Father, you know how each one of us to some extent struggles with being one person in church and with our Christian friends
and another person when we're away from church and away from our Christian friends.
Father, you know how much that describes some of our lives.
And so, Father, we ask that your Holy Spirit would use your word today in a powerful way to speak into our lives.
And that, Father, you would grip us with the beauty of the gospel and what Jesus has done.
You would grip us with his unfailing love.
And as we are gripped by the gospel, that you would grow courage within us to swim against the tide for the good of this city and your great glory.
And we ask this in the name of Jesus, your Son and our Savior. Amen.
Please be seated.
One of my regular people that I talk to is an atheist.
And about once a month or so, it works out that I happen to be at the Starbucks,
or as somebody said, I should start calling it St. Arbux to make it sound more holy.
And I'm there.
And so, about once a month at least, he happens to be there on a Friday morning.
And he'll ask me about once a month or more what I'm preaching on this Sunday.
He's an atheist, right?
So, it's always very interesting.
It always provokes some type of conversation.
So, he asked me on Friday morning.
And just so you know, I often don't know on Friday morning exactly what I'm going to say on Sunday morning
because I haven't finished listening to the Bible deeply.
So, he asked me this Friday.
And I said, well, I'm not actually sure.
It's a very unusual text.
And then I said, but I'll tell you what the story is that I'm going to preach on.
So, I told him the story.
And I gave him a brief summary of the story.
And when I was finished, literally, he went like this.
Whoa, I didn't know stuff like that was in the Bible.
And then he said, but you know, it doesn't matter what's in the Bible
because no story written 2,200 years ago in a very different culture can have any relevance to anybody's life today.
So, I had a brief conversation with him about that, which maybe we'll touch on in a moment.
But let's look at that story that made him go,
whoa, I didn't know they had stories like that in the Bible.
And so, we're looking at Esther chapter 2.
Esther chapter 2.
And we're going to be looking at the story in verses 1 to 18.
And just as you may be turning to that, and in a moment the text will go up on the screen,
the way to think of this sermon series in the book of Esther is imagine that you're watching.
We're using the book of Esther to make a series of scripts for different shows on a Netflix series.
And each episode has to be an episode that you can watch and enjoy and be challenged, etc.
But also, there's an overarching story that all of the nine episodes will work to bring home different truths.
Anyway, so that's what we're doing.
So, this is really episode 2.
And in episode 1, which we looked at last week,
just a, you know, we won't do the skip intro thing,
which lasts about a minute on most of those Netflix shows.
What happened last week is we were introduced to King Euserus,
which I didn't pronounce his name correctly.
I have a hard time pronouncing his name.
But it's about King Euserus, who's the emperor of Persia.
And one of the things that you need to know, I talked about it last week,
one commentator said that you can start to understand the beginning of Jewish humor
if you understand parts of the book of Esther.
Because the book of Esther is talking about something which is very, very, very serious.
It talks about rape, it talks about sex trafficking, and it talks about genocide.
But there's still some humor in it, puns.
And so the Jewish writer of this book, he chose as the name for the king
a name which in Hebrew sounds like headache.
So all the way through the story, when you're reading it,
if you were a Hebrew speaker back then,
it would sound as if they were calling him King Headache to make people smile.
We know him as King Xerxes, who was the...
How many of you have seen the movie 300?
I asked you this last week, only a small number of you.
We are Sparta.
Yes, that's the king that they take on in that movie,
is the king that's mentioned in this story.
And the first episode takes place three years before the movie 300, so to speak.
And so we see King Xerxes and all of his glory and his splendor.
But when we're watching it, it's a little bit like when one of us watches a movie about the Civil War.
And maybe you see Birmingham, Alabama, just after Fort Sumter has surrendered to the Confederate forces.
And everybody's jubilant and everybody's celebrating.
And they're there in their finery.
And you can see the riches and the splendor.
And they're going to kick the North's butt.
And they're going to win.
And they're going to triumph.
And we watch it.
We watch it.
And we know they're all going to lose.
They're going to lose.
And so chapter one is set by this.
You see all of King Ehuserxes, King Xerxes' splendor and glory.
But they put in this very subtle thing about the year that this happens.
And we know this happens just a couple of years before he invades Greece.
And he loses.
And he'll come back.
And a man who's been defeated.
And this second episode that we're looking at takes place after he's come back.
Actually, sort of before and after he's come back.
And he's been defeated.
So it's a different type of King Xerxes.
And let's kick up.
Oh, and one other thing about it is while he's drunk for seven days, he has a conflict with one of his queens.
And as a result of that conflict, because she refuses to obey him, he banishes her forever.
Now we caught up.
Episode two, verse one.
After these things, when the anger of King Hedek had abated, he remembered Vashti.
That was his queen that he'd banished.
And what she had done and what had been decreed against her.
Then the king's young men who attended him said,
Let beautiful young virgins be sought out for the king.
And let the king appoint officers in all the provinces of his kingdom to gather all the beautiful young virgins to the harem in Susa, the citadel, under custody of Hegai, the king's eunuch, who was in charge of the woman.
Let their cosmetics be given to them.
And let the young woman who pleases the king be queen instead of Vashti.
This pleased the king, and he did so.
Now we have to pause here.
What they've just described is horrific.
This is not sending out a casting note to see what beautiful young women want to be on the show The Bachelor, which is horrific in and of itself, by the way.
But that's a different sermon topic.
This is the forced taking of young women from their home throughout the entire empire.
It is the king deciding to use the bureaucracy, the police, and the military of the state to seek out beautiful young women and take them against their will, away from their family and friends, and to bring them to the capital.
And Herodotus, because this king, headache, he's done this several times.
Herodotus said, a Greek historian, that 400 young women, 400 young women would be taken.
Some scholars of the ancient world think that the number that he might have taken in something like this might have approached 1,500 young women taken from their homes by force to go to the capital.
It's horrific.
And it's in this context that we're going to meet the person that the book is named after, Esther.
Let's continue, verse 5.
Now, there was a Jew in Susa, the citadel, whose name was Mordecai, the son of Jair, son of Shemai, son of Kish, a Benjaminite, who had been carried away from Jerusalem among the captives.
So who had been carried away from Jerusalem among the captives carried away when with Jeconai, king of Judah, whom Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, had carried away.
Now, just sort of pause there.
That's a lot of Jewish names.
And a lot of times when we get a lot of these Jewish names, our mind, if you're like me, your mind starts to just sort of blank out a little bit.
And so what's going on here is, first of all, for ancient Jewish readers, Minam Mordecai is a very, is a sort of a common Jewish name, but it's a shocking name.
Because what his name is, is worshiper of Marduk.
He's a Jewish man who's named as a worshiper of Marduk, the god of the Babylonians.
And the story tells us that this man who's named the worshiper of Marduk is a fourth generation Jew in exile away from the Jewish homeland.
That's the whole thing about the son of this, the son of this, the son of this.
So there have now been, Mordecai is the fourth generation of those Jewish people who had been taken away by the Babylonians out of the promised land, out of the holy land, to live in a foreign empire.
Fourth generation.
And the other thing which is going on in this story is this, by this, by them giving these timelines, what they also tell you is this.
Those of you who read the Bible, there's this overarching story in the Bible.
There's sort of an underlying timeline which tells this overarching story.
And I'm not going to go into it.
You can talk to me at coffee hour.
I can talk to you a little bit more about it if you'd like to know.
But if you read the book of Ezra, it's a book in that part of the Bible which we call the Old Testament before Jesus.
It's all the books before Jesus.
And if you look at the first part of Ezra, the first part of Ezra describes how King Headache's father gave permission for the Jewish people who want to go back to the promised land.
But that's King Xerxes' father.
And obviously Mordecai is not one of them.
He didn't want to go to the promised land.
He wanted to stay in the winter capital of the empire of Persia.
And one of the things which is really interesting about the book of Esther is it doesn't comment on it.
It just tells you this is what's gone on.
Some of the Jews, at great cost to themselves, went back to the homeland.
Mordecai is not one of them.
He stayed in the capital.
In fact, he stayed at the very heart of the capital.
It would be really like saying that rather than going back to the promised land,
he not only lived in Ottawa, he lived in Centertown or the Glebe.
He didn't live in Canada.
Good grief.
Who lives in Canada?
You know, he's living in Centertown, the Glebe.
He's living downtown where it's nice.
That's where he chose to live.
That's Mordecai.
But the book's not named after Mordecai.
But now we learn about Mordecai to learn about the person that the book is named after.
But learning that Mordecai is a fourth generation in exile and that he's named after the god,
as a worshiper of the god of Babylon, Marduk,
it's very interesting then when we meet Esther.
Look at verse 7.
So Mordecai was bringing up Hadassah, that is Esther, the daughter of his uncle,
for she had neither father nor mother.
The young woman had a beautiful figure and was lovely to look at.
And when her father and her mother died, Mordecai took her as his own daughter.
So when the king's order and his edict were proclaimed,
and when many young women were gathered in Susa, the capital, in custody of Higai,
Esther also was taken into the king's palace and put in custody of Higai,
who had charged the woman.
And the young woman pleased him, the young woman Esther.
That young woman Esther pleased Higai and won his favor.
So Higai quickly provided her with her cosmetics and her portion of food
and with seven chosen young women from the king's palace
and advanced her and her young woman to the best place in the harem.
Esther had not made known her people or kindred,
for Mordecai had commanded her not to make it known.
And every day Mordecai walked in front of the court of the harem
to learn how Esther was and what was happening to her.
Now just pause.
Remember here I told you that there's somewhere between 400 to 1,500 young women
who were rounded up against their will and brought here.
Harem's very huge.
Probably many, many rooms.
Just crowded.
And what we're seeing here, it's very, very interesting about her name
and one other thing here in the story amongst other things.
She has two names.
She has a Jewish name and she has a Persian name.
And there's some debate in scholars as to what the source of her Persian name is,
but I'd say the best scholarship says that her name,
she's named after Ishtar,
the Persian equivalent of the goddess Venus,
the god of love and war.
And so she has a Persian name named after Ishtar.
She has a Jewish name.
And she decides that when she gets captured,
she's only going to go by her Persian name
and she's not going to go by her Jewish name.
Now what this means is,
many of you know the story in Daniel.
And if you remember,
those of you who know the story of Daniel,
the very first chapter is how Daniel is captured by the Babylonians
as they're taking over Israel and Jerusalem,
or Judah and Jerusalem.
And Daniel and his friends,
when they're brought into captivity,
because they're healthy and of noble family,
they decide that they're going to make,
I mean one thing which they don't usually tell us about Daniel is,
probably what happened to Daniel is,
they took his testicles out to make him a eunuch.
Which often doesn't get taught in Sunday school,
but that's what they probably did to him.
But they took out Daniel and his three friends
and the other Jewish men,
they take out their testicles to make them eunuchs,
to train them to be officials in the bureaucracy of Babylon.
And those of us know the very first story is,
some of you know what is it that Daniel and his friends do?
They refuse.
They say we're Jewish people.
We refuse to eat your food.
We're going to follow our dietary laws.
Esther's not Daniel.
Esther wasn't keeping kosher.
Esther wouldn't have been doing anything
that would have showed that she was Jewish
or one of God's people.
She wouldn't have been saying her Jewish prayers
in such a way that people would know she was Jewish.
She wouldn't have been keeping the Sabbath.
She would have been eating the same food that was unclean.
And she was going by a Persian name,
not a Jewish name.
Now, by the way, a couple of things.
One of the reasons I think that Christians
have to read the book of Esther,
I mean, it's good to read the book of Daniel,
but you know what the fact of the matter is,
is that most of us are far more like Esther
than we are like Daniel.
Esther's living a compromised life.
In fact, none of us even know anybody like this.
But I've been told that in some churches,
there's a problem.
Not ours, of course,
but in some churches, there's a problem
where people are very good with their Christianese
and their evangelical talk
and everything when they're in church,
but then when they go to work
or when they go home,
they live a radically different life.
We don't know anybody at all who's like that, of course.
It's a completely foreign problem to us.
But many of us struggle with that, don't we?
I mean, I'm being facetious.
Many of us struggle with being one thing
when we're with other Christians
and very another thing when we show up at work
or we play hockey, we play basketball,
when we go home with our wives and kids,
a radically, quite a significantly different person.
And, you know, in many ways,
most of us have probably not been Daniels
all of our lives.
Many of us have been more like Esther.
By the way, the book of Esther is going to show
in a couple of episodes
her conversion moment, so to speak,
which is key to the book.
And next episode,
we're going to talk about
Mordecai's conversion moment,
by the way.
But right now, what they're showing
is that both of them,
Mordecai and Esther,
have lived compromised lives,
identifying with their pagan culture
rather than being the people of God.
And that Esther in particular,
who, by the way,
this situation she's in,
we're going to talk a bit more about it in a moment,
it's a horrific situation.
She was forced away from her home.
And one of the things which is so wonderful
about this text, by the way,
one of the things which is so
spectacularly wonderful about this text
is that it just reports it.
Like, many people read it and say,
well, why doesn't the Bible condemn this?
It's sex trafficking, right?
Like, why doesn't the Bible condemn this?
Like, why doesn't the Bible describe how,
you know, Esther,
like, why doesn't Esther go on a hunger strike
and rather die than do what's being demanded of her?
Like, why doesn't,
like, why doesn't she,
like, all these things and,
you know, but the fact of the matter is,
is, you know, what do we know?
The little we know about things like sex trafficking
is that for all we know,
many of these young women
who got put into this situation,
their parents were happy.
I mean, isn't that how lots of sex trafficking happens?
The parents contact the authorities.
Would you consider taking her daughter?
And in some of the families,
it might very well be that the daughter
hated the parents so much they wanted to do this.
Because, you know, the fact of the matter is,
is that reality is very messy, isn't it?
It's very messy.
And one of the things which is so powerful
about this story,
its enduring power,
is that if we were to try to improve it
by making a little comment
about how all the women were crying
or all of the parents were crying
or all, you know, or Esther did this,
you know what it would do?
It would turn it into a greeting card
that would trivialize the story.
It would turn it into a greeting card
that would trivialize the complexity
of what was going on.
But even though what's going on is complex,
it's horrific.
She is, with no exit other than death,
under the power of the most powerful empire
in the West,
and all the way up to India.
So what happens to her?
Well, let's look at verse 12.
Now, when the turn came for each young woman
to go into King Ahuserus,
King Headache,
after being 12 months under the regulations
for the woman,
since this was the regular period
of their beautifying,
six months with oil of myrrh
and six months with spices
and ointments for women,
when the young...
Now, just pause here.
I'm going to read it again.
But what's being described here
is completely and utterly abhorrent
and evil.
The king of Persia
has used the army
and the bureaucracy
to find somewhere between
400 to 1,500 young women.
He's brought them against their will
to come into his capital
to be under his care.
And he's lavished...
Well, he's lavished.
He's lavished a year of preparation
so he can have one sexual encounter with them.
One sexual encounter with them.
And that's what's about to happen to Esther.
And really,
when these young women are captured,
it's like a sentence of death to them.
Because
they will spend one night with the king,
as we're going to see in a moment,
and then they don't go back
to the harem of women
who are being prepared
to spend one night,
one sexual encounter
with the king.
They go into another harem.
And it might be that they spend
the rest of their lives
never even ever
going to see the king again.
Ever.
It means they have been denied
the possibility of marriage,
of children,
of a normal life.
It is horrific.
It is unspeakably evil.
And there's another thing
I want to say
before we go anywhere further for this.
And this is a very, very, very,
very important lesson for us.
We look at it
and we see that this is horrific
and it's a broken world
and a broken system.
But if you lived in Persia,
Persia was the best country
in the world.
And what was going on
is what all reasonable people
believe and think.
Like, everybody knows
that it's all right
for kings to do things like that.
And not only is that something
that just everybody knows,
but the intelligentsia,
the artists,
would say,
well, of course,
what do you expect?
He's the king.
Of course, this is how
the world works.
You see,
this is the thing
for us in our day.
Now, Canadians,
we're not very proud.
We wouldn't say
that we're the best country
in the world.
We would maybe acknowledge
that Norway or Sweden
were a bit better than us.
Maybe Switzerland.
We're like a thousand times better
than those dummies
down south of the border.
Like maybe a million,
billion, trillion, quadrillion.
So we're too humble
to say we're the best country
in the world,
but we're up there
in the top four.
Sweden, Norway,
Switzerland,
maybe above us.
And we live in the best culture
and there's all sorts of things
in our culture
that everybody just knows.
Everybody knows.
Everybody knows
that if a woman
wants to have an abortion,
she should have an abortion.
Like if you don't know that,
like everybody knows
that if a person's
having lots of pain
and suffering
at the end of their life,
that they should be able
to ask a doctor
to kill them.
Like everybody knows that.
Like how come
you don't know that?
Everybody knows
that naturalistic evolution
explains everything
that exists
and if you don't know that,
like really?
You don't believe that?
Like do you not
brush your teeth as well?
Like is your IQ
that of a turnip?
Like everybody knows that.
Now by the way,
when I mentioned
the thing about abortion,
just a point here,
there's a very good chance
that at least one of us,
just if you're here,
you know,
it says church,
but if we could ever
change the name
from church,
what we should rename
ourselves is not
the collection
of the perfect,
not the collection
of the holy,
not the collection
of the virtuous,
but the hospital
for sinners.
A church
is a hospital
for sinners.
And there's probably
at least one of us
here who's either
had an abortion
or contributed to abortion
and I didn't bring that up
to push you away.
I brought it up
because that's in fact
something which needs
to be talked about
in our culture
and all I would tell you
if you're here
and you've had an abortion
or you've helped
somebody have an abortion
is that Jesus loves you
and I'm not saying
that to trivialize anything
and he died for you
knowing that you
would do bad things
and this is an invitation
for you to pour out
your heart to Jesus
because you need
to talk it through
and you need to know
his grace and mercy.
So I just want to encourage you
if that describes you
that you just,
you try to talk to somebody
who looks like there's
a kind face
and they'll listen to you
and they'll love you.
But the point is
this horrific thing
at the time
wasn't viewed as horrific.
It was viewed
as just what everybody knows.
Just the way the world works.
The way the world should work.
Powerful men should have
more than one wives
and should have concubines.
They have sexual urges.
They should be able
to act on it.
And we know they're wrong
and it's a powerful thing
for us to realize
that lots of what gets said
that just everybody knows.
It's a wake-up call for us.
I'm not saying
that we should be,
there's so much stuff
we could learn
from the gay
and lesbian movement
because at the heart
of that movement
was them saying
we're queer
and we're here
and we're not going away.
We're queer,
we're proud
that we're queer
and we're here.
Now we can't say
we're Christians
and we're proud
because that's like a sin.
We're Christians
and we're humbly here
and we're not going away.
And we just disagree
with all sorts of things
that go on in the world
and we're not going away.
And we should just,
we have to learn
to start to go against
the tide
in an upfront way.
Not in a proud way,
not in an angry way
necessarily,
but just
I don't believe
those things.
I don't think those things.
I'm a Christian.
I follow Jesus.
And we have to start
to learn
to be more comfortable
to just be publicly
swimming against the tide
and books like Esther
help us to understand that
in a very,
very powerful story
where when you actually
look at the text
and you realize
it's not like
what often gets talked
about by preachers
because there's
unspeakable evil
and Esther is trapped
in unspeakable evil
and it's going to lead
to her conversion moment
in a couple of episodes
but not today.
So let's get back
because the text,
I've sort of jumped ahead
of that.
Look at verse 12 again.
Now when the turn came
for each young woman
to go into king headache
after being 12 months
under the regulations
for the women
since this was
the regular period
of their beautifying,
six months with oil of myrrh
and six months
with spices
and ointments for women,
when the young woman
went into the king
in this way
she was given
whatever she desired
to take with her
from the harem
to the king's palace.
Here's the part.
In the evening
she would go in
and in the morning
she would return
to the second harem
in custody of Shazgaz,
the king's eunuch,
who was in charge
of the concubines.
She would not go
into the king again
unless the king
delighted in her
and she was summoned
by name.
He doesn't even know
their names.
Night after night
a different concubine,
a different woman
doesn't know
their names.
They might have never
even seen the king again
for the rest of their lives.
This is unspeakable evil.
And it's not just,
I don't want to trivialize
the evil to the women,
we cannot trivialize
the evil to the women.
We cannot,
there,
I am not,
this is just not,
but,
nothing that I say next
is meant to,
the evil to the women
is atrocious.
But there's also
a broader social evil
that goes on
because it means
that there's 400
to 1,500 young men
who will never have a wife.
polygamy,
all polygamy,
serves rulers
and emperors
by creating
a large group
of young men
who can be sacrificed
in war.
And it is
fertile ground
for men
profiting
from prostitution.
You see,
the evil
of what goes on
in this,
and it's what happens
in every country,
anytime there's a type
of an evil
that goes on
in the culture,
the evil
isn't just this
tiny little
singular evil,
but the evil
spreads
just as abortion
corrupts
everything
it touches.
verses.
Verse 15.
When the turn
came for Esther,
here she is,
a young woman,
she's trapped,
and she's going
to be brought in
for her one night
with the king.
When the turn
came for Esther,
the daughter
of Abahel,
the uncle
of Mordecai,
who had taken
her as his own
daughter to go
into the king.
She asked for
nothing except
what Haggai,
the king's eunuch,
who had charge
of the woman,
advised.
Now Esther
was winning
favor in the eyes
of all who saw
her.
Just pause here.
You know,
this is what's so
wise about the
Bible.
It just reports
what's going on.
It doesn't try
to trivialize this.
It doesn't say
this is a good
thing she's doing
or a bad
thing it's doing.
It's not saying
that this Jewish
girl who tried
to flirt her
way to be
one of the
400 or 1500
that would
become the
queen.
It's talking
about one
story.
It's not
tame,
but it's
the critique
of it is
in the
dispassionate
telling.
without going
into what
might be
going through
Esther in
the right
way or
the wrong
way and
all of that
type of
stuff.
It would
turn it
into greeting
cards.
It would
turn it
into political
slogans,
but it just
records.
Verse 16,
when Esther
was taken
to King
Headache,
into his
royal palace
in the
tenth month,
which is the
month of
Tibet, in the
seventh year of
his reign.
At this point
in time,
it's four
years after
chapter one,
or episode
one, four
years after.
It's after he's
been defeated
by Persia.
The king
loved Esther,
that woman
named after
the Persian
goddess of
love and
war, hiding
her Jewishness.
The king
loved Esther
more than
all the
women, and
she won
grace and
favor in
his sight
more than
all the
virgins.
So he set
the royal
crown on
her head
and made
her queen
instead of
Vashti.
Then the
king gave
a great
feast for
all his
officials and
servants.
It was
Esther's
feast.
He also
granted a
remission of
taxes to
the provinces
and gave
gifts with
royal generosity.
So just
a couple of
takeaways from
this.
I mean,
you know,
I spend
more time
trying to
help you
understand and
hear the
story than
my own
words because
this is
God's word
and my
words are
my words.
And it's
far better
that the
story grip
you.
But if you
could put up
the first
point,
Andrew,
let's be
honest,
there is a
powerful
allure.
I know the
grammar of
this sentence
isn't great,
but I
couldn't fix
it.
There is a
powerful
allure to
the path
of silence,
compromise,
and conformity
so that you
will be
accepted.
Isn't that
true in our
culture?
There's
something very
powerful and
alluring about
this idea.
if I just
am going to
be silent,
and if I'm
going to be
silent about
being a
Christian and
about what
I think,
and if I
just sort of
compromise,
and if I
just learn to
conform,
I'll be
accepted.
You know,
I have
my,
I've been,
I'm a slow
learner,
and I have a
parrot,
and for some
reason I keep
calling it an
African grey,
but it's not
an African grey,
it's an
Amazon.
And anyway,
it's a,
well actually I
don't really have
it, but my
daughter and my
wife have it,
it's a parrot
about this big.
Okay,
and in the
biological world,
we took that
parrot and we
made a chicken
suit, a duck
suit for it,
made out of
duck feathers
and a little
duck head,
and because it's
a parrot,
we trained it
how to quack
like a duck.
Well that would
sort of be
amusing for
people, you
know, we put
our parrot in
a duck suit,
and it wanders
around on the
floor quacking
like a duck,
but on a
biological level,
it's still a
parrot.
But at the
moral and
intellectual level,
we become what
we put on.
In other words,
for human beings,
when we,
not, I mean,
not literally,
obviously, but if
you quack like a
duck, poop
like a duck,
walk like a
duck, look
like a duck,
you're a duck.
And C.S.
Lewis, his
least favorite,
people who read
C.S.
Lewis, the novel
people like the
least is Till We
Have Faces.
The novel he
loved the most was
that novel, Till
We Have Faces.
and it's all
about a woman
who wears a
mask and she
eventually comes
to look like
the mask.
And he's
capturing a
very, it's a
very powerful
novel and it
just describes
how we become,
what we do.
And so, you
know, if we
think, well, I'm
just going to be
silent about this
issue and I'm
going to be
silent about this
issue and I'm
going to compromise
on this issue
and I'm going
to conform on
this issue and
before you know
it, you're not
actually a follower
of Jesus.
But we sort of
think that we
can be.
When I was part
of the Diocese of
Ottawa, there
would be several
people that,
you know, when
different things
were going on in
the Diocese of
Ottawa, that were
just wrong and
virtually nobody
would speak against
it and there
were several
people with
great qualifications
who were
evangelicals and
they just were
silent but
because they
would say they're
becoming silent
because they can
get on this
committee or in
this key position
and then they'd
eventually make
change.
But they
compromised and
they compromised
and they compromised
and when they got
into that position
there was always
one more level
they could reach
and so they
would compromise
and conform and
at the end of
the day,
they were a
liberal.
Their backbone
was removed,
given a different
one.
There's a powerful
allure to the
path of silence,
compromise, and
conformity so that
you will be
accepted.
Second point,
but what does this
story show us?
The path of silence,
compromise, and
conformity makes you
promises that will
not work out.
Esther went by
another name,
Mordecai went by
another name,
Esther still gets
captured.
We're going to see
this part of what
makes the book of
Esther so important
is that what's
going to happen
in the next,
not this episode,
not this next
episode, but the
episode after that
is the plan to
have genocide to
kill every Jew
is going to be
put in place.
That's going to be
what drives the
last episodes of
this story, the
plan by the
Persian government
to kill every
Jewish person.
And the fact of
the matter is,
is the path of
silence and
compromise and
conformity does
not deliver what
it promises,
either in terms of
effectiveness or
your peace, nor
your eternal
destiny.
By the way, I'm
not saying that as
if I'm, this is a
time now I wish I
got off the stage
and was down
there.
Let me just share
with you, sorry,
two minutes.
I got into this
hour and a half
long conversation
with a guy
yesterday.
It was so funny.
Here I am, on
one level I pray
for opportunities to
share the gospel,
and I go into
the coffee shop
and I get down,
I'm going to be
working on my
sermon for this
morning.
I get five
minutes into it,
this guy starts
talking to me.
It ends up to
me in an hour
and a half.
By the time it's
over, I am so
exhausted, I can't
work on the
sermon.
And it's far
ranging about
creation, about
God, but we get
into this one part
of the conversation
because he's into
chakras and auras
and all of that
type of stuff.
And he challenges
me about whether
Christianity can
account for that
type of stuff.
And I want to
try to win him
and I'm trying
to defend things.
And he says we
have no account
for that type of
stuff.
And in my mind,
I say part of
what we Christians
would say, and I
don't want to say
it because I want
to be silent because
he's going to think
I'm a knuckle
dragging, narrow
minded fundamentalist.
And then probably
in heaven I'll find
out one of you
were praying for
me that exact
moment so that I
had courage because
I didn't have it
in my flesh.
And I said, well,
part of what we
would say that what
you're seeing is
demonic.
It's demons.
He goes, whoa.
Now the interesting
thing is it didn't
end the conversation.
You see, that's
always the thing
about compromise,
right?
The devil whispers
into me enough and
says, if you say
something like demonic,
he's going to think
you're stupid.
He's going to think
you're blah, blah,
blah, blah.
You shouldn't say
something like that.
You can't.
I said, natter away.
And I just said, well,
that part of how we
would account for it is
it's you're experiencing
demons.
They're only leading
you away from God.
We still talk for
another 40 minutes
after that.
And he wants to
talk with me again.
What I'm just
saying to you,
when I make these
points, I'm not
saying that I'm
somehow some
superstar.
I am so
Canadian and
I, like you,
have a sinful
flesh.
We need to pray
for each other
that we learn
to bear witness
to Jesus
unashamed of the
gospel and the
whole counsel of
God.
And willing to be a
fool for Christ.
Next thing, if you
put up next point,
this is really a
thing to remember
because many people
will read the book
of Esther as if
Esther is a hero.
There's only one
hero in the Bible,
folks.
It's Jesus.
Jesus is the only
hero in the Bible.
In fact, part of
what is so
important about
what those books
in the Old
Testament that
prepare us for
Jesus, part of the
way they prepare us
for Jesus is that
every, I mean,
they're sort of
heroes with all
very small letters
with lots of
quote marks and
caveats around
them.
But you look at
all of them and
all of them, you
see they're sinful.
All of them, you
see they fail.
All of them, they
do something which
is wrong.
All of them, they
do something where
God has to deliver
them.
And then you come
to Jesus.
And then you read
the rest of the New
Testament after Jesus
and you see Paul and
he fights with Barnabas
and you see, you
know, you hear about
this person and that
person and you see
the things that you
see the fights and
the messiness and all
of that type of stuff.
And what shines
throughout all of it
is Jesus.
Only Jesus is without
sin.
Only him.
All of the Bible is
preparing us to
understand Jesus.
Completely different
than any prophet or
apostle.
Patriarch or patron.
If you could put up
the next point,
please.
What do we see in
this story?
This story is so
wonderful because it
touches at a
fundamental level a
deep fear that many
of us have.
It's the lie.
You see, one of the
things I try to pray
when I prepare for
sermons is I say,
what lies does this
text come against?
What lies that
Canadians easily
believe does this
text come against?
And a common
complaint, whether
it's the rich, the
one percent, whether
it's the Republicans,
whether it's the
Democrats, whether
it's the conservatives,
whether it's the
liberals, whether it's
Islam, whether it's
Christianity, whether
it's Buddhism, is that
the many sacrifice for
the benefit of the
few or even the
one.
In the world, often
the many are
sacrificed for the
good of the few.
In the gospel, the
one sacrificed
himself for the good
of the many.
The one sacrificed
himself.
The many are
sacrificed for the
good of the one or
the few.
people.
But this is preparing
us to see how
radically different
Jesus is.
He is the one who
willingly dies
himself and offers
his life himself,
not for his own
benefit, but for the
benefit of all who
will receive what he
has done.
And if you could up
the final point, one
of the things which is
so powerful about this
story is, you know
what?
You know what's
described here?
One of the things I
said to my atheist
friend on Friday
morning is I said,
you're wrong.
This story could be
written today.
This story is going
on with Boko Haram.
This story is going
on in the streets of
this city.
This story is as
contemporary as
anything you could
possibly imagine.
And it's all part of
a larger story
preparing us to
meet Jesus.
And the very
realism of the
story, that there
are, you know, we
understand how the
power of the state
with its police and
its judiciary and
its soldiers can be
used to enforce
that which is
atrociously evil.
This is the
earth today.
It is a realistic
story about real
people and it's
helping us to
understand the
real God offers a
real gospel with a
real savior for the
real you in the
real world.
world.
Not the God
described or that
we fear in our
imagination as a
God who will
sacrifice many for
his causes and his
glory, but the
God revealed in the
person of Jesus in
the words of the
Bible that describes
the one who will
sacrifice himself for
the many.
And the real gospel
is that it really did
happen, he really did
come, he really did
die, he really did,
his perfect life will
stand for your
imperfect and
compromised life and
his death will pay
the punishment that
your compromises
deserve and he
really does it and
he really dies and
the grave is really
empty on the third
day and he really
does appear and it
really happened.
He's a real savior,
it's real news that
comes from God for
real people like you
in your real world
that he will take you
for himself when you
put your faith and
trust in him.
And for those of us
who compromise after
we are his, we have
this great confidence
that he has done it
all to make me right
with him and he will
never let me go and
he will never forsake
me.
It's all done by him
and that I can turn to
him every Sunday when I
gather with God's people
or in my private
devotions and say
yesterday or this week
I screwed up again
God.
I compromised myself
here and I compromised
myself here and I
compromised myself
here and I'm sorry.
Thank you for Jesus.
Help me to learn to
walk with Jesus in this
real world without
compromise and for your
great glory.
Please stand.
Lord.
If you have never called
out to Jesus to be your
savior, you should do it
now.
Stop listening to me.
Just say, Jesus, be my
savior and my Lord.
I thank you that you died
for me.
The real me in the real
world, I thank you that you
died for me.
Be my savior.
Be my Lord.
Thank you that you will
never let me go.
Just pray it in your own
words right now.
But for all of us, let's
just do some business with
God.
Father, thank you so much
that you know who we
really are and you know
what we're really like and
you know our compromises
and you know those times
when we don't compromise,
Father, because we don't
always compromise.
You know our growth.
You know how we're going.
Some of us are going
downhill and backwards and
some of us are moving
forward.
Father, you know us.
You know us as a motley
collection of people and
all sorts of conditions of
life and of holiness and
of sinfulness.
Thank you, Father.
You know each of us as
individuals.
You know us as a whole and
still you love us.
And thank you, Father, that
you are always more willing
to hear us when we
confess to you than we
are to confess to you.
You're always more willing
to hear us and you're
always more willing to
give us help than we are
to ask for help.
So, Father, we ask for
your help.
We ask for your mercy.
We ask for your grace.
We ask that you would
grip us with the gospel.
Grip us with the gospel
that we might start to
live lives of courage,
to swim against the flow
in a way that loves people,
seeks their best,
and brings you great glory.
And we ask this in the name
of Jesus and all God's
people said,
Amen.