Today we start on a whole new journey together
into the Old Testament. And so over the next,
I don't even know how many months, because I
never know. That's up to the Lord. We're going
to be studying years. No, not years, I promise.
But we're going to be studying the book of Esther.
And I think it's going to be an engaging series
because Esther has so many interesting features
to it. First and foremost, it is a very historical
book. filled with ancient Near East personalities
and cultures. It is deeply rooted in archaeology,
which we'll see some of those images today. Esther
is also a very controversial book, whether you
knew that or not. In fact, multiple controversies
abound over this particular book. For example,
why is there no mention of God anywhere in the
text of Esther? Does it belong in the Old Testament
canon? Some have questioned that. Is it more
apocryphal than it is inspired? And then what
about its main characters? They're Jewish, but
are they practicing Jews or are they secular
Jews? That's an important question. Why are they
living in a foreign land when they could have
gone back to the promised land? So a lot of questions.
We're going to explore all of them throughout
the series. So much for us to learn primarily
about. how God is always at work behind the scenes.
That is really the big idea of Esther. God is
always at work behind the scenes, guiding all
of human history, including our lives, not just
the big people that we like to think of, but
the little people like us, guiding our lives
for his glory and for his purposes. And sometimes
God's hand is involved in just the ordinary moments
of life, and sometimes... right at the moment
of big life decisions. That's why you see the
subtitle we gave to this series is God's Providence
in Dark Times. Now, we chose that word providence
for a reason. We often talk about sovereignty
here at Oak Hill. And rightfully so, because
God is sovereign. But for this series, we felt
like providence was a better fit, and I'll tell
you why. When we think about sovereignty, sovereignty
is defined as God's absolute right and power
to do all that he purposes to do. Let me say
it again. God's absolute right and power to do
all that he purposes to do. He has supreme authority
and control over all of creation and over all
creatures. And he has the sole right to govern
our world and deal with humanity as he pleases.
And of course, nothing down here on earth happens
outside of his will. We're going to see that
clearly in the book of Esther. So why use the
term providence? Because providence is about
how God exercises that power. How he accomplishes
all that he purposes to do in a wise, purposeful,
and caring way. In other words, when we talk
about providence, we're talking about the Lord's
active guiding of all things in our lives towards
the end of all things that he has decreed. And
he does that. He is sovereign. He is providential
for two reasons that we talk about all the time
at Oak Hill. First of all, for his own glory.
And second of all, for the good of his people.
That's why he does this. And that means we can
be assured as believers that God's plans are
not just supreme and sovereign, but they're also
good and loving. Amen? That's an important foundational
truth that we need to trust. Yes, God is sovereign,
he's powerful, and he does all that he pleases,
but he's also good and loving and caring for
his people. Now, we're going to ease into the
study this morning. What I'm going to try to
do is introduce you to the main characters of
the story of Esther as they are introduced to
us in the text. Today is all about the main character,
the main human character, God is the main character,
the main human character who is the Persian king.
He is the one mentioned most often in the book
of Esther. And then in the following weeks, we're
going to get to know the other main characters,
Esther and Mordecai and Haman. And we boo when
Haman comes up, right? Boo, right. We'll get
to that as well. So Esther is historical. It's
controversial. And the last thing I'll say about
the book of Esther is it's a crisis book. It's
been called a crisis book. As the story unfolds,
it moves from crisis. to crisis, to crisis. So
throughout the series, I'm going to keep coming
back to a couple key themes. First of all, do
you see God's providential hand in each one of
these crises that comes up? Do you see how God
is at work? From a human perspective, it looks
dark. It looks difficult. But God is always at
work. Can you see how he's at work? Second of
all, I want you to put yourself into the story,
slip on those ancient sandals, if you will, and
ask the question in each of these crises, how
would I have responded to this? Would my faith
have held up in the midst of what these characters
are going through? Okay, so we're probably going
to start where you expected me to start, and
that is with timelines and maps. That is coming.
I want to say, anybody who's visiting or newer
to Oak Hill, this is an unusual message, doing
an introductory sermon like this. I'm going to
give you a fire hydrant of information. about
the backdrop of this book. But what I'm trying
to do is set the stage so that we can understand
it more and more as we go along. So I appreciate
your grace on that. Here's the thing we'll all
start with. I have found over the years that
very few Christians are truly aware of the importance
of the Persian kings in the life of the Jewish
people. We tend to know something about the Assyrians.
We've heard the word Assyria. We know a little
bit more about Babylon and the name Nebuchadnezzar
that comes up. But a lot of us are fuzzy about
the Persians. So we're going to start this morning
with a couple of important timelines that are
going to look a little bit like this as my clicker
starts to work. Here it comes. And there it is.
Okay, good. Fantastic. I want to start with an
overview of the succession of empires that ruled
the ancient Near East back in this time, including
the Jewish people, including the land of Israel.
From the late 10th century BC all the way to
the 7th century BC, it was the Assyrians who
dominated the region. And you see there on the
screen that this period aligns with biblical
history. Those are just some of the Old Testament
books that correspond with the period of Assyrian
rule. power. Probably the most to recognize there,
the prophecy of Isaiah, and of course, the book
of Jonah, directly related to the Assyrians.
But then in 609 BC, we have the Babylonians come
on the scene. Now, not Nebuchadnezzar yet. His
father, great name, Nabopolassar, is the one
who rolls in and brings down the mighty Assyrians.
And the Babylonians had a strong run under the
leadership of Nebuchadnezzar. Remember, he was
the king who invades Israel, destroys Solomon's
temple in 586, and takes the Jewish people captive
into exile. So the Babylonians have a short reign,
but a very... very important reign in the history
of the Jewish people. And you see three important
Old Testament books there that correspond with
the Babylonian exile, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and
Daniel. But unfortunately for Nebuchadnezzar,
Babylonian dominance doesn't last long, primarily
because his descendants, the guys who come after
him, are absolutely useless as kings. And so
in 539, we have another shift in the dominant
region. in the area, and that is the Persians.
In 539 BC, Babylon is conquered by Cyrus, who
is the king of the Medes and the Persians, and
he is the man. So Nebuchadnezzar took the Jews
into exile. It's Cyrus, king of the Medes and
Persians, who are going to send the Jews back
to the land. And because of that, you see a list
of what we call the post -exilic books that are
up there, the post -exilic writings, including
at the top, you see Esther. One of the post -exilic
books of the Old Testament. Now, the great Persian
empire started by Cyrus lasts over 200 years
until a guy by the name of Alexander the Great
swept through the ancient Near East and turned
everything in that part of the world Greek. But
his life was short, 33 years. And when he died,
his kingdom was divided up and weakened. And
eventually, who came next? New Testament, right?
The Romans. The Romans began to expand into the
east and around the year 150 BC, they conquered
the last vestige of Greek power. And eventually
the Romans then rolled into the Holy Land in
the year 63 BC when they conquered the city of
Jerusalem about 60 years before the incarnation
of Christ. So that's just a really quick, that
is the overview from 30 ,000 feet so that you
can see how God has put these empires in place,
ruling over the Jewish people, some for their
detriment, some for their good. And we'll get
to that as we go along. What I want to do next
is zoom in on the Persian Empire to see where
the book of Esther fits into the timeline and
where Esther fits into the history of the Persian
kings. And there's a purpose behind this, so
hang with me. First, before the Persians arrive
on the scene, go back in your mind to the time
of the Babylonians. Recall that Judah was invaded
by Nebuchadnezzar in a series of three waves
of attacks. But it's the year 605 when Daniel
and his friends and other Jews are first taken
into captivity and shipped out to Babylon. Eight
years after that, Ezekiel is taken captive, along
with 10 ,000 other Jews, and they also are exiled
and carried away. The third attack happens in
586. That's when Nebuchadnezzar destroys Solomon's
temple. Just a heartbreaking moment in Jewish
history. Solomon's glorious temple leveled by
the Babylonians. They're in Babylon now with
all these people carried away. The Jews were
forced to build new lives for themselves and
their families. And we know from history and
archaeology that the Jews in exile built homes
and they engaged in businesses and they began
to meet in synagogues. And recalling that Jeremiah
had prophesied very specifically that they would
be in exile for how long? 70 years, faithful
Jews. and waited for their deliverance to come.
And how was the Lord going to restore his people
to the land? It would have looked hopeless back
in that day, but that's where the Persian kings
come into play. And the first one we have to
talk about is Cyrus the Great. He's a very important
character. Look, I found pictures of him. Isn't
this great? No, you know, artists are getting
better and better. They look at physical descriptions
from historians. They look at... portraits that
are found in palaces and such, and they can begin
to sort of put together at least some type of
an image of what these guys would have been like.
If I showed you a palace relief from 600 BC,
that wouldn't help you bring these guys to life.
And I think these images actually bring them
to life so you can see what they would have looked
like, at least partially. Now, if you look at
this and you roll your eyes, you're tempted to
think, well, why do I need to know about Persian
history? What you have to know is all three of
these guys are, are you ready for it? Biblical
characters. All three of them are found in your
Bibles sitting in your lap. Not Jews, not worshipers
of Yahweh, pagan men that God used mightily to
accomplish his sovereign purposes in the life
of his people, which is amazing. Now, the king
at the center of the book of Esther is the third
guy you see up there. His name is Xerxes I. But
before we can talk about Xerxes, you have to
talk about his much more famous predecessors.
Both the guys on the left in the middle are known
as greats. Just as we have Alexander the Great,
we have Cyrus the Great, and we have Darius the
Great. Both of them sort of earn that reputation
based on what they do. They are at the top of
a dynasty of Persian kings we call the Achaemenids.
If you know anybody today who is Iranian, they
will talk about their pride in the Achaemenid
dynasty. This was really the height of Persian
power and Persian influence in the world. So
this is one family line that ruled over the Persian
Empire from the 7th to the 4th century, right
up until the time of Alexander the Great, who
is the man who will extinguish the final Persian
king. So Cyrus. His name in Old Persian was Kouros,
which was translated into Hebrew as Koresh, then
into Greek as Kouros, Latin in Kairos, and then
in English, Cyrus. So if you've ever wondered,
where do we get these funny names? They're all
transliterated through all of these languages,
and so we call him Cyrus. Nobody back then would
have called him Cyrus, but that's okay. We can
get past that. He rises to prominence in the
year 559 B .C. And through marriage and military
conquest, he is able to unite two ancient, powerful
kingdoms, the Medes and the Persians. And he
spends two decades building his kingdom and his
armies, but he's got an eye towards a particular
kingdom to his west, the Babylonians. And in
539, he marches his army across the Tigris River
to attack the Babylonians. And he takes them
down relatively easily. Why? Because, again,
the neglectful leadership of the kings of Babylon
at this time. And, in fact, this was God's plan.
Daniel, in his prophecy, tells us about the story
of Babylon's fall. How many of you guys remember
the story of the handwriting on the wall? This
is when this takes place. So while King Belshazzar
of Babylon is hosting this drunken party for
his nobles on the final night of his life, he
was being betrayed by people within his own city.
And at that party, God announces through Daniel
exactly how Belshazzar is about to die. This
is what it writes. This is just a survey of Daniel
5. It says, you have not humbled your heart.
King Belshazzar, you have exalted yourself against
the Lord of heaven and God has numbered your
kingdom and put an end to it. That is not the
news you want to hear at a party. You have been
weighed on the scales and found deficient and
your kingdom has been divided and given over
to the Medes and the Persians. So Daniel tells
them exactly what's about to happen. And that
very night, Persian soldiers come in, they slaughter
him and his guests at the palace. and they take
hold of the capital city of Babylon. The Babylonian
empire is no more. And the people welcome Cyrus
as a man who is a much better leader. They're
frustrated with their own king, so they throw
the gates open to the Persians and say, please
govern us. What's interesting is not only does
Scripture tell us this story, that it's true,
but the facts are recorded on court records.
of King Cyrus himself. In fact, this very famous
artifact is called the Cyrus Cylinder. It's in
the British Museum today. It was dug up in 1879.
And in the court records, they tell the same
story that Daniel tells in his prophecy in Daniel
chapter 5. And that's Akkadian. I'm sure everybody
can read it, right? But there are actually people
that can read ancient Akkadian. He tells the
same story about how he took the city. Fascinating.
Now, here's what makes Cyrus stand out as such
an important character in the biblical narrative.
For his day, Cyrus is a very different kind of
king. The empires that went before him, the Babylonians,
the Assyrians, they had a reputation. When they
took a city, they just... They scraped it. They
washed, they just conquered everything. They
destroyed things. They took the population, made
them slaves, shipped them out of the cities.
Awful, awful. You read the stories of the Assyrians,
the most brutal people you can imagine. But Cyrus
does not have that same mindset. He wants to
rule his empire in a different way. So over time,
he proves to be not just a very successful general
and warlord, he was, but also a man who knew
how to win the peace. and how to make his subjects
happy. And one of the previously conquered people
groups who benefited from Cyrus' benevolence
was the Jews. Now, when Babylon fell, they fell
under the jurisdiction of the new Persian king.
And this Persian king decided to send the Jews
back to the land. How long had they been in exile?
Not quite 70 years, but if you look at the math,
from the year that the temple fell to the year
that it's rebuilt, Exactly 70 years. 586 to 516.
70 years without a temple is basically how it
played out. So in the year 538, going back to
our timeline, 538, Cyrus issues a royal decree
that gave the Jews permission to go back to their
land, to go back and rebuild Jerusalem, which
had been destroyed, and to rebuild their temple.
And for that reason, Cyrus is prominently mentioned
in the pages of the Old Testament. His name appears
20 times in the scriptures. He's even called,
you ready for this, a Mashiach. Cyrus, an unbeliever,
is called God's anointed servant in the book
of Isaiah because of this role that God had marked
out for him. To basically save the Jewish people,
to send them back to the Holy Land. I'll give
you the passages. This is from Isaiah 44. Thus
says the Lord, your Redeemer, I the Lord and
the maker of all things, stretching out the heavens
by myself and spreading out the earth all alone.
It is I who says of Cyrus, he is my shepherd
and he will perform all my desire. And he declares
of Jerusalem, she will be built and of the temple,
your foundation will be laid. God's sovereignty
working through Cyrus. And then here's the passage
I referenced from Isaiah 45. Thus says the Lord
to Cyrus, his anointed, whom I have taken by
the right hand. To do what? To subdue nations
before him and to loose the loins of kings. To
open doors before him so that gates will not
be shut. I will go before you and make the rough
places smooth. I will shatter the doors of bronze
and cut through their iron bars. That's what
God did for Cyrus in making a way for him to
come in and easily conquer the Babylonian empire
and free the Jewish people. He goes on, I will
give you the treasures of darkness and hidden
wealth of secret places so that you may know
that it is I, the Lord, the God of. Israel, not
Babylon, not Persia, the God of Israel, who calls
you by your name for the sake of Jacob, that's
Israel, my servant, and Israel, my chosen one,
I have also called you by your name. Now look
at this. I have given you a title of honor, though
you have not known me. He says this to Cyrus.
Do you hear in all of that the sovereignty of
God, even using an unbelieving king? To accomplish
his purposes. Sovereign over all historical events.
Using kings that don't worship him. Amazing.
And so Cyrus becomes this chosen tool in Yahweh's
hand to free his people from exile in Babylon
and to get back to the homeland. And we know
that right away in 538, a first wave of Jews
took advantage of Cyrus's decree and they went
back to the land under the leadership of a man
named Zerubbabel. Okay, now. This is key to understand
in terms of the book of Esther. The vast majority
of Jews chose not to go back to the Holy Land,
but to stay behind in the places where they had
built lives, in Babylon, in Persia. Now, why
would they make that choice? Again, this is one
of those moments where you've got to slip on
some ancient sandals. Why would they not go back?
You just got permission from the king to go back
to Israel. Why would you not go back? Well, first
of all, It's interesting, Jeremiah had told the
exiles to settle into life in exile. This is
what Jeremiah said. He said to them, to the exiles,
build houses and live in them. Plant gardens
and eat their produce. Take wives and become
the fathers of sons and daughters. Multiply there
in Babylon and do not decrease. Seek the welfare
of the city where I have sent you into exile.
and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its
welfare you will have welfare. So the Jews became
a diaspora, a dispersed people, and many found
success and contentment in their new lives. So
when the call came that, hey, you can go back
to Israel, a lot of them said, no thanks, including
Esther. Including Esther. More on that next week.
The other reason was quite practical. Going back
to the land was going to be really, really hard.
It had been wiped out and squatters had moved
in. And so you had to go back and rebuild homes
and rebuild the city and try to rebuild a temple.
It is a monumental feat. And so if you were going
to go back to the land with Zerubbabel in 538
BC, you were signing up for hardship, for suffering
and possible death. So in a practical sense,
you could sort of see why they would say, you
know what? I'm good here in Babylon. I'm good
here in Persia. No, thank you. I'm not excusing
it, by the way. I'm just giving you the practical
application of it. So after the death of Cyrus,
who had done all this great work on behalf of
the Jews, he had a son named Cambyses who had
a very short reign. He died in a riding accident,
and that brought our second king to the throne,
and his name is Darius. Darius comes to power
in 522. His old Persian name is Darius. And he
is known for being not so much the general that
Cyrus was, but being a master of planning and
vision and administration. Darius is the king
who expands the empire to its greatest limits,
its greatest size. He's the one who builds all
the great palaces at Susa and Persepolis. He
builds a canal in Egypt that connects the Nile
River to the Red Sea. He's known for... organizing
his kingdom into taxable provinces and increasing
the treasury of Persia. He standardizes coins
and weights and measures. Tons of study done
about what a good governor Darius was in his
day. Now, Darius is also prominent in the Old
Testament. He is mentioned 16 times in the scriptures,
10 of which are found in the book of Ezra, where
he is spoken of very favorably. Now, think about
the story. You guys know something about the
Jews coming back to the land. Those Jews had
come back with Zerubbabel or Zerubbabel. Zerubbabel?
Zerubbabel? It's Zerubbabel. And it's Darius.
But anyway, we don't know. Okay. These names,
the names. Oh, my goodness. Okay, I need, yeah,
I need Yael's help with some of the names. See
me afterwards. Okay. So the Jews who had gone
back to the land, they now faced opposition in
their attempts to rebuild the temple. Remember
all the surrounding people groups, the squatters
who moved in? All kinds of opposition. And when
the enemies of the Jews saw that they were building
their temple, they wanted them to stop. And the
Jews were like, we're not stopping. And so these
people groups appealed to King Darius and said,
make them stop. They don't belong here. Do you
guys remember what Darius did? He decided in
response to this appeal from the enemies of the
Jews to search the royal archives to see what
he should do. He was a great governor. He searched
the royal archives and guess what he found there?
By the way, this is all in the book of Ezra.
What did he find? He found the decree of Cyrus
that gave the Jews permission to go back to the
land to rebuild the city and rebuild the temple.
And he said, sorry, it's a matter of law. And
he came to the support of the Jewish people.
King Darius issued a decree of his own, commanded
all those enemies of Israel who were opposing
them to stop interfering and to let the temple
progress. Let them build it on the original site.
Not only that. Darius reached into his own imperial
treasury, gave money to the Jews to help them
build it, and told all those people that were
getting in the way that they needed to supply
whatever the Jews needed to finish the temple.
And by the way, if you don't, if you don't follow
my decree, I will either kill you or take away
your property. Now, again, this is a Persian
king coming to the rescue of the Jewish people
in order to get the city built and to get the
temple built. Are you getting the picture here?
Two Persian kings, not followers of Yahweh, yet
being used by Yahweh to bless his people in extraordinary
ways. You would not expect a king like Darius
to act as he did unless God were sovereign. Amen?
Now, as we come into the next chapter, we do
have to talk about the one giant black mark on
Darius' record. He ruled for 20 years, very successful
rule. And then something weird happened. A revolt
took place on the western edge of his empire
in the land of Asia Minor. So first map, here
we go. So first of all, all that sort of light
green area, that's the Persian Empire. That's
how big it is. And just for references, you've
got the blue dot is Jerusalem. The red dot is
Susa, which is... Darius' palace, which we'll
come back to. But on the far western edge of
his empire is Asia Minor, and the blue boundary
there are the Greek city -states. Athens, Sparta,
Macedonia, all those Greeks at Thebes, all those
city -states, right? On the far edge of the Persian
Empire. Now, Greece is the next nation to the
west. They're not part of the Persian Empire.
But on the other side of the Aegean, on the coast
of Asia Minor, Those are primarily Greeks living
under Persian rule. We call them Ionians. The
Ionian Greeks living under Persian rule. And
those Greeks living in the Persian Empire revolt
against Darius in the year 499. And in particular,
the purple dot, which is the Persian city of
Sardis, that's where the center of the revolt
is, and they burn that city. Now, that makes
Darius very, very angry. He's greatly angered
by this revolt. Any revolt against the king of
Persia is the revolt against basically the order
of the world. How dare you? And then Darius finds
out something interesting. Guess who supported
the revolt in Asia Minor? The Athenians from
across the sea. This Greek city -state had the
hubris to come and sponsor militarily and financially
a revolt against the great king. And Darius committed
to absolutely punishing the Athenians for daring
to be insolent towards the great king of Persia.
So, in the year 492, Darius says he puts together
a fleet with troops and he sails towards Greece.
with the plan of punishing the Athenians, but
a storm hits and he loses most of his ships.
It's an absolute failure. Now he's even more
angry. Two years later, he sends another fleet
with more troops to try it again. This time they
land, the army and the troops, they unload on
the coast of Greece and almost immediately they
are met by a Greek army and they are routed at
a very famous battle, the Battle of... The Battle
of Marathon. The Persians sail all the way to
the edge of their empire and are humiliated,
embarrassed by a ragtag army of Greek hoplites.
Well, Darius isn't going to live much longer.
He's not going to live much longer. He's not
able to exact his revenge. And he sort of dies
as a disillusioned, angry king. And he leaves
it to his son, Xerxes. to pick up that revenge
against the Greeks. So it's going to be left
to Xerxes. So 486, Darius dies. He was 64 at
the time, sort of a bitter old man. He had done
so well, helped the Jews in so many ways, but
died with this anger at the Greeks. So we come
to Xerxes now. Now, we need to stop for a second.
We need to talk about there's a name situation
here in the Old Testament scriptures. The name
Xerxes is not found anywhere in your English
Bibles, but the man himself is. So we need to
talk about this. The name of the king in the
book of Esther is the name you see there at the
top, okay? But that name has gone through a long
list of transliterations. So there's this old
Persian name. I don't even know how to pronounce
it. Don't ask me. But ancient Near East scholars
tell us that that word in Persian means ruler
over all men. Then we have a Babylonian name
that gets translated into Hebrew and then into
Latin. And somehow, and I can't even trace this
down, how in Greek it comes down to us as Xerxes.
Everybody get that? You don't have to. All I'm
telling you is, as I read the text, I'm going
to use the Hebrew pronunciation of the name because
I think it's the best way to do it. I may get
frustrated and just say Xerxes. Is that okay?
Okay, good. All right, let's go back to our timeline.
So Xerxes comes to power in the year 486. He's
a fairly young man at the time. He's 32 years
old. Younger than Adam. And Grant. And most of
our elders. Anyway, 32 years old. And you're
in charge of this massive empire, right? Now,
according to Herodotus, anybody read Herodotus
in college? Okay. the father of history, we call
him, this Greek historian who writes extensively
on the Persians. He says that Xerxes was so handsome
that there was no man his equal in that generation
of Persia. But, he says, in spite of what he
looks like on the outside, Xerxes was a deeply
flawed man. And we're going to see this in the
book of Esther. He was known for being ambitious
and impulsive. Very irrational at times, cruel
towards his enemies, a man with a short temper,
a man with a huge sexual appetite, and an absolute
love for drinking and banquets. Most of the book
of Esther is a bunch of banquets and feasts.
We're going to see that. History tells us he
didn't measure up to the brilliance of either
Cyrus or Darius. Yes, he was formidable in the
sense that he wielded so much power. But the
record shows that he loved parties and adventure
and harem intrigues more than he really cared
about governing the empire, which sounds like
a lot of our presidents. But anyway, I digress.
So when he first comes to power, he immediately
has to deal with two rebellions in his empire.
Remember, the world was watching when his father
Darius got whooped by the Greeks. And so now
there's a revolt in Egypt and there's a revolt
in Babylon. And Xerxes has to put those down
and he puts them down with absolute brutal force,
very different from his father. He wanted to
show his subjects that you cannot rebel against
the Persian empire. Herodotus tells us that Xerxes
punished the Babylonians by absolutely wreaking
havoc, destroying the city of Babylon, pulling
down its walls, pulling down its temples, its
statues, stealing the treasury for himself. And
without even realizing it, Xerxes was fulfilling
a prophecy in the book of Isaiah. In Isaiah 13,
it says, Babylon, the beauty of kingdoms, the
glory of the Chaldeans' pride, will be as when
God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah. It will never
be inhabited or lived in from generation to generation,
nor will the Arab pitches tent there, nor will
shepherds make their flocks lie down there. Have
you seen Babylon these days? It still looks like
that. And so basically Babylon got its recompense
for what it had done to the Jewish people. They
got paid back for the way Jerusalem was destroyed,
the way the temple was leveled. And once again,
God used this awful pagan man Xerxes to carry
out his purposes as prophesied by Isaiah. Amazing.
Now, in general, what is Xerxes most known for?
How many of you guys saw the movie 300? Trash.
Just so bad. There's a kernel of truth to the
history, but trash. Just so frustrating for anybody
that knows the story. But in 480 BC, so Xerxes
has been in power for six years now. He finally
has time to turn his attention to getting revenge
against the Greeks. He is on a mission to honor
the legacy of his father and to get revenge against
the Greeks. And so to do so, he puts together
Even to this day, one of the most stunning military
operations ever seen in the world. He marches
somewhere around 300 ,000 soldiers all the way
across his empire to invade Greece. It's amazing.
I don't have time to walk through all the details,
but I'll give you a couple things you may have
heard about. First of all, he had to get all
those soldiers across what's known as the Hellespont.
which is, or the Dardanelles, which is this body
of water between Asia Minor and Greece. And he
was able to do that to get us supplies and hundreds
of thousands of troops across the Hellespont.
Never been done in the history of the ancient
world. And then, remember, you guys know the
story, he gets bogged down at the pass of Thermopylae
when he's confronted by King Leonidas of Sparta.
And Leonidas' troops drag out this fight of...
It's not 300. It's probably about 5 ,000 or 6
,000 soldiers against 300 ,000. But because the
pass at Thermopylae is so narrow, Leonidas holds
him off for three full days and kills 20 ,000
of Xerxes' soldiers in those three days. But
eventually, Xerxes gets past Thermopylae, and
he rolls south into the city of Athens. Now,
Athens knew he was coming. They knew they couldn't
stop him, so they completely evacuated the city.
And what did Xerxes do? He turned his troops
loose to loot Athens and then to burn it to the
ground, which he did. Now, you may think, well,
okay, the Persian king got his revenge. He punished
Athens for what they had done to his father.
But the problem is his victory didn't last long.
Within a month, the entire Persian navy was destroyed
in a surprise attack. By the Greek Navy, they
lost about 300 warships at what's called the
Battle of Salamis. Huge setback, so much so that
Xerxes realizes his security isn't what he thinks
it is, and he has to go back home. He has to
flee back to Persia because he's no longer physically
safe. So the king left the battlefield. He put
his cousin Mardonius in charge of the rest of
the battle. And then within a couple of months,
even Mardonius was routed by the Greeks on land
this time in the Battle of Plataea. So again,
massive loss for the Persians. Yeah, they burned
Athens. And by the way, a long time later, Alexander
the Great will burn Persepolis and say, I did
that in revenge for you burning Athens. So these
guys had massive egos and long memories. All
of them did. Interesting guys. So that's the
last gasp of the Persians trying to subdue the
Greeks. The Greeks turned out to be a very resilient
people. And like his father, Xerxes never fully
recovers from that humiliation at Plataea. He
tries to roll out a whole bunch of things for
his people to make them happy, but all he does
is add to the debt. that the Persian empire has.
He takes more wives and more concubines. He throws
more parties and he gets on the wrong side of
the noble families of Persia. And eventually
a plot was hatched to assassinate the king, led
by his own vizier, his own captain of the royal
bodyguard, plotted against him. And in 465, Xerxes
was murdered in his own palace from within and
his eldest son as well. He was 53 years old at
the time. So tragic ending for this man that
God had used. Now, you all right? Everybody okay?
Important question, when does the book of Esther
take place in the life of that man, Xerxes? Well,
you should know that the book of Esther covers
12 years of Xerxes' reign, 12 years. Chapter
one, which we are gonna read in just a second,
I promise you. Y 'all have your Bibles open,
good job. Chapter one takes place prior to Xerxes
invading Greece. The rest of the book takes place
after he comes back, having failed to subdue
the Greeks. We'll talk more about that later.
And by the way, I do need to do one more historical
PS because this is important. One of Xerxes'
sons did survive that palace coup. In fact, he
fights his way back to the throne. He puts to
death those who plotted the coup and he takes
power and his name is Artaxerxes. There's his
name up there on the end. Artaxerxes, he too
is an important biblical character that you should
know about. 14 times he's mentioned in the Old
Testament. He is the king who will oversee the
next two waves of Jews who return to the land.
Artaxerxes is the king who grants Ezra permission
to return in 458 BC, gives him the resources
he needs to build the temple. And then Nehemiah
was Artaxerxes' cupbearer in the palace at Susa.
And remember, Nehemiah comes to him. He's burdened
to get back to the land to rebuild the walls.
It's King Artaxerxes, the son of Xerxes, who
then sends Nehemiah back in 440 BC to rebuild
the walls of the city. So again, another king,
four kings, Persian kings, that God uses to overwhelmingly
bless his people. All right, you getting the
theme? Okay, grab your Bibles. Tanya was laughing.
She's like, so you're doing a 45 -minute intro?
Yes. Yes, I am. No, we're just going to read
12 verses. I'll give you some commentary, and
then we're going to leave it at that. I promise
you. How are we doing on time? No, not too bad.
Okay. We're going to go 12 verses. You ready?
We're just going to set the stage for what comes
next Sunday. Verse 1. Now it took place in the
days of Ahashverosh. There you go. Yael, was
that even close? Oh, she's not here. Oh, no.
Okay, I'll talk to her afterwards. The Ahashverosh,
who reigned from India to Ethiopia over 127 provinces.
In those days, as King Ahasuerus sat on his royal
throne, which is at the citadel in Susa. Okay,
so again, how big is this kingdom? It is absolutely
massive. This is the largest empire the world
had known up until this point, stretching over
127 provinces, which is a callback to how Darius
had organized the empire. From India to Ethiopia.
Now you see India on the far right. Ethiopia
is not even on the screen. It's south of Egypt.
But basically saying this is the entire breadth
of the Persian Empire. Absolutely massive. Moving
right to left or east to west, you see that the
Persian Empire includes India and Parthia, all
of Mesopotamia, which included Babylon and the
old Assyrian lands. Today, by the way, that's
Afghanistan and Pakistan and Iran and Iraq, all
the way north up to Armenia. So it is a massive
land. Then you go south and west and you have
Syria and Israel and Egypt, all the way through
Asia Minor or Turkey today, even across the Aegean
Sea into what's called Thrace, which today is
Bulgaria. So all the way to Europe, this empire
stretch from India to Europe. Think about what
it took to... to just govern an empire this massive.
Now let's talk about the citadel at Susa at the
end of verse two. In old Persian, the city is
called Shushan. Today it's called Shush, Shush,
in modern day Iran. I'll put some references
on the map just so you can see. There's Jerusalem,
the blue dot. The green dot is where Babylon
is, the city of Babylon. I put the yellow dot,
that's Nineveh, the capital of the old Assyrian
empire, just for reference. The red dot is Susa.
That's what we're going to talk about. And I'm
going to reference to the east is Persepolis,
another royal palace in the orange dot there.
We'll talk about that as well. So Susa is about
200 miles north of the Persian Gulf, about 150
miles, about 200 miles east of Babylon. And again,
you can go visit it today. It's quite an archaeological
site if you can go to Iran safely. What else?
In Esther's day, Susa, how many of you guys,
when you think of Iran, you just think of a desert?
We've sort of been conditioned. It's not. They've
actually got amazing mountain ranges, and there's
beautiful lands in Iran, and you'd be surprised.
In Esther's day, Susa was considered a garden
paradise. Streams and mountains and abounding
in flowers and vegetation. In fact, the word
Susa in Persian means lilies. It was known for
this particular flower that grew in that region.
And Darius originally built it as his winter
palace. 12 acres, 12 -acre footprint, filled
with security. And this was the place where he
could go to in the cooler months of the year
and live comfortably. And what's neat about this
particular site is the archaeology behind it
is well -documented. Back in 1880, a whole team
of French archaeologists found the site. of the
palace of Susa and began to dig it out of the
earth. Now, the problem is they cut everything
up and they took a bunch of it back to France
and they really messed up the site. So today,
if you go there, I'll show you some pictures.
This is most of what's left, but look at the
size of the base of that column. You can see
how grand this palace would have been back in
the day. All the mosaics that were on the walls
and the floor were taken out of the site, and
a whole bunch of them are in the Louvre today
in Paris. You can go see them. The beautiful
colored mosaics that came, that were literally
found intact under the earth in this site in
Susa. Beautiful stuff. You can see here that
there's the footprint of the size of the palace.
And again, they found all the outer walls, and
they are slowly digging into the earth. But you
can see the size of it, 12 acres of the palace
complex. And based on the dig, scholars have
been able to recreate images of what it would
have looked like back in the day. And this is
a really good artist's rendering of what it would
have looked like in the days of Esther. And this
is the site of chapter 1. This is basically where
all of this is taking place. So they found the
royal banquet hall. Which is this structure here
in the front. The pillars, the columns were almost
seven stories tall. Absolutely massive. The very
spot of the king's throne was identified, this
stone base of this massive chair that was located
right in the center of the biggest columns in
the room. So they believe that's where the throne
of King Darius was when he first built it. We
also know the palace has this structure in the
very front that's known as the king's gate, and
that shows up in chapter two of the book of Esther.
So it's so cool. You've got ancient writings,
you've got the book of Esther, and you've got
archeology, and they all come together to say,
we have a very good idea. what this looked like.
And one other thing worth noting is found in
the ruins was an actual inscription written in
Acadian that describes how the palace was built.
And this is what the court administrators would
do. They would record for the glory of the king
how this was built in all the places, 29 locations
throughout the empire where they brought all
the building materials to build this amazing
palace. And it's interesting, one of the things
that we don't understand because we're Westerners
and we tend to study history from a Western perspective,
we just don't have an understanding of how wealthy
and how culturally advanced the Persian Empire
was during this time. They were head and shoulders
above the rest of the world. They built the most
beautiful things. And I wish we could go back
and see what they look like, but wow, amazing.
And just as an example of that, six years after
Darius built Susa, he built a palace at Persepolis.
further to the east, and it was even larger.
In fact, a lot of it remains today. Look at the
size of the archaeological dig at Persepolis
today. And look at the size of some of these
buildings. See the people? This isn't even the
main structure. This is just the outbuildings
in the palace complex, how big and majestic these
things were. An artist rendering of Persepolis,
this is probably what it looked like back in
the day. Isn't that wild? So the Persians did
it right. So as we're reading in the book of
Esther, I want you to understand who this king
is and exactly what he was dealing with back
in the day. Okay, that's enough of that. Let's
keep going. Verse three, we're gonna finish here.
In the third year of Xerxes' reign, he gave a
banquet for all of his princes and attendants,
the army officers of Persia and Media. the nobles
and the princes of his provinces being in his
presence, and he displayed the riches of his
royal glory and the splendor of his great majesty
for many days. Look how long this banquet was.
Six months. 180 days. Now, in chapter 1, we're
going to see three separate banquets. This is
just the first one, and it lasts six months.
It's critical for you to see who's there, who's
present. Princes and army officers. Now that's
interesting. Scholars have suggested, and this
makes sense, that this was more than just a party.
You can't party for six months, right? There's
got to be something else going on. But this is
Xerxes displaying his hospitality. Remember,
he's a newer king at this point. He's a young
man, and he's trying to instill confidence in
his leadership and rallying these important men
to get behind the goal of what? I'm going to
invade Greece. And I need you with me. I need
you to see how great I am, how powerful I am,
and get behind this invasion of Greece. In fact,
scholars believe that the six months, much of
that time was war planning. That's why the army
officers are there. They're planning this military
operation to Greece. But then comes the second
banquet, verse five. When these days were completed,
the six months, the king gave a banquet lasting,
oh, just seven days. seven days for all the people
who were present at the citadel in Susa from
the greatest to the least in the court of the
garden of the king's palace, which also has been
found. That open air structure right there is
known as the court of the garden. So we held
a second banquet in that particular area. Now
this banquet is shorter. Who's there? Well, it's
all the people that... that live and work in
the citadel, which is the palace complex. So
servants and staff, and again, noble men of the
kingdom, probably hundreds of people. And this
was sort of a special gift from this young king.
He's trying to impress people. So he holds this,
you know, the seven -day banquet. Verse six.
Look how opulent it is. So he didn't spare any
of the opulence of his kingdom. There were hangings
of fine white and violet linen held by cords
of fine purple linen on silver rings and marble
columns and couches of gold and silver on a mosaic
pavement of porphyry, marble, mother of pearl,
and precious stones. Drinks were served in golden
vessels of various kinds, and the royal wine
was plentiful according to the king's bounty.
Spares no expense. This is a party. Now, this
must have been very impressive to the people
that were there. And that was the point, to let
everybody know, I am the new king. I am richer
and greater than my father Darius. That's basically
what's happening here. Look at verse 8. The drinking
was done according to the law. There was no compulsion,
for so the king had given orders to each official
of his household that he should do according
to the desires of each person. Now, I know that
sounds weird, but according to ancient Persian
custom, if you came to a party, you had to have
a drink with the host or leave. But that was
compulsory. But here, Xerxes opened things up
and says, hey. Let every man drink as much or
as little as he wants. He's free to do as he
pleases. Again, Xerxes is trying to please the
folks. And a third banquet is taking place at
the same time. This is for ladies only, and it's
hosted by Xerxes' queen, whose name was Vashti.
Verse 9, Queen Vashti also gave a banquet for
the women in the palace which belonged to King
Ahasuerus. And we know that the women's quarters
were somewhere in the back, and that's where
that party is taking place. Okay. Deep breath.
I mentioned earlier, this is a crisis book. We're
about to bump into the first crisis. Here it
comes, verse 10. On the seventh day, when the
heart of the king was, what, merry with wine,
he commanded, oh boy, here come the names, Mehumon,
Biztha, Harbona, Bigtha, Avagtha, Zether, and
Karkas, the seven eunuchs who served in the presence
of King Ahasuerus. If you were going to attend
to the queen, you needed to be a eunuch. I'll
leave it at that. Verse 11, what were they commanded
to do? To bring Queen Vashti before the king
with her royal crown in order to display her
beauty to the people and the princes, for she
was beautiful. Uh -oh. This is a bad idea, isn't
it? Right? Every guy in this room should cringe.
That's a bad idea. Here's the young king, and
he's feeling merry. And the Hebrew word there
is just tov. It just means he's feeling good.
He's at least mildly drunk at this point. And
my guess is a conversation happened with his
nobles, and somebody, you know, he was boasting
about the beauty of his wife, and maybe somebody
spoke up and said, well, let's see it. And so
what does the king do? His authority is not to
be questioned and he snaps his fingers at his
eunuchs and he says, go interrupt the queen's
banquet and get her in here and tell her to look
her best. Tell her to put on her crown. Tell
her to come in here and show herself to these
men who'd been drinking for seven days. Big yikes,
right? So according to the custom of that day,
Vashti's job in that moment was to obey, to publicly
display her royal beauty in order to bring glory
to her husband and to the king. And she would
have known that. That was at least the idea.
Verse 12, but Queen Vashti refused. She refused
to come at the king's command delivered by the
eunuchs. She says, I'm not doing it. I'm not
coming. Now the text doesn't give us the reason,
but there's a couple, we can probably guess,
right? By the way, some scholars have said it's
possible she was pregnant at this time and just
didn't want to appear pregnant in front of the
others. We don't know that for sure. More likely,
it's just a matter of her dignity, right? She's
a woman of noble birth. She is the queen of the
empire. To put herself on display before these
drunk men would be humiliating. So she says no.
Even though she must have understood the consequences
of that. And she probably knew her life was now
at risk. It's that serious. And so predictably,
verse 12 continues, then the king became very
angry and his wrath burned within him. Why? Because
this is public defiance. What was the purpose
of the banquet? To impress people. Now we have
public defiance. We have a public embarrassment
of the king. So what are all the household staff,
what are all the nobles to conclude from this?
Well, this young king doesn't have his house
in order. And it's made him look weak in front
of everybody. That's the point I'm leaving you
at today. Because that's the crisis. There's
coming a crisis. And next week, we'll see Esther
come onto the scene. And there's some very important
reasons why. And we'll see the way Xerxes responds.
And we'll see the way God works in and through
this situation. You guys feel okay about that?
Got a background? Okay. I'm exhausted. Let's
pray together. Father, help us. Help us, help
us, help us. As we study history and we study
the way that you have worked. In the annals of
human history, Lord, as we look at your text
and we compare the things that we know from archaeology
and from historians and we look at the divine
truth of your inspired word that tells us the
absolute facts about what happened on the ground.
As we put all those things together, Lord, we
marvel. We marvel at your sovereignty. We marvel
at your care for your people, Israel. The way
you took such care of them during these difficult
years in exile and brought Persian kings into
their lives in order to bless them in extraordinary
ways, Lord. I pray that today, God, we would
just seal these truths in our hearts, get our
minds and hearts ready for what comes next. as
we continue in the story. Thank you for your
word. Thank you for how practical it is. Thank
you for how glorious it is, Lord. And now, Father,
as we come back and we sing and we worship, Lord,
work in our hearts by your spirit. May you be
glorified in our midst, we pray in Jesus' name.
Amen.