God’s War on Evil
Posted: August 20, 2023 Filed under: celebration, Condemnation, Coronation, Cross, Dancing, Jesus, Mourning, Sovereignty Leave a commentFinish the statement: “God helps those who help themselves!” Can you name the chapter and verse where that is found in the Bible? It isn’t! One of our big problems in life is we sometimes we try to save ourselves and others. Many of us suffer from a Messiah complex. Let me tell you about one man who suffered from a Messiah complex and died because of it. He actually died after hearing Esther 8-9. He was no dummy. Some considered him a hero. His tombstone read, “He gave his life for the people of Israel, its Torah and land.” He was a physician – an ER doctor treating Jewish victims of Arab-Israeli violence. His name was Dr. Baruch Goldstein from Brooklyn, New York – an American-Israeli father of four. He was trained to save lives – instead he took them after listening to the annual public reading of the Book of Esther and celebrating the Feast of Purim. It was February 25, 1994 – both the Jewish Feast of Purim day and the Muslim month of Ramadan – a collision of religious high holy days! Baruch Goldstein went to synagogue and heard the Word of God. He went back to his neighbourhood, an Israeli settlement in the West Bank. He then made his made to the Cave of the Patriarchs, where the Israelite matriarch Sarah was buried after her husband Abraham bought it peacefully from the Hittites. The cave called Machpelah is so important that a whole chapter of the Bible in Genesis 23 is devoted to Sarah’s death and burial. This was lost on Baruch Goldstein. You see, Dr. Baruch Goldstein went into the mosque meeting at the Cave of the Patriarchs where 800 Muslims were praying and he killed 29 and wounded 125 Palestinians.[1] He was a terrorist and thought Esther 8-9 gave him license to kill his enemies. It was a deadly example of missing the point and using the Bible to justify one’s action rather letting the Bible be used to lead us to justification and faith in God to save us. The Bible is not to be used to justify our sins, but lead us to Christ who will justify us from our sins. When we try to justify our sins, they we try to be our own saviour like Baruch. However, God alone saves His people.
Today we are going to be reminded or maybe learn for the first time how we don’t save ourselves, but God saves us – God saves His people. God has been saving His people, often behind the scenes for millennia. Throughout the Book of Esther, we have become Sovereignty Sleuths – detectives of God’s decrees. Time and again we have seen God work in this book without Him ever being mentioned. As Bible Scholar Karen Jobes reminds us, “We cannot see the end of a matter from the beginning or the middle. The story of Esther assures us that we do not have to.”[2] Do you believe that? Do you trust that God will make the matter that you are in the middle of to have a good outcome? Let’s read Esther 8-9. Esther is what we call in literature a comedy because there is so much satire and irony. We the readers get to see the bigger picture. The problem is that we are often in the middle of a matter, we don’t see the bigger picture that God is saving us, when it feels like we are dying. So let’s read Esther 8-9 to discover that God is the One actually saving us. Read Esther 8-9!
In Esther 8-9, we see the physical salvation that steers us to a larger spiritual salvation. God’s earthly rescues points to heavenly redemption. From Esther 8-9, we are going to learn about three transformations. The transformations and changes are evidences of God’s saving His people. The first transformation is that God saves His people by turning 1) Condemnation into coronation 8:1-2, 15). Be encouraged by these words: God saves His people by turning condemnation into coronation. Look closer at Esther 8:1, “On that day King Ahaseurus gave to Queen Esther the house of Haman, the enemy of the Jews. And Mordecai came before the king, for Esther had told what he was to her.” Which was? Esther’s cousin and caretaker! And then verse 2, “And the king took off his signet ring, which he had taken from Haman, and gave it to Mordecai. And Esther set Mordecai over the house of Haman.” This is another of the great reversals that God was doing behind the scenes. Esther’s reversal from refugee slave to royal wife in chapter 2. Mordecai goes from forgotten to honoured in chapter 2 and 6 as well as going from almost executed to amazingly exalted in chapters 4-7. Haman goes from a large and in charge killer to a small beggar who was killed for his wicked schemes in chapters 4-6. And “just as Haman had promised the wealth of the Jews to those who would kill them (3:13), Xerxes gave the property of Haman, the enemy of the Jews, to Queen Esther.”[3] I wonder what condemnation you are feeling and or under right now. What if God is on the cusp of reversing that condemnation and putting you on the path to coronation? Mordecai went from condemned to crowned as Esther 8:15 declares, “Then Mordecai went out from the presence of the king in royal robes of blue and white, with a great golden crown and a robe of linen and purple, and the city of Susa shouted and rejoiced.” Most of us will not be crowned here on this earth. But there is a day coming, when we will be crowned.
This is because God has saved us. We are no longer condemned, but crowned, which points to God’s salvation of us spiritually. Romans 8:1 promises, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” Jesus has taken away our condemnation. If you believe in and follow Christ, you will never hear the words from God, “Guilty, you are sentenced to eternity in hell.” And if this is true, the small condemnations that are hurled to you by the haters won’t stick either. But it gets better. The transformation is from condemned to coronation. Romans 8:15-17 goes onto promise, “For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, ‘Abba, Father! The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs – heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with Him in order that we may be glorified with Him.” I am blown away this promise, are you? We are co-heirs with Christ! So it begs the question, what will Christ inherit? The new heavens and new earth – everything valuable and that will last. Don’t think coronation as wearing funny clothes like we saw recently at the coronation of King Charles III. Coronation means being a part of God’s forever family and inheriting the new heavens and new earth.
But notice that even though we are in line for coronation, we have to suffer. Our Brother, Co-heir and King suffered on the Cross and continues to suffer every time we are persecuted. Remember when Saul was hunting Christians and then Jesus showed up in a vision blinding Saul and said, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?” (Acts 9:4-5). Jesus takes our persecution personally. This is super helpful to remember because sometimes we believe that after coming to faith in Christ, life becomes easy. It doesn’t, but God is still saving us.
Darryl Strawberry learned this. He was a Major League Baseball player who was extremely successful on the field, but off the field got into drugs, alcohol and illicit relationships. Then he came to faith in Christ and is in ministry today. He made this insightful statement, “You can pick your sins, but not your consequences.” Consequences are evidence that we are not in control. Sometimes it is other people’s sin that causes ongoing consequences in our life. Old Testament Scholar Karen Jobes puts it this way, “Haman is gone, but the evil he set in motion lives on in the decree of death against the Jewish people.”[4] Esther and Mordecai are still suffering despite being transformed from condemned to coronated. And “It is moving to see the extent to which this young girl, who has everything money can buy; identifies herself with her own kith and kin and is prepared to risk everything in an attempt to prevent the disaster that threatens them.”[5]
This is why God has given us a second transformation. God not only saves His people by turning condemnation into coronation but God saves His people by turning: 2) The old law of death into the new law of life. (8:3-16; 9:11-14). God saves His people by turning the old law of death into the new law of life. In order to understand the old law in the story of Esther, we have go back to Esther 3:6-9, “Then Haman said to King Ahaseurus, ‘There is a certain people scattered abroad and dispersed among the peoples in all the provinces of your kingdom. Their laws are different from those of every other people, and they do not keep the king’s laws, so that it is not to the king’s profit to tolerate them. If it please the king, let it be decreed that they be destroyed…” That law was a death sentence. It was irrevocable as was the policy of the Persians.
But Esther didn’t give up hope. Even if Esther didn’t acknowledge God, He was saving His people. Maybe “Esther expected the king to reverse Haman’s decree right after he was killed, but that did not happen? This time she was much more insistent on raising the issue of Haman’s plot against her people.”[6] This is what we read in Esther 8:3-5, “Then Esther spoke again to the king. She fell at his feet and wept and pleaded with him to avert the evil plan of Haman the Agagite and the plot that he had devised against the Jews. When the king held out the golden scepter to Esther, Esther rose and stood before the king. And she said, “If it pleases the king, and if I have found favor in his sight, and if the thing seems right before the king, and I am pleasing in his eyes, let an order be written to revoke the letters devised by Haman …” Notice, “Esther diplomatically avoided suggesting any responsibility on the king’s part,”[7] even though as we heard last week Ahasuerus was an alcoholic and emotionally-driven man. This shows how dangerous it is to be controlled by alcohol and anger when in a leadership role as Proverbs 31:4-5 warns. The powerful king couldn’t even revoke his own law. He did however, give to Mordecai the power to write a new law that counterbalanced and superceded the first law. Look at verse 8, “But you may write as your please with regard to the Jews, in the name of the king.” Did you catch the empowerment of writing a new law to save God’s people? A law of life that could overcome a law of death!
Is this not what God did through Jesus Christ when we were under the law of sin and death? Did you realize that everyone of us is to keep God’s Law in the Bible perfectly? And yet, none of us can. The good news as the Apostle Paul declares in Romans 8:2, “For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death.” (c.f. Acts 13:39) Isn’t that so freeing? The old law showed us we needed saving from our sins, but the new law saves us from our sin. Paul goes on to say in Romans 8:3-4, “For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.” In other words, God’s Son, Jesus Christ of Nazareth, perfectly fulfilled the old Law so that through Him we fulfill that Law. Christ didn’t abolish the Law, but fulfilled it (Matthew 5:17-20). And now, we live empowered by the Holy Spirit to obey God’s commands. The new Law is that if we obey the command to “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved” (Acts 16:31), you are free and have eternal life. The old law is superceded and you will obey the commands of God. This is not relaxing the rules, but being relaxed in the rules found in Scripture because they protect us.
In the story of Esther, we see this protection through the new law. Look at Esther 8:10-12, “And he wrote in the name of King Ahasuerus and sealed it with the king’s signet ring. Then he sent the letters by mounted couriers riding on swift horses that were used in the king’s service, bred from the royal stud, saying that the king allowed the Jews who were in every city to gather and defend their lives, to destroy, to kill, and to annihilate any armed force of any people or province that might attack them, children and women included, and to plunder their goods, on one day throughout all the provinces of King Ahasuerus, on the thirteenth day of the twelfth month, which is the month of Adar.” “The date selected was March 7, 473 B.C. This date was nearly a year after Haman’s original decree was published (3:12).”[8] This not only gave time to get the word out across the Persian empire, including in Judah, but gave time for the Jews to prepare to defend themselves. God saves His people by turning the old law of death into the new law of life.
And here is one of the potential outcomes – others may even want to join. At the end of Esther 8:17 we read, “And many from the peoples of the country declared themselves Jews, for fear of the Jews had fallen on them.” Now some of these “converts” sought Judaism out of self-preservation. It is easy to be harsh on these people, but most of us believe the gospel out of self-preservation so that we avoid hell and go to heaven. Then God reorders our motivation to a love for Christ. Maybe there is somebody in your life that is living under the law of death that God is bringing to mind that you need to tell about the new law of life through Jesus?
This leads us to the third transformation. God saves His people not only by turning condemnation to coronation, the old law of death into the new law of life and thirdly, God saves His people by turning 3) mourning into dancing (8:16-17; 9:17-32). We can go from great fear and mourning into joyful dancing. You see this in Esther 8:16-17, “The Jews had light and gladness and joy and honor. And in every province and in every city, wherever the king’s command and His edict reached, there was gladness and joy among the Jews, a feast and a holiday.” Remember, the Jews started celebrating before they were fully victorious. We need to celebrate the victories and the news of God’s new law of the Spirit before it is fully realized. This is why church is so important. It is a party each week to recall together Christ’s victory.
What if victory is right around the corner? It is time to start celebrating. Jump down to Esther 9:5, “The Jews struck all their enemies with the sword, killing and destroying them, and did as they pleased to those who hated them.” One Bible scholar explains, “This was not an attack on defenseless people or a ruthless uncontrolled killing spree, but a victorious self-defence against their attackers.”[9] The Jews were not attacking, but counter-attacking and not for selfish gain. Three times for emphasis, the author mentions no plunder was taken (v. 10, 15 and 16). The Jews took no plunder because “one of the rules of ancient holy war was that plunder must not to be taken. There was to be no personal profit in holy war because the destroyers were not acting on their own behalf, but as agents of God’s wrath.”[10] The new law of the king back in 8:11 read kill, slaughter, and annihilate. “It was an ironic repetition of the words in Haman’s original edict found in Esther 3:13.”[11] What a reversal!
And those gallows built for hanging Mordecai in Esther 5:14, are now used by Mordecai to not only hang Haman, but his family. Sounds cruel? “In keeping with Persian practice, the king wipes out the conspirator’s family publicly, to deter other would-be plotters against himself and the Jews.”[12] In fact, the Bible goes further than reporting on Persian retributive justice. In Esther 9:7-10, we read the actual names of Haman’s 10 sons who were executed, finally putting an end to the Agagite line that King Saul over 600 years earlier didn’t do and thus disobeyed God (1 Samuel 15:9). These names were Daiva names. “Daiva names were once used of the gods in early Iranian and Hindu writings, but later came to be associated with demonic powers in Eastern religions.”[13] And so this victory was not just over Haman, but the demons that used him and his family against God’s people. God saves His people! God saves His people by turning mourning into dancing. Esther 9:22 tells it best, “As the days on which the Jews got relief from their enemies, and as the month had been turned for them from sorrow into gladness and from mourning into a holiday; that they should make them days of feasting and gladness, days for sending gifts of food to one another and gifts to the poor.” My friends, even though we are not living in Persia, has not God saved us as part of His people? Has He not turned our condemnation into coronation? Has He turned the old law of death into a new law of life through the Holy Spirit? Has He not turned our mourning into dancing? All this change is through His Son Jesus Christ dying on a Cross and rising from the grave. Maybe you feel condemned today? Maybe you feel trapped under the old Law – trying to keep all the rules? Maybe you are feeling the weight of all this and you are depressed and mourning? Christ says, “Neither do I condemn you, go and sin no more! Live in this freedom I bought for you.”
[1] Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baruch_Goldstein. The number of deaths is disputed. Russell Walter reported the number to be 55 deaths and 170 more wounded in his article “Massacre in a Mosque,” Newsweek 123 (March 7, 1994): 34-37.
[2] Karen H. Jobes, The NIV Application Commentary on Esther (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1999), 211.
[3] Barry J. Beitzel, The NLT Study Bible (Carol Stream: Tyndale House Publishers, 2017), 844.
[4] Karen H. Jobes, The NIV Application Commentary on Esther (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1999), 176.
[5] Joyce Baldwin, Esther – An Introduction & Commentary (Tyndale OT Commentaries) (Leicester: Inter-Varsity Press, 1984), 95.
[6] Beitzel, 844.
[7] Beitzel, 844.
[8] Beitzel, 845.
[9] Beitzel, 845.
[10] Jobes, 196.
[11] Beitzel, 845.
[12] Barry G. Webb, The ESV Study Bible (Wheaton: Crossway, 2008), 862.
[13] Jobes, 198.
Commissional 