ESTHER 1: BORN FOR SUCH A TIME AS THIS....
We were ALL created for a purpose…
ALL born into these End Times…
Walking through these Last Days before Jesus comes for His Bride..
JUST for a such a time as this…
Know this…it is NOT coincidence that you ARE here, right now, this VERY minute on earth…your life, your light, and your purpose WAS/IS being slowly, perfectly, & finely knitted together by the hands of our most amazing Jesus Christ into a tapestry of power, beauty, purpose, witness, and reward for JUST such a time as this.
These past Bible Studies should have SHOWN us that NO MATTER our circumstances, high or low, rich or poor, educated or not, & NO MATTER the evil plots and plans of mankind, this lost world, or of satan and his demons…Jesus Christ PREVAILS.
His Will, His Hope, His Belief, and His Faith in US as in ALL these flawed people of The Bible who went from obscurity of the pit into the palace… these people who went from stuttering, doubting, frightened, young and inexperienced people in their own wilderness and barrenness of this world and from nameless, faceless obscurity into GREAT LIGHTS for Almighty God and Jesus Christ.
Tonight…we will AGAIN SEE what Almighty God accomplished with/through a nameless young orphaned Hebrew woman named….Esther.
ESTHER 1...
A Queen Is Deposed & King Xerxes (Xerxes) holds a big feast. Esther is the LAST of the historical books of the Bible, so the deeds of Queen Esther cast a ray of light forward into Israel’s history from a dark time.
Verses 1-2 tells us of King Xerxes and his vast domain.
“Now it came to pass in the days of Xerxes (this was the Xerxes who reigned over one hundred and twenty-seven provinces, from India to Ethiopia), in those days when King Xerxes sat on the throne of his kingdom, which was in Shushan the citadel…”
King Ahasuerus is well known to history, though more commonly under the name King Xerxes. He inherited the vast Persian Empire from his father, Darius I (who is mentioned in passages such as Ezra 4:24, 5:5-7, 6:1-15; Daniel 6:1 and 6:25; Haggai 1:15 and 2:10).
The existence of Xerxes and his rule is extremely well attested; archaeologists have discovered the ruins of the VERY palace where these events happened.
Also, in those days when King Xerxes sat on the throne of his kingdom which was (approximately 483 b.c.), he was planning for a doomed invasion of Greece, which would take place several years later. At this time the city of Athens was in its classical glory and in Greece they were celebrating the 79th Olympic games.
And at this time in history, the Persian Empire was the largest the world had ever seen. It covered what we call today Turkey, Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, Jordan, Lebanon, and Israel; and also parts of modern day Egypt, Sudan, Libya, and Arabia.
Biblically at this time, Ezra had returned to Jerusalem after it had been conquered by the Babylonians. The temple had been rebuilt some 30 years before, although more simply and without the glory of Solomon’s temple.
Also, really cool to know, is that 40 years later, under the successor of Xerxes (Artaxerxes I), Nehemiah would return to Jerusalem to rebuild the walls of the previously conquered city.
Verses 3-9 tell us about the THREE ROYAL FEASTS.
The FIRST feast was for all government officials, where Xerxes showed off the glory and splendor of the riches of his kingdom. This feast lasted for 180 days.
The SECOND feast lasting seven days was for all the people who were present in Shushan the citadel, which means capitol city.
The THIRD feast was for the women in the royal palace, and was conducted by the wife of King Xerxes, Queen Vashti.
Sadly, then as now, the REAL reason behind these feasts was PRIDE. Xerxes & Vashti wanted to IMPRESS everyone with his wealth, power, majesty, and of course the people PAID for it all out of the public treasury…NOT from Xerxes personal monies. Sound familiar?
Verses 10-11 tell us WHY Queen Vashti is deposed.
King Xerxes demands that Vashti display her beauty before the MALE guests at the feast. And it is NO surprise to anyone after 7 days of eating and drinking constantly Xerxes was for the moment a loud, happy drunk.
Jewish historians tell us King Xerxes call for Queen Vashti, who was very beautiful, to come before the men at the feast stemmed from a good-natured argument over who WAS the most beautiful, so Xerxes was determined to show them just how beautiful Vashti was, by making her appear before them wearing ONLY her royal crown.
Verse 12 tells us that Queen Vashti refuses to appear before the drunken ALL MALE guests of the feast; therefore Xerxes was furious.
Though Vashti was by no means a follower of the true God, she had enough wisdom and modesty to know that this was something she should not do, show up within the private chambers filled with drunk men & do so naked.
Verses 13-22 tell us King Xerxes banishes Vashti.
When the drunken King Xerxes heeded this advice from Memucan, he showed himself to be unreasonable and wrong. He should have HONORED the dignity of his Queen. Yet, history’s profile of Xerxes shows him to be an unreasonable and foolish man in many cases.
One example, it is recorded that Xerxes executed the builders of a bridge because an ocean storm destroyed it; then he commanded that the water and waves be whipped and chained to punish the sea.
HA! Wonder if he was drunk as a hoot owl then too.
Additionally, forgive me Christian brothers, but the OTHER purpose for the harsh treatment of Vashti was so that she would not set a bad example for the other women of Persia. These drunk, ticked off men, were not thinking clearly and they FEARED all the other women would begin to balk at commands given by their husbands like Vashti did.
However, the means used here to gain and preserve this respect were foolish. NO ONE can demand or coerce respect - if it isn’t freely given, then it isn’t worth anything.