General Articles

Esther Lesson 1: Wealth on Display :: By Sean Gooding

Published on: by RR7

Esther, Chapter 1:1-8

“Now it came to pass in the days of Ahasuerus (this was the Ahasuerus who reigned over one hundred and twenty-seven provinces, from India to Ethiopia), 2 in those days when King Ahasuerus sat on the throne of his kingdom, which was in Shushan the citadel, 3 that in the third year of his reign he made a feast for all his officials and servants—the powers of Persia and Media, the nobles, and the princes of the provinces being before him— 4 when he showed the riches of his glorious kingdom and the splendor of his excellent majesty for many days, one hundred and eighty days in all.

“5 And when these days were completed, the king made a feast lasting seven days for all the people who were present in Shushan the citadel, from great to small, in the court of the garden of the king’s palace. 6 There were white and blue linen curtains fastened with cords of fine linen and purple on silver rods and marble pillars; and the couches were of gold and silver on a mosaic pavement of alabaster, turquoise, and white and black marble. 7 And they served drinks in golden vessels, each vessel being different from the other, with royal wine in abundance, according to the generosity of the king. 8 In accordance with the law, the drinking was not compulsory; for so the king had ordered all the officers of his household, that they should do according to each man’s pleasure.“

I pray that you have all had a wonderful break. Here in Canada, we are still struggling under the COVID mess. We are in a lockdown right now that is supposed to be stopping the spread of COVID, but it is also killing a lot of businesses. There is a fear of lots of cancer-related deaths as people are not able to be diagnosed and cared for, and there is a lot of emotional fallout as well. I have seen more ads for the suicide hotlines in the last few weeks than I have seen in the previous year. As I was ending the last series in Romans, one of the dear ladies in our church asked if I could do a series on Esther. So, we are going to travel through the book of Esther for the next few weeks.

There are some unique things about the book of Esther; the name of God is never mentioned in it, but we can certainly see the hand of God in it. This book covers events that happen during the reign of Ahasuerus, and events that happened beginning around 483-482 BC, concluding in about 473 BC. The book covers about 10 years; Ahasuerus reigned from 486-465 BC, so this covers about half of his reign. This is one of the ‘feel-good’ stories of the Bible where the ‘bad guy’ gets his just desserts and the ‘good guy’ gets his reward. As well, there are not many stories in the Bible where there is a woman hero, so this is a really popular book with the ladies, as is the book of Ruth.

As we open the book, we are met by a party – a very large party. Often, when we think of the eras that are described to us in the Bible, we do not understand the depth of the wealth that many people had. We, as Bible people, are familiar with King Solomon; he had great wealth, and no one else in the world has ever had that kind of wealth. Yes, not even our modern-day billionaires are as wealthy as Solomon was; let that sink in. Nonetheless, Ahasuerus was very wealthy, and the Persian Empire at the time of the book of Esther was very wealthy.

Persia represents modern-day Iran. As you can see from the description of the size of the territory in verse 1, the landmass that Persia controlled was huge. If you take out a map and take a look, you will see that the kingdom covered 4,310 kilometers ‘as the crow flies’ from Ethiopia to India, but as a landmass, it covered modern-day Yemen, Oman, Somalia, Saudi Arabia, Israel, and a lot of lands. This was a huge empire to rule over, and as such, generated a lot of wealth. We get to see a display of wealth in the opening verses of this book.

  1. Six Months of Partying

I had a party here for our family and the birthdays of three of the people in our family in late September. We had about 30 people or so. We cooked lasagna, grilled hot dogs, people brought salads, pizzas, and we had punch and pop. It took weeks of planning and prepping to get this all together. I cannot imagine what a 6-month party would entail. Yes, six months, 180 days, half a year, this was the duration of the viewing that Ahasuerus threw as we begin the book of Esther. He has been king for 3 years, and I guess he wanted to show off his wealth; and show off he did. We are told there were servants from all of his provinces and that there were 127 of them. This function hosted at least 127 people, plus other dignitaries.

In the process of the 180 days of this party, the purpose was for the king to show off his wealth. If we recall the image from Daniel 2, there, Persians were the second world kingdom; there was the silver part of the image that Nebuchadnezzar saw. When we read Daniel 5, we see that a man named Cyrus the Mede invades the city of Babylon and conquers the Chaldeans, but it is not long after that the second ‘arm’ of the Persian empire becomes the stronger one and the Medes fade into history. At the end of his display of wealth, he then schedules a seven-day garden party. This was a display of power and wealth; he wanted to show off the majesty of the kingdom he ruled, and man, did he do a good job! There was no doubt that Ahasuerus was rich.

We have modern-day royals. My wife is British, and we are watching the Crown. Wow! Money. Lots and lots of money. According to Forbes, the Queen herself is worth about $500,000,000 USD and has an estate worth 13.4 billion British pounds. The Royal family of England is very wealthy. There are many wealthy individuals who live among us – men like Warren Buffet and, of course, Jeff Bezos of Amazon and many others. Money is not something they have to worry about, ever. And such was the case here in Persia, in Shushan the citadel; money was no object. Shushan, the center of this party with Ahasuerus, would have been busy and filled with people.

  1. It’s all about Pleasure

Earthly pleasure is fleeting at best. But for a period of time, about 180 days, and then with a 7-day finale, the people of the Persian Empire, great and small, had pleasure. There was lots of food, lots of alcohol, and every man was free to do as he pleased. There gets to be a point in the life of the rich that you don’t need to make more money, you don’t need to work, and no matter how much you spend, you will not run out of money. If you had a billion dollars and decided to spend a million dollars a day, it would take almost 3 years before you ran out of money. Imagine someone worth 100 Billion dollars; the interest earned on your money as you spent it would keep you going forever.

People live for pleasure, and this is the problem with many people and money. They try to fill a hole in their lives with money, riches, women and fun that only God can fill. They place their hope in money and not in God. Once again, go and read Daniel 5; the king was partying, not knowing that night would be his last on earth.

Jesus told a story about a rich man and a beggar named Lazarus — one trusted his riches and ended up in Hell; the other trusted Jesus and ended up in Heaven. The rich man would surely have traded his earthly riches for what Lazarus had for eternity.

As we begin the story here in Esther, no one who had not read the book would imagine the intrigue and emotional rollercoasters that would follow. No one would imagine the speed at which pleasure can be taken from you. One minute you are partying with the people of your kingdom, and the next, you are banishing a queen and looking for a replacement.

  1. The Love Story

What we are about to embark on is a love story. What most kings of that day had — and sadly, many marriages in the Biblical days — were not love stories. They were political arrangements and power arrangements. I won’t attack your kingdom because I am married to your daughter and have your grandchildren, or vice-versa. But the book of Esther will carry us on a love journey – a man’s love for his niece, her love for him, a king’s love for a young lady, her love for him, a man’s love for God’s people, and a man’s hatred of God’s people. We will learn about intrigue and suspense. We will experience fear and suspense like all dramas.

But in it all, the hand of God will be clearly seen. God has prepared a young woman to catch the eye of the king, God has prepared a plot for Mordecai to foil, God will have a sleepless night for the king to need the archives, and God will foil the plots of the evil. God’s love for his people will be very clearly seen, and the fact that He uses mere humans in his plots to make a difference.

What about you and me? We, like Esther, live in a time when the people of God are under attack. There are persons and establishments in society that hate that we have the truth of Jesus as the ONLY WAY to Heaven, that hate that there is a Creator and a God to whom we must answer for our lives. They hate that Heaven and Hell are real. They hate that no matter how they try, the work of God goes on unabated as people all over the world, even in the dark recesses of the earth, are saved and baptized.

The love story of the Bible goes on. Jesus loves you and me; He has prepared a way for Him and us to be united in His death, burial and resurrection. The love story of God’s people, who are looking for our redemption from above, moves on. The book of Esther happened in history a long time ago, but the lessons are relative to us in 2021.

Will you and I put our lives on the line for the truth, for the things of God, for the lives of the lost and for the cause of Jesus? Will we be paralyzed by fear or driven by love for Him and our trust in Him?

There are so many questions that we will be posed with as we journey through Esther. But for now, let me ask you this: is your security in Jesus or in your riches? We here in North America are blessed beyond all we could ask or think. But where have you placed your security? Mine is in the shed blood of Jesus and the empty tomb; where is yours?

God bless you,

Dr. Sean Gooding

Pastor of Mississauga Missionary Baptist Church

How to Connect with Us

On Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MississaugaMissionaryBaptistChurch

Online: https://www.mississaugamissionarybaptistchurch.com/ (under construction)

Email: missionarybaptistchurch76@yahoo.ca

Revival? Then What? :: By Gary W. Ritter

Published on: by RR7

As the darkness closes in and Bible prophecy takes clearer shape every day, there are many Christians who continue to yearn and pray for revival. They remind the Lord of His promise to Israel in 2 Chronicles 7:14, a verse we’re all familiar with:

“If my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.”

As Christians we appropriate this prayer for ourselves, although the original context was for Israel. Perhaps God in His mercy does indeed extend this grace He speaks of in this verse to us.

However, in quoting this verse, we forget the if-then nature of so many declarations God has made. When God’s people didn’t obey Him and do as He commanded, there were consequences. If they did as He said, blessings resulted; if they didn’t obey, they received His curses.

Look at what God told the Israelites in the next breath in 2 Chronicles 14:19-22:

“But if you turn aside and forsake my statutes and my commandments that I have set before you, and go and serve other gods and worship them, then I will pluck you up from my land that I have given you, and this house that I have consecrated for my name, I will cast out of my sight, and I will make it a proverb and a byword among all peoples. And at this house, which was exalted, everyone passing by will be astonished and say, ‘Why has the Lord done thus to this land and to this house?’ Then they will say, ‘Because they abandoned the Lord, the God of their fathers who brought them out of the land of Egypt, and laid hold on other gods and worshiped them and served them. Therefore he has brought all this disaster on them.'”

In other words, if Israel worshiped other gods by turning away from Yahweh, the One true God, He would uproot them and cast them out of the land. This, of course, is exactly what occurred.

The question then becomes: If verse 7 applies to us, shouldn’t verses 19-22 also pertain to Christians and/or America today? The promise God made to Israel was for the nation, i.e., for at least a majority of the people. Obviously, the circumstances in America are different from those of Israel. The nation of Israel was a theocracy. America was never intended as that. Thus, another question: If the church is the supplicant to God for His mercy on this nation, which it must be, how many believers must be truly faithful to God for Him to hear and relent from His judgment upon us? Five people? Five hundred? Five thousand? Fifty thousand? Is there a tipping point of believers for God to act to save an entire nation of 330 Million people?

Is revival in this nation even possible when an entire branch of our government has given itself over to the worship and admonition of other gods? In the recent opening of the 117th Session of the House of Representatives, two astounding events happened.

  1. The House passed an order regarding their Code of Conduct that every Member MUST use inclusive language. No longer can anyone in that august chamber use the terms father, mother, son, daughter, etc. Those in the chamber are required to use gender-neutral language or be censored, or worse. In other words, God’s design for humanity has been thrown into the trash by the House of Representatives.
  2. Even worse, if that’s possible, when Representative Emmanuel Cleaver, a former pastor with a Master of Divinity degree, opened the Session with a prayer, he made it known exactly where God stands in this so-called representative body. Here is what he said:

“We ask in the name of the monotheistic God, Brahma, and god known by many names by many different faiths. [Are you ready…?] Amen and awoman.”

In one breath, this apostate minister declared that the House of Representatives is at best syncretistic, i.e., they have merged various faiths into whatever they follow, or at worst, they simply revere any god but God Most High. Then there’s his closing of the prayer. What was that?

I wonder how this sits with God in His oversight of this nation, especially in light of a passage like 2 Chronicles 14:19-22 quoted above?

Beyond this, I think there’s another issue at play in our praying for revival, one that I’ve never heard anyone else voice.

In God’s Word, we have His declaration that Tribulation will come upon this earth. It will happen, whether sooner or later. I happen to believe it will be sooner – not all that long after Jesus Christ returns in the clouds and removes His Bride, i.e., true believers in the church – soon! With us gone, the Restrainer – the Holy Spirit – will restrain no more. God’s hammer will descend, even as greater lawlessness and chaos arise.

In the lead-up to the Rapture and the Tribulation, it is necessary for all systems and hardened hearts to be ready when the time arrives. What we’re currently seeing and experiencing with mask mandates, lockdowns, vaccinations necessary to fly or even gather in public, technological developments that astound us every day, the soon to come persecution of Christians in America, etc – these are necessary for when the Man with a Plan comes on the scene. He’ll be able to operate immediately from Day 1 and do what he desires. Each day that goes by between now and the Rapture will get progressively worse.

Now, let’s think about what our praying for revival at this time really does.

What if God does a Nineveh for America, and somehow there’s a four-year or a forty-year reprieve? Good for us. In that case, we’ve dodged the bullet. God would have to slow down the progression of lawlessness. Things might be bad, but they certainly couldn’t be as bad if the Tribulation was right around the corner.

So, our generation wipes the sweat from its collective brow, and the world doesn’t devolve into chaos as quickly as it might. Perhaps rather than being Raptured, we pass on relatively quietly.

All is well, right?

Not exactly. Remember that God will bring the Tribulation.

As a result, what does this mean for our children and grandchildren? With the Tribulation delayed, that means they get to face the worst of the development of all that will go bad as the time for that awful event nears. Revival for us delays the inevitable that will come upon our descendants.

If you think about it that way, our prayer for revival may seem a tad bit selfish, don’t you think? Rather than our having to buckle down and truly seek God by strengthening our faith, we can relax with the reprieve. We can leave that arduous task of seeking God at a deeper level for our kids. Let them deal with it and all the consequences that’ll arise by the delay we prayed for.

Maybe we ought to rethink the revival narrative. Perhaps we should ask God instead to simply strengthen us, to soften our hearts against the bitterness that’s a natural outgrowth of what’s happening in this nation, to enable us to brace ourselves against the tsunami of hate that is coming our way. Maybe we should ask the Lord to keep our hearts from being troubled by this world, to enable us to hold loosely to everything around us, and to help us keep our eyes on Him regardless of our circumstances.

I wonder if simply prayers that lift up the Name of Jesus might glorify Him more than our seeking something that He may have no intention of providing?

——————–

Gary W. Ritter is a lay pastor and Bible teacher. He is also a prolific author. His Whirlwind Series comprises three books: Sow the Wind, Reap the Whirlwind, and There Is A Time. These books are contained in the collected volume of the Whirlwind Omnibus. Gary has been given the Christian Redemptive Fiction award for two novels: The Tattooed Cat and Alien Revelation. He has collaborated with Terry James on a soon-to-be-released third book, The Minion Protocols, in James’ Second Coming Chronicles series. Gary has also recently released a four-volume set of Awaken Bible Study Notes that comment verse-by-verse through Scripture from a Biblical prophetic lens. Gary’s intent in all his writings is to bring a strong Christian witness to what people read.

You can reach him at his website: www.GaryRitter.com or his Facebook Author page: https://www.facebook.com/gritter3390. You can also see his video Bible teachings on his Gary Ritter YouTube channel – look for the fish symbol.