The sermon explores the story of Mordecai's refusal to bow down to Haman in the book of Esther. It highlights the backdrop of the events, the consequences of Mordecai's refusal, and the demonstration of God's providence throughout the story. The sermon also addresses the challenge of living as Christians in a world that demands compliance.

Let's open up our Bibles to Esther chapter 3. Right before Job we have the book of Esther and we're going to be spending some time here in the third chapter. What a beautiful day it is it's been already in the house of the Lord to hear God's Word preached so faithfully and to fill us with such hope and joy. I was saying to Scott if you want the most downloaded sermon in sermon audio history, at least among the women, you could call that sermon the essential oil. It was the joy and gladness of the Lord.

But I'm gonna be talking to us here from Esther chapter three one to 11. You know, before we read the actual text though, if you look at the backdrop of what had happened here is that God had sent his people into captivity, really for one thing, for not keeping the heart. If you look at Isaiah chapter one, God's accusation against the nation of Israel, it could all be summarized as heartless. They were just going through the motions. He says that The whole head is sick and the whole heart is faint.

And into this void, you have this idolatry that took over and really took the throne of the hearts of the nation. And so God punished them severely. We all know the story, the destruction of Israel, then we have Judah, then they're taken into captivity, and we have the stories of Daniel and his three friends. They've been taken into captivity about 100 years earlier than the book of Esther, so just in terms of some timing. And so Mordecai's great grandfather, his name was Kish, he would have probably been brought over with Daniel and his friends.

And of course, some had already now, by this time, ventured back to Judah with Ezra, who had gone back to establish, reestablish Judah and then rebuild the temple. But of course, others stayed in their adopted pagan lands, and that's where this account takes place. This is kind of the background here. And of course, We're in a massive empire. This empire is more than half the size of the United States.

It says that it spans all the way from Ethiopia to India. And it's presided over by this king named King Ahasuerus. And his wife, this woman by the name of Vashti, she's been deposed now because of her not going along with what he requested. And so this search for a new queen has been undertaken. Esther's now been chosen as this new queen.

She's this orphan that was kept in the care of her cousin, Mordecai. And that's who we're going to be talking about here this morning, Mordecai. And he's described in chapter two as a man that sat within the king's gate. Which means likely he's a person of some dignity, he's got some sort of official role in the government. And of course, a few years pass, Esther's there, he's in government, and we come to chapter three, and we're gonna read this together, one to 11.

Hear the word of the Lord, it says this. After these things, King Ahasuerus promoted Haman, the son of Hamadath of the Agagite, and advanced him and set his seat above all the princes who were with him. And all the king's servants who were within the king's gate bowed and paid homage to Haman, for so the king had commanded concerning him. But Mordecai would not bow or pay homage. Then the king's servants who were within the king's gate said to Mordecai, why do you transgress the king's command?

Now it happened when they spoke to him daily and he would not listen to them, that they told it to Haman to see whether Mordecai's words would stand. For Mordecai had told them that he was a Jew. When Haman saw that Mordecai did not bow or pay homage to him, Haman was filled with wrath. But he disdained to lay hands on Mordecai alone, for they had told him of the people of Mordecai. Instead, Haman sought to destroy all the Jews who were throughout the whole kingdom of Ahasuerus, the people of Mordecai.

In the first month, which is the month of Nisan, in the twelfth year of King Ahasuerus. They cast poor, that is, the lot, before Haman to determine the day and the month until it fell on the twelfth month, which is the month of Adar. Then Haman said to King Ahasuerus, there is a certain people scattered and dispersed among the people in all the provinces of your kingdom. Their laws are different from all other people's, and they do not keep the king's laws. Therefore, it is not fitting for the king to let them remain.

If it pleases the king, let a decree be written that they be destroyed, and I will pay 10,000 talents of silver into the hand of those who do the work to bring it into the king's treasuries. So the king took the signet ring, his signet ring, from his hand and gave it to Haman, the son of Hamadatha the Agagite, the enemy of the Jews. And the king said to Haman, the money and the people are given to you to do with them as seems good to you well let's pray Heavenly Father we come before your throne yet again Lord we open your word and we pray that you would speak that you would get glory for your name Oh Father and that you would help us as your people as we live in an increasingly pagan land to live rightly before you, to honor you, to be filled with joy and boldness. Lord, that you would be pleased with us as we dwell here. So strengthen us, oh Lord, strengthen our hearts.

In the name of your son Jesus, we pray, amen, amen. So we meet in these early chapters of the book of Esther, we meet the king, we meet Haman, we meet Mordecai and Esther. But the question is where is God? You can go through the entire book, and it's the only book in the entire Bible, which is kind of strange, where God is not even mentioned a single time. There's no miracles, there's no prophets, there's no prayers that are recorded here for us.

And even the main character, her name is Esther, but that's not even her name. Her name that was given to her by her parents is Hadassah, which is a Jewish name. But she adopted Esther, which means star. It's actually, she's named after a pagan deity that she took on that name herself. And you look at the lives of Mordecai and Esther, they could have gone back to Israel with Ezra or other folks that were now going back on a regular basis.

But despite being orphaned and going through some trials, it appears she'd grown a little bit comfortable here in Persia. And in fact, you find her hiding her Jewish identity. She's told by Mordecai, don't tell them who you really are. And it didn't seem like a very big issue. And I say that to say that when you look at the book of Esther, it's not a very tidy book.

It's not a neat little book. There's a lot of moral ambiguity like what are these people doing? What are they thinking? It's kind of the opposite of Daniel and his three friends that took place a little bit earlier not only because of the miracles and the visions but also because of the the moral power that you see in Daniel and his three friends as they stand for God. It's an amazing book.

And so when you look at the book of Esther, you know Calvin he never wrote a commentary on Esther. He skipped right over it. And Martin Luther who was never shy about voicing his opinions, He says, I'm so great an enemy to Esther that I wish it had never come to us at all for it has too many heathen unnaturalities. And so what do we do with a book like this? Well we know God has preserved his word and we have it here before us and so the reality is that the fact that God is mentioned and even the fact that he's not actually mentioned, it lends itself to actually us looking for him on every page and in every verse.

It's gonna be, It's amazing when you start looking at it and seeing God's providence in the protection of his people in some of the darkest times. In this case, this exile people. And the question for us that are here this afternoon is, you know, sometimes it seems like God isn't there. You can go through long spells, but the confidence that we ought to have is that God is always there. He's always working, and he's working out his own purposes for his own glory.

And so there's a question for us as we get started here. How are we to live in a world like the one we're living in right now that will not only increasingly tolerate us less and less, but also demand compliance? How do you live in a world as a Christian? Are you paying attention to the trajectory of the world around us right now in 2023 here in the United States? Because there are Hamans in every age.

That's what we we need to recognize and ours is no different but praise God we have a God for all seasons and so we're gonna be spending time here in the first two verses let's read that it says after these things King Ahasuerus promoted Haman the son of Hamadatha the Haggadah and advanced him and set him above all the princes that were with him. And all the king's servants, who were within the king's gate, bowed and paid homage to Haman, for so the king had commanded concerning him, but Mordecai would not bow or pay homage." And so you've got this man Haman, he's kind of like a prime minister here to the king, almost like you would find Joseph in his role, respective to the Pharaoh back in the day. And you notice that little phrase, they bowed and paid homage. And this isn't just reverence. If you were to go back in that day in the Eastern cultures, this was actually an act of worship where they were declaring, here's the king, he's of a godlike status and he's now conferring his godlike status to his prime minister Haman.

And of course, everyone knows that's false, even the people that were gathered there, but everyone goes along. It's similar to the Caesars who fancied themselves to be gods as well. And if you remember, many Christians, many excellent citizens, Men and women who were paying taxes, who were living honorably, raising families, working hard, they were martyred for refusing to assent to the lie that Caesar is a god and they had another king that they were proclaiming. And if only they would have just said, Jesus is a God, all would have been well. They would have gone free.

But the statement that there is a king and his name is Christ the Lord got them in all sorts of trouble. And as you'll see here, it gets Mordecai in all sorts of trouble. So it's quite the scene. You can imagine maybe a group bigger than this, and everyone is bowed down with their faces to the ground as Haman passes by, and you've got this one man standing erect. Think about that for a second, put yourself there.

You know, it didn't seem to trouble Mordecai too much that his cousin had married a pagan king. It didn't seem to trouble him all that much as far as we can see that he told her to mask your Jewish identity. But this seemed to be a bridge too far. And what we find here is that the crisis is really bringing out the man here. And he wasn't brash, He wasn't disrespectful.

He was an excellent citizen. In fact, if you just look back to the few verses before chapter three, he uncovers this plot by two men in the court to assassinate the king. And he makes it known to Esther who makes it known to the king. Christians ought to be the best citizens in the land. I think the Bible talks about that.

But now he's really at a crossroads, what's he gonna do? And by sheer grace, he rises to the occasion and there he is standing there. It's like so God has steeled his spine to stand and he would have no share in what was being demanded of him. And so the question is, what would you do? What would you do?

Or maybe even a better question, what will you do in the days that we're living in? Or maybe what are you doing even right now as the pressures to comply with ungodliness and to repeat lies that are not really true, things that are false, outright, or even against God, what will you do in those situations as they become more and more prevalent, just like they've been for much of the church age? Well, in any church at any given time, including a church like ours, there's those of us that are in a bit of a stupor, perhaps, half awake, living in the gray zone, kind of like Mordecai, you've got a good job, Shushan is a pretty good place to live, and maybe just half asleep. And he could have gone back to Judah years ago, as I said just a minute ago. But then what happens, in his goodness, the Lord brings a Haman on the scene.

Yeah, in his goodness, the Lord actually does that. And it does something, It seems to revive this man, Mordecai, where he now must take a stand, and he's almost as though he's been shaken awake from a life of compromise to standing for something. And so if God is to awaken the American church, might he bring a revival through the means of someone like Haman that forces Christians to actually take a stand and realize who it is that they really serve? Well in verse 3 we've got this escalation that takes place. It says, Then the king's servants who were within the king's gate said to Mordecai, why do you transgress the king's command?

These are his fellow employees, his fellow servants. Mordecai, your compliance is being asked for, it's being demanded and you're transgressing the king's command? And it seems like Mordecai didn't answer outright. He didn't say exactly the reason at first. And so perhaps he was hoping things might die down a little bit but God the one who had providentially elevated Esther to Queen he's not gonna just let this go he's not gonna let this pass he's gonna do something to save not only Mordecai but all the people of God and though he's not mentioned God is up to something and it says here in verse 4 now it happened when they spoke to him daily and he would not listen to them that they told it to Haman to see whether Mordecai's words would stand.

For Mordecai had told them that he was a Jew. This is dangerous isolation. Everyone else is separating themselves from this man. And notice that they spoke to him daily. It wasn't just a one-time thing.

This is going on now maybe for days or weeks, however long, but he would not listen to them. This would be like the modern day equivalent of being reported to Karen in HR, but your life is at stake here. This isn't just you're gonna lose your job. Mordecai, you're forcing our hand here. Hey, I don't think he's a god either, but what's the harm?

Just just comply. Just the state is demanding that you go along to get along. Well, What's going through Mordecai's mind? You could imagine as he leaves the office each day, or as he makes his way winding back to home, or as he's going to sleep at night. Well, I think something you can see that's happening, this man is actually being galvanized and transformed by this trial, perhaps like never before, because it says he would not listen to them.

He's this awakened man, and he's beginning to really come to terms with the risks that he's undertaking, and his heart is inclining more and more toward the Lord. And so these people, as is often the case, they see an opportunity to elevate themselves, so they run over to Haman and say, hey, you know, where are your worshipers? But this man isn't participating. We tried talking to him, talking sense, but he's not with the program. You see in verse three, they told it to Haman to see whether Mordecai's words would stand.

Are you going to let this guy get away with this? We're just checking. Men like Haman can be hazardous to your health. Physically, they can do a lot of damage, and you've got this massive escalation, except it's not just his life, it's not just his job, but his whole life is at stake. You've got this kind of Mexican standoff where, you know, Mordecai is almost being asked, are you going to persist in this behavior?

In their eyes it's rebellion. In his eyes he's standing on the principle and foundation. And finally he gives the reason. For Mordecai had told them he was a Jew. He gives the reason.

And this is the ground for his refusal. I can't bow down and pay homage as though Haman is a God because I'm a Jew. I worship the true and the living God. Spiritually, this is the best thing that had ever happened to Mordecai, this shock and awe plot of Haman to destroy or to demand compliance and later on to destroy all of the Jews. It's awoken him out of his stupor and now he's standing solidly on the foundation of God's word.

And again, there are Haman's in every age and they're sent to purify the church. That first commandment, you shall have no other gods before me is the foundation that Haman is standing on. He's saying I am a Jew. And you know there's a young woman by the name of Perpetua. She lived in like the first or second century, second century.

She was 21 years old when she was basically demanding, they were demanding that she deny Christ. And you could imagine all the shouting and the so-called court demanding that she deny and just offer little incense to Caesar, her only defense. Just like Mordecai says, I am a Jew. She didn't maybe have, she wasn't an apologist, but her words were this, I am a Christian. And that became her great defense.

You know I was talking to a brother last night, I was talking to Mike Davenport actually last night, talking about suffering, and he gave me this beautiful scripture. He said it's really been helping him and encouraging him. It's found in Ezekiel 11. It says, therefore, thus says the Lord God, although I have cast them far off among the Gentiles and although I have scattered them among the countries, yet I will be a little sanctuary for them in the countries where they have gone. And I think that's what Mordecai found.

See, God is everywhere. And here he is, thousands of miles away, in a pagan land, and he's finding God as a little sanctuary for him. What a beautiful way to think about God. You can be everywhere, though you go to the uttermost parts of the earth, the sea, God is there. You know, it doesn't matter, God is absolutely everywhere.

And so perhaps one day soon, you're gonna be asked, maybe not, but maybe, why won't you just comply? Why don't you just do it? Will you be able to respond with the words, because I am a Christian? One trait that seems to surface over and over again, we're gonna see it actually as our brother takes us further into Acts in chapter 4 is something called boldness. Holy boldness, not arrogance, not let me show you, not nothing like that.

Not the Jehu boldness but holy boldness. You know in Acts chapter 4 this amazing observation takes place it says now when they saw the boldness so they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated and untrained men, they marveled. Now look at this. And they realized that they had been with Jesus. The fruit of being with Jesus was this emboldening.

The root of the boldness was they had been with Christ. Again, not picking fights but they're filled with the Spirit. This is another manifestation of being filled with the Spirit. And so, you could look at this and you could say, man, that would have been tough. Well, thank God we live in the US.

We live over here. And thank God indeed, but are you paying attention to the way things are going and the direction that we're heading? There's a man by the name of Theodore Dalrymple. He's basically, I don't know if he's a Christian, but he's a conservative commentator. And he says this, looking at the age that we're in, listen to this statement.

He says, in my study of communist societies, I came to the conclusion that the purpose of communist propaganda was not to persuade or convince or to inform but to humiliate and therefore the less it corresponded to reality the better. When people are forced to remain silent, when they are being told the most obvious of lies, or even worse, when they are forced to repeat the lies themselves, They have lost once and for all any sense and all sense of integrity. To assent to obvious lies is to cooperate with evil. And in some small way to become evil oneself, a society of emasculated liars is easy to control. And that's exactly what Haman is surrounded by.

He's surrounded by a sea of men all bowed down with their faces to the ground, emasculated liars on every side. No one thought Ahasuerus or Haman were actually gods, but hey, that's what the state demands, the biggest lie. We're just going to go along to get along. But never mistake it, the purpose of what's going on, even in our modern day and with all this political correctness, it's to humiliate and to break you down. It doesn't have to make sense.

It's not supposed to make sense that a man can actually be a woman or two men can actually marry. That abortion is healthcare. Or let's hire a less competent person so that we can fill an equity and inclusion quota. Doesn't make sense, but let's go ahead and do it. Let's assent to the climate change narrative, even though it's an utter lie.

You know, there was a few years ago, it just came out I think about a month ago, but there's a man by the name of Larry Fink who runs this organization called BlackRock. You might have heard of it. It operates about $10 trillion of assets under management. What they do is they go in and they invest in a company like Coca-Cola. They'll also invest in Pepsi, Home Depot, Lowe's, it doesn't matter.

And they go and they bring in so much money that they end up getting a board seat. And once you get a board seat, you can then begin to direct an organization in the way that you want it to go. You don't have to be this, you're behind the scenes, you're not in the front, and you're doing that. Well, in 2017, he's on video, and these are his exact words, quote, "'Behaviors are gonna have to change.'" and this is one of the things we're asking companies you have to force behaviors and that BlackRock we are forcing behaviors you say well I don't work at BlackRock but BlackRock is in every single company, pretty much. You've got BlackRock in your pocket, you drive BlackRock, you know what I mean?

It's everywhere, it's not just a company somewhere there. And the influence that they're wheedling in to change the direction of the nation. It's basically the whole thing is to break down biblical foundations. That's really the whole thing. And recently, there's been kind of this uprising against ESG.

So guess what? He shrugs. He says, you know what? I'm gonna drop the usage of the words ESG, but it's not gonna change our stance. We're still gonna continue doing the thing that we want to do and demand, or in the words he used, force behaviors.

This is the world that we're living in and so in our account here we've got one man demanding belief in a lie Haman and one man refusing to bow down to that lie. In verse five it says, when Haman saw that Mordecai did not bow or pay him homage, Haman was filled with wrath. He just can't tolerate this descent. And so here he is, and he's fuming, he's raging against this man. And it says in verse six, but he disdained to lay hands on Mordecai alone, for they had told him of the people of Mordecai.

Instead Haman sought to destroy all the Jews who were throughout the whole kingdom of Haswaris, the people of Mordecai. And so the net is now spread, the stone is rolled into its position, and he decides to go big. Here's proud Haman, the offense is just so great, this little Jew won't bow down to him, that he's not just gonna take out Mordecai, he wants to take out the entire nation across 120 provinces all the way from Ethiopia to India. That becomes his plan. Let's exterminate these people because their representative here, he's refusing to bow.

And so things go from bad to worse. Not only is Mordecai's life now at stake, but the entire Jewish nation. And it's all because of one man. You know, the blame he could feel. But imagine this pressure now.

Are you gonna bow now? Give you one more chance. Well in verse 7 it says, in the first month when it which is the month of Nisan in the 12th year of King Ahasuerus they cast poor That is the lot before Haman to determine the day in the month until it fell on the 12th month, which is the month of Pur. Now notice the word Pur. This is that Persian word.

It means lot. And To this day, if you flip to the end of the book of Esther, did you celebrate a feast every year that was created on the back of what happens in the rest of this book, which is the deliverance of the people. Poor, and it becomes Purim, which is this remembrance of God preserves his people through circumstance, impossible, and when things are darkest, that's when God is most active. And so we read in Proverbs, here they are, the pagans, they're casting lots, but remember, the lot is cast in the lap, but it's every decision is from the Lord. And the Lord caused it so that The lot fell months, not next week, but months ahead, which gave Mordecai and Esther time to plot their strategy on how they were gonna basically get an overthrow of Haman.

But look at this, This is where I wanted to really get to here, verse eight. Look at this here. It says, and imagine this testimony. So Haman does all his research because he's now gonna make this request of the king and he needs to tell the king what he's asking. And look at the evidence he turns up to build his case.

Look at this. It says in verse eight, Then Haman said to king Ahasuerus, there is a certain people scattered and dispersed among the people in all the provinces of your kingdom. They're like leaven, they're everywhere. Their laws are different from all other people's and they do not keep the king's command. Therefore, it is not fitting for the king to let them remain.

Now, wouldn't that be wonderful to have such blame heaped upon you or heaped upon us or heaped upon the American Church, the people of God because of our desire to follow God's ways. There's a certain people. If we could just get rid of them, we could have our way, there would be no opposition to our godless agenda. Again, never doubt it, there wasn't a better citizen than Mordecai. He wasn't a rabble-rouser or anything like that, but loyalty to God is overall.

And so the message that Haman is writing, he says basically to the king, these people are gonna poison everything and everyone in Media Persia. Are you sure you wanna tolerate this? We should probably do something about this. Remember in chapter one, when Vashti refused to come at the king's command? Do you remember what his counselor said?

If you tolerate Vashti not coming now, all the women in the realm are gonna rebel. This is kind of the same approach Haman's taking. We gotta get rid of these people or we're gonna have a bigger problem on our hands. And it's the exact same thing. And so if you don't deal with these folks decisively, their pernicious undermining principles, they're just gonna infect everyone.

Well, of course, the decree is made, and in Media Persia, it's unlike other kingdoms. Once the king puts a signet ring and stamps the decree, even the king can't reverse his own decree. That's the rule of the Medes and the Persians. But God is in the business of preserving and saving his people. And so God is going to overthrow what the Medes and Persians put into place.

And he doesn't only overthrow, he doesn't just save his people, but he ensures that the stone, the very stone that Haman had rolled, rolls back on him and actually ends up destroying him and crushing him and all that he has and even his own family. And so just as God, he purposed and he turned Satan's plot and designed to overthrow Adam and Eve, he turns it for his own glory and reveals his son as the Savior. It's an amazing thing that God does when he takes it an evil or dark circumstance and and overturns it for his own good. And so, how good it would be just to think about the testimony of the enemies of God towards the people of God, if it were to carry such weight and caliber as what we just we just heard here. Well time is gone on us but what I want to leave you with is just even when when you're in exile or you feel like you're in exile, or you're in the minority, or you feel you're in peril for what you believe.

Or maybe when your life seems like the book of Esther and you can't find God on any of the pages, or you go through 10 chapters and his name doesn't appear. Maybe you're tempted sometimes to think that he's inactive or he's not doing what he should be doing. But remember this, that he's exactly active. He's exactly doing what he's doing. He's never sleeping.

He's always active, bringing about the purpose of his own will. He says, I will build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it. No scheme of man or anything like that will overthrow his purposes. And so our job as believers living in the world that we're living in right now is to keep our hearts with all diligence. Because out of our hearts flow the issues of life.

Out of Mordecai's heart, this one man standing, it redounded to the glory of God so that now even 2,500 years later, Jews who may not, you know, they're still Jews, they don't acknowledge Christ, but they recognize that something big happened here, that God delivers, he saves his people not just when things are tough but at the very darkest hour God is mighty to save. But may God find us standing erect not being emasculated liars but standing strong on his foundation as we as we go forward into this year next year God only knows but we can do it with great joy and gladness because our God reigns so let's pray together. Heavenly Father we thank you so much for the words of life. Your words, Lord, are really all that we need and we pray that you would fill us with your spirit, fill us with joy in the midst of suffering and trial and difficulty. And even if times get dark like they did for Mordecai or they've done hundreds of times down through church history.

Lord, you always deliver, you always get glory and we look back and we see you active and working and designing all things for the counsel of your own will. So give us great confidence as your people Lord, help us to stand erect, help us to stand upright and to walk as children of the light in the dark days that we're in. Lord we praise you, we honor your great name and thank you for Christ, who really is the one that gives us strength. In Jesus' name we pray, amen, amen.