An Advocate – Esther

Even though God’s name is not mentioned in the book of Esther, every page is full of God, who hides Himself behind every word. God has never left His people go in the past and He will never let them go in the future. He followed them in their captivity into Babylon. When the prophets were silent and the Temple closed, God was still standing guard.

Esther is like Joseph and David. God had each on hidden away for His purpose. When the day came, He brought them to the front to work out His plan. God hid Joseph away in a dungeon in Egypt, but when He was ready, He placed him in the position of prime minister of that country. God always has someone in reserve to fulfil His purposes. Sometimes it is a man like Joseph, or Moses. Sometimes it is a woman like Hannah, or Esther or Mary. Recall men in history such as Martin Luther and Billy Graham whom God seems to have prepared and kept for the hour.

King Ahasuerus of the story was Xerxes, the famous Persian monarch (485 – 465 BC). When the king and princes were in the midst of their drunken revelry, the king called for Vashti, the queen, so that he could show off her beauty. Vashti refused. This made the king a laughing stock. To defend himself, he deposed the queen (Esther 1: 12-22).

When Ahasuerus saw Esther, he made her his queen. The little Jewish orphan girl, raised by her cousin Mordecai, was lifted to the Persian throne. Esther’s marriage to Xerxes gave the Jews prestige at this court and made it possible for Nehemiah to rebuild Jerusalem (Nehemiah 2:1-8).

In Esther 3 to 5 we read of the ascendancy of a man by the name of Haman. He was a wicked man whose day of triumph was short and whose joy endured but for a moment. When Haman appears in the book of Esther, he had just been exalted to the highest position under the king of Persia (Esther 3:1). The high honour turned his head. He swelled with vanity and was bitterly humiliated when Mordecai, who was sitting at the gate, did not do homage to him as to the king (Esther 3:2). The little fault of Mordecai was magnified into a capital offense. Mordecai, a Jew, could not give divine honour to a man. Haman became so enraged that he wanted to have a wholesale massacre of all the Jews in the kingdom (Esther 3:6). Haman tried to prove to the king that all the Jews were disloyal subjects. He offered to pay the king a bribe of millions of dollars (Esther 3:9). The King signed a royal decree that meant that every Jewish man, woman and child should be killed and all their property should be taken, almost like that happened in Nazi regime. Esther 4: 1-3 saw the fasting and praying and weeping in sack cloth that took place among the Jews. Mordecai made Esther understand her position. “And who knows but that you have come to royal position for such a time as this” (Esther 4:14).

There is one thing to do always. Do what is right and leave the rest to God. God prepares people for emergencies. Failure is not sin, faithlessness is. There is a time to act.  We can see how the situation overturned and favoured Jews, how the King was not able to sleep and how Haman was trapped (Esther 6). When King granted Esther’s wish, Haman was hung on the very scaffold he had prepared for Mordecai, and Mordecai was elevated to the place of honor next to the king.

The book of Esther closes with the account of establishing the feast of Purim and lifting Mordecai to the place made vacant by Haman (Esther 10:3). It is a thanks giving day for the chosen people. Although they had forsaken God, He had spared them. Deliverance seems to be the keynote of Jewish history. God has always delivered this nation from danger and servitude. This book of Esther is an important link in a chain of events that tell of re-establishing the Hebrew nation in their own land in preparation of the coming of the Messiah into the world. The Jewish people had escaped extermination. It was God’s purpose that they should be preserved to bring forth the Saviour of the world.

The book opens with a feast of the world’s prince – Ahasuerus and closes with the feast of God’s prince – Mordecai. For a while Haman is exalted, at last, Mordecai. As you read this history, note the upsets in human history and the final triumph of God’s chosen people. Adolf Hitler tried to wipe out Jews from the world, and finally he committed suicide and Jews got their own land. Now Palestine, Iran and the Arab nations are trying to single Israel and destroy it, and we need to wait and see how God is going to destroy its enemies.

As New Israel, the same is applied to the believers. There will be time when opposition comes against you. As Esther and the Jews fasted and prayed, the book teaches us to fast and pray and see how God changes the opposition and favour us miraculously. May God help you to keep faith in him and see his glory in your life.

The BOOK – Old Testament Revelation

Zechariah is a book of revelation of the Old Testament. He was the prophet of restoration and glory. Born in Babylon, he was priest as well as prophet. Zechariah, whose name means “Jehovah remembers”, prophesied for three years. The glorious future rather than the sad present was his message.

In Zechariah 1 we find Judah still a remnant, Jerusalem far from restored the gentile nations at ease round about it (Zechariah 1:14-16). He pictured God’s love and care for his people. He was a prophet to the remnant of the Jews who returned from Babylon after the seventy years of captivity. He tried to tell the people one day the Messiah would come and God’s chosen people would rise into power. Zechariah does not condemn the people, but presents in glowing pictures the presence of God to strengthen and help. He especially encourages the governor, Zerubbabel, who was conscious of his own weakness (Zechariah 4:6-10). Zechariah foretells the saviour more than any other prophet except Isaiah.

The prophet, looking far into the future, saw Messiah of the days to come as one Person, but in two aspects. First, he saw him in humiliation and suffering, and again, in majesty and great glory. Of the Minor Prophets, Zechariah majors in visions (Zechariah 1:1-6). The visions are followed by a symbolic act of crowning the high priest (Zechariah 6:9-11). We find a committee from Bethel waiting on Zechariah to ask him if the national fasts should be kept (Zechariah 7-8). The Jews themselves had instituted these fasts. They had been used to fasting on their anniversary days. Zechariah warned them against cold formalism in their religious observances. He urges them to change their fasts into feasts of joy and be practical in their righteousness.

Zechariah 9 to 14 is full of promises of the coming Messiah and a worldwide kingdom. The prophet no longer pictures a city rebuilt on its foundations, but a glorious city whose wall is the Lord. It is not armed for war, but is a city filled with peace, for the Prince of Peace reigns. He shall come the first time as the lowly one, riding upon a clot, the foal of a donkey (Zechariah 9:9).

Chapter 11 reveals the shepherd who would seek to save Israel, but is rejected. He is sold for 30 pieces of silver, the price of a slave. This all foreshadowed Christ and his betrayal by Judas. Chapter 12 gives us the prophecy of the siege of Jerusalem by the Antichrist and his armies in the last days. Then we see the repentance of the Jews when they shall see him whom they have pierced. The foundation shall be opened to the house of David for sin and uncleanness (Zechariah 13:1). Then the return of the Messiah upon the Mount Olives, which shall cleave asunder by an earthquake (Zechariah 14:4), reminds us of the day when he left the earth at that same spot with the promise of his return (Acts 1:11). Finally he shall be King over the whole earth and all people shall be holy unto him (Zechariah 14:9-20).

We see prophet prophesying about a glorious future. But at the same time, we see about the fasting in chapters 7 and 8. I have seen people not eating non vegetarian foods at lent days. They claim they are on fast. They will be waiting for the Easter day. When the day comes, they will drink liquor as much they can to get dunked. Don’t know why they fasted for the last 40 days.

Fasting is only profitable as an outward sign of an inward confession of sin. Merely refraining from eating will never bring a blessing. God wants a humble and contrite heart. May God help you to understand his holiness and live a holy life, leaving all the worldly lusts to bring glory to the name of Christ Jesus. 

The BOOK – My Feast

Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi are the last of the prophetic books. They prophesied to the Jews after they returned to Jerusalem. Haggai is the first voice to be heard after the exile. Haggai is determined to persuade the people to rebuild the temple.

With a colossal task before them of rebuilding the temple and restoring the worship of Jehovah, the Jews laboured under the same old sins – idolatry and intermarrying with idolatrous neighbours. Because of all this, the work dragged and the people lost heart and became selfish. Neglecting the Lord’s house, they had become more interested in building homes for themselves than for God (Haggai 1:4). God would not allow all this to go on and so he sent punishment as a result. God sometimes allows hardships because of our indifference to him. Crops failed and business was depressed because of the sin of the Jews. When people forget to love God, they forget to love their fellow citizens.

In Haggai 2 we see people became discouraged because the new temple did not measure up the older one in any way which king Solomon build. The foundation itself was very small. But Haggai came with encouragement telling that God is going to pour his resources into the new building. “I will shake all nations, and the desired of all nations will come, and I will fill this house with glory, says the Lord Almighty” (Haggai 1:7). Haggai showed the people, their impurity. He made them realise their sinfulness. He showed them the reason their prayers were not answered was that they had put off so long completing the temple. Haggai showed them that the land had been rendered useless by their neglect, but God was working and it would be different now. “From this day in I will bless you” (Haggai 2:18-19).

I have seen people getting uncomfortable when questions are asked about their sins. Prophets and Servants of God are there in between us not only to pray and bless us, but also to show us the right path and warn us if we take the wrong one. May God help you to understand his words so that you will respect his servants and live a life which brings glory and honour to God and work for his kingdom through his church. 

The BOOK – Missionary

In the book of Ezekiel, we see him work among the exiles in Babylon. God had prepared a witness to the people in their captivity. God needed a voice to warn the people. For 22 years Ezekiel dealt with the discouraged captives to whom God had sent him. God’s greatest communications can only be made by his servants whose own hearts have been broken. The instrument in God’s hands must personally be ready to share in suffering with others. Jesus’s body was broken for us.

Like Jeremiah, Ezekiel was not only a prophet, but he was a priest as well. He was a prophet during the captivity. When he was 25 years old, he was carried captive to Babylon. He lived at the same time as Daniel and Jeremiah. Jeremiah remained among the Jews in Jerusalem. Ezekiel lived with the exiles in Babylon, and Daniel lived in the court of the rulers in Babylon.

The captivity did not bring the people of Judah back to God, but only seemed to drive the people into greater wickedness. They worshiped idols and set up shrines in the hills and defiled the sanctuary of Jehovah (Ezekiel 5:11). Ezekiel began his prophecies to them. Ezekiel used symbols, as in the mimic siege of Jerusalem (Ezekiel 4), visions (Ezekiel 8), parables (Ezekiel 17), poems (Ezekiel 19), proverbs (Ezekiel 12:22-23; 18:2) and prophecies (Ezekiel 6:20; 40 – 48). He talks of sin and punishment, of repentance and blessing. His responsibility was to deliver God’s message and the results was not in his hands.

Ezekiel opens with the heavenly glory in a vision (Ezekiel 1). The book ends with earthly glory (Ezekiel 40-48). Ezekiel visions given in between tell of the departing of this glory (Ezekiel 9:3). First it left the cherubim for the threshold of God’s house (Ezekiel 10:4), thence to the east gate (Ezekiel 10:18,19), and finally clear away from the temple and city to the Mount of Olives (Ezekiel 11:22,23). Thus gradually, reluctantly, majestically, the glory of the Lord left the temple and the Holy city. Then captivity came. This was Ezekiel’s message. Their captivity was a result of their sin, and before they could hope for return to their land they must return to their Lord. This message reaches its climax in the impassioned cry of Ezekiel 18:30-32. The closing vision of temple is important and significant. The glory of the Lord returns (Ezekiel 43:2-6) and fills the house of the Lord (Ezekiel 44:4).

The same is true of the church of Christ. The glory of the Lord left the house of the Lord because of the sins of God’s people. It is true of individual Christian experience. God’s blessing returns to his people when his people return him.

Young Christians, this is just what happens to us. We can grieve the Holy Spirit and resist him until he is quenched and our heart becomes like a ruined temple bereft of its glory. There are so many blighted Christian lives from which the radiance has gone through disobedience. We grieve the Spirit when we do not allow ourselves time to read the word or pray. We limit the spirit when we refuse to be clean vessels through which he can work. We resist him by allowing idols to be in our hearts. Remember, your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit (1Corinthians 6:19). The questions I have for you is, Does his presence glow in your life?