1 The Great Reversal (Esther 8:1-9:19; Romans 6:19-23) 27 th Nov Please have your Bibles turned to Esther chapter 8 and we going through to

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1 1 The Great Reversal (Esther 8:1-9:19; Romans 6:19-23) 27 th Nov 2016 Please have your Bibles turned to Esther chapter 8 and we going through to chapter 9 verse 19 as we continue our this wonderful story of Queen Esther. There s the usual outline in the bulletin for you to take some notes if that helps you concentrate. Let me pray first for God s help in understanding and applying His word to our lives this morning. Let s pray Intro/Recap Let s recap where we got up to last week [Powerpoint 1 Recap] Queen Esther a Jew and her Jewish people face death and annihilation The Queen has to choose her moment to ask the King to help Queen Esther holds her 2nd banquet with King Xerxes and bad guy Haman Queen Esther s moment has come for such a time as this (4:14) And who knows but that you have come to your royal position for such a time as this? She finally gives the King her petition to save her life and her request to spare her people as the Jews have been sold to be destroyed, killed and annihilated [Powerpoint 2 Recap2] The King asked who would do such a thing? The Queen says it is the bad guy the vile Haman The King flies into a rage and leaves the banquet to go into the garden to cool down Page 1 of 11

2 Meanwhile Haman begs Queen Esther for his life 2 When the King returns from the garden he finds Haman has fallen on top of Esther That seals Haman s fate And he is executed impaled on the very execution device he built for the Jew, Mordecai But we are left wondering what will happen next Sure the vile and wicked Haman has been killed but the edict to kill all the Jews still stands and Persian culture says it can t be reversed Let s just remind ourselves what an edict is: An Edict is - an official order or proclamation issued by a person in authority. So how will this edict be reversed? Well the whole of chapter 8 through to chapter 9 verse 19 is a complete reversal of what s gone on so far in the book of Esther It s a bit like if you use WORD on your computer to type a letter and you want to change a whole bunch of stuff you ve type in you can click the UNDO button and remove what you ve done. That s what the reversal is like here in chapter 8 and 9. Page 2 of 11

3 Reversals 3 Let s have a look at these reversals a bit closer [Powerpoint 3-Reversals] Reversal 8:1 Esther is given the whole estate of Haman 8:2 King Xerxes gives Mordecai his signet ring and Esther appoints Mordecai over Haman s estate 8:3-5 - Esther begs the King to write another edict (or order) to overrule the edict Haman wrote out 8:8-9 The King gives Esther and Mordecai permission to write out a new edict in favour of the Jews in Mordecai s own words [Powerpoint 4-Reversals] 8:10 The new edict in favour of the Jews was sealed with the King s signet ring 8:11 The new edict says the Jews have the right to protect themselves - to destroy, kill and annihilate anyone who attacks them 8:12 The new edict will take place on the 13 th day of 12 th month of Adar The Original This is a reversal of 5:11 where Haman boasted to his wife and friends about his wealth, his many sons and how the King had honoured him This is a reversal of 3:10 where the King gave Haman his official signet ring This is a reversal of 3:8-9 where Haman persuaded the king to issue an edict to destroy all the Jews This is a reversal of 3:12 where Haman wrote out the original edict to kill all the Jews This is a reversal of the original edict against the Jews in 3:12 which was sealed with the King s signet ring A reversal of 3:13 where Haman s edict was to destroy, kill and annihilate the Jews. The new edict uses exactly the same wording! This is the same date as the original edict in 3:13 Page 3 of 11

4 [Powerpoint 5-Reversals] 8:13 A copy of this new edict was to be sent to every province and made known to every nationality to be ready 8:14 Couriers on royal horses went out with the new edict spurred on by the King s command 8:15 When Mordecai left the King s presence he was wearing a royal garment of blue and white, a large crown of gold and a purple robe of fine linen 8:15 The city of Susa held a joyous celebration because of the new edict [Powerpoint 6-Reversals] 8:16-17 Look at the reaction of the Jews there was joy and gladness, feasting and celebration. The Jews happiness was so infectious that many other nationalities became Jews because they feared the Jews! In 9:1-4 The Jews attacked the enemies who had hoped to overpower them. No one could stand against the Jews. And even the nobles, the satraps, the governors and king s administrators helped the Jews because they were afraid of Mordecai This is a reversal of 3:14 where a copy of the edict was also sent to every province and made known to every nationality to be ready This is a reversal of 3:15 where couriers on royal horses went out with the original edict spurred on by the King s command This is a reversal of 4:1 where Mordecai was so distressed by the original edict against the Jews that he tore his clothes and put on sackcloth and ashes and went into the city wailing loudly and bitterly This is a reversal of 3:15 where the city of Susa was bewildered by the original edict This is a reversal of 4:3 where the Jews in every province were mourning greatly, fasting, praying, weeping and wailing. And many lay in sackcloth and ashes The original edict intended to destroy the Jews and that they would also fear Haman and his men. 4 Page 4 of 11

5 [Powerpoint 7-Reversals] 9:5-10 The Jews actually destroyed their enemies and they killed the 10 sons of Haman So the killing of Haman s sons in Esther chapter 9, finished the job Saul should have done. God s enemy, the Amalekites are all finally destroyed [Powerpoint 8-Reversals] 9:11-15 Esther asks the King for an extra day of carrying out the new edict to ensure all the enemies of the Jews were destroyed. She also asks that she can impale all of Haman s 10 sons Remember Haman was an Agagite, a descendant of King Agag of the Amalekites, the first enemy of the Jews. Back in 1 Samuel 15, v3, God told King Saul to totally destroy all the Amalekites and all that belong to them. But in 1 Samuel 15, v9 King Saul spared King Agag and all the best livestock. Haman was a descendant of Agag. If Saul had have done what God commanded him, and totally destroyed the Amalekites, there would not have been any Haman. This is a reversal of 5:11 where Haman boasts so proudly of his 10 sons! 5 Divine Providence So what an amazing series of reversals. God s people are saved and God s enemy are destroyed! God works in the book of Esther to fulfil His covenant promises to His people and [Powerpoint 9-Divine Providence] Page 5 of 11

6 He does it through his divine providence 6 Providence being - the protective care of God God s providence means God governs all creatures, actions and circumstances through the normal and ordinary course of human life, without necessarily any supernatural intervention. Obviously God can and does use supernatural intervention but He can also just use normal events in human life to achieve his purposes. If Haman s original plan had succeeded and the Jewish people had been annihilated during the reign of Persia, obviously Jesus would not have been born and God s plan of saving people would have been derailed. God s plan and promise to save people has always been bound to the promise He made to the people of Israel. Therefore the people of Israel had to be preserved. However, it still doesn t seem necessary to kill men, women and children of other nations. Couldn t our great God preserve and protect Jesus ancestors without resorting to the violence reported in Esther? That s a question, you may have grappled with in your Bible Study group. The answer is that God deemed that the whole of the Amalekites were wicked and evil and would continue to be evil from generation to generation and so they must be destroyed. The same thing happened in Sodom and Gomorrah back in Genesis 18 God only spared the people from those 2 towns who were not wicked evil people. Page 6 of 11

7 God s Real Enemy 7 God s real enemy is not so much people but their sin When Adam and Eve first disobeyed and rebelled against God they brought sin and death into the world [Powerpoint 10-God s Real Enemy] That s why in our NT passage this morning, the Apostle Paul says in Romans 6 verse 21 that all the things we think, say or do that rebel against God s rules result in death He makes it plain in v23 that the wages of sin is death Just like the Jews were given a death sentence because of Haman s edict We are given a death sentence because of our sin However big or small we might think our sin is The wages for them are still death And separation from God God s Great Reversal In the book of Esther so far, the irrevocable edict of death for the Jews and the counter-edict of life for the Jews, come from the same authority; the King s signet ring, which sealed both edicts. Persian culture didn t allow any of the King s edict to be simply be cancelled. [Powerpoint 11-Great Reversal] So King Xerxes was asked to issue a counter-edict of life to the Jews - to counter the original edict of death to the Jews Page 7 of 11

8 In a similar but far greater way, God, the King of Heaven and Earth, cannot 8 simply cancel the edict of death he issued in the Garden of Eden against humanity. Instead, he issues a counter-edict of life, through the Gospel (the Good News) of Jesus Christ. This wasn t some after-thought though like God said whoops I made a mistake humans have sinned I ll have to come up with a new plan - God had this plan from the beginning He knew that people would sin and rebel against him He knew that their sin would lead to their death and separation from Him so He had a perfect plan a perfect counter edict Look again - at Romans 6 verse 23 There is a BUT half way through the verse One of the biggest BUTs in the whole Bible V23 says: The wages of Sin is DEATH BUT The gift of God is eternal life How is this gift possible? The rest of the verse tells us how In Christ Jesus our Lord So our sin and rebellion is reversed and taken care of by Jesus by Him dying on the cross instead of us dying and being separated from God forever. Page 8 of 11

9 And our death sentence is also reversed by Jesus rising again 3 days later 9 And allowing us to be free from that permanent separation from God and instead a reversal happens where we are permanently with God having eternal life with Him And Paul says it s a gift A gift comes free doesn t it? We don t pay for it or work for it! The giver of the gift pays for the gift Jesus Himself pays for the gift with his life Another word for an undeserved gift from God is GRACE God loves us and wants us to love Him And he gives us a choice to accept this gift of grace By believing in Jesus death and resurrection But He doesn t twist our arm He lets us choose! God s Army If we choose to accept God s gift of grace and we believe in Jesus We are Christians and part of God s family The universal church of believers in Jesus [Powerpoint 12-God s Army] That s God s army now not King Saul and His Army of Israelites Page 9 of 11

10 And the apostle Paul tells us in Ephesians 6:12 that as Christian soldiers, our 10 battle is not against flesh and blood but against the spiritual forces of evil So in order to fight against that evil Paul says we need a suit of armour and he describes it in Ephesians chapter 6 He says the armour looks like: A Belt of Truth the statements and beliefs we have because of Jesus always teaching the truth A Breastplate of Righteousness this is not our own righteousness or goodness it is the righteousness we received by our faith in Jesus. It gives us confidence and awareness of our standing and status before God because of Jesus A Shield of Faith a shield (of the Romans) which protects the whole body from fiery darts our faith shield protects us from evil missiles sent our way from others and from Satan A Helmet of Salvation Because we know we are saved from sin and death by Jesus, we can wear a helmet of our salvation which protects us against discouragement and protects us against the desire to give up giving us hope that we ARE saved and assured a place in Heaven A Sword of the Holy Spirit God s Holy Spirit (living inside us as a Christian) provides us with a sword which is the Word of God. Using a sword takes practice so if the sword is the word of God we need to practice using the word of God the more we read it the more we understand about God and Jesus the more we feel protected Page 10 of 11

11 And finally the armour has Prayer Paul says we should be praying in the Spirit 11 on all occasions and with all kinds of prayers and requests That s our armour! And our marching orders in God s Army Is to ensure that God s great reversal of changing sin and death into forgiveness and life is made available to everyone! So our marching orders are in Matt 28:19-20 Those marching orders are: Making disciples baptizing people in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit - and teaching them all that Jesus commanded King s Saul allowed God s enemy to go unpunished God won t allow His enemy, SIN, to go unpunished That s why it s so very important that all people know God s great reversal that: The wages of sin is death and permanent separation from God BUT the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord Let s pray Page 11 of 11