Father, we thank you that your word is before us and everything we need is in it. You have taught us what we need to know and it's hard for us when there are things that are missing and we try to figure them out. But may we clearly understand what you've said and may we understand the context it's in, the book it is written in, the purpose behind it all. May we be changed May we never open your word, never read it. If we took time this morning to spend time somewhere in your word, may it stick. May it be personal. May we interact with it. And may you do the same thing with Esther today to make us more like Jesus Christ and to help us to please you and to bring glory to your name. And we thank you, Father. In Jesus' name, I pray. Amen. The question came up while we were preparing for this is, was Vashti strong-willed? And that's where partly where she got in trouble. And really when I think about that, I'm realizing all of us are strong-willed. That's part of the problem with sin. So you push somebody to the right point. And I don't think there's a person in this room who wouldn't stand up and say no, even if they said it, no. but they still would resist it. So as you're coming into this situation, we have a couple of things going on. As you look at the review, you have this rich, powerful King Ahasuerus brought out in the first chapter and Queen Vashti is dethroned and even banished from his presence. She doesn't cease to exist. She isn't executed, but she has some serious problems going on here. And so as we come into chapter two, a new queen is being sought. That's kind of what's going on in the context here. And so we're looking at some issues here. The Jews should not have been here. All right. I want you to fix that in your head as we go into this passage. Esther and Mordecai, Hadassah, should not have been there because they had been told to go back. And Cyrus had given them permission to go back. So the first question we ask is why are they here? And what it comes down in our lives is when we do something that is off of God's will for our life, we're off track, which is what one word for sin is. It's to miss the mark. It's to trespass. It's to get into an area we shouldn't be in. Then what is our first inclination? It's to call on God like he's some genie and tell him to fix it, right? It doesn't work like that. Sin has wages. It has consequences. And so as you're coming into this, I want to make sure you understand that the reason Esther is even available for this king is because they were already in disobedience to what God had told them to do. Now that may be hard and you may hold Mordecai more responsible than Esther because she was under his care. She may have been a 15 year old. We don't know her age, although she's very young. And so she's submitting to him, but then there's some other things that go on here that we're gonna get into as we talk about it. But with the new queen being sought in chapter two, the first thing that pops up is emotions. Look at verse one. After these things, when the anger of King Ahasuerus had subsided, he remembered Vashti. Now, if I were to ask you about your first boyfriend, your first girlfriend, That may go back to high school. It may go back to junior high. She may be sitting next to you, or he may be sitting next to you. But you instantly, when I bring that up, you instantly have thoughts. Good, bad, whatever it may have been. Wonder what happened to that person, where they're at. So here's the king. We don't know how long it's been. Something, it could have been a long time. This guy didn't seem to be driven by women. They seem to be number two in his life. He was driven more by this position of power, conquering, dominating his enemies and everything that's going on. But that's my opinion. But here he is, his anger subsided. How long did that take for it to decrease or to be soothed? It definitely took some time. But then there's some anguish here. When he remembers Vashti and what she had done, remember, she had committed a sin. That's the strong word used. She had violated the laws of the land and what had been decreed against her. He's kind of bringing this up and he's reflecting on this. Is he depressed? Is he sad? Is he lonely? He's got a whole harem of women. What's going on here? There's some kind of connection. Remember, at one point in his life, he picked her. out of the whole beauty contest. That's the one that's going to be my queen. But in a lot of ways, all she got was a title, which happens too many times even in marriage. But here, he's pointing out the defiance or the sin of defiance. He's reflecting on the refusal of his command. He's kind of going, why'd she do that? And wasn't there a better way for me to have handled it? Her sentence of this decree of banishment and being replaced by another is what's going to be coming up here. And he's struggling here. But also, it could be an area of just foolishness on his part. of what he had really focused on. Why did he ever ask her, and it could be part of that, why did I ever ask her to come and display herself, to show herself off to all of my entourage? He's struggling. So if you were one of the king's attendants, who were keeping an eye on the king, what's your goal? Keep him happy, keep him happy, smile, laugh, jovial, don't let him get upset, this guy has a temper, you don't know what's going to happen next. You could bring the wrong food and, off with his head. So here's the situation in verse two, the king's attendants who served him, they were the ones that attended him regularly. They caused all of his needs to be met. They said this, four things, let beautiful young versions be sought for the king. How many? Yeah, loss would be a good word here. We don't know. A typical Harriman in that day was three to 400 women. Look at Solomon. Huge and so as you're looking through here, he gives this first Approach and I gave you extra words up here. I know you don't have all of these I keep looking for my Pointers and my finders and my other stuff and they get hidden, but I added some stuff to your outline So you could put them in there There's no room on that little half sheet when I do it and the other side of it is a lot of this comes to me on Friday and Saturday and so I keep I keep breaking it down as I'm studying it and looking at what's going on, but the first one here is this whole idea they searched and They're looking for these young virgins for the king. So where are they searching? Number two, let the king appoint overseers in all the provinces of his kingdom. How many? 127 provinces. How big of an area? All the way from India, which is now Pakistan today, all the way across up into Greece, it crossed over a little bit, where modern-day Turkey, into Greece a little bit, all the way down into Egypt and into what was known as Ethiopia at the time in southern Egypt. So you have this vast empire they're sending out. How long is this going to take? What do you do in the meantime to keep the king happy? We've got to entertain him. We don't want him mad. So yeah, they're looking for ways to bring people from the harem to him, women from the harem. But he's appointing these overseers. He's specifically looking here to set up deputies, is another word you could put in here, in all of his provinces. And their responsibility is to gather every beautiful young virgin. What do you want to look like in that day? Ugly. Don't do your hair. Don't do your makeup. Don't change your clothes for a week. Make sure when they show up at your door, remember Cinderella and they're going around looking for the woman who's kind of ridiculous, only one size of foot fit that thing. But it's just a story. But this is what they're doing here. They're going around and they're arbitrarily, as a deputy of his, looking at the women. How do they do? They bring them in and parade them in front of them? The women weren't wearing scanty clothing like they do in America. But you could tell There's a variety of things that they would look for, and especially the face. And so they're bringing these in to Susa the capital, to the harem, into the custody of Haggai, the king's eunuch, who was in charge of the women. That's a major undertaking. And the realization, when you go back and study the Medo-Persian Empire, the queen usually came from one of the prince's daughters. How many princes were there last week? Seven. And it's their daughters, because that's the royalty that he would pick from. They would be known. They would be kind of like the wicked stepsisters of Cinderella, vying for position. Maybe the king already knew what the opportunities were out there, and he kind of went, nah, not interested. And his attendants knew that as well. And they go, don't do that. We're going to get in big trouble, because he isn't going to find anybody. Or maybe his prince's daughters were all taken. There weren't any more at that point in time. So as he's searching the kingdom for these women, it's a major thing that could have taken a long time. This word for gather, that they may gather, it's to collect or assemble. And it can carry the idea to grasp or to seize. There's kind of like this roundup at a cowboy get together, whatever you call those things. Yep, I knew that word would be out there somewhere. At the rodeo, it's almost like they're rounding them up. Or a harvest, and the king or the attendant is saying, go into my garden and pick all of the ripe maidens. That's kind of what this word gather here is talking about. Take you, take you, take you. What happens to these women? Only one queen is going to come out of this. What happens to the rest of them? They get put into the harem and That may be all they're doing. Yeah, they may have to wait until the next queen, which isn't going to necessarily be anytime soon. They may never get called on by the king. And the fact, as we look down in here in the position that Esther got into, many of those women that were put in the harem maybe never saw the king. Because when she was brought in, he knew. You know, it's love at first sight or lust at first sight. All the stars and the hearts, they go in the sky and you see them kind of moving in slow motion toward one another. Now, that's not how it worked here. This is a very selfish individual who didn't care what happens to these women. He didn't care what their roles were. They're being pulled from all over the kingdom. They may speak languages that he can't even understand. And they're gone from their families. This is horrendous. This isn't a nice story. I don't know how they depict it when they do the book of Esther. But you're hearing a lot of sobbing going on as these women. Remember Seven Brides for Seven Brothers? When they ran off and grabbed all those women because they were going to make them their own. And they go in there and the pass closes and they have all winter and then all the stuff that goes by. That's what this is more like. They're snatching these women. And it's all the beautiful young virgins all over the provinces. Number three, let their cosmetics be given to them. It's the only word that really comes out with this is their ointments. It's distinct from other ones in verse 12. When you go up to Esther 2.12, He says, when they had their turns, they would have 12 months under the regulations for the women, for the days of their beautification were completed as follows, six months with oil of myrrh and six months with spices and the cosmetics for the women. This is just the word cosmetics. So this is the one being focused on here. Maybe it was a general term to kind of talk about all of it, the myrrh and the spices that were there as well. But they're being given to them. And it's like, he says, let their cosmetics be given, like your preferences. I use Avon myself. So I would understand chapstick. Just so you recognize. But they're making these choices. What's going to make you the most beautiful? What's going to bring you before the king? And then the fourth one, let the young lady who pleases the king. be queen in place of Vashti. Who's in charge of this beauty pageant, ultimately? It's the king. And the one who pleases him, the one who makes him glad, that puts joy back in his life. And so it says there, with all of this approach that's being laid out, all of it focused on the external, the king's going to get to know the internal a little bit. but he gives his approval. The matter pleased the king, and he did accordingly. How would you handle this in America today? What if they came and took your daughter to Washington, D.C. to serve at the bidding of the president? How would that go over? And yet, the little bit that I've heard about what goes on in Washington, D.C. with all the interns, it's hundreds of women who run around in scanty clothing, and a lot of hanky-pankys going on in Washington, D.C. on a regular basis. Maybe it is what we have in our country. But the difference is those women pursued those positions. These women have not. And especially Esther, who shouldn't have been there, shouldn't have been made available to the king. Cyrus had given them opportunity to get out of there. But the emotions are strong here, not only in the king's depression, sadness, loneliness, whatever he's feeling in his moodiness, but on the part of all these women who are being snatched away from their homes to go serve in a harem and do nothing the rest of their lives. Who knows what they even came out of, how they were even found. You can imagine some of the parents and families hiding their families, hiding their daughters. But it was at the danger of losing your life. So the problem is addressed, the proposal is laid out, the attendants don't want to lose their necks, and so now enter Esther. Verse 5 says, there was a Jew in Susa, the capital, whose name was Mordecai, the son of Jar, however you want to pronounce all these names, the son of Shimei, the son of Kish, of Benjamin. who had been taken into exile from Jerusalem with the captives who had been exiled with Jeconiah, king of Judah, whom Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, had exiled. So he's going way back. Obviously, Mordecai is not 150 years old. When all this had taken place earlier and snatched away, it's his relatives that they kind of put a hodgepodge of his family tree here to bring out his connection from the original exile from Jerusalem with Nebuchadnezzar. Carried off to Babylon, taken over by the Medo-Persians, and he's trying to lay out this picture. Why start with Mordecai? So what? Who cares about Mordecai? It has nothing to do, or does it? It's going to have everything to do with what's going to take place. He's going to prepare her. He has authority over her. He's already in the capital in a variety of ways. in the area of Jerusalem, I mean in the area of Susa. So as he says there, here's Mordecai, and then the situation is going to kick in with Esther. But he is a Jew, and again we have discussions over that, that we've opened it up to say that those who were taken in the Babylonian captivity was the Southern Empire. It involved Judah, where the name originally came from, but then has expanded. It involved the Benjamites, it involved some Levites, and then who knows who else may have been in that region who were carried off at the time. But he's trying to give you some background that this is the issue that God is going to deal with in this book. You'll look at Esther, one of two books named after a woman. The only book in the whole Bible without the name God, Yahweh, Elohim, Adonai, and a variety of other names that could be thrown in there. He's not mentioned. We talked about that last week that this is probably done because this book is written in a way that others are going to read. This could be a death sentence for you to put the wrong things into the material. I remind you, your text messages, your phone calls, your emails can and will be used against you in a court of law. Speak and write in a way that brings glory to God. Don't put anything on there that isn't true, that's full of gossip, that maligns unnecessarily even the leader of your people, because God says don't do that. How would our language change if we were going to be called to account and they were going to broadcast everything that we say on the phone or write in emails and text messages? Would you change anything? Probably. You may not even think about what you're doing, but when you say that that person was a jerk, or an idiot, or stupid, and you're going, do I really want that broadcast? That I said that about my boss? I said that about my neighbor? I said that about my wife? I said that about my child? And so here he is, the whole struggle that's going on here, these individuals are in a place where there's danger around them. Mordecai is an individual Jew. His name means little man. It's a Babylonian name. They see some connection to Marduk, some do, the god Marduk, but others do not. But his name means little man. What would you name your little boy when he's born? They typically, the captives would have two names and you see it, Simon Peter, you see it in a variety of ways where they have names in two different languages. Sometimes they mean the same, other times they don't. And so here's Mordecai using his Babylonian name. So he's not in trouble, not a Jewish name. And then the family of Saul is who's represented here, the tribe of Benjamin. And he says here in verse six, they had been taken into exile. This is a passive. It wasn't their choice. It wasn't their will. They'd been carried off, removed from Jerusalem. So they're showing you the tie-in of where he'd come from. They think because of his connection with Saul and the fact he's from Jerusalem, he may have been from the original royal family of King Saul. But I don't know for sure. And they're carried off way back when with the captives who had been exiled. This company of exiles who had been carried away with Jeconiah, king of Judah, whom Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, had carried away. Verse six is kind of getting carried away with the idea of exiles. Is somebody dying back there? Has a parent arrived? Okay, because I have nobody's attention until that is controlled Or that could be the teacher, you never know. It is a very great sacrifice to serve in this church. Where was it? But as he's walking through, he lays out initially the family connection, and the captives, and how they got there, and he's kind of re-emphasizing, as far as I'm concerned with verse 6, you shouldn't be there anymore. I told you to go back. And so in my life, when I look at sin, and God says, I told you not to do that, didn't I? As he's interacting, not in a verbal, not talking out loud, but the interaction with scripture. Yep, I knew better, and I did it anyway. Okay, now we're going to pick up the pieces and make the best of it. I'm not going to go back and erase it with some spiritual eraser like it never happened. This is what we get mad at God about sometimes. Why don't you just fix it? Why do you let so many bad things happen to so many people in our world? God's not a domineering master over the computer. We're not robots that He just programs to do whatever He wants. He's given us a free will. And our free will has consequences. Look at Adam and Eve. And thereafter. So we look at our lives and we realize they're there because of their own personal choice. And now they're suffering some of the consequences of that. But where's God in all of this? We've talked about it in Sunday school. God is in control. God doesn't abandon us because we sin once or a thousand times. As a child of God, if you've received Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior, you recognize He died on the cross for your sins, and He arose victorious over the grave, and He's offering salvation, that new life to each one of us. If you've received that, it's unconditional. It cannot be taken away. You have God's spiritual DNA in you. It's permanent. A new creature in Christ Jesus forever. It's called eternal life, in case you hadn't put those two words together. It's not temporary life until you mess up and then you lose it. It's permanent. So when you come in here, you realize that although Mordecai may be in the wrong place, and ultimately Hadassah or Esther, God is still in control. God is still working. God still uses the situation like he does in our lives. Anybody in this room that hasn't sinned in the last... I'll go back a year, just in case some of you are really good people. When we look at it, anybody that hasn't sinned in the last year, what did God do when you chose to sin? Because you chose it. Walk by the Spirit and you will not carry out the desires of the flesh. You told the Holy Spirit to go take a break. Turn the other way. I've got something I want to do. If you're a believer. If you're an unbeliever, you're not dominated. You're dominated by the world, by Satan, by your flesh. And so sin comes easy and plentifully. But here we have a situation where they're reaping the consequences, yet God doesn't step aside and say, you deserve it. There it is. Pay your debt. God is working right alongside of what's going on here. And so when he gets down to verse 7, he brings in not just the captivity and Mordecai, but the cousin. He says in verse 7 that Mordecai was bringing up Hadassah. That's her Hebrew name that means myrtle. And then it says that is Esther. That's her Persian name that means star. Ishtar is what we always think about with the god that they worship. And he says here it was his uncle's daughter. So how old is Mordecai compared to Esther, I'll just use that name. If you take the oldest one of a family, a large family with the Jews would have had, let's say there's 12 kids. And the oldest one has a child at age 19, Mordecai. Then number 12 down the line, say 15 years later, has five or six kids of their own. And number six is Esther. How many years can you get between these? You get 20, 25 years without any problem at all. So we don't know the situation. He's definitely old enough and a male that he's been given this responsibility. What happened to her parents? It says here, for she had neither father nor mother. Well, we know she had father and mother when she was born, or at least prior, just prior to her birth. So something happened. Were they killed in the Babylonian or the Persian takeover? Was there something that took place in here that's left her alone? We don't know what the situation is. But this is her cousin, although he seems to be older and have this established position. And so as you look at it, we recognize the authority he has and the submission she gives to him. And it says, now the young lady, that is simply a maiden, a girl, a damsel. She could be 15 years old, but this make her 20 just for the fun of it. She was beautiful. The idea being fair, we would call her pretty. And he names pretty in two ways. Pretty of form. This is her outline of a woman, her figure. So what she looked like, I don't know how you see that in a robe. But guys know. Put a robe on. They'll tell you how you walk, how you carry yourself, the parts of you that stick out, that are still there. If your arms are thin or if your arms are overweight, if they're dainty, if they're whatever, they pick up stuff and they have, remember, their antenna that they're supposed to shut off when they get married? And they should only be looking at the arms and the hands and the face. But it tells them a world of information. Check, check, check, check, check. They do it really fast, too. But it's the situation that's going on. And so here's this young lady, beautiful in her figure, but also beautiful, pretty in her face. The word face has two words attached to it. It means fair, pleasing, or delightful. And then the second word is to the eyes, or her appearance, what is visible on her face. So they're packing all this into this little verse here. That's Esther. She's got it all. She's a knockout. If she went to the beauty pageant, she'd win. She's in trouble. What are they looking for? Her. Yep. And you better bring her, because if the king finds out, you held back some young lady who is of marriageable age. Obviously, they didn't take their wives from other men. That could happen too, but not in this case. And so, they're looking for these women, and it's a curse. I've talked to women in the past, talked to some women who felt like they weren't good-looking. I'll just make it general like that. That's arbitrary. You know where looks come from? You guys are all hesitant today, I can tell. They come from the heart, through the eyes. You want to be good looking? Then be godly. The greatest weapon you have as a woman, or the greatest attraction, that'd be a better word rather than weapon, is submission, in a biblical way. Not kowtow to somebody who wants to make you into a doormat. But that's what is attractive to a man. I stress this to you many times. That's why men go to prostitutes. They're the most submissive women on earth. And everything about the man, all the focus of her attention, all the words that come out of her mouth, she's elevating this guy and he has a big head. And then he's led to the slaughter. But this is who she is. And so you have, even as a pretty young woman, there's a curse. There's a struggle you go through to realize that beauty has a price tag. And yet, what do women want to be? Beautiful? For who? All these guys with this radar on, they're looking? Or are you looking for the man that God has chosen for you? The godly man who also might be good-looking on the outside, but who has it on the inside. That's what makes marriage work. You better not marry for the outside. There's a lot of problems. And then many people, as you're seeing in the news on a regular basis, they see the outside and they demand to have it, and they take it. And we call that rape. This is what's going on here. They're carrying off these hundreds of women to bring them to the king to be raped by the king. Great story, isn't it? They don't have any say over it. And they will stay there because he now owns them. So when you put this picture in, Esther's in big trouble. But this is what she looks like. And when her father and mother died, Mordecai took her as his own daughter. He took responsibility. Literally, the word means accepted or received her. Took her under his wing. Neat guy. Tells you a lot about Mordecai. You're going to see his character as the story goes on. But he's just setting it up. He's trying to introduce with this emotional king, now you have the woman Esther and her connection to Mordecai, because the story is going to be built around this. But she is extremely good looking. You will not find somebody better looking in all of the kingdom. That's like having a beauty contest for the whole United States, including Alaska and Hawaii. And you bring all those women in, which is what they do. It's called the Miss America pageant. Can you be married? Nope. You're a virgin woman. I shouldn't use that word in our day, but you're a young maiden who's very beautiful. But the situation, then when you have a married woman, they go to some other thing, Mrs. America or whatever they do. And so he sets this up. And you go into all of this now that that's been set up, the king, Mordecai, Esther, look at verse eight. It came about when the command and decree of the king was heard. His verbal command, his written edict, this decree, they were heard and many young ladies were gathered. Remember that word meant collected, harvested, seized. But when they were assembled to Susa the capital into the custody of Haggai, that Esther was taken to the king's palace into the custody of Haggai who was in charge of the women. He was the keeper of the harem. What do you think is going through Esther's mind? Concern? Uncertainty? What are they going to do to me? That's what Mordecai thinks as we close this off. What's it like? What is God doing with this trial in her life to get her attention? What's he causing her to be drawn toward? She has nobody. Her family's gone, even her cousin Mordecai is gone. She's all alone. What do you think went through her mind as a Jewish? She probably called out to God, would be a guess on our part, wouldn't you? Atheists do that in the foxholes when they're under a lot of pressure. So you can kind of picture what's happening here, that God is using this in her life to get her attention, to force her to depend on him and to try to get her to look up. But he leaves it really general as we're reading this. But as I read this, this week, I went, you know, she's going into the spider's web. That's what the harem was. Trapped. And so the custody is very clear. And it's permanent. The beauty has this selfish attention drawn to her, has gotten her in trouble. And there's a lot of other things I could bring in here, but they had been commanded to leave. They didn't. Here they are. So verse 9 says, now the young lady pleased him. Well, I'm not surprised. She's the knockout of the whole realm. He was joyful, glad. Who's he here? Haggai, the keeper of the harem, he was impressed with her and found favor with him. He's showing her kindness and goodness, received kindness with him. So what's he do? He quickly provided her with her cosmetics and food. He made haste, man, he was in a hurry to make sure she got whatever she needed. These ointments. And it kind of carries the idea of some kind of rubbing, like the myrrh or the oils. And the food, she got the best. Prime rib, filet mignon, she got the best food in the house. And then he goes on a little further, gave her seven choice maids from the king's palace. He picked the best of the maids, the ones who know exactly what the king wants, the most experienced women in the palace, and transferred her, assigned her and her maids to the best place in the harem. No wonder she gets picked. Like, they open the door to pick a woman and here's her face, you know, kind of pressed right up against it. She is, pick her, pick her, this is the one. They're all wanting the king happy. When the king's not happy, it's miserable to live in the Medo-Persian Empire. So they're all motivated. And Haggai is a eunuch. He's been castrated. He has no interest in women whatsoever, just in making the king happy. And it's impressive to what takes place here. What does this remind you of in Scripture? Who else comes to mind that got the same kind of treatment? Daniel? Joseph? When God is at work, He takes care of our needs. What's He going to do for you if America gets overrun with socialism, and the Constitution gets thrown away, which I know you're wondering about, not just because I bring it up. And all of a sudden, they're coming after you. What's going to be your appeal? Who are you going to run to? Your lawyer? You don't have a law to go by anymore. If you're going to go to God then, what should you be doing right now? What's my prayer life like? I don't need him right now. He's kind of like a lawyer. You just call him. He's expensive. He's really a hassle, because he just wants to control you. And he has all these limitations he puts on you. So I don't call on God until it's absolutely necessary. Is that how we treat him? Rabbit's foot, genie in a bottle. But here she is in this palace, and she has been put in a position, and she probably doesn't even fully understand. What is all of this? What's coming? But you go from the custody where she's taken, snatched away, and into the charity that's provided for her where she finds favor with the king's top eunuch. And then the control that's put on her, verse 10, Esther did not make known her people or her kindred. Why? Because Mordecai had instructed, I would translate that, Mordecai had commanded her that she should not make them known. Who's in charge of her life? Mordecai. What kind of woman is Esther? You know why she's so beautiful? She is submissive. In the right way. She's not trying to do something wrong. And what are you going to say when they call you and the king said, you're next. And they escort you into wherever that is, and you're with the king for the night. Now she could have said no. Couldn't she? What would have happened? What happened to Daniel when he said no? And what did God do? Hungry lions that ate the other people that they threw in. In fact, attacked them before they even hit the ground when they dropped them down through the hole of how they fed them. And you're realizing Esther, is she dependent on God? What's the law tell her to do with an unmarried man? You are not to have a sexual relationship. What is it called? It's adultery. And what's the penalty for adultery in the Old Testament? Death. And so when you go in and look at this, Esther is submitting to a foreign king, who's not her husband, to have a sexual relationship. It kind of helps. I'm not trying to pick on Esther, but you've got to get realistic here. The reason they're still in the land is because they're in disobedience. What they're doing right now is what too many would do, which is what Peter did. Denies that he ever knew him. Curses to their face so that they really believe him. We try to come up with our own protection instead of saying, God's in charge of the lions. And if I die, I die. But I want to be pleasing to God. There's no excuse for her to do what she's going to do. I want to make sure you understand that. Submission has a responsibility. If your husband is beating you, I am not telling you to submit to your husband. I'm telling you to call the police. That is against the law. If you love your husband and he's beating you, you want him not only to stop for your sake, but you want him to be helped. And so the loving thing to do is that I call the police and I get them involved. And our world has it upside down. You don't even spank your children today. And they better not hear they're even threatening to spank them. In fact, you can't even touch them in a way that restricts them. They'll sue you for everything you've done. And so we're looking at a world that's upside down today. And when you look at Esther, she should have said, no. You understand that? God's not justifying this. God's not making excuses for Mordecai and Esther. God sees them as being off track. They have deviated from His will, and God is supernaturally overseeing their lives like He does with us when we sin. He does not give up on us. But it's a very bad situation. Mordecai had commanded her to not tell anybody that you're a Jew. That would have been very, very bad. And she probably would not have been selected. It actually might have been to her benefit to be a Jew, because they probably would have left her out of the harem. But he goes from this custody to charity to the control, not make known, literally means don't be conspicuous, don't declare or report your people the Jews or your kindred, Mordecai. So she kept her mouth shut. And in verse 11, every day, and I don't have a problem with that, that she didn't have to tell them anything. If they asked her, again, God says, don't lie. But the idea that where she was and she didn't take a stand, that's a problem for me. But verse 11, every day, Mordecai walked back and forth in front of the court of the harem. What's verse 12 tell you? How long was it? 12 months, one year. Every day, 365 days, where's Mordecai? Walking back and forth in front of the court of the harem. Why? To learn how Esther was and how she fared. He wanted to know her welfare. Was she safe? Was she secure? Would she be mistreated by anybody? But he also wanted to know how she fared. What were they going to do with her? What if they found out she's a Jew and she's in there? then he may find out, oh, they took her away and executed her. What if she's rejected for some reason by the king? Then what are they going to do to her? Cast her into some lower harem in there? You know what happens to the older women in the harem? They're bumped out. I don't think they were executed necessarily, but they know a lot. If you have had sexual relations with the king at different times, you may know some things that they don't want known. You may know some things about him, physically, what he looks like, how he acts, what he said. You're not going to go around gossiping about the king that way. So I'm not sure. I couldn't find anything to tell me what happened to him. But I know they put him out to pasture at least. Can I put it that way? I'm trying to make sure you have vivid ideas of what this is going on here. And the younger women, of course you need hundreds of new women coming in. Because the old ones are kind of fading. What's the king want? He doesn't even want a 25 year old. He wants brand new virgins to be his. And so here's Mordecai in all the struggle. Every day, he had personal responsibility. His role was to protect her. So day after day after day, he walks back and forth, to and fro, pacing, looking for some kind of information because he didn't have access. And then to learn, to discern firsthand, it's the word they use for to know, kind of like Gnosko, where you know experientially. He wants to know for himself, firsthand information, how she fared, what her destiny was going to be, what would be done to her. So it's an interesting layout. This book is unique. I never taught through Esther. I'm learning a lot as I go through here. But it's interesting to see why God included this, why it got put in there. Do we have other information up here? Oh, you're giving them that. And so as you're processing this in your mind, you have to ask yourself the question, what would I do? How would I respond? And what I keep trying to tell you as I go along the way is those days are coming. And some of you say, well, I hope it's at least 20 years away. Can you see America going down? Do you see what they're doing with the laws of our country? Do you know what they consider when they look at the morals that they want to follow? And anybody that stands in their way gets lambasted, destroyed, undermined, lied about. Everything's made up. When Jesus Christ hung on the cross, they only told the truth about Him, right? They made up lies. They wanted to justify that they could crucify Him. Why? Because He told them they needed to repent. He told them that He was God. He didn't lie about anything. They didn't want the truth. Where are you at today as we close up? Are you into truth? Not always fun, not always easy, but it always pleases God. Esther's struggling, Mordecai's struggling. We'll watch and see what happens to them as we go through the book. in what takes place in their lives. But God wants individuals not to be hard-nosed, not to be punching somebody in the face because they're telling me I have to do something that I don't want to do. Tell them about Jesus. Explain to them why your decisions are being made. Ask them like Daniel did. Appeal. Is there some other way that I can fulfill what you're wishing for me to do? But I'm going to follow Jesus Christ. Remember we talked about religion last week. Ninety, ninety-five percent of our country professes some kind of religion. Most of it's external. Most of it's based on works. Most of it has nothing to do with Jesus Christ. Do you know Him? Is He first in your life? Do you love Him? Do you spend time in His Word, talking to Him all the time, trusting Him that no matter what comes, we can't handle a flat tire some days. What are we going to do when they come for our whole family? Take everything we own and start executing people because they won't submit. You're going to love them? You're going to ask God to forgive them because they know not what they do? Let's pray. Father, we thank you for the reminder in Esther. We thank you that you're in control. We thank you even when we deviate and there's some hard times in our lives where we go off and do some things we never should have done. That you're not fickle, that you don't carry a grudge. The only reason you're going to judge people one day is because they would not let you pay for their sin. They would not receive your Son Jesus Christ and find new life in Him. They would not repent and turn away from their love of evil, love of the dark. So help us to be lightbearers in a dark world. Help us to be bold. Help us to be humble like your Son was, meek, power under control. Although we can defend ourselves, it's you that we want to serve. So show us what's right, Father. Develop convictions. Help us to learn how to pray now while it's easy, so we're not scrambling to get in spiritual shape when those dark days come. But may you make a difference, and may you give us the privilege of seeing others come to know you as we testify what Jesus has done. And I thank you in Jesus' name. Amen.