Now it's time to want to preach about the book of Esther because the book of Esther is a book that many have actually attacked.
And this is one of the books that probably comes under the most attack because a lot of people say that this book should not be in the Bible.
Who's ever heard anybody say that before? Yes, several hands are going up.
Because a lot of people will say, well first of all the book of Esther never mentions God.
And so therefore it shouldn't be part of the Bible.
Well, the book of Psalm and Solomon also does not mention God. It's still definitely part of the Bible.
And I want to preach to you tonight about obviously why I believe the book of Esther should be in the Bible and that it's God's word.
But also just to explain it to you and help you to understand it.
Because a lot of people misunderstand the meaning of the book of Esther.
And that's part of why they don't think it should be in the Bible.
They say that the Dead Sea Scrolls, some kind of an archeological finding proves that the book of Esther is not part of the Bible.
Because there were all these scrolls and Esther wasn't there.
Well, that doesn't really prove anything.
That you dug up a bunch of old scrolls of the Bible and one of the books is missing.
Well, that doesn't mean that it's not part of the Bible.
You say, how do you know Pastor Anderson that the book of Esther is really part of the Bible?
Well, a couple of reasons.
Number one, first of all, because of the fact that anything that man writes and anything that man does is going to be different than what God writes and what God does.
How do I know that the whole Bible is God's word?
Because it's of such a quality. It has such power.
It's so much different than what man writes.
And there have been many, many imposters through the years who have sought to try to write additional books and get them into the Bible.
And they've written bogus scriptures like, for example, the Book of Mormon.
Or, for example, books of the so-called Apocrypha.
Like, you know, the books of, you know, wisdom of Jesus the son of Sirach or the Maccabees or Belle and the Dragon or Tobit and Judith.
You know, if you read those stories, they're really lame.
I mean, that's all I can say.
I mean, you can just read it and tell, this is not on the same level as the Bible.
It's clearly not even close.
It's someone trying to impersonate or write something that seems sort of like something that you read in the Bible.
But you can tell it's fake and you say, well, how do you know it's fake?
Well, the same way I look at that palm tree on 48th Street that's actually a cell phone tower, but it's made to look like a palm tree.
I don't have, you say, are you an expert on the Dead Sea Scrolls?
I don't have to be a tree expert to know that God didn't make that tree.
God did not make, man made that tree because it doesn't look like what God made.
Well, the book of Esther is such a great book, such a powerful book, such a deep book, it has the fingerprint of God upon it, number one.
And number two, nothing in the book of Esther contradicts anything that we read elsewhere in Scripture.
It fits right in perfectly with Scripture as we're going to see tonight.
Whereas if you look at all these other bogus book of Enoch and the Gospel According to Thomas and the Gospel According to Bartholomew,
it always contradicts the rest of the Bible and it's always clearly bogus.
So the book of Esther is definitely God's word and those are some of the reasons why it is God's word.
But let me just explain to you the book and then help you to understand the story tonight.
And hopefully it'll encourage you to go back and read this book on your own and go a little deeper with it.
So we read the whole chapter in chapter one and we start out with this lavish king, Ahasuerus.
And this guy, he rules over a kingdom of a hundred and twenty-seven provinces.
Like today our nation has, what, fifty states. I think Obama said it was fifty-eight, but I'm pretty sure it's fifty.
He said, you know, I visited, what did he say, I visited fifty-one states, I guess seven to go or whatever.
But anyway, a hundred and twenty-seven provinces. And not only that, it says that his kingdom stretched from Ethiopia to India.
Now if you know where, well hey, I've got the map for you.
You know, because you've got Egypt and then you've got Sudan and then you've got Ethiopia.
So we're talking over here in Africa, Ethiopia, which was a very powerful country at that time.
Egypt and Ethiopia were major powers. And then you have all the way to India.
So we're talking about all of this area, the whole Middle East, the whole area surrounding it.
I don't know exactly where those hundred and twenty-seven provinces were.
But pretty much, we're talking about virtually a worldwide kingdom here.
Of all of the most important governments and so forth, we're under his rule.
This is the most powerful man in the world.
And he's rich and he rules over most of the civilized world.
And he is throwing this lavish party here.
And he's got all kinds of gold and silver and all kinds of textiles there that are described.
Just showing us his glory, his riches and his might.
Well, this man is also practicing polygamy.
Now, just because someone did something in the Bible doesn't make it right.
This man is in Persia. Now, the modern-day country would be Iran.
Iran is what the Bible is talking about when it says Persia.
The people even today in Iran, many people refer to the language that they speak as Persian.
That's what some people call it. And many people call that nationality Persian.
A lot of people think that Iranians are Arabs. They're not Arabs.
They're Persians. Totally different nationality.
Now, today they're Muslim. At this time, they were a completely different religion.
And it was false religion. It was not Christianity. It was Zoroastrianism.
But the bottom line is that this man has multiple wives.
But he has the queen, which is the number one of his wives.
The one who has the honorable position of being the queen of the kingdom.
Well, he calls for his wife, the queen, Vashti, to come in unto his guests at his party.
And if you will, look down at your Bible in verse number 11.
To bring Vashti the queen before the king with the crown royal to show the people and the princess her beauty.
For she was fair to look on.
So he wants to basically show off the queen.
He wants her to come in and enter the room with her crown on her head.
And in the royal apparel, all of her fancy, nice clothing.
And basically he just wants her to be there so that he can show off his beautiful wife to the guests that are there.
And it says in verse 12, but the queen Vashti refused to come at the king's commandment by his chamberlains.
Therefore was the king very wroth and his anger burned in him.
So here's the most powerful man in the world, but he can't get his wife to obey.
So he tells her, hey, come on over here. I've got all these guests over here.
I want you to come. And she says, no, I won't come.
Now I've heard preachers say, oh, she was right not to come.
Because he wanted her to come and do something indecent, like what would be at a gentleman's club.
Does the Bible say that anywhere? No.
So you can't just add stuff to the Bible.
You can't just make up stuff and say, yeah, he wanted her to come and take off her clothes.
That's not what it says.
He wanted her to come in her royal apparel with a crown on her head.
He just wanted to show off.
Whether he was right or wrong, that's not the point.
He told her to do it. It wasn't a sin for her to just come and be there.
He told her to do it. She won't do it.
He's infuriated. He's enraged. He's angry.
He told her to do it. She won't do it.
He doesn't know what to do. What do I do?
So he goes to his seven counselors.
And one of them says, look, this is not just affecting you here.
Because you're kind of a powerful guy here.
And if your wife is just going to blow you off and disobey you and get away with it,
well then, all these people right here, they're going to hear about it.
And then they're all going to despise their husbands.
They're going to disobey their husband because you're going to be setting a really bad example.
So he basically throws her out of that position of being the queen.
And says that she can't be the queen anymore.
Now, was he right to do that?
Well, honestly, if you're a husband and your wife doesn't obey you, you can't just say,
well, you're not my wife anymore. I'll divorce you.
So that's not right. But that's what he did.
He's not a saved man. He doesn't believe on the Lord.
He's part of a false religion. What do you expect?
He's making his own rules as he goes.
And if you can't tell someone to do it, he says, okay, I'll do it.
That's what he pays him for.
So he kicks her out from being the queen.
Obviously, as a man, as a Christian man, we need to lead and make sure that our wife obeys.
But we can't just, oh, you're not obeying. Bye, see you later.
And that's why you got to think about who you get married to because you're stuck with her.
And ladies, you're stuck with him if you marry the wrong guy.
So it's important to think about that.
So basically, he casts her out from being the queen.
And then they send out letters to everyone in the province saying,
hey, every man needs to bear rule in his own home.
And it's not acceptable for wives to disobey their husband.
Oh, that such an edict would come out in our day.
But it doesn't. The world will tell you that that's old-fashioned or whatever.
But it is biblical.
So that's what happens in chapter 1.
So chapter 2 rolls around.
And again, these are ungodly people.
These are unsaved, Iranian people who are just going with what they think is right.
So chapter 2, he decides that he's got to find a new queen.
So he wants for his servants and his advisors to go searching throughout all the land
and find all the most beautiful young women in the whole land
and bring them unto King Ahasuerus.
And he's basically going to just try as many as he wants
and decide which one he likes the best, and that's going to be the queen.
Whichever one's the most beautiful, whichever one finds the most favor in his eyes.
Is this right? No, of course not.
But of course there's polygamy throughout the Bible.
This guy is an ungodly guy.
So they seek for all these different women to be brought unto him.
And one of them, it says in verse number 7,
and he brought up Hadassah.
This is Mordecai.
Well, let's jump back to verse 5.
It says in chapter 2, verse 5,
Now in Shushad the palace there was a certain Jew whose name was Mordecai,
the son of Jer, the son of Shimei, the son of Kish, of Enjemite.
So of course this is going back to the lineage of Saul's family, the tribe of Benjamin.
And it says he had been carried away from Jerusalem with the captivity.
So the Jews have been taken captive out of their land.
A lot of the Jews are in Iran, or Persia at this time,
and this guy Mordecai is there,
and he has his cousin, look at verse 7,
he brought up Hadassah, that is Esther.
So in the Jewish language it's Hadassah,
but in this language it's Esther.
And it says it was his uncle's daughter.
For she had neither father nor mother,
and the maid was fair and beautiful,
who Mordecai, when her father and mother were dead,
took for his own daughter.
So she has an older cousin named Mordecai.
And so Mordecai, ever since her parents died,
has been taking care of Esther and raising her as if she were his daughter.
And he was her guardian, as it were.
Well, as they're going through the land,
finding all the fair young maidens to bring to this king of Persia,
they also choose Esther, because she was very beautiful.
And so she caught their eye right away,
and they bring her in, and look at verse 10,
it says Esther had not shown her people nor her kindred,
for Mordecai had charged her that she should not show it.
So she's brought into the king's household
to be one of the runners-up,
one of the choices that he can choose to be the next queen.
And she doesn't tell them that she's a Jew.
She doesn't tell them about her nationality.
Mordecai says, hey, don't bring that up.
And so she doesn't bring it up.
So she goes in, and he ends up choosing her,
because she's the most beautiful.
He likes her the best.
She finds favor in his eyes.
So he chooses her.
He puts the crown upon her head in verse number 17.
It says in the latter part,
so that he set the royal crown upon her head
and made her queen instead of Bashtai.
So she wins the prize of being the queen, basically.
Look at verse 21.
It says, in those days,
while Mordecai sat in the king's gate,
two of the king's chamberlains,
Bithan and Tirash,
of those which kept the door were robbed
and sought to lay hand on the king of Hazaras.
And the thing was known to Mordecai,
who told it unto Esther the queen.
And Esther certified the king thereof in Mordecai's name.
And when inquisition was made of the matter,
it was found out.
Therefore, they were both hanged on a tree,
and it was written in the book of the Chronicles before the king.
So around this time,
Mordecai finds out about a plot to kill the king.
He blows the whistle on it,
he tells Esther,
Esther tells the king,
and they end up putting these guys to death
for attempting to kill the king.
Well, in chapter 3,
the Bible says in verse number 1,
After these things did king of Hazaras
promote Haman the son of Hamadath of the aggregate,
and advanced him and set his seat
above all the princes that were with him.
And all the king's servants that were in the king's gate
vowed and reverenced Haman.
For the king had so commanded concerning him,
but Mordecai vowed not,
nor did him reverence.
And then if you jump down to verse 4,
it says in verse 3,
Then the king's servants which were in the king's gate
said unto Mordecai,
Why transgressest thou the king's commandment?
Why aren't you bowing down to Haman
like the king has commanded?
Now it came to pass when they spake daily on him,
and he hearkened not unto them,
he will not obey,
that they told Haman to see whether Mordecai's matters would stand,
for he told them that he was a Jew,
and when Haman saw that Mordecai bowed not,
nor did him reverence,
then was Haman full of wrath.
Now here's what he's going to do,
let me just tell you the story here.
Haman is just infuriated that this guy will not bow down to him.
And he decides,
you know what, it's not enough for me just to have this guy killed.
He says, I want to kill all the Jews in the kingdom,
because they all have this rule about not bowing down to man,
to bow only to God,
to only bow to the Lord in heaven,
and not to bow down to a man.
Now, this is also symbolic,
or a foreshadowing of something that is yet to come in the future,
because the Bible teaches very clearly that there's going to be a man called the Antichrist,
who's going to come someday.
And he's going to pretend to be,
he comes before the Lord Jesus Christ's second coming,
and he pretends to be the second coming of Christ,
he pretends to be the Messiah of the Jews,
he pretends to be the fifth imam, or whatever, of the Muslims,
he pretty much just pretends to be the Messiah of the world,
and bring all nations together,
and he's called the Antichrist,
and he is going to have a commandment through the false prophet,
that everyone upon earth must worship him.
And whoever will not worship him will be killed,
or they will seek to kill him.
And of course many will head for the hills,
and head for the mountains,
and eventually Jesus Christ will come in the clouds
and put a stop to that.
But there's going to come a time in the future,
where the Bible says that people will have to receive a mark
in their right hand, or in their forehead,
in order to be able to buy or sell.
And we can see how this could be happening today.
We see all the nations of the world coming together
into a one-world government.
It used to be that Europe was made of all these separate nations,
and they all hated each other.
Now they're all united into the European Union.
And we see the whole world uniting into a global-type government,
with the United Nations, and NATO,
and all these other different organizations,
banding them together.
And we also see how easy it would be to tell you,
hey, you can't buy or sell without this in your hand.
And all these modern, phony Bible verses will change it to on your hand.
No, the Bible says it will be in your hand.
In your forehead or in your hand.
And you can honestly just think about it.
If you went to the store and just had to go...
I mean, you could picture that, right?
Where you have to buy or sell, and you've got to scan something.
Because this is what they'll say.
Oh, you know, identity theft.
You know, your license.
Take your license, your credit card.
People can deal drugs and use cash,
and then the government can't get their taxes,
and they can't have a paper trail.
So we've got to do this.
Then nobody can hide.
Nobody can hide.
You've got to use that.
But there's only going to be one catch.
You don't just go down and just get this mark.
You've got to worship the antichrist to receive it.
That's the catch.
So believers, those that are saved, are not going to do it.
And therefore, they're going to be...
Many thrown in prison, many will be killed.
Many will be beheaded.
Others will escape just by the skin of their teeth.
And that may happen in our lifetime.
That may happen in the future beyond our lifetime.
We don't know.
We certainly see the signs of these things kind of coming together.
We can see how this could play out.
But this is kind of a foreshadowing of that.
This is symbolic of that,
where you have a man wanting everybody to bow down to him.
Those who will not bow down to him,
he wants them all to be killed.
Now, here's where a lot of people misunderstand the Book of Esther.
One of the things is that he says he wants to kill all the Jews.
Look at verse 13.
It says,
"...into all the king's provinces,
to destroy, to kill, and to cause to perish all Jews,
both young and old, little children and women,
in one day, even upon the thirteenth day of the twelfth month,
which is the month Adar,
and to take the spoil of them for a prey."
Now, here's what Haman says unto the king
when he wants to kill all the Jews.
He says in verse 8,
"...and Haman said unto the king,
There is a certain people scattered abroad
and dispersed among the people
in all the provinces of thy kingdom."
So notice, he says there's people,
and they're in every province.
They're all mixed in with everybody else.
And he says,
"...their laws are diverse from all people,
neither keep they the king's law,
therefore it is not for the king's prophet to suffer them."
So he's explaining,
these people are bad people,
they're in every province,
they're called Jews,
and they have different laws than anybody else's laws,
they don't fit in,
they will not follow your laws,
they want to do their own laws,
and, uh, namely,
they won't bow down to anybody.
They refuse to bend their knee to anybody
except God in heaven.
And so they decide they're going to kill them.
Now, I'll be honest with you,
when you read this,
even we today, when we read this,
get the wrong idea of what is made here by Jews.
Now, at that time,
the Jews were God's people.
They were worshipping the Lord.
They were following their Old Testament scriptures.
Now, were all of them saved?
Every single person who called himself a Jew
or part of that nation was saved? No.
But, a great number of them were saved.
They were all claiming the name of the Lord,
Jehovah, as their God.
They all claimed these scriptures as their word of God.
And that's who we're dealing with here.
We're dealing with what the Bible would call saints,
just like we in the New Testament are saints
if we believe on Jesus Christ.
These are Old Testament saints.
Now, as a nation, as a group,
they claimed to believe on the Lord
and they were, you know,
standing up for the word of God here
by not bowing down.
Now, go to Romans chapter 2,
because a lot of people today,
when we say the word Jew today,
usually we're talking about unbelievers.
And usually we're talking about people
who follow a religion that is completely different
than the religion of the Bible.
So, a lot of people will compare the book of Esther
and they'll compare this story about Haman
wanting to destroy all the Jews.
They'll compare that to Nazi Germany.
And they'll say,
That's just like where Hitler wanted to kill all the Jews.
Now, look.
Was it right for Hitler to want to kill Jews?
Of course not.
Was Hitler an evil person?
Of course. He was wicked. He was evil.
He wanted to massacre any nationality.
There's something wrong with that, obviously.
Killing innocent people, there's no excuse for it.
But at the same time,
that is not an accurate comparison
with the book of Esther at all,
because of the fact that in the book of Esther,
we have God's people
that are the ones being persecuted and killed,
or they're going to be all wiped out
by this evil man Haman.
Whereas in Nazi Germany,
yes, they killed the Jews,
but were the Jews believing in the Lord Jesus Christ?
Were they worshipping the God of the Bible?
Did they believe the Bible? No.
They believe in a false religion of Judaism.
And the Bible says, who is a liar,
but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ?
He's anti-Christ that denied the Father and the Son.
And he said, if you don't have the Son,
you don't have the Father.
You can't say, well, I believe in the God of the Bible,
but I don't believe in Jesus.
He says, no.
You've got to believe in Jesus Christ
in order to have the Father.
Jesus said, no man cometh unto the Father but by me.
And so, the Jews today,
or even the Jews in the time of Hitler,
you know, they're not worshipping the God of the Bible.
They're part of a false religion, Judaism.
Now, should they have been killed?
Of course not.
And there were lots of other people
that were killed during that time.
I mean, during the time of World War II,
and then after that,
you know, the Nazis killed a lot of innocent people,
even just, not even just Jews.
I mean, they killed other innocent people.
And then also the communists in Russia,
they killed millions of innocent people.
And then the Chinese communists and the Cambodians,
I mean, they killed millions of people.
And it's never right to massacre
a bunch of innocent people and men, women, and children.
And so, of course, Hitler was a horrible person.
But see, it's not the same thing.
It's completely different.
Because the difference is that in the Book of Esther,
they want to kill believers.
They want to kill the saints.
They want to kill God's people.
The Jews today are not God's people
if they don't accept Jesus Christ.
Now, I don't want to be stereotyping here
because there are some Jews
that do believe in the Lord Jesus Christ that are saved.
But that doesn't change the fact
that the majority of Jews are not saved today.
So when we think of this story in the Book of Esther,
hey, he's going to kill all the Jews.
It's not just that he wants to kill a nationality.
He wants to kill those who believe the Bible.
Do you understand the story now?
He wanted to kill them.
He said, hey, they have laws
that are different than all these other people's laws.
He's talking about these laws.
He's saying these people's laws are different than our laws.
Now, look, are the Bible's laws
different than the laws today in 2011?
Oh, yeah.
We're believers.
We stand out as different to people.
We live by different rules than other people live
when we live by the Bible.
And so they looked at that and said,
we're going to kill believers.
So I wouldn't compare this to the Nazi journal.
I would compare this to the Antichrist
because he's a man who's saying,
bow down to me or die.
He's a man who's going to be saying,
let's kill all believers.
Let's kill all saints.
So I think if you get that picture in your mind,
it'll help you get a better grasp
of what's happening in the book of Esther.
Look at Romans 2.29.
Let me just prove to you that what I'm telling you is true.
Romans 2.28, actually.
The Bible says,
for he is not a Jew which is won outwardly.
Neither is that circumcision which is outward in the flesh,
but he is a Jew which is won inwardly.
And circumcision is that of the heart in the spirit
and not in the letter whose praise is not of men,
but of God.
You don't have to turn there,
but in Philippians 3.3,
Paul, speaking unto Gentiles in Philippi,
said, for we are the circumcision
which worship God in the spirit
and rejoice in Christ Jesus
and have no confidence in the flesh.
The Bible is clear that in the New Testament,
God's people are believers of all nations.
And just as the Jew of the Old Testament
was a Bible-believing saint
at the time of the book of Esther
who held to the laws of God in the Bible
and were scattered throughout all countries in the world,
today there are Bible-believing Christians
that are scattered throughout all nations of the world
who hold to these words,
and they hold to the word of God,
and they won't bow down and worship the Antichrist
because they will only bow down
and worship the Lord Jesus Christ and God.
They will worship no one else.
Now a lot of people, they don't get this.
They fail to rightly divide the word of truth,
and they're stuck on the Old Testament.
Okay, go if you would,
and I don't want to spend the whole night on this,
but go to Hebrews chapter 8.
Hebrews chapter 8.
They can't understand the difference
between the Old Testament and the New Testament.
They can't divide that.
And the Bible says in Hebrews chapter 8 verse 13,
in that he saith a new covenant,
and the new covenant is synonymous
with the New Testament.
Those are used interchangeably.
In that he saith a new covenant,
he hath made the first old.
Now that which decayeth and waxeth old
is ready to vanish away.
Jump up to verse 9.
Not according to the covenant.
Talk about the Old Testament.
Then I made with their fathers
in the day when I took them by the hand
to lead them out of the land of Egypt
because they continued not in my covenant
and I regard them not to save the Lord.
So in the Old Testament or the Old Covenant,
you have one system going on
where you've got the nation of Israel
and the circumcision and all that.
Hey, we're not living in the Old Testament today.
We're living under the New Covenant.
We're living in the New Testament.
And in the New Testament,
believers of all nations
are grafted into the olive tree.
They're grafted in.
The Bible says so clearly,
and I don't want to turn there
because I just preached on it.
Go back to the book of Esther.
But in Ephesians 3,
I'm sorry, Ephesians 2,
you have to be blind, okay,
if you can't understand
what God is saying in Ephesians 2.
And that's your homework assignment
if you don't know
what I'm talking about right now.
Read Ephesians 2.
He clearly says,
hey, if you're a believer in Christ,
you're a citizen of Israel.
You've been grafted in.
It doesn't matter.
Throw your genealogy in the trash.
It doesn't matter whether you're Jew or Gentile.
If you're in Christ,
you're Abraham's seed,
you're one of God's people,
you are it.
And so here's the thing.
A lot of people,
they fail to rightly divide.
They think the Antichrist
is going to come and persecute Jews.
That's what they think.
And when they say Jew,
they don't mean Jews
like the people who blew the bottle.
And let me prove it to you further.
Go to Esther 8, verse 17.
And I hope you're following this.
I hope I'm not going too deep here.
Try to follow what I'm saying.
Esther 8, 17 says this.
And in every province
and in every city
whithersoever the king's commandment
and his decree came,
the Jews had joy and gladness,
a feast and a good day.
And watch this.
And many of the people
in the land became Jews.
Now did they go back
and become born
into a different family?
So are we talking about
a race here?
I mean, I know Michael Jackson
went from black to white,
but I mean,
you can't really change races.
You know what I mean?
I mean, you're born,
you're either white,
you're Hispanic,
you're black,
you're Native American.
You can't just become a Navajo.
You can't just become white,
Michael Jackson.
You've got to be born that way.
You can't just become black
or whatever.
You're born that way.
But you can become a Jew?
Isn't that what the Bible says?
It says they became Jews
for the fear the Jew fell upon.
Because the Bible says
it's not an outward thing,
it's in your heart.
And so the word Hebrew
refers to the nationality.
And sometimes the word Jew
is used as a nationality,
but a lot of times
it's referred to the religion
or the belief that they have.
And so in the Old Testament,
these Jews that were scattered
throughout the kingdom,
they were believers.
They were saints.
Now, this is before Jesus,
but they still called upon
the name of the Lord,
they still believed in him,
they still trusted his word,
they were still saints of God.
That's who's being persecuted and killed.
And when the Antichrist comes,
he's not persecuting
a bunch of Christ-rejecting bankers.
You know what I mean?
I'm not saying that they're all bankers,
okay, my friend?
But I'm telling you,
that's what people think of.
That's what people have
a stereotype in their mind.
They're picturing this.
And I'm not saying
that they're all like that.
I'm just saying
that that's what people picture.
They picture like,
oh, he's first getting the Jews.
They picture like a guy
dressed like a rabbi
in a black dress.
Have you ever seen a rabbi?
And they have these pigtails
coming off their beard,
and they have a little hat
that they have a little pin
holding it to the back of their head.
So sometimes it's just like
a little doily,
and they put a pin through it.
And look, do they all
dress like that?
No. Do they all like that?
No.
But that's what people
think of.
I'm not saying that
they're all like,
they think of like,
these European bankers,
or they think of
whatever they think of.
The bottom line is,
that's not who the Antichrist
is going after.
He's not going after
the Jews as we think of them.
Now look, did Hitler
go after those people?
Yes.
Hitler's a wicked person.
Okay?
People will say like,
you defended Hitler.
No, Hitler is evil.
Hitler is satanic.
Hitler was a monster.
Okay?
But that's who he was going,
he was going after
a race of people.
His thing was all about race.
It wasn't about
their religion per se.
Because here's what he said,
they're not human.
He was talking about the race.
And look, that's wicked.
You know where he got
that idea by the way?
Evolution.
He believed in evolution.
And he believed that the white man
was more evolved.
And by the way,
that's what Charles Darwin believed.
If you read Charles Darwin's books,
The Origin of Species,
he says that white people
are more evolved,
and he said that black people,
that's where life began in Africa,
that's the lower evolution.
No.
All people are created
of the same blood,
the Bible says.
We all go back to Noah.
None of us is more evolved
than the other.
We're all of one blood.
White people are not better
than black people.
You know, black people
are not better than Jews.
We're all equal in God's eyes
as different nationalities
and families.
He created us all.
Red and yellow, black and white,
they're precious in his sight.
Throughout history though,
there are evil leaders
who try to wipe out
a certain nationality.
It's called ethnic cleansing.
That's what Hitler was doing.
That's not what's going on
in the book of Esther.
It's because of their beliefs
that he wants to wipe them out.
It's because they're saints,
and this is a foreshadowing
of the antichrist someday
wanting to wipe out all Christians
and wipe out all believers
who won't bow down
and worship the beast.
So, everybody understand so far?
We're in chapter 3.
Who's he wiping out?
The Jews.
But who are the Jews?
Is it Jerry Seinfeld?
Is it Steven Spielberg?
Is it David Lee Roth?
You know, is it Adam Sandler
that he's trying to wipe out?
No.
It has nothing to do with it.
He's trying to wipe out the saints.
So, are the people he's wiping out
the good guys?
Oh yeah, these are great.
These are the believers.
These are my believers.
And other people
who weren't even of that lineage.
They became Jews
just by getting circumcised
and obeying God's laws.
Not talking about salvation.
We're just talking about
becoming a Jew.
So, go to chapter 4.
So, we see that in chapter 3.
Haman wants people to worship him.
Bow down to him.
Mordecai won't do it,
so they say,
let's wipe out all Jews.
So, when this thing comes out,
it's on the first month,
on the 13th day of the month.
They put out this thing that says,
hey, on December...
You know, I'm calling it December, okay?
The 12th month,
just to make it simple for you.
January 13th,
they put out a thing that says,
hey, on December 13th,
we're wiping out the Jews.
We're sick of them.
We don't like their laws.
They're diverse from us.
And so, on December 13th,
that'll give everybody time
for the word to get around.
We are getting rid of the Jews.
We're cleaning house on the Jews.
So, basically,
I don't know if that's necessarily
going out completely publicly,
but it's definitely going to all his officers
and words getting out about this,
and they're going to do this.
And a lot of people hated these people,
just like people hate Christians today.
And you say, well, people hate Jews.
Well, look.
That's not because they worship Jesus.
I mean, people hate a lot of people.
There are people who hate white people.
There's people who hate black people.
Does that make the black people God's chosen people,
or does that make the white people God's chosen people?
I mean, if Japanese people hate Chinese people,
I'm not saying they do,
but would that make them God's people?
Everybody who's hated
doesn't make them automatically a saint of God.
So, basically,
these people are hated for the right reasons.
They're hated for doing right,
for not bowing down,
for following the Bible.
That's why they're hated.
Just like people today hate Christians
for following the Bible, okay?
So they're going to wipe them out,
and there's a lot of people
throughout the whole kingdom
that like this idea.
Yeah, we're finally going to wipe out the Jews,
and they love that idea.
And so they're going to participate
in this killing of the Jews
on December 13th of that year.
But when the Jews hear about it
throughout the kingdom,
they're weeping,
they're mourning,
they're calling out to God,
they're praying to God to help them.
Now, Mordecai hears about this.
Mordecai strips off his clothing
and puts on sackcloth.
He puts ashes on his head.
He's weeping.
He's fasting.
Well, Esther hears about
how Mordecai is sad.
He's upset.
She doesn't know why.
So she sends Mordecai some new clothes
and says,
Hey, put on this new clothes.
Cheer you up.
He sends it back and says,
No.
Don't you know what's going on?
So Mordecai explains to Esther
how Haman has conspired with the king
to kill all the Jews.
And he says,
You, Esther, need to talk to the king
and tell him not to do this.
We've got to stop this from happening.
You're his favorite person in the world.
You're his queen.
He'll listen to you.
And she says,
Look, I can't go talk to him
because you're only allowed to talk to the king
if he invites you.
And he hasn't invited me
to come talk to him for the last month.
I don't know why,
but I just haven't seen anything.
And she says,
If I go in there
and just burst in on the king
and interrupt him
without being invited,
then basically that's the death penalty.
Okay?
Now obviously this is a weird society
that has that kind of rule.
This is the Persian kingdom at that time.
And she said,
The only thing is
if I walk in
and he holds out the golden specter to me,
then I'm okay.
That means that he's okay with me being here.
So Mordecai tells her.
In verse 13.
Because she doesn't want to do it.
She's afraid to talk to the king.
And she doesn't want to tell him
she's a Jew
because she's afraid
that maybe she'll be killed too.
Look at verse 13.
It says,
Then Mordecai commanded to answer Esther.
Think not with thyself
that thou shalt escape in the king's house
more than all the Jews.
For if thou all together
holdest thy peace at this time,
then shall their enlargement
and deliverance arise to the Jews
from another place.
Thou and thy father's house
shall be destroyed.
And who knoweth
whether thou art come to the kingdom
for such a time as this?
So he answers Esther and says,
Look.
You're a Jew too.
You might be killed.
And he says,
God will save us.
God will deliver us.
Because we know.
We love God
and we're serving him.
We're doing the right thing.
God's going to save us.
And God will just bring deliverance
from another place.
But wait a minute.
Maybe God has you there
just for such a time as this.
He tells her,
Maybe the whole reason
why you became queen
was so that God could put you
in that position
where you could save us all
and stop us from being killed.
So when Esther hears that,
she says,
You know what?
That sounds right.
Maybe that is why I'm here.
And she decides to risk her life
and to tell the king what's going on.
So she tells them in verse 16,
you don't have to read it,
but basically she tells them,
Hey, I want you to fast for three days.
Don't eat.
And she said,
Don't even drink any water.
Which is a really extreme fast.
Three days with no food and water.
And she said,
I'm going to do the same thing.
And she said,
And then I'm going to go into the king
and talk to him.
And if I perish,
I perish.
She's saying,
Hey, I'm risking my life here,
but I'm going to do it anyway
because it's the right thing to do.
And so she decides to do it.
So in chapter five,
she goes in and she faces the king.
She comes in her royal apparel.
He holds out the golden sector.
And in fact,
he's so touched and so moved by the fact
that she had risked her life
to come in and see him
because he hasn't called her in a month.
He probably just thinks
that she just wanted to see him.
And she misses him.
You know, I mean, if I didn't,
if I just went out of town
and didn't see my wife for a month,
she might be thinking,
coming by sometimes, you know?
So basically,
she gets all dolled up
and decked out in the royal apparel.
She walks in.
And he's so moved by that
that he holds out the golden sector
and he tells her,
he says,
Ask me anything
and I'll do it for you.
Anything.
Because he's just so moved
by her being there.
And he's just so impressed by that.
And she says,
Okay, well, here's what I want.
Here's my request.
I want you to come
to this banquet of wine
that I prepared for you
and I want you to come tomorrow.
And I want you to bring Haman.
And he says,
Okay, great.
So, you know,
she brings him to the banquet of wine
and, you know,
he loves it
and he's happy
and he thinks,
Hey, she just wants to hang out with me.
This is great.
And he says,
What do you want?
Why have you brought me to this banquet?
You know, what do you want?
And she says,
You know what?
I'll tell you tomorrow.
If you'll come to the banquet
that I prepared tomorrow,
I'll tell you what my request is.
And he says,
Hey, it's granted.
Whatever it is.
And you've got to be careful
saying that to your wife.
Whatever you want.
Up to this price.
I think he even did that.
Didn't he say,
You know,
Up to the half of my kingdom.
You know,
You can't just tell a woman
whatever.
I'll pay for it.
So he had to put a limit on it
in verse 4.
And so he said,
You know,
Or in verse 3 he said,
It shall be even given
to the half of my kingdom.
Okay.
So,
Haman,
Haman's excited.
Haman doesn't know anything
about what's going on.
Haman doesn't know
that she's a Jew.
Haman doesn't know
she's related to Mordecai,
his arch enemy.
And so Haman goes home
and he's so excited
that Esther
made this special banquet
and only invited the king
and Haman.
So he feels
really important.
I mean,
it'd be like
if my wife and I
were just having
this really fancy
special dinner
and we're just inviting
like one other person
in the whole church
or something.
You know,
it's like,
Wow, you know,
you know,
like kind of like
the third wheel
or whatever,
but hey,
he was just glad
to be there.
He thought it was cool
that he got to go
to this fancy dinner.
You know,
let's say I'm taking my wife
to some $100 a plate dinner
and I say,
Hey,
I don't know why
you want me there.
So Haman comes home
and man,
he's bragging about it.
He invites all his friends
over to his house
and he says,
you know what?
Esther made this huge banquet
and she invited only
the king and me,
just us.
That's who she wanted
to hang out with.
And tomorrow,
she's doing the same thing.
Part two,
another banquet.
Just the king and I
are going to be there
and he's telling him,
I mean,
look at me.
Look how great I am,
he said.
Look,
I have 10 children.
I have riches.
I have power.
He said,
I have everything
and I mean,
he's just bragging
to his friends.
Yeah,
you probably know
people like this.
He's just praising himself.
Look how much I have.
Look how wonderful I am.
But he said,
you know what?
He said,
still,
and this part
is in a way,
and this gives you
an insight
into the mind
of evil people.
Because is Haman
an evil guy?
Oh yeah.
I mean,
Haman's a guy.
He pictures
the anti-Christ.
Haman's a guy
who basically
wants everybody
to bow down
and worship him
and if they won't,
he wants them dead
and in fact,
he wants everybody
who's like him dead.
He wants
all the Jews dead.
Let me give you
some insight
into the evil,
wicked mind of Haman.
Look at verse 13.
He just finished
praising himself
and telling everybody
how wonderful he is.
He said,
verse 13,
yet all this
availeth me nothing.
Is he satisfied?
No way.
He's not satisfied at all.
He said,
yet all this
availeth me nothing
so long as I see
Mordecai the Jew
sitting at the king's gate.
Because he won't
stand up.
He won't bow down.
He won't give him
the salute.
He just sits there.
And he said,
man,
when I see that guy,
all my money,
all my power,
it's just,
it's worthless to me.
I want him dead.
Now look,
that shows you
what evil people are like.
You say,
what's the motive
for persecuted Christians
or, you know,
the anti-Christ
beheading people?
Why is it not
good enough
that 90-some percent
of people worship him?
Because they're
never satisfied.
They're evil.
They want power.
They want the control.
They want everyone
to bow down to them.
That's how Satan is.
And that's how
Haman is.
And so Haman
tells his friends,
and look what
his wife says
in verse 14.
Then it says,
Zerus' wife
and all his friends
unto him.
Let a gallows
be made of
fifty cubits high
and tomorrow speak
thou unto the king
that Mordecai
may be hanged
thereon.
Then go thou in merrily
with the king
unto the banquet.
So basically,
he's already
going to be killed
on December 13th
when the big slaughter
of the Jews happens.
He says,
hey, why wait?
Why is Mordecai
bugging you that much?
Why don't you just
have Mordecai
specifically hanged?
If you're so powerful,
if you are
the second ruler
in the kingdom,
why don't you
just ask for it
to be done?
It's going to be done.
And make
a gallows
fifty cubits high.
By the way,
that's seventy-five
feet high.
That's a pretty
tall gallows.
And he wants
to hang him up
that high.
I mean,
talk about
hang him high.
He wants to
hang him up
and say,
I'm going to go
talk to the king
right now
and have him hung.
And then I can
go to the banquet
and not have
that buggy be.
So he goes down
to talk to the king.
Well,
this is on the day.
Remember,
the next day
is going to be
the banquet?
Well, that night,
the king goes
to bed at night.
And you know,
even though
the book of Esther
doesn't mention God,
you can see God's hand
at work in all this.
Even though
it doesn't
say the word God.
The king
goes to bed
that night
and he can't sleep.
You ever go to bed
and you're just
tossing and turning
and you can't sleep?
So he's tossing
and turning
so he's bored.
So you know
how it is.
You go to bed
and you toss
and turn
for a few hours
but finally
you just tell
yourself,
you know what,
if I can't
sleep anyway,
I'm going
to do something.
This is boring.
Just laying here.
You know,
people will
think about God
back then.
So he basically
says, you know what,
I want them to read
for me the Chronicles
of the Kingdom.
So this is an
entertainment for him.
They read for him
the history
of the Kingdom.
And it's also
helpful to him
because he's the king.
It helps him
to stay up
on events.
So they bring in
the Chronicles
and he's just
in the middle
of the night.
He can't sleep.
And they're
reading the Chronicles
and as they're
reading the Chronicles,
remember back
to the song,
they read him
the part about Mordecai
saving his life
from these guys
that were trying
to assassinate him.
And so the king
asked the guy
who's reading him,
he said,
what did we ever
do for that guy?
I mean,
did we give him
a reward or anything?
And they said,
you know what,
actually we didn't
do anything for him.
And he says,
well we need
to reward this guy.
So Haman,
Haman walks in
the next morning
and remember,
what's he
coming for?
And remember,
what's he coming to do?
He's coming to say,
hey, I want Mordecai
to be hung
for breaking the law here.
He needs to hang
on these gallows.
Well, before Mordecai has
to,
I'm sorry,
before Haman has
a chance to bring up
how he wants
to kill Mordecai,
and remember the king
just decided
he knew he was going
to do something good
for Mordecai?
And the two have
no idea what's
going on in the
other one's head.
Haman walks in
and the king says,
you know what,
I'm going to ask
Haman what I should
do to honor him.
But he doesn't mention
the name Mordecai.
He just says,
hey, there's a guy
that I want to honor.
What shall it be done
for the man
whom the king
delighted to honor?
And Haman's thinking
in his mind,
I bet he's talking
about me.
I bet he wants
to honor me.
And so he says,
I'm going to make it
something really good
because it's going
to be for me.
And so Haman says,
what shall it be done
for the man
whom the king
delighted to honor?
He said,
let the royal apparel
be brought.
Put the royal apparel
on that man.
Put him on your
best horse
and parade him
all over town
announcing
before him,
thus shall it be done
for the man
whom the king
delighted to honor.
And he says,
man, that sounds great.
Do it for Mordecai.
And I want you
to be the one
to do it.
And so Haman
goes out
and gets
the royal apparel
dresses up Mordecai
and the royal apparel
puts the crown
on Mordecai's head
and leads him
around the city
saying,
well,
I shall be done
for the man
whom the king
delighted to honor.
I don't think
his heart
was really in it.
But he's
making this proclamation.
He's really
scared now
because this is
too weird
of a coincidence.
A little bit weird,
right?
You're going to
be the king
of Mordecai.
You're going to
be the king
of Mordecai.
It's weird,
right?
You walk in
to have this guy
killed,
and it's like,
hey,
lead him around
and praise him
and honor him.
So he goes
home,
and he's
really upset.
He's really
nervous.
He doesn't
know what's
going on here.
He gets home
to his wife
Zires
and all
of his friends.
And he
brings over
his friends
and he tells
them,
hey,
if this guy
is a Jew
and you're
out trying
to kill
the Jews
and this is
how this
got turned
around,
you're in
trouble.
Something bad
is going to
happen to
you,
buddy.
And right
when they
tell him
something bad
is going
to happen,
the knock
at the door
is saying,
hey,
you know,
why have you
brought me here
to the second
banquet?
Just tell me
what you want.
You don't
have to keep
buttering me
up like this.
Just,
what is it,
new dress?
You know,
what do you
want?
The credit
card,
you know,
whatever.
And she
says,
you know
what I want
you to give
me?
I want you
to give me
my life.
That's
all I want.
And the king
says,
who in the
world
would
dare
to do
such a thing
as to try
to take
your life
and your
family and
all these
people that
are your
relatives and
your people,
you know,
your fellow
believers.
As soon as
she's
referring to her
people,
you know,
he's there
as a guest
of honor.
He's there
to be exposed.
Well,
the king
is blown
away by this.
You know,
this came
as a big
shock to him,
because he
didn't even
know that
she was
a Jew.
Now he
puts it
together in
his mind,
wait a minute,
he's
destroying
the Jews.
My
beloved Esther
is one of
them.
He goes,
and he just
goes out on
the balcony
to get a little
air.
The king does.
Well,
while he's
gone,
Haman
starts begging
Esther,
I'm sorry,
please.
You know,
he's just,
and basically
they're sitting
upon these
couches,
Eastern style,
like the,
you know,
those of the
East.
And he's
sitting at her feet,
and he finds it
inappropriate
that she's
basically,
that he's on
the couch,
basically,
you know,
to his wife.
And he says,
what is he trying
to do?
You know,
he's trying to,
you know,
come on to my wife now?
What's he doing?
And basically,
right as he said that,
they put a bag
over Haman's
head.
I mean,
and he was gone.
I mean,
basically the king's
soldiers just threw a bag
over his head
and then it came.
Did you know,
do you understand
that Haman had
built a gallows
to kill Mordecai,
the guy who you
honored
and whose life
was,
you know,
he saved your life?
And he said,
you know what,
hang Haman on that gallows.
If that's what he built,
then that's
where he's
going to be hung.
And of course,
Haman is hung on the gallows.
Now,
I think one of the biggest,
and we're almost done
with the book here,
but one of the biggest
lessons of the Book of Esther
is that you reap
what you sow.
And that's the thing
you see in this book
over and over.
Because,
look,
what did Haman want?
He wanted
Mordecai dead
on that gallows.
What happened?
He ended up
being hung on that gallows.
He wanted to
lift himself up
and be praised
and honored.
His enemy
ended up being
praised and honored.
He wanted to
destroy the Jews
from out of the kingdom.
Well,
guess what's
going to happen?
The Jews are
end up destroying them.
Because
Haman is hung
for 75 feet high.
Well,
then,
now,
Esther comes to the king
and says,
you know,
okay,
you dealt with him,
but wait a minute,
what about my people?
What about
December 13th
when they're all
going to be killed
throughout all the provinces?
Now,
just because he's the king,
he doesn't have
absolute power.
You know,
kings throughout history
have not always
had absolute power.
There were certain laws
that they had
that governed
even the behavior
of the king.
It's sort of like
a constitutional
monarchy
where there are laws
that even govern the king.
He's not
totally above the law.
Well,
the Bible's clear
in a lot of places
in the book of Daniel
that emphasizes this
that whenever
the king
made a proclamation,
no one could
change that
proclamation.
And not even
he himself
could change it.
And,
by the way,
that's also
a picture of the fact
that God
never changes
his word.
Even though
his law
never changes.
His law
never changes.
And so that's
what we see
pictured by that
in the Bible.
But they had
a thing that said
we can't change
the law.
We've already
made this
proclamation that
says,
hey,
they're going
to kill the Jews.
They're going
to rise up
and destroy
the Jews
on December 13.
He's basically
saying,
I mean,
it's already
in stone.
And he says,
you know what,
he takes the ring
off his finger,
which is his
signet ring,
which any
order that's
given,
when it's
stamped with
that ring,
it holds the
weight of
coming from
the king.
And so he
takes off his
ring and
he gives it
unto Mordecai.
And,
by the way,
he gave Mordecai
Haman's
old job.
He made
Mordecai
the second
king.
But he gives
the ring
to Mordecai
and Esther
and says,
you know what,
you can
make a
proclamation
to try
to turn
this thing
around,
but it's
already gone
out.
There's
nothing I
can do
about it.
So he gives
him the ring
and says,
do what
you need to
do to
save your
people.
And so he
gives the
ring to
Mordecai
Haman and
Esther and