Chapter 9: 6-17
“And in Shushan the citadel the Jews killed and destroyed five hundred men. 7 Also Parshandatha, Dalphon, Aspatha, 8 Poratha, Adalia, Aridatha, 9 Parmashta, Arisai, Aridai, and Vajezatha— 10 the ten sons of Haman the son of Hammedatha, the enemy of the Jews—they killed; but they did not lay a hand on the plunder. 11 On that day the number of those who were killed in Shushan the citadel was brought to the king. 12 And the king said to Queen Esther, ‘The Jews have killed and destroyed five hundred men in Shushan the citadel, and the ten sons of Haman. What have they done in the rest of the king’s provinces? Now what is your petition? It shall be granted to you. Or what is your further request? It shall be done.’
13 Then Esther said, ‘If it pleases the king, let it be granted to the Jews who are in Shushan to do again tomorrow according to today’s decree, and let Haman’s ten sons be hanged on the gallows.’ 14 So the king commanded this to be done; the decree was issued in Shushan, and they hanged Haman’s ten sons. 15 And the Jews who were in Shushan gathered together again on the fourteenth day of the month of Adar and killed three hundred men at Shushan; but they did not lay a hand on the plunder. 16 The remainder of the Jews in the king’s provinces gathered together and protected their lives, had rest from their enemies, and killed seventy-five thousand of their enemies; but they did not lay a hand on the plunder. 17 This was on the thirteenth day of the month of Adar. And on the fourteenth of the month, they rested and made it a day of feasting and gladness.
We have been exploring this great story from the Bible over the past few months, and we are fast coming to the end. Today we will look at the final part of ‘When the Lord is on your side.’
As we finished up last month, the battle was just about to get heated up. Esther and Mordecai were able to get the message out to the Jews in the 127 provinces of Persia that they are allowed to defend themselves. They did so quite effectively. But make no mistake that this was the Lord who gained the victory and not mere men. But the Lord does use men and women to do His bidding; Esther, Mordecai and the Jews who stood to fight were used by Him to rescue the Jews from sure destruction. Now, the Lord does not need us men to fight battles; we are privileged to be used by God in His ways and in His plans.
- A bloody day in Shushan, verses 6-16
One of the hardest things to learn in life is that you have enemies. We all long to be liked, and many of us spend our whole lives wanting to fit in. But more often than not, especially for God’s people, to fit in requires compromise. Mordecai was not one to compromise his principles, and he, as a good father figure, taught Esther the same. When you stand for what is right, then you will begin to see that you are not very popular among those that hate righteousness.
The Jews worshipped God, Jehovah, the God of Heaven, and in every little town they went to, even as slaves, they would either erect some sort of synagogue or meet on the Sabbath by a place to face Jerusalem and pray. In Psalm 137, we find a song that they would sing while they were slaves in Babylon. They passed on their faith and trust in God to their children. Like all Jewish men, Mordecai would have worn the blue fringe on his clothing, identifying him as a Jewish man (see Numbers 15: 37-41). This was how one was able to identify a Jewish man in any city anywhere in the world; Mordecai would have stood out.
The people in the Persian kingdom would have been constantly reminded that they were not worshipping the true God by the Jews. These weirdos refused pork and shrimp. They won’t eat stuff offered to idols; they are just different, and as we can see, they were hated. Some 75,000 men were killed in the two days that the Jews defended themselves. In the capital city of Shushan alone, they killed 800 men who attacked them, along with the 10 sons of Haman. Imagine that; Mordecai walked among 800 enemies each day as he stood in the gate and conducted the business of the kingdom. These men hated the Jews, and even though they knew the Jews were going to defend themselves, they still attacked.
In the same manner, as we stand for the Lord, we will see the enemies of the Lord come out. In our time right now, we are seeing the enemies of the Lord really show themselves. There is a real hatred for the things of God. We are surrounded by politicians and some of the public in general that hate the people of God. They hate that we won’t fall in line with the ‘woke’ mentality of the masses. We refuse to accept a myriad of genders, and we refuse to accept marriage between anyone but one man and one woman.
Just this week, I read where there are people in the state of New York who are suing for the right to marry their adult children. Yes, you read that right; research it yourself. The hatred for truth will grow and grow as sin takes an open stand in our society. Make no mistake; the world around us hates us. They hate our stand, and they hate our truths. We are the enemy of those that hate the truth. The truth may set you free in Jesus, but it will make you a target to those that hate absolutes.
- The sons of Haman, verses 10 and 14
If you go back and take a look at 1 Samuel 15:1-3, we find that God commanded Saul the King to kill ALL of the Amalekites.
“Samuel also said unto Saul, The Lord sent me to anoint thee to be king over his people, over Israel: now, therefore, hearken thou unto the voice of the words of the Lord. Thus saith the Lord of hosts, I remember that which Amalek did to Israel, how he laid wait for him in the way when he came up from Egypt. Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.”
These events in the life of Esther were never supposed to happen. God told Saul to kill ALL of the Amalekites, but he did not. About 400 men escaped, and over the years, Haman was the offspring of the survivors. They had passed on the hatred for the Jews for generation after generation, and Haman’s actions were the culmination of Saul’s disobedience. God knew the future, and He was cutting the head off the snake before the snake ever existed. But disobedience always has consequences; for Saul, it cost him his life, the life of his sons, and the kingdom of Israel. For Esther and Mordecai, hundreds of years later, they had to go through these harrowing events.
Esther, Mordecai, and the Jews who stood up and fought finished the job that Saul was supposed to do. They killed the enemies, and in particular, they killed the 10 sons of Haman. There would be no hatred passed on in this time, no constant looking over the shoulder wondering when the next attack would come. No, they decided to end it all here and now.
There comes a time in our lives, our homes, and yes, even in our societies that require the hard decisions. While we are supposed to be meek and lowly, we are not to be doormats. The Apostle Paul stood up for his rights as a citizen of Rome when he was wrongly arrested and was about to be flogged.
Acts 22:25 “And as they bound him with thongs, Paul said to the centurion who stood by, ‘Is it lawful for you to scourge a man who is a Roman, and uncondemned?'”
It is essential that we know our rights and stand for them, or they will be taken from us and our children. Somewhere along the line, we need to stand up and say enough. Will we be marginalized? Yes, but that is the nature of true Christianity. We are never going to be mainstream; and as the majority of society goes farther and farther away from absolute truth, we will be hated all the more. The people whose eyes have become accustomed to the darkness hate the light. These people, who have built their lives on truth and have bullied society into believing that they are right when everyone knows they are wrong, hate those that tell them they are wrong. We are they who are supposed to stand up and stand out. They will do all they can to silence us.
Not long ago, I was having a conversation with an acquaintance, and she pointed out that a lot of what is happening today is similar to what happened to the Jews in Germany during WW2. Many of the railway tracks transporting the Jews to the gas chambers ran past churches, and she has once asked how they did this without the Lord’s churches standing up. Some had told her that the churches sang louder as the trains passed by so as to drown out what they knew was happening. This is not true Christianity.
I hope that, like Esther and Mordecai, I will stand and fight. As I have told you before, I am actively praying that the Lord will help me to stand and not shrink when the fight comes to us. I pray the Lord will give me the power to stand and not lay down, the power to maybe not kill my enemies as in the case of Haman and his sons, but to silence them with God’s truth; shut up their mouth with godly wisdom as the Holy Spirit gives me speech, and if need be, to die for the truth. I know that my flesh is weak, and I need Him. But what we do learn here is that our enemies are beatable if we would stand. All it takes for evil to prosper is for God’s people to do nothing.
- They rested, verse 17
Resting comes after the fighting, not before. For too many of us, we have been at rest for too long, and now the desire to fight is gone.
We have stood by as they allowed gay marriage, but we did nothing. We just let it go. When guys like me told us it was a slippery slope and that this was just the beginning, they called us fearmongers and conspiracy theorists. But now, they are people actively looking to marry animals and even their own kids. They began teaching sex education, not just the mechanics of the body, but pushing agendas like sexuality and diverse sexual deviation. And we sat silently, only to find out that in Ontario, for instance, the man who helped design or oversaw that sex education curriculum was a pedophile. He was not educating; he was grooming our kids. But we stood silent and rested. We had openly gay persons run for public office, and rather than vote no, too many Christians stayed home and did not vote, effectively voting for the enemy. We rested rather than stand.
There is a time for resting, and now is not the time. When we have won the victory, then we can rest. Right now, we have a Gospel-preaching church in Edmonton, Alberta, that is barricaded by the government so that they cannot meet to hold worship, and they are using the COVID restrictions as a means to do this. These are not laws, and they are not even consistent in their message. But that dear pastor led his people to assemble and worship outside at the facility, and they worshipped there. They refused to rest; they stood and obeyed God.
We are not at the time for rest here in Canada and the free world; we are the last bastion of freedom. And if the Lord’s churches rest, we will lose the freedoms we have. The time for rest will come, but now it is the time to stand.
God bless you,
Dr. Sean Gooding
Pastor of Mississauga Missionary Baptist Church
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