Sermon Tone Analysis

Good Morning Emmanuel Family!

We are so glad you are here today.

There is an account of God’s people, the Israelites, in Exodus 31-33 when Moses is up on Mt.

Sinai meeting with God receiving the ten commandments.

Receives 2 tablets written with the finger of God...

Moses was taking too long

People make golden calf

God cuts the meeting short

Moses descends and finds the people worshipping this idol

As the story unfolds in 33 - God says get your stuff and go to the land I promised you

The land is awesome

You will have everything you need

But I am not going with you

The people mourn, and Moses replies with these words:

In essence, Moses says, “We don’t want your stuff, if we can’t have you!”

“Your blessings aren’t enough, we want to know your presence.”

“We want your presence, more than your presents.”

How very different is that from our present attitude often, right?

We often want God’s blessings, and are ok if He just stays out of every thing else.

Health, wealth, happiness - Great.

God leave the way I live in those blessings alone.

Moses is articulating an amazing, yet convicting, truth here.

Moses desired God’s eternal companionship more than his own temporary comforts.

Even if he had all of his needs met in the land of promised plenty, there would still be a void without God.

Have you ever been there?

You are surrounded with people, but feel all alone.

You are going through the motions of religion, but a relationship with your Creator is missing?

You are experiencing hardship, and as you pray it seems like your prayers are bouncing off the ceiling?

You are trying to do what is right, but nothing seems to be working out...

We tend to begin to question, right!?!

Where is God?

Does He not know what is going on right now?

Does He even care?

This morning we start a five week series in the book of Esther.

And throughout the book of Esther, we notice something very strange - it never mentions God.

This is why we have titled this series, Where is God…

If you would like to join me there.

It is in the OT, so if you open your bible in the center, you will likely land somewhere in Psalms.

If you go backward, toward the front, two books, you will land in Esther.

Historically we break the OT into 5 groups:

1. Law (Genesis - Deuteronomy)

2. History (Joshua - Esther)

3. Poetry (Job-Song of Solomon)

4. Major Prophets (Isaiah-Daniel)

5. Minor Prophets (Hosea-Malachi)

Over the next 5 weeks we are going to be pulling out the final book in the section of History, the book of Esther.

The Setting of the Book

Esther is a fascinating book, for many reasons, but as I mentioned earlier, it never mentions the name God.

In fact, many people early on struggled to accept the book as canon in both the Christian Scriptures and in the Hebrew Scriptures (Tanakh).

Esther never mentions God.

There is much moral promiscuity.

There is a questionable festival not prescribed in the Pentateuch.

And the vengeful attitude that surrounds the book has been offensive to some.

Even as late as the Reformation, Martin Luther said the book was too aggressively Jewish and had no Gospel content.

However, long before Christ, the jewish community recognized it as belonging with the other holy scriptures of the OT.

The historian Josephus viewed it as the last book to be written in the Jewish Canon.

The jewish scholar Aquila included it in his translation in AD 130.

It was widely held as canon, within the Christian church, long before the council of Carthage in 397 AD.

AUTHOR

The book is written anonymously - although some believe it was Mordecai (the cousin of Esther) who wrote the book.

DATE

The setting of the book is around 486-464 BC. during the reign of (Ahazu-erus - English) (Ahash-ve-rosh - Hebrew), (Xerxes - NIV).

This takes place about 100 years after the Babylonian exile when Persia replaced Babylon as the ruling power.

As Ezra and Nehemiah inform us, many of the Jews who were taken captive during the Babylonian Captivity had returned to Jerusalem.

But some remained back from returning - the story of Esther includes some of those who stayed back.

CHARACTERS

King Xerxes, Former Queen Vashti, Haman, Queen Esther, Mordecai

PURPOSE

It is a narrative book in the line of Jewish History and explains the origin of the Feast of Purim - which is derived from the persian word “pur” meaning lot - which is tied to Haman casting a lot (rolling dice) to determine the day to carry out his plan to exterminate the Jews.

To help us better understand the big picture, we will take some time this morning to watch the introduction video to Esther by the Bible Project:

Watch Video

That is the setting of the next five weeks.

Much like a play that divides a story into scenes, we have chosen to look at this story in five scenes that surround questions of God’s presence in various situations.

Chapter 1-2 - Where is God when those in charge are wrong?

Chapter 3 - Where is God when evil surrounds me?

Chapter 4 - Where is God when trusting Him is hard?

Chapters 5-8:2 - Where is God when wrong is called right?

Chapters 8:3-10 - Where is God when I need rescued?

Now, as we begin this study we look to:

The Opening Scene

Now, we aren’t going to take the time to read both chapters.

I want to encourage you to do that before you come on Sunday.

But we will recap and look at key points each week.

And in Scene 1, of chapters 1-2 this is what we see:

King Xerxes (Ahasu-erus) who rules 127 provinces (we will look at that significance here in a moment)

The king sets up a huge party for 180 days with all sorts of important people to show off how awesome he is.

The queen at the time throws her own party - and is presumably having a great time too.

About 7 days in, after the king had drank too much, he instructed Queen Vashti to leave her party and come to his, so that he could show off how pretty she was to all his friends

If you raised your kids on veggie tales, I know it’s hard to imagine the bible stories outside of that poetic liscence - but the Bible is a little different than the cartoon.

If you haven’t seen it, the king asks vashti to make him a sandwich - thats a little easier for kids to get than the beauty contest and debachery that was really happening.

Regardless, vashti refuses and the king gets really mad

The king and his bad advisors are concerned that all wives will refuse to submit to their , the king signs an edict into law to banish Vashti and that all woman are to honor their husbands.

Nothing like an edict to command love and affection, right?…

So the king signs the law, vashti is banished and a new plan is put in place to find a good submissive queen.

Actually, the king settles down and misses Vashti and to abate his depression, his workers devise a plan to bring in a bunch of prospective queens.

Now, I said it before, but Esther is not a book on good moral conduct to follow.

The crazy drunkenness, rage, defiance, and promiscuity that follow are not things that should be condoned.

However, God works His plans and promises in spite of terribly immoral things that sinners do.

Back to the Story...

They mail letters to every province, that all the beautiful young ladies who aren’t yet married are to come to the king’s palace.