai didn't do what the king asked. The king said, You see Haman, you bow. And he says, I'm not bound. And he didn't. Now it's interesting is that we're not told specifically the motive in his heart as to why he didn't.

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We're just told that he didn't. Because he was Jewish.

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And there are times because we do live in a world where many of the laws and leaders they do not respect God. There are times that you see within scripture and times in history where believers in Jesus Christ have looked at Romans 13 and says, you have a responsibility as Christians to be subject to your authorities as unto the Lord. And yet, if those authorities are demanding an obedience that would require, if you obeyed their laws, it would require that you would disobey God's law. And throughout the scriptures, what we find is people participating in something called civil disobedience, where they simply say, Because I love God and must obey Him over anything, it means I must disobey this law. If your conscience is ever led to that, let me simply encourage you to remember this. We're followers of Jesus first. And as followers of Jesus first, if there's ever a time that you need to exercise civil disobedience so not to violate your conscience, that just like Jesus, you are to do so peacefully, and just like Jesus, you're to live without swagger.

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It is more important that you point people to Christ in the midst of injustice than that you fight it. The third application is let's be clear about the hostility towards the Jews.

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This obviously, when we get to chapter three, there's a desire to annihilate the Jews. You cannot study history anytime in the last 4,000 years where someone is not trying to attack the Jewish people. Why is that? Well, a long time ago, God, by his grace, chose Israel from among all the peoples in the world. It is very important you understand this point. God did not stand up in heaven and said, I've got to find one family, one man that I can build a family so that I can send the Christ through that family. I need to find one man, one person who's upright, who's a person of integrity, who loves me, who cares for me, who's worthy of this. Joshua 24 says that Abraham knew there was a God, but he didn't know who God was, so he was worshiping rocks. So it's not because he was worthy, it's not because of his superior moral courage or virtue. It was just grace. Grace. And he comes to Abraham, and what does he say to him? I'm gonna bless you. And then he says, he says, I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse. And then he makes a promise about the Christ to come. And in you, that is in your line, all the families of the earth shall be blessed. There's gonna come a son that's born in your line, and from among every family in the world, anyone in any family in the world who puts their faith in Jesus Christ will be saved and blessed. That's the gospel. He gave it to Abraham. Interestingly, throughout the Old Testament, we get more clues so that we know who the Christ is, what he's gonna do, how he'll teach, the power that he will have, where he will be born. But when Christ came, it was the Jewish people that rejected him. The Christ came, God gave him the name Jesus, Jesus the Christ. Jesus means Savior, Christ, the promised one. Jesus is the promised one. And yet the Jewish people looked and they had this idea of what the Christ would be like, what he would say, how he would behave, how he would save. It was not accurate. And so they looked at Jesus and they said, You can't be the Christ. So they rejected him. And in Romans chapter 11, we're told that still to this day that there's a veil over the Jewish eyes, where the majority of the Jewish people in the world they look at Jesus and they think there's no way that he's the Christ. And we're told that this veil will remain until it says the fullness of the Gentiles come in. In other words, the gospel is going to be sent out to places all over the world. Don't forget, Raleigh, North Carolina, where this started was the ends of the earth. Okay? We we always think about it like, oh, it starts here and we get to send it. It just got here, now we get to give it back. And it's interesting that God has a number, he says, until the fullness of the Gentiles come in. But at the end of this time, where the Gentiles receive all over the world, the gospel of the veil is going to be removed for the Jewish people. Because the church is a covenant people, that God made a covenant with the church to be a holy people, a priesthood, pointing people to God. Just as he said that to Israel, there's a lot of people who believe that the church has replaced Israel as God's covenant people. So what are we supposed to do with that? How are we supposed to think about that? Well, the fact is, is how I like to think about it is not simply making it easy on anyone by saying yes or no, but let me tell you what we know to be true. The first is this is that no one goes to the heaven. No one gets to heaven except through Jesus Christ. He says, I'm the way, the truth, and life. No one comes to the Father except through me. Everyone in heaven is there only because of Jesus. No one is in heaven standing there saying, I'm here because I'm Jewish. It's only through Jesus. In fact, it was Jesus in John chapter 8, has this very heated conversation with the Jewish leaders. And what we're told there is something so interesting. They come to him and they say, Wait a minute, how dare you talk to us like this? We have Abraham as our father. And he says to them, If Abraham was your father, you would be doing what Abraham did, which is to put your faith in Christ and I'm the Christ. And they say, Are you kidding me? You're gonna lecture us? We have God as our father. And Jesus says, If God were your father, you would love me. Everyone in heaven is singing, Worthy is the Lamb who was slain. Not worthy are the Jews or any other ethnic group. It does not matter where you're from, it's Jesus and Jesus alone. The second thing we know to be certain is that those who put their trust in Jesus Christ are grafted into the rich root of Abraham, who is the very first man in the world to believe the gospel. And some of you are like, what are you kidding me? Like the gospel is Jesus died and was buried, he rose again, and Abraham lived so far from that. What do you mean he heard the gospel? Well, this is what the Bible says. Okay, there's a book, it's called Galatians, and Paul is writing people who've been told you have to not only believe in Jesus Christ, but you have to behave like a Jewish person in order to get to heaven. And so this is what he writes. He says, Know then that it is those of faith, that is, faith in Christ, who are the sons of Abraham. You want to know who the true sons of Abraham are? It's not lineage, it's faith in Jesus Christ. And then he says, the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel. Abraham heard the gospel beforehand. What did the gospel sound like to Abraham? It sounded like this In you shall all the nations be blessed. Well, what does that mean? It means that God came to him and he says, one day there's going to be a special son born from your line. And he believed God's promise in the Christ, and it was credited to him as righteousness. Every single person in the Old Testament time before Jesus Christ who put their faith in the promise of the Son to come is today in heaven. They're saved by Jesus, faith in Christ, just as we put our faith in Christ after he's come. The third thing that we know to be certain is that God is not done with Israel. The veil will be removed, and multitudes of people in the end will put their faith in Jesus Christ. The friends, listen, ever since God promised the Savior to be born in the Jewish line, Satan has tried to kill that line. It began in Egypt, where the command went out to the midwives, kill the babies as they're born. And then it went to the Amalekites, and then the Canaanites, and then the Assyrians, and then the Babylonians, and then the Persians with Haman, and then the Greeks, and then the Romans. You remember Herod, a Roman, when Jesus was born, the wise men came. Where is the one who's been born, king of the Jews? What did he do? All the boys under two must die. Why? Annihilate the Christ. In AD 70, a Roman named Titus destroyed the temple, killed a million Jews. And this animosity, this historical animosity towards the Jewish people has continued through the Middle Ages, through the Ottomans, through the Crusades, all the way into Imperial Russia, into Germany, and today all over the world. Today there's a group called Hamas that has within their charter, within their charter, the annihilation of the Jewish people. From the river to the sea is literally a song that describes their desire that the Jewish people be annihilated. Why? Why do they care so much? It's because God said, I am going to set my face upon you and do things in you by grace that's going to change the world.

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And Satan hates that.

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And this animosity is going to continue to the end because when you read the book of Revelation, which we'll probably study sometime soon, you find an enormous amount of tension directed specifically to the Jewish people. The veil will be removed, and many will come and put their faith in Christ, and then Jesus will return. It's coming. Because you hear all kinds of things. The Bible is emphatic. We do not acknowledge and pray for the Jewish people specifically because of the superiority of their morality or their policy. We care about the Jewish people because God said, I'm going to use the Jewish people for my glory and the good of the world. The third thing I want you to see is that God is providentially working even when injustice is decreed. Haman, of course, informs the king that there's this lawless people within your empire. It says that they disobey all your laws. It'd be better if we didn't have them. Now he doesn't tell the king that they're Jewish, and neither Haman nor the king know that Esther is Jewish. He simply says in verse 9, if it pleases the king, let it be decreed that they be destroyed. And without inquiry, without investigation, without any patience whatsoever, it says that he took off his signet ring, which was like his signature, his authority, and he gave it to Haman. And he says, Do with them as it seems good to you. The scribes write up an edict and letters were sent all the king's provinces with instructions to destroy, to kill, and to annihilate all Jews, young and old, women and children, on one day. And the chapter ends. This is why I keep saying, read the book. If you've never read Esther, it's really good. Just read the whole thing. It's 167 verses. You could do it literally this afternoon. Because none of these chapters until the very end does it end well. Okay? It's just like, man. And this is maybe the worst. Hey, let's kill everybody. And then what happens? It says the king and Haman sat down for a good drink.

SPEAKER_00 41:36

And the city was thrown into confusion. Now, did you notice in the story when this unjust decree was issued? It was the 13th day of the first month. So why is that important? Because that's one day before Passover.

SPEAKER_01 41:58

So when the Jewish people heard this edict that you're going to be annihilated, the very next day they were to celebrate God's deliverance from previous attempts to annihilate in his life.

SPEAKER_00 42:17

The day of annihilation was 11 months away. God was already at work. For Esther was on the throne. And Mordecai's good deed was written down. What I want you to remember in all of this is this story is not about Esther. Friends, we got a sin problem. Every one of us.

SPEAKER_01 42:42

Knowing the story about Esther is not going to help in any way. It's seeing how Esther points to a Savior who can help us in every way. And that is Jesus, the true and better Savior. You see, it was Christ who left his throne in heaven and came to the earth. It was Christ who lived without sin and yet saw his faithfulness unrewarded. It was Christ who was surrounded by wicked men who enjoyed prosperity and promotion. It was Christ who was ordered by decree to be crucified on a cross. But the means that Satan used to try to destroy the Savior became the very means by which Jesus became our Savior.

SPEAKER_00 43:34

And your name is not written in the story of Esther specifically, but it is in directly.

SPEAKER_01 43:42

Because this points to Christ, and Christ extends an invitation after he rose from the dead that if you would acknowledge that you have a sin problem that you cannot pay, and that if you would believe in Christ, the promised one, who came to die for our sin and rise from the dead, and if you would confess him as Lord, then he would forgive. Give you of all of your sin. He would give you eternal life. And he would take some of the ashes of your life and he would remake them into something beautiful. He has the power. And my encouragement to you is would you put your trust in Christ? You can do it right now. Simply call out to him in faith. So let's pray together. Father in heaven, we bow before you. We thank you for your grace in our life. Thank you for the book of Esther, for preserving it, for reminding us that you are providentially working. When the right behaviors seem to go unrewarded and the wrong behaviors seem to be acknowledged and rewarded.

SPEAKER_00 44:46

When awful things are done and decreed, we thank you that you're still working.

SPEAKER_01 44:55

And I pray for those who have put their faith in you today, that you would give them not only forgiveness and eternal life, but enough courage to come and tell us that we could celebrate with them. So we now ask that you would help us to sing as men and women who believe. And we pray this in Christ's name. Amen.