Esther 9 A United Front

Darin Wilt

Red Oaks Baptist Church

Esther • Sermon • Submitted 3 years ago

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Esther 9

United Front

Intro: One of my favorite Westerns is The magnificent Seven. Both versions are good. The premise is slightly different but really its a bully taking advantage of a town and they are paralyzed by fear. The bullies take out key people or at least the one or two people who try to stand up to him because it is a situation that is like a 6 on one type of fight. The town folk get the idea to hire a gun fighter, who in turn gets other men he knows to help defend the town, but the gunfighters also teach the townsfolk to defend themselves. And the battle is no longer lopsided in the bully’s favor.

They muster a united front against the bad guys. And this plays itself out in real life and stories all the time.

In 2001, there was a coalition of nations to fight the Taliban and Al-Qaeda similar to the Allied powers in the World Wars.

As we read our section today in Esther, we see that this united front is what preserves the Israelites and moves our whole timeline closer to the fulfilment of the Coming Messiah.

Read Verses:

Main Point: The Church must be United under God’s Word in order to survive

I. A United Defense (1-15)

The 13th day of Adar has come to the Kingdom of Persia and the Jews. This is the day that two competing decrees from the king are set to be enacted. One says that people can kill the Jews and the other decree says that the Jews have every right to defend themselves. Which is an interesting addition as a law in and of itself because it sounds like Until Mordecai wrote the decree for the King, the Jews did not have that right.

The perpetrators wished to gain mastery over the Jews, but the author tells us upfront that it is the Jews, God’s people, who gain mastery over them.

The Jews were most assuredly not the majority in Persia. In fact one writer say that there is but a small fraction of the entire population of the Persian empire. But we know that they did live in probably every province. So it wasn’t like they were all holed up in one or two cities. If they were, it may have made it easier to kill everyone. This is probably one reason why The Nazis brought people to the concentration camps.

So how did the Jews gain mastery over the Persians?

Look what the text tell us in verse 2. The Jews Gathered together. My guess is most of the people didn’t have a problem with the Jews, so it is sad to say that the whole town or county was not coming after them. It may have been a handful of people in each place. But if it is 12 against 2, then unless there are Israelite Ninjas, people may have been hard pressed to defend themselves. But if it is a 12 on 12 fight it becomes a fair fight.

And we also see in verse three that all of the officials helped the Jews. So know the numbers are on their side. If they had a police force or brute squad that upheld the laws, they may have been around. The author tells us that they did it because they were afraid of Mordecai, but if you need help in a fight, you may not care too much what that person’s motivations are. They are helping you and you can sort out some of the other stuff later.

So the Jews fight and defeat their enemies. 500 in Susa alone which is a good sized mob. And they also killed Haman's sons as well. So you have the Enemies of the Jews as anyone who attacked the Israelites and you also have the rest of the Amalekites in Haman’s family. They also asked the King if they could display the enemies at the gates r or at least from the gallows as a show of consequences of being an enemy of God. But although the Jews were allowed to claim any plunder or possessions they stopped short doing so

Esther 9:10 (Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther (NAC)): The author considered it important that they “did not lay their hands on the plunder,” for he said it three times (vv. 10, 15–16). The Jews were careful not to use material gain as the reason for their action. They simply defended their right to live. The author may also have had in mind the incident recorded in 1 Sam 15:17–23, when Saul disobeyed God by taking plunder from the Amalekites. This time the Jews were careful not to make the same mistake.

Such self-restraint as the Jews expressed here is quite prudent in a situation where a minority is essentially defending itself from its enemies rather than initiating the conflict; but Streane argues: “Their desire was deliverance and also vengeance, but not material gain”

But what do we do with this in our present day and modern sensibilities. Is it right to go out and kill a bunch of people even if you are defending yourself or others?

Yes. God decreed it through Mordecai and Xerxes so it is completely allowable. God was allowing it because His people are protected and he is the one ultimately protecting them. More importantly He is preserving them so at the proper time Jesus , the incarnate God, second person of the Trinity, will be born and eventually be sacrificed to make the world and His people complete again.

We are allowed to defend ourselves and as long as we are not doing so for personal gain.

Application

The Church must show a united front to the World

Why?

We serve an Almighty God and He is bigger than our squabbles

If we all use the same book that has the same words then why are there so many denominations?

Rupert Meldonius a German theologian is credited with coining the phrase

“In Essentials Unity, In Non-Essentials Liberty, In All Things Charity”

We are United to Christ by his death and resurrection . His loving Sacrifice for his church, His Bride. All things were created through him and for him and are held together byHim. We understand that he is the Second reason of the Trinity and the Son ofGod. He is God the Son. He is a distinct person, with a divine essence and was fully God and fully man. He makes us perfect, while were sinners and also while we are at the same time becoming made in His image every day. The sufficiency of Scripture is also paramount. Everything must come from God’s word. If people are Wrong about these things, the whole church will be wrong.

And that requires Liberty in things that are non essential. What are non essential? How often to do communion, what instruments or not to use in church, elder-led, single-pastor led. When to have your service. Even topical preaching, such as Top ten ways to use your obey for God or How to have a Biblical marriage series or preaching through Books to tell the Biblical story or homilies that tie into the larger liturgy like some of the Presbyterian or Orthodox churches do.

None of those are inherently wrong per se because the Bible gives leeway. The local context drives somethings and how it happens. Not here are things that are wrong and go against the Bible but how we point these things out depends on How much charity we show others and also are willing to accept criticism from others if we are doing something wrong.

We show love or grace to fellow believers because we are all learning. When we become Christians we do not get a new brain installed or a new operating system uploaded. That is really what is taking place every day and every Sunday for sure.

When we see people in need, we need to defend them. Because they may be overwhelmed, they may have been fighting for some time, and they are low on or out of ammunition. They may need an air strike to take care of some stuff so they don't get over run.

The association came to our defense when we needed it with unanimous support. Hopefully we can do the same for another church or we can put up our defense and people can learn from our experience. We can also look toward Afghanistan today and this week and see the reports coming out of that region.

But use we should also have a united remembrance of what Happens to the church

II. A United Remembrance (16-32)

Verse 17 says that on the fourteenth day of Adar they, the Jews, rested and made that a day of feasting and gladness. Verse 19 expands a little more and says they also send gifts of food to one another.

The day was turned from neon sorrow into one of gladness. Remember they spent a year dreading this day. It was announced and known that on the 13th, people will be coming for you.

Imagine living in that pressure knowing you have a year t live and counting down the days. But because of God’s works and control of his world, darkness turned to light.

And that is cause for celebration and remembering what God has done in the life of the Nation

Esther 9:26-28 In verse 26 it says 26 Therefore they called these days Purim, after the term Pur. [casting of lots] Therefore, because of all that was written in this letter, and of what they had faced in this matter, and of what had happened to them, 27 the Jews firmly obligated themselves and their offspring and all who joined them, that without fail they would keep these two days according to what was written and at the time appointed every year, 28 that these days should be remembered and kept throughout every generation, in every clan, province, and city, and that these days of Purim should never fall into disuse among the Jews, nor should the commemoration of these days cease among their descendants.

Application

Remember the Acts of God great and Small

We celebrate Christmas and Easter because they are major milestones in the life of our Religion and our God. It is the Incarnation of God that the King has come and also Easter because it is Jesus conquering of Death through his resurrection from the Grave. We should also celebrate Pentecost because it is the day jesus ascended and returned to heaven and the throne.

But we should Also celebrate the things in our lives. You may have the date and perhaps the time you were officially saved. That time you knew. Maybe it just kind of always was. Maybe it was in church, maybe it was a summer camp, maybe it was in your home in the middle of the night. We all have our own Damascus road moment. That is your spiritual birthday. We are united because we have some kind of experiencing like that.

We are also united because we live on this earth and have to interact with the world. We have shared experiences, love, birth, death, sorrow, loss, gain, celebration. And we can all help each other by coming together to laugh with each other in the Joy, cry together in the time of sorrow and loss. And provide for and protect each other in time of need.

We are united in Christ, we are his body. We each play different roles, but we can remember the time when we had a great sorrow and perhaps someone read the Bible verses t us to help us. When you were without food and someone helped you. Maybe when you saw someone going through loss or a tough time and yo helped them. Without judgment or without comment, But with compassion for our fellow human. But the action of kindness that made you look like Christ in their eyes.

That is what we are to do. We are to be Christ like in our actions and to be motivated by love for Go and love for our neighbors. This may sound squishy , but Jesus said no greater love is there than a brother would lay down his life for another That implies there is a fight going on and you need to put yourself in harms way for that other person.

It may be that the fight is internal and just gets you out of your comfort zone of being a Rambo, the guy or woman who just fights for himself, by himself. It is much harder to become part of the larger picture and come together and work with others.

Conclusion

How do we defend ourselves and others? We should be on the lookout for wear we can help, but also make sure we do not get overextended. One person or one church can’t do it all. We can specialize and if each church does so, then all the bases will be covered.

Jesus Defended us from God’s Wrath. He gave His life for us. He stood And wen he did so, he did these things.

Prayer and Fasting—Esther prayed and fasted to see what God wanted her to do. Check with the Boss.

Act—This could be helping if it is possible or it could be donating money to a larger organization the SBC has the disaster relief team that goes out to places. If you are the one in need of help, you should Ask others. That is perhaps the biggest action

Mobilize others—Get others to do the same things. We saw Esther ask her people to do the same thing.,pray and fast. There is a saying: Many hands make light work. Remember the Word problems from school? If two people take 10 hours to paint a house how long would it take four people to paint the same house? It should be 5 hours right? You double the workers so it should cut the time in half.

Pray for the church in the World, especially the Afghan church right now. It was already the second most dangerous place to be a Christian before this week.

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