Esther 3: A Plot to Kill God's People

We are continuing this morning our series on the book of Esther. If you have been with us the past few weeks, we have been starting to look at the incredible story of how God weaves his providential care in the life of not only these individuals like Esther and Mordecai, but as we see, especially today, the beginnings of God's amazing historical care of his people, the Jewish nation, the Jewish people, as it leads into the coming of the Messiah, Jesus Christ. We have seen in the past two chapters the unwise, foolish, very powerful king, Ahasuerus. We saw that he has gotten rid of his wife, Queen Vashti, and that he, in chapter two, had this great competition, this beauty pageant to try and discover who was going to replace her as queen.

And really, we have sort of been introduced to a man who was quite vain, petty, unwise, a non-believer, and the gentle, quiet wisdom of Esther and Mordecai. We were introduced to them specifically in chapter two, and towards the end of that chapter, we see how Mordecai, even as a government official himself, foils the plot of an assassination attempt by two eunuchs who sought to kill the king. Weirdly, the king, although his people write the name of Mordecai into sort of this ledger that indicates that the deed has been remembered, the king himself does not remember Mordecai. And that sort of raises or escalates the tension as we come into Esther chapter three, where we are introduced to the fourth and the final great character in the story, a man by the name of Haman. Let us read this morning from Esther chapter three, verses one through fifteen.

After these things, King Ahasuerus promoted Haman the Agagite, the son of Hammedatha, and advanced him and set his throne above all the officials who were with him. And all the king's servants who were at the king's gate bowed down and paid homage to Haman, for the king had so commanded concerning him. But Mordecai did not bow down or pay homage. Then the king's servants who were at the king's gate said to Mordecai, why do you transgress the king's command? And when they spoke to him day after day, he would not listen to them.

They told Haman in order to see whether Mordecai's words would stand, for he had told them that he was a Jew. And when Haman saw that Mordecai did not bow down or pay homage to him, Haman was filled with fury. But he disdained to lay hands on Mordecai alone. So as they had made known to him the people of Mordecai, Haman sought to destroy all the Jews, the people of Mordecai, throughout the whole kingdom of Ahasuerus. In the first month, which is the month of Nisan, in the twelfth year of King Ahasuerus, they cast Pur, that is, they cast lots before Haman day after day.

And they cast it month after month till the twelfth month, which is the month of Adar. Then Haman said to King Ahasuerus, 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, and I will pay ten thousand talents of silver into the hands of those who have charge of the king's business, that they may put it into the king's treasuries. So the king took his signet ring from his hand and gave it to Haman the Agagite, the son of Hammedatha, the enemy of the Jews.

And the king said to Haman, the money is given to you, the people also, to do with them as it seems good to you. Then the king's scribes were summoned on the thirteenth day of the first month and an edict, according to all that Haman commanded, was written to the king's Satraps and to the governors over all the provinces and to the officials of all the peoples, to every province in its own script and every people in its own language. It was written in the name of King Ahasuerus and sealed with the king's signet ring. Letters were sent by couriers to all the king's provinces with instruction to destroy, to kill, and to annihilate all Jews, young and old, women and children, in one day, the thirteenth day of the twelfth month, which is the month of Adar, and to plunder their goods. A copy of the document was to be issued as a decree in every province by proclamation to all the peoples to be ready for that day.

The couriers went out hurriedly by order of the king and the decree was issued in Susa, the citadel. And the king and Haman sat down to drink, but the city of Susa was thrown into confusion. So far the reading, this is God's word. We see chapter three broken into three sections, more or less. The first one comes with a lesson, I think.

The first point is Mordecai refusing to bow, and we see that happening in verses one through to verse six. But the lesson here is how sin always comes back to bite us sooner or later. Some of the employees of the empire let Haman, a very powerful official, know that there is a certain mid-level manager by the name of Mordecai who is refusing to bow down or pay homage to the man Haman. As Haman investigates, he discovers that this Mordecai not only refuses to show him respect, but belongs to a people group known as the Jews. Haman, we are told, is incensed.

And furiously, he begins plotting, verse six tells us, not simply to destroy Mordecai, but Mordecai's people as well. The question is, why does Mordecai refuse to bow? Is it because, as a God-fearing Jew, he was not allowed to bow down and pay respect to people in authority over him? Well, no. In the previous chapter, we saw Mordecai showing great respect for the office of the king when he warns Ahasuerus of the plot to assassinate him.

Later in the story, Esther bows down to King Ahasuerus in respect to him as she brings an offer to him. As a government official, surely Mordecai would have bowed the knee to his government bosses over the course of his life. So why this stubbornness right now? Well, the answer is found in a single word in the text and it is the title given to Haman in verse one, that he is an Agagite. What does that mean?

Well, it is a reference to Haman's ancestral lineage. He comes from a man called Agag, a king who ruled over a people group called the Amalekites. And this is where it gets interesting. Biblical history tells us that as a fledgling nation, a tiny speck of a nation, Israel, fleeing Egypt, were pursued by this people group named the Amalekites. This particularly evil act, attacking a vulnerable and seemingly innocent group of people, enrages God.

He says to Moses and Israel in Deuteronomy 25:17 this: remember what Amalek did to you on the way as you came out of Egypt, how he attacked you on the way when you were faint and weary and cut off your tail, those who were lagging behind you, and he did not fear God. Therefore, when the Lord your God has given you rest from all your enemies around you in the land that the Lord your God has given you for an inheritance to possess, you shall blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven. You shall not forget. The Amalekites were, in other words, bitter enemies of Israel. But Mordecai's refusal is far from an ancient racial hatred.

It is part of a deeply personal story for Mordecai as well. Because last week in chapter two, when we are introduced to Mordecai, you might remember that we are also given an ancestral lineage of Mordecai. We are told that he was a Benjaminite, he came from the tribe of Benjamin. And there is history there as well.

The first king of Israel was who? Saul. What tribe was Saul from? Benjamin. And it is entirely possible, commentators and authorities say, that Mordecai was related to Saul.

Often, when people groups were taken into exile to the empire of Babylon and then Persia, it was because they were part of the aristocracy, they were the elites. And Mordecai's family, being Benjaminites, could have come from that line. But Saul, as the Benjaminite he was, as king, we are told in one Samuel 15, was told by God through the prophet Samuel to wage war against the Amalekites, to, in other words, do what Deuteronomy had told them.

Deuteronomy 25, our passage before, had told them to eradicate the wicked enemy who constantly opposed God's people. God gave Saul the clear command to totally eradicate them, to not even leave their livestock alive. We know from scripture that Saul does go out against them with two hundred thousand men and he has a huge victory over them. They are completely routed. But then Saul, the Benjaminite, fails.

This is what one Samuel 15:9-11 tells us. But Saul and the people spared Agag, and the best of the sheep, and of the oxen, and of the fattened calves, and the lambs, and all that was good, and would not utterly destroy them. All that was despised and worthless, they devoted to destruction. The word of the Lord came to Samuel, I regret that I have made Saul king for he has turned back from following me and has not performed my commandments. This moment in the history between the Amalekites and Israel is the turning point for the tribe of Benjamin.

Saul's disobedience against Agag, the Amalekite king, is the moment when Benjamin falls. Next, David, of the tribe of Judah, becomes king and from David, the royal lineage happens and Judah is forever the tribe of the kings. What a huge disappointment for the Benjaminites. And now, a son of Benjamin, Mordecai, is being made to bow down to a son of Agag, the Amalekite. And it is a sign of principled stubbornness, I think.

A personal conviction that causes Mordecai to resist bending the knee. I do not think it is so much a theological or even a spiritual action in my opinion. Essentially, we see the war between Benjamin and Agag rekindled. But in this moment, there is a compelling subtext that we need to read, and that is the awful legacy of sin. Underneath the story, we see the spiritual truth that sin always comes back to bite us.

Theologically, we know that God will judge all mankind's public and secret sins at the last day. Every sin will be exposed and laid before Him. But it is important to realise for us now as Christians in the here and now that sin will still often be felt in the here and now. King Saul's disobedience causes Agag, or rather, causes Agag's people, to survive. The Amalekites continue living, but now with even more hatred for the Israelites for what Saul had tried to do.

This is five hundred years later, mind you, where Mordecai and Haman meet. Five hundred years in the empire of Persia, far from the promised land, in an entirely different context altogether, and the hatred has not been forgotten. Haman, the Agagite, wants to destroy not simply Mordecai, but Mordecai and all the Jews. Why? Because of a single moment of sinful disobedience five hundred years before.

Do you believe that your sin does not have consequences? Are you prone to rationalise it away by thinking that if no one sees it or if someone does not know about it, it does not matter, it does not affect anything or anyone? Well, here is an example that sin should not simply not be minimised, but sin needs to be eliminated. Jesus dying for our sins does not mean that there is no possibility for dreadful, appalling consequences for our sin here and now.

In fact, you should believe that your sin will always come back to get you. The solution to the effects of sin, according to the Bible, is not to minimise it, but to eliminate it at its root. As Christians, we do not explain away our sin. We are told in two Timothy 2:22 to flee from it. We eliminate sin by running away from it as hard and as fast as we can.

And so here we are faced with this idea again: if there is someone in our lives who we know tempts us into that life, you stop hanging out with that person. If there is a phone that tempts you into sin, you put that phone away in the other room. If you should not be at home alone, you go and work in a public space. And there are hundreds of ways we know we can actively flee from it. There is not a single good reason to explain away our sin.

So make those proactive decisions to train your mind and body to be godly. This is the first thing we see: Mordecai refuses to bow, and we see the effects of sin five hundred years later raising its head again. Secondly, and this is a shorter point, we see Ahasuerus' apathy, and how lazy minds can be swayed by very flimsy logic. Haman goes to the Persian king, incensed, furious at this great slight against him.

Ahasuerus, however, does not know who these Jewish people are, let alone realising that Mordecai and Esther are Jews themselves. Haman has to introduce the concept of the Jewish people to him in verse eight. He says, there is a certain people scattered abroad, 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. And Haman concludes with this: so it is not to the king's profit to tolerate them.

Now, you can imagine this scene: the king is sitting idly as he considers this problem group, this hypothetical group that he does not know. And his ears, even as he is lazily considering this proposition, his ears prick up when Haman says, I will give the king ten thousand talents of silver for me to go and deal with this problem. Ten thousand talents of silver is a huge amount of money in those days. It is the equivalent, commentators say, of half of the king's annual income from taxes in the entire empire. In one day, he gets half of his income if he allows this to take place.

And so we see the combination of not recognising this concept, this minority group in the kingdom that he does not know, and the promise of lots of money. And the king is persuaded to give Haman what he wants. He tells him in verse 11, the money is given to you, so my money in order to finish this deed is yours. The people, these whoever they are, I give to you to do with them as seems good to you.

Now, this frighteningly simple exchange over the lives of people shows how terrifyingly easy it is for us to make horrible decisions. It is a combination of an immediate reward combined with a distant hypothetical problem, a minority group that you do not know, that causes someone like the king to not lose any sleep about a solution that may take away a problem. I think here is another good lesson about how careful we should be when we weigh up our decisions that affect us ethically and those around us. I was shown a weakness in my own thinking along these lines, something that will stick with me forever.

Many of us will remember about ten years ago, under the Labor government, there was a whole bunch of issues regarding boat people. Remember that under Kevin Rudd? And there are all sorts of debates and discussions about asylum seekers and about people coming to our shores, and so on, seemingly jumping the queue. And I had a particular opinion that these people were doing something bad, something evil, and that they needed to be sent back. Australia is and was neatly divided along political lines on a policy to adopt.

I had my opinion. But to be honest, that issue remained a distant and hypothetical problem until I met my friend, Zaki, who came on one of those boats. I had a particular view of boat people until I heard the story of a man fleeing Afghanistan from persecution for his faith, who wound up in Indonesia purchasing a boat trip to get to Australia, surviving the sinking of that boat at sea. And all of a sudden, my presumptions of motives, means and intent were thrown out the window. Today, I realised that the plight of these so-called boat people is far more complex than I assumed.

Now, I am happy to admit there are probably queue-jumping crooks involved, but there may also be just as many, if not more, legitimate, scared, desperate people looking for safety and a better way forward. Now, I am not saying that to sway any political opinions here. I am just saying how quickly an opinion can get changed once you take something from the area of hypotheticals into actuals. We need to be, I think, far more careful how we weigh up matters of ethical principles. And so similarly, we see a king, Ahasuerus, probably, you can imagine, sitting on his throne, bored, he has been listening to people come and ask for favours the whole day, and Haman is just another one of his officials to ask a favour.

He mentions a small, faceless minority, and then distracts him with a large sum of money. And he tells him, do not worry, king, I will take care of it. Just give me your signet ring, I will write the law, I will put it in place, I will organise the couriers to go and deliver this. And you will have ten thousand talents of silver. I can see myself falling for that trick.

Lazy minds can be swayed by flimsy logic. Meanwhile, Christians are instructed to have strong minds. Peter tells us in one Peter 1:13, prepare your minds for action. Prepare your minds for action. We need strong frameworks of ethical thinking.

We need to know what scripture says and what scripture values. We need to know what life in the kingdom looks like. Earlier this morning, we heard from the apostle James, if any one of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given to him. Proverbs 12:15 tells us the way of a fool is right in his own eyes, but a wise man listens to advice. Proverbs 16:1-5 says this: all the ways of a man are pure in his own eyes, but the Lord weighs the spirit.

Commit your work to the Lord and your plans will be established. The Lord has made everything for its purpose, even the wicked for the day of trouble. Everyone who is arrogant in heart is an abomination to the Lord. Be assured, he will not go unpunished. Christians are thoughtful, reflective and prayerful people, and we need to think hard about issues, all of them.

Thirdly and finally, our final point for today is we see God's incredible hiddenness limiting wicked action. We see in the story that the same mail delivery system, this cutting edge parcel and delivery system, takes the decree of the king, or through Haman, rather, to the ends of the province, the same delivery system that took that silly decree in chapter one about wives, you should respect your husbands. The same one goes out now to the kingdom, but with a far darker decree. Verse 13: letters were sent by couriers to all the king's provinces with instruction to destroy, to kill, and to annihilate all Jews, young and old, women and children, in one day, the thirteenth day of the twelfth month. A date is set for a bloodbath.

Can you imagine? Thousands of people dead on one day. And this is not a clandestine back room policy communicated only to governmental hard men. This is a public policy made known to the whole empire, and we are told that the capital city, Susa, is thrown into confusion. These people about to be killed are neighbours, our friends, our business colleagues.

And yet, this decree has been sealed by the king's ring. It has been ordered. It is a royal edict, and the law of the Medes and the Persians is irrevocable. You cannot change it. You cannot call it back.

Yet, power-drunk men at the top of the food chain, men like Haman and Ahasuerus, rarely consider the hidden God around them. And if you have the eyes to see it, you see God everywhere in this story. For you see, on the one hand, Haman consults either luck or the will of his own gods to finalise the day of this genocide. We are told in verse seven that he casts lots to determine the day on which the Jews would be killed. And it is possible that Haman was putting this evil deed to his gods, perhaps the god of his ancestors, to avenge the genocide of his own people.

And those lots, we are told, essentially the rolling of dice or the picking of a ball from the lotto system, those lots fall on a date that is almost twelve months later. So this all happens in the first month of the year, this happens at the twelfth month. Though this will take place at the twelfth month of that same year. In this, we see God's invisible power in action.

Proverbs 16:33 tells us, the lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the Lord. God is sovereign, in other words, even over the things you think is luck. God is so in control of every single detail in life that even when you roll the dice, the numbers land as God directs. This is how powerful our God is, and this is what Esther is getting at. But this is the God that Haman is setting himself up against.

Haman concludes that it is his gods or it is fate that has set a date to carry out this evil deed, but it is almost a year later and it is plenty of time for God to work through Esther and Mordecai. Similarly, Ahasuerus, weakly indifferent to Haman's wickedness, foolishly says to him in verse 11, the people are given to you. Do with them as it seems good to you. Ahasuerus thinks he is giving these people over to Haman. But Ahasuerus, as powerful people often do, does not realise that he holds zero power of his own accord.

These people are not his to give to Haman. God has set a plan for these people, and no single man, no matter how powerful they are, no matter how big the empire is, is going to change God's plan. Friends, how often do we need to repeat to be reminded of God's sovereign power over every single aspect of our lives? Even the things we think is luck. The hiddenness of God can be confusing to our senses because we cannot see Him.

It is confusing to us, especially when we are not thinking spiritually, but God's hiddenness does not diminish His presence nor His power. The irresistible nature of God's saving purposes cannot be altered even in the face of incredible human resistance. Whether that was the disobedience of King Saul, part of God's covenant people, or whether it was this pagan Haman who has a genocidal racism towards God's children, nothing will break God's plan for His people and His kingdom. Even Mordecai's refusal to bow to Haman, as principled or possibly righteous as that was, that little act of not bowing the knee is far too little, far too late. Mordecai cannot take back Saul's decision.

Nothing in his actions is going to rectify the problem of sin. The damage was done. Now, look at what that disobedience has caused. Through Haman, the Amalekite rises again, striking again at the heel of God's people with the power to eradicate them all. That hatred seems so calculated, does not it?

Imagine holding a grudge like that against the people for five hundred years and at year five hundred, you have the chance to eradicate them. Ask the question, why does it seem so calculated and so utterly vicious? Friends, it is because it is a hatred far greater than human hatred. The hatred of God's people is far greater than human strife. It is a conflict that has been going on since the beginning of the world.

There is a hostility towards Mordecai and God's people as a symptom of Satan's hatred of God's kingdom. Satan's relentless, calculated, rage-filled warfare against God Himself is present in these words. Satan, so hopelessly enslaved to his own sin, so utterly consumed with hatred towards God, cannot help but throw everything at trying to upend God's plans. But all along, Satan knows that there is a plan with these Jews, and he is compelled to stop it. Nowhere more profoundly was this seen in the life and the death of our Lord Jesus.

We are told that nowhere in scripture is Satan more active than in the earthly ministry of Jesus here on earth. Think of all the demons that were thrown out, cast out. And in that final moment of Jesus' earthly ministry, Satan, having nipped at the heels of the Saviour all the way, the devil thinks he has won a great victory over God because the Son of God dies on a cross. But Satan, like Haman, forgets who God is. Satan is fooled by the hiddenness of a sovereign King because it is at the cross.

Where God, in effect, says what Ahasuerus said, but with a far different purpose: Satan, do with My Son what seems good to you. And the Son is killed, destroyed, annihilated. But there is a glorious and hidden twist: the Son of God from the tribe of Judah, the Redeemer of God's people. He dies to set His people free.

Foolishly, Satan thinks that he could eradicate the Son, but death cannot hold Him down. Satan, in the hiddenness of God, thinks that he has won a great victory, but all along, God has been directing his steps. Jesus dies for His people and He sets them free from the eternal consequences of sin. Friends, what a God it is we know. What a God to know.

What a Saviour to have. I want to tell you that this morning, there are two great surprises in this life. Firstly, that God has loved us so much. And secondly, that we, at one time, loved Him so little. Thanks be to God that His love overrules even our broken hearts.

It means that we are careful then to remember that sin can always come back to bite us whether we think it is hidden or secret. We cannot make any more excuses. No more explanations or rationalisations. We flee from it. Secondly, we are reminded to be disciplined in our thinking, to think hard about all the sorts of ethical implications for our lives in light of the gospel we profess to believe.

We are a thoughtful and a reflective people. And then finally, to trust and to rest in the unstoppable power of God to save His people. That is the hope we have: to stop the sin in our lives and to think carefully about how we live righteously now in His kingdom. Let us pray. Lord, we thank you for the truth that you have given us again in your word, the historical, all-encompassing, universal plan of your rescue seen through the immediate salvation plan of your people, these Jews, five hundred years before Jesus would arrive.

And Lord, we pray that as we see the invisible, hidden power of our God at work, we will also be assured and encouraged this morning that even though we do not always see you, Lord, you are nevertheless always present. Help us, therefore, Lord, to remember that always in our thinking, always in our doing, we never live our lives outside of your presence. We never make decisions outside of your knowledge. And so, God, we pray that you will so remind us, that you will so discipline our lives, that you will so bring us back to your word so we can see how you speak to us, that we will always have the word of God on our minds so our hearts and our minds will be ready for action. Give us sober judgment.

Give us self-controlled lives. We ask because Jesus loves us, has died for us, and offers us living water. In His name, we pray. Amen.