Bibles and we will turn to the book of Esther. Now the book of Esther is going to be a very difficult message or series to preach because of so many things that we have to look at that are kind of like a secular history and yet God is in back of it. Now my wife, whenever she preaches, I've had ladies just talk about, oh, your wife is such a wonderful teacher. I just love Esther. I never learned. I've never heard my wife teach on Esther. And at the same time, if you have, then I don't want to spoil her message because if you look at Esther from really another point of view, It's a very, you see that, you can understand one reason, God leaves his name out of it. And so, Esther is, actually, there's a book, one of the commentaries that I read, one of the men who write, and he says, really, the book should not be called Esther, it should be called Mordecai, because Mordecai is mentioned more times in the book of Esther than Esther is, and Mordecai is really the man behind the scenes that makes everything happen. And Esther, he's mentioned 58 times, and Esther's only 56 times. Over 50% of the action that we see in the book of Esther involves Mordecai. And only about 40% of it deals with Esther. And so some people, this fellow, he makes an argument that we should call the book Mordecai and not Esther, although that would, there again, mess up my wife's message, so I can't do that. But then also, we see that it's, there's no mention of God, and there's two books of the Old Testament where there's no mention of God. You know the other one? The Song of Solomon doesn't mention anything about God also. So there's two books in the Bible that does not mention, well, it mentions something about God but doesn't mention his name. And so, again, we see the two books in the Old Testament. And Esther also is never mentioned in the New Testament. And so we see it's one of these, it's almost like a secular history. Is it inspired? Yes, it's inspired. We believe it's inspired. But it's interesting why God leaves his name out until you really get into it. And one of the problems, like we said, that people who say that it's not part of the Bible is that there's no mention of God. And the other is because of the moral and ethical situations that we run into. I mean, you have a king gets rid of his wife and marries another one. Now, what does the Bible call that? Adultery. You have after the Jews or after Mordecai and Esther get their way as far as with the king and all of a sudden now things turn around and they get retribution on their enemies. They kill 75,000 people. Whose vengeance is whose? Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord. So there again, some real interesting things happened. Now, they didn't kill him, but they were, as far as cleaning house and all the people that were trying to kill the Jews, all of a sudden, they were able to turn on them. And again, we don't see anything about God dealing with it. We don't even see them praying in the book of, you do see them praying? Okay, oh, see there? Now whose message is this, mine, or you quit shaking your head at me whenever I'm... Now, I've already told you and Gail don't sit together because, I mean, when both those ladies sit back together and they kind of look at me, they're almost as bad as Linda. No, I won't say. I know and that's the reason it's going to be hard to preach on it because it is a beautiful story. In fact, it's the favorite story of the Jewish synagogue. The Feast of Purim is mentioned and they will get up and they will read it and the kids will act it out. And I've read about it. I'd love to go to a Jewish synagogue whenever they're doing this and they will read it. And every time that Esther is mentioned there, there's a there's a kind of a cheer. And every time that Haman is mentioned, they will act like they're spitting and stomp their feet. And so, you know, they'll read it. And every time there's one of those terms that come up, they have different reactions for each person who's mentioned. And that must be a lot of fun watching that in there. So it's a story that's glorious. And as far as the Jew is concerned, it's just full of national pride or ethnic pride because this is a one time that they win. How many times in the Old Testament do they lose? You know at the end of the book you know there's no king in Israel and every man did what was right in his own eyes and that was after they had been you know beat to death about seven different times you know and all the different things that we see where the Jews continually lose but in the book of Esther for one time they win and so it is a book of that they look to, they love. And now we see with this, in chapter one then, we see a historical setup. Okay, where's my gun? Okay, but I've got a zapper, I'm gonna start now. Oh yeah, we'll get to that. So we begin in chapter one and we see a historical note in verse one of the book of Esther. Now it came to pass in the days of Ahasuerus. So who is this fellow? Ahasuerus many people believe is a title or also we know that because of this time it kind of pinpoints that this was Ahasuerus who reigned from India to Ethiopia. So we see all the way from India, all the way to, to Africa all the way across that whole span all the way into Egypt and all the way up to Greece but they never crossed over that little, that little strait of water and conquered Greece. They got conquered a couple of times in Greece but they never got into Europe or into, to Europe. And when actually whenever Alexander the Great conquered the whole world, he didn't conquer the whole world, he conquered the Persian Empire. That was one of the big expense of the world at the time. And so we see that the Hazaras who reigned from India to Ethiopia over 127 provinces Now again, that's, people bring that up and they say, oh my, you can't, there weren't 127 provinces. And yet they go back and they find out that that's a term that, yes, they did. There was different terms like satraps and so forth, which we'll see later on, which were different regions. But you would have regions of provinces, like we have in America. We got regions of states. We got the northwestern states. We got the midwestern states. We got New England, all that New England. That's a state, boy, I mean, 2,000 years from now, you're wrong because the New England patriots couldn't have existed because there was no New England. Well, there was New England, wasn't there? And so you can see what happens. And so a lot of the terminology, you have to find out what it means. And the only way you can do that many times is through archaeology. And if the archaeology isn't there, just wait. It will show up. That's what they have found out over and over and over again. And so we see that, and we know that he ruled, it says, in those days when the King Ahasuerus sat on the throne of his kingdom, which was in Shushan, the palace. Shushan is the good old King James terminology for Susa. And Susa was about 300 miles, 350 miles east of Babylon. And of course Babylon had been destroyed and now it's all covered with sand. It was covered with sand until the Taliban and they started digging up everything and then the Taliban goes in and they're blowing up everything over there. They're getting rid of it all. How sad. But a lot of things that the historical records one of the things that we learned have learned a lot about the Middle East. is because the Babylonians and the Persians especially were very good at keeping archives. They wrote things down and stored them away. And I guess the devil's crowd doesn't want anybody to find that. That's the reason, you know, the Taliban and others tried to destroy all that. But there's all kinds of things under the sands over there that are just waiting to be found over in eastern what is now Iran. And by the way, Iran, is another name for what? It was actually called Persia for years, all the way up to what, about 100, 150 years ago. And so we see that in those days when King Hazurah sat on the throne of his kingdom, and he was in Susa, the palace, or in the city of Susa, in the third year of his reign. Now, because this is historical, we know that was around 480 years before the time of Christ. So we're coming up on Malachi. Now remember, we need a timeline. In fact, Rob has a, he got it on the internet, But there's things where there's a company that puts out charts, Bible charts. And I'm going to see if I could find that. And if they got a Bible chart of some of this Old Testament history, I'm going to buy it and show you the timelines of these type things. But 480 years before the time of Christ would put you between Zerubbabel. Well, actually, it'll put you about in the time of Ezra. And Ezra, remember he, from Ezra one through six, he went during the time of, after Zerubbabel, who was the time of Cyrus. And then Zerubbabel, after him came Ezra, which would have been during the next king, which was Darius. And he was able to build a temple. under the auspices of Cyrus and others, but because Darius now, and then he went back to Babylon for a while, and it was during, and then he came back, and it was between the time of Nehemiah, or Ezra and Nehemiah that this most likely happened, about 480 years before the time of Christ. So this would have happened probably right before or sometime before the time of Nehemiah, because we know Nehemiah was the king's cupbearer, right? But we could pinpoint that as the next king, not Xerxes. This would be as hazardous would be. But we see even here that this king, they always are after him. And even in the book of Esther, it tells about a plot to kill him. Remember that? Well, they didn't get him until about 25 years later. And then they put his son, Artaxerxes, in king. And he was the one who was Nehemiah. Nehemiah was the cupbearer to Artaxerxes. So Nehemiah was just an infant by this when Esther comes along. Let's put it that way. And so we see that we can pinpoint those times. or pretty well pinpoint them. And that tells us that in the third year of his reign, he made a feast. Now that tells us something else. The third year of his reign, after Darius, his father had gone to and they crossed over what they call the Hellespont. And if you look on a map between Greece and Turkey, there's a waterway there. Twice the Persians crossed over and tried to conquer the Greeks. But both times they were defeated. Remember the Battle of Marathon where those 300 Greeks stood and took care of an army that was close to a million men? And they beat them. Now that happened during Ahasuerus' or Xerxes' father. Now he's getting ready to try to rally the troops to do it again. Now when he goes over, and this is during the time of Xerxes, he crosses the Hellespont, as they call it, that little spot between Turkey and Greece into Europe. And when he crosses it, he gets defeated at the Battle of Marathon. And not only that, but his navy was totally wiped out by the Greeks at a battle called Salamis. So I mean, he got military just totally wiped out. But at this time, he's rallying the troops. He's kind of suffering because his daddy got whipped and now he's getting prepared to go do it again. And all this was a prelude. And because they invaded Greece, it made Greece hate Persia. And there was a little boy, or actually a man, that was great, that grew up, and he hated the Persians because of what they tried to do to Greece. And his name was Philip. It's Philip of Macedon. And he instilled that hatred of the Persians on his son named Alexander. And it was Alexander the Great that whipped the Persians, if you remember. And so all that happened. All this history is going on at this time that we're talking about now. And so here you have Xerxes, or Hazarus. And so he's trying to rally the troops. And so in verse four it says, well the third year of his reign, let's go back to verse three, he made a feast unto the princes and servants, the power of Persia and the Medes, the Medes and the Persians. And so he's trying to rally and have all of the political people around him, the nobles, princes, prophecies before him. and he showed the riches of his glorious kingdom and the honor of his excellent majesty many days, and he did it for 104 score days. That's six months. How can anybody throw a party for that long? Now, again, people say, look, you don't have parties for six months. Well, whenever you have 127 provinces and you're trying to rotate everybody through there to show them what you have, Then you could say, yes, you could have it for the upper echelon, but then you try to rotate these people through there until you have a constant stream of people coming in and saying, wow, look what the king has. So he's trying to get the whole, everybody on his side because he's going to try to raise a million man army again to go conquer the Greeks. And so he showed his riches and his glorious kingdom and honor and excellent majesty many days, 180 days. And when these days were expired, the king made a feast into all the people that were president of Shushan, both the small and great, seven days. And in the court of the garden of the king's palace. So then again, he had another party for all the elites and all the media and everybody else that wanted to come. And notice now somebody knew whoever wrote this was an eyewitness because it says, there were white, green, and blue hangings fastened with cords of fine linen and purple and silver rings and pillars of marble. The beds were of gold and of silver upon the pavement of red and blue and white and black and marble. Boy, that's telling you a lot about about colors, isn't it? Somebody liked, I mean, this was resplendent. The people, whoever wrote this, had an eye for detail. And they gave them drink and vessels of gold. So they didn't just drink out of Dixie cups. They drank out of gold cups, the vessels being diverse, one from another. Not only were they not Dixie cups that looked alike, but everybody had their own cup. You know, whenever we do things around here, a lot of times we'll get our Dixie cups and we'll put the initial on somebody's cup so you don't drink out of somebody else's, right? Well, they didn't have to do that because every cup was a different color or a different, I mean, folks, that means they were handmade. This was wealthy stuff. He was putting on the ritz, as people say. And there was world wine in abundance according to the state of the king, so he let it flow. And the drinking was according to the law. He didn't force anybody to drink it. So the king had appointed all the officers of the house that they would do according to every man's pleasure. Give them what they want. If they don't want any, fine, but if they do, don't stop. Now that's one of the things that, unfortunately, as you read some of the politicians in Washington, Unfortunately, Lyndon Baines Johnson, he knew the men in the Senate or whatever he was wanting to invite them over, he would bring them into his office and he would have a bottle of scotch or whatever they were paid. He already knew what they liked to drink. And he would act like he was drinking with them, but he had his assistants pour water in his glasses and water his way down while the others were drinking. It's interesting now that Washington flows. And that's one of the things that people get so upset about the White House now. We got a president that doesn't drink, and that makes a lot of people mad. Isn't that interesting? I mean, he's got all kinds of problems, but he doesn't drink. And so here we see that this is nothing new under the sun. And so we see that he was drinking, was according to the law. And then in verse 9, and also Vashti, his queen, made a feast for the women in the royal house which belonged unto King Ahasuerus. Again, the custom. With all these different things, the men and the women had their different feasts. And so you would come and you would drop your wife off with Vashti, which means beautiful, and she would have her party for all the elites. And then the men would get together and really drink up a storm themselves. And so we see this is the way it worked. And we also know that Ahasuerus, or Xerxes, he was pleasure crazy. And it was noted he was known for having a beautiful harem. And he liked to show it off. And so these were all things. And Vashti, of course, was his queen. We go back and we look at history. And the Bible tells us, the only person, or no, history tells us that the only person that we see with that name is, as far as a wife of Xerxes, was a lady named, let's see how I get it right, a maestress or whatever. But anyway, she was, Many people believe as you and they go back and they look at the terminologies and they like James and hoses and all these different names when you change one for another that Vashti was this woman. Now if she was then she was the daughter of one of the Persian generals that he married. So she had a lot of political standing and of course she always wanted to keep well with the generals when you're the king. But she was also known for being very vicious. And so she didn't like you. She had a way of making you die slowly. And she also was religious, but not the right kind of religion. And she really got on some say outs one time. And she had 14 young men killed in front of her, and all this kind of stuff. So if this is the one, then Vashti Although she had problems, I mean all those, but we're not sure exactly who Vashti was, but it sounds like this is the girl or the woman. Now, but she did bear him a couple of sons, and one of them was Artaxerxes, who would later on replace him. But we notice now that Vashti, the queen, made a feast for the women in the royal house of Blountfeene. And on the seventh day, now this is after that 180 days, and now we get the, The feast is going on for seven days. And on the seventh day, when the heart of the king was married with wine, he was drunk. He commanded Mahuman and the rest of these fellows and Carcas and the seven Chamberlains that served in the presence of Ahasuerus. These are the housekeepers and the palace keepers. to bring Vashti the queen before the king of the palace royal to show the people and the princess her beauty, for she was fair to look on." Even after a couple of kids, if that's the case, she's still very beautiful. And a lot of the Jewish tradition was, now, of course, this is implying that he wanted to show her off indecently. And even some of the Jewish rabbis say that all he wanted her to wear was her crown. You know, it was one of those things where whatever it was, first of all, it was not right for her to go into the men's presence by herself. And secondly, it was not right for her to be indecent. And so she refused. Now, that's one thing that she did right. But the queen refused to come into the king's commandment by his chamberlains. Therefore, was the king very wroth and his anger burned within him. Then the king sent in to the wise men. It's always interesting about the wise men in the Bible. All except the wise men that came to the Lord Jesus, and we're not sure how many of them. There were probably more than three. All the rest of them were fools. All through the book of Daniel and others, they march in, shrug their shoulders, and walk back out. And it was Daniel that had to rescue them a couple of times. But here we see these wise men, and they, I mean, it's almost silly, some of the things they come up with. Then the king said unto the wise men who knew the times, for so was the king's manner toward all that knew the law and the judgments. And the next of them was, and he names them all here, and they were princes of Meda and Persia, which saw the king's face. In other words, they had access to him. and which set the first of the kingdom. So these were the inner circle. These were the palace advisors, the White House staff. These were the people that gave him advice. In verse 15, what shall we do this matter to Queen? I got a problem, guys. I mean, maybe I shouldn't have asked her to come, but now what do I do with a wife who is openly in front of everybody rebuked me. You know, did you see that a couple of weeks ago, a couple of months ago? The president and his wife were walking out of an airport one time, and it looked like she kind of withdrew her hand from him. And everyone, oh, see, they're having problems. And, oh, my, it just hit all over the internet. I mean, she doesn't love him anymore and all this. Well, she almost tripped, and she pulled her hand back. You know, if you really watch all the whole thing, you know. But it's just interesting how the people will do this. And so here you have a king whose wife overtly, she didn't pull her hand back, she slapped him in the face just about, you know, as far as saying no. And a king just can't have that, you know. And so we see that, it says in verse, it says, what shall we do with this queen according to the law? She really makes you look bad, king. And then a good old Memuchin answered in verse 16, before the king and the princes, so he's the chief of staff, Vashti the queen has not done wrong to the king only, but to all the princes, to all the people that are in all the provinces of the king Ahasuerus. I mean, this is in front of all of us guys. He's not really believing that, I don't think. I think he's just realizing he's talking to his king, and you keep him buttered up. But we gotta do something about that. This woman made it look bad, and it's gonna make it look like our wives can rebel, too. In verse 17, and this deed of the queen shall come abroad unto all the women. and they're gonna start a woman's right movement, and they're gonna kick us out of the house, and they're gonna take over. That's basically what he said in verse 17. Women's love movement's gonna start because of what Vashti did. In verse 18, likewise, all the ladies of Persian media say this day unto the king's princes. And basically, when something like that happens, I imagine there was a lot of talk around Persian, I mean it would hit the newspapers or whatever they had. But hey, did you hear what Vashti did to the queen, to the king? Do you hear what, I mean he really, he wanted her to come out and just really show herself and she said no. Oh my, how bad that is. And so can you imagine a queen saying, especially when he's got so many others to pick from, that she would actually publicly stand up to him and rebuke him. That didn't go over well, but in verse 18, likewise, all the ladies of Persia say unto the king's princes, which have heard of the deed of the queen, they shall arise too in much contempt and wrath. We're going to have problems with our wives, guys. How silly. But there again, that's what the king wanted to hear. In verse 18, if it pleased the king, let there be a royal commandment from him and let it be written among the laws of the Persians and the Medes that it be altered, not it be altered, that Vashti come no more before the king Ahasuerus and let the king give her royal estate into another that is better than she. So let's banish her. We don't know exactly what happened to Vashti, but we know that Anybody who came before the king had to have accepted. Remember, later on, Esther was going to go before the king without permission. Now, if Vashti had done that, any time after that, she would be instantly killed. Not only that, but notice they say, let's not only do that to her, but whatever riches she's gotten from being queen, let's take them away from her. I mean, so she's going to be desolate. I mean, and all she did was say, I'm not going to dance naked in front of a bunch of guys. Isn't that sad? It really is. In verse 20, and when the king's decree, which he shall make, shall be published throughout all his empire for it is great, and all the wives shall give to their husbands honor, both to the great and to the small. That is some of the silliest advice I've ever heard to anybody. I mean, it's almost childish. But whenever you're talking to a king and buttering him up, you'll see a lot of weird things. Look at some of the silly things that people will say just to get attention today from the powers that be. In verse 21, and the saying pleased the king. That's what he was wanting to hear. And the princes. And the king did according to the word of Mamuchan. And he sent letters to all the king's provinces. He said, guys, my wife really treated me wrong, and I'm getting rid of her. I want to make sure that you guys know that we're not going to have a women's love movement start in Persia because of what my wife did." It's basically what he is saying. He says, according to the writing thereof, and that every people of every language, that every man should bear rule over his own house. Man, you stay in control of your house. Brutal. And one of the things, I can't think of anything worse. If I was a woman, I would hate to be anything, I mean, if I'm not wife number one and only, then I wouldn't want to be anything less. And all through the Bible you'll see that there's always problems when there's anything less. The Lord never expressly said it was wrong for David to have too many wives, but it sure showed that he had a lot of problems, didn't it? Elkana married Penina and Hanna. He didn't say it was wrong, but did Hanna and Penina have some real problems? I feel sorry for Penina, let alone Hanna. And here we have this king who loves to show off all his ladies, and yet he's got a head queen, and he says, I'm going to replace her. And I can't think of anything worse, and we'll see later on, but Esther, she takes a big chance. because he was going to have a big parade of women come through, they were going to spend one night with him, and if he didn't want them, they were going to be put off into an asylum somewhere and live the rest of their days. I mean, that's a pretty wretched existence for any, I, as a man, I can't think of doing another person like that, you know, and yet this is the way they do. Folks, when they talk about women's oppression today, I don't think the women of America know what oppression is. Now, a lot of you know what brutality is and so forth. We know that. And there's a lot of men that have no idea how to treat a woman. But at least our society tries to protect women from that type of thing, doesn't it? And so we see that this is all set up now. And we'll see now after these things in verse two, that when King Ahasuerus and his wrath appeared for he remembered Vashti and what she had done and what he had decreed, The king's servant ministered unto him. Oh, he just had another few hundred wives to take care of him. And he said, let there be. And now they start a beauty pageant. And we're going to see now one of those mysterious ways that a man rises in power and you find him by the end of the book of Esther as right next to the king. And you have Mordecai. And there are actually records, Persian records, who name Mordecai as one of the head guys in the king's court. And then no wonder when the next king comes along, Artaxerxes, you have another man that is right up there next to the king. And what's his name? Nehemiah. It's interesting how that God had ways in his providence of raising these people up to put them in the right place at the right time to do the right thing for Israel. And folks, this is the story about Esther. On one side, you have man and what a mess he can make of it. And on the other side, you have God silently dictating the affairs of men. And what a blessing it is. You know, you think about our country, and I like what a man who, as far as I know, never got saved. His name was Benjamin Franklin. But at the end of the Constitutional Convention, he said, I'm old, but the longer I live, the more that I realize that God dictates the affairs of men. And I think that's right. I mean, that Constitutional Convention, it had some Christians there, but it wasn't a theological conference. It was a bunch of people trying to get together on their best interest of their states to put something together that would work. greatly blessed us with it. And so it is that the longer I live, folks, we're living in some crazy days today. But God is dictating the affairs of men and women. And all these things that are happening are heading to a point And folks, I've said over and over again, we know that in the last days, men are going to wax worse and worse, and people are going to fall away from the faith. And will there be anybody standing for the Lord, even the Lord asks that? But that's great, because guess what? I want to be, and I hope each one of us here are going to live out eternity as part of the Never Die generation. We're going to be the Rapture generation. I want to be that, don't you? because God is dictating all this. I can't tell what's going on just like no one in Ezra, Nehemiah couldn't tell you everything is going on. But we look back on and say, God led me all the way. And so it is in life. So many times, Lord, where are you? I'm not listening. I don't hear you. But we can look back and see how that God placed the right people at the right time in our lives and that he pulled us through things that we never knew how he did it until we look back on it. Aren't you glad of that? And that's the beauty of the book of Esther, is that it's not a spiritual book, but at the same time, we see that God directed the affairs of people. Let's pray. Father, thank you for your word. Thank you for guiding our lives so many times It looks so secular and we sense, Lord, sometimes when we're at work or with other people that you're far away and that things are falling apart and it just doesn't make sense. And yet, Lord, we know that there's nothing that escapes your notice. There's nothing that surprises you. But that you promise us, Lord, even in our adversities, even in our pain and sorrow, that you will never leave us or forsake us, and that you'll lead us in your path of righteousness for your name's sake. So, Lord, lead us. Give us wisdom. We don't understand our times. We don't know what's going to happen this week. It looks like to us so many things, whether it's our own personal families in some areas or our country or our city, it looks like everything's falling apart. Yeah, Lord, nothing is falling apart in your eyes. You know exactly what's going on. and you keep all the pieces together and you rearrange them when you want to. But Lord, may we understand that we are still to seek your kingdom and your righteousness in whatever age in which we live. Bless us, Lord. There's coming a day when man will have no other choice. He'll hear your final call. But Lord, until that day, may we keep propagating, may we keep fishing for men. telling them about the love of God. For we pray in Jesus' name, amen.