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It Is Written

Great Characters of the Bible

John Bradshaw

Great Characters of the Bible: Isaac

Great Characters of the Bible: Abraham

Great Characters of the Bible: Esther

Coming up next, please stay tuned for It Is Written, presented by Pastor John Bradshaw.

If you started in Sardis, 1 of the 7 churches of Revelation, and traveled 1, 550 or so miles east along the ancient Royal Road, you'd run right into the ruins of the palace of Xerxes the Great.

It was built by his father Darius in a place the Bible calls Shushan.

And it was there that an incredibly bold appeal was made which saved the lives of an entire people group destined for destruction.

An appeal made by a woman who was without doubt 1 of the great characters of the Bible.

Her name was Hadassah, but she's better known by the book that bears her name, Esther, which means a star.

Anyone responsible for saving an entire race of people is Definitely a star.

Today we remember people like Oscar Schindler and John Widener, each of whom saved hundreds of people destined for destruction during the Holocaust.

But for all of Esther's heroism, the book of Esther presents us with some challenging questions.

A young Jewish girl marries a heathen king.

The man she marries doesn't even know her religion.

After her parents died, Esther was raised by her older cousin, Mordecai.

She is volunteered, presumably, to audition to be the wife of the king.

Uncle Mordecai then plunges his people, every Jew in the Medo-Persian Empire, into an existential crisis due to his stubborn refusal to bow before a high-ranking government official.

Add to that the bizarre possibility that even The Queen could be put to death simply for entering the presence of her own husband unannounced.

And you've got a book in the Bible that raises a lot of questions.

The story of Esther takes place during the time of the reign of the Medo-Persian Empire.

The king is Ahasuerus, out of Xerxes, Xerxes the Great from history.

But before the end of the second chapter of the book, Esther is the queen of a great empire.

Yet we can't focus on Esther without first thinking about her predecessor, a woman named Vashti.

The book of Esther begins by recounting the greatness of the king, who reigned over 127 provinces from India to Ethiopia.

Then you read about his throne, his palace, the extravagant feast he held for the rulers of the empire, A feast which lasted for 6 months, and right after that, another feast for the men in the palace which lasted a week.

Then the Bible mentions the curtains in the palace, or the awnings.

It speaks of gold and silver and marble, beds of gold and silver, cups made of gold, every golden cup unique, and royal wine in abundance." Interpretation?

And while Ahasuerus Xerxes was holding a week-long feast for the men, Vashti the queen was hosting a feast for the women.

On the final day of the feast, the king sent 7 of his servants to bring Vashti the queen so she could show the people and the princes her beauty.

He and his people are drinking out of gold cups.

And he doesn't send a messenger to bring Vashti.

This was a command coming from the most powerful man on earth.

She was to show her beauty to the people and the officials, for she was beautiful to behold.

Now, there's been plenty of speculation as to just what show her beauty to the people and the officials means.

And it seems as though it means, show the people and the princess her beauty.

There's nothing in the text that indicates it was anything more than that.

But the Bible points out that she was beautiful.

The king was drunk and the guests had been drinking for a week and among them were commoners.

These weren't just nobles and high-end officials.

Vashti was being asked or told to make herself an object of fascination or desire for a bunch of drunk men.

And if she consented to this, she'd have been telling the women that they should tolerate being objectified.

Esther 1 verse 12 says, But the queen Vashti refused.

She knew her husband could kill people for showing up in his presence unannounced.

She knew he was the kind of man who would greenlight the destruction of an entire race of people on the say-so of his right-hand man.

Vashti knew that this was high-stakes stuff, yet she valued her dignity, her self-respect, even more than she valued her position as queen.

Vashti's integrity ended up costing her everything.

Dismissed from being queen, she no longer had any position in the empire and she became completely anonymous.

You know, today there's no end of people willing to sell or even give away their dignity and self-respect, often for nothing more than the opportunity to be noticed.

But Vashti, not a Christian, likely a Zoroastrian like her husband, gave a principal demonstration of dignity and defiance.

So with Vashti being dethroned, the king needs a new queen and tryouts are scheduled.

Women from all over the kingdom travel to Shushan to audition for the role and a perplexing question arises.

Why would Esther's cousin Mordecai not protest at the idea of Esther being caught up in what was actually a pretty unseemly thing?

Now, the man in charge of the would-be queens was impressed with Esther, not only with her beauty, she's described as fair and beautiful, but it seems her humility also.

The king loved Esther more than all the other women, and she obtained grace and favor in his sight more than all the virgins.

So he set the royal crown upon her head and made her queen instead of Vashti.

And yet, he didn't know Esther was a Jew.

A God-fearing Jewish girl marries a heathen king, which is troubling enough, and keeps her religion a secret because her older cousin Mordecai told her to.

The crisis the Jews in this vast kingdom were thrust into was precipitated by Mordecai's...

This is Esther 3 verse 2, Now, this wasn't a question of worship.

Mordecai wasn't being asked to acknowledge Haman, who was 1 of the king's top officials, as God.

Even though Haman was definitely an objectionable creature, you can't fail to follow protocol just because you don't like someone.

Mordecai was even prodded by other people to fall in line.

Then the king's servants who were within the king's gates said to Mordecai, Why do you transgress the king's command?

Haman was an Agagite, possibly a descendant of Agag, the Amalekite king God had ordered King Saul to destroy.

King Saul, who like Mordecai was from the tribe of Benjamin, failed to kill Agag, leaving the unpleasant task to the Prophet himself.

So there may have been history there, maybe.

What we do know is that Mordecai refused to show the respect Haman was to receive in his role as a high-ranking bureaucrat in the Medo-Persian government.

There was no spiritual or scriptural reason for Mordecai not to bow down.

He was playing with fire, and he was about to find that out.

So, what we're seeing is that the Bible isn't the story of perfect people doing things perfectly.

David was a philandering murderer, his reign as king marked by some spectacular missteps.

Rahab had a colorful past before she became a direct ancestor of your Savior.

Solomon earned a virtual PhD in immorality.

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Great Characters of the Bible

Great Characters of the Bible: Esther

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Great Characters of the Bible: Isaac

28m

Great Characters of the Bible: Abraham

28m

Great Characters of the Bible: Esther

28m

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