Esther Lesson 15: When the Lord Is On Your Side, Pt 3 :: By Sean Gooding

Published on: April 20, 2021 by RR7

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

How to Connect with Us

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Esther Lesson 14: When the Lord Is on Your Side, Pt 2 :: By Sean Gooding

Published on: April 13, 2021 by RR7

Chapter 9:1-5

“Now in the twelfth month, that is, the month of Adar, on the thirteenth day, the time came for the king’s command and his decree to be executed. On the day that the enemies of the Jews had hoped to overpower them, the opposite occurred, in that the Jews themselves overpowered those who hated them. 2 The Jews gathered together in their cities throughout all the provinces of King Ahasuerus to lay hands on those who sought their harm. And no one could withstand them, because fear of them fell upon all people.

3 And all the officials of the provinces, the satraps, the governors, and all those doing the king’s work, helped the Jews, because the fear of Mordecai fell upon them. 4 For Mordecai was great in the king’s palace, and his fame spread throughout all the provinces; for this man Mordecai became increasingly prominent. 5 Thus the Jews defeated all their enemies with the stroke of the sword, with slaughter and destruction, and did what they pleased with those who hated them.“

We looked last week at the beginning of the end for the attack on the Jews in the 127 provinces in the kingdom of Persia, reaching from India to Ethiopia. Esther, with the encouragement of Mordecai and the power of the Lord, sent out a letter allowing the Jews to defend themselves against their enemies. And as we read this chapter, we find that Haman did not have a hard time finding people to try to carry out his original decree.

The Jews have had and continue to have enemies all over the world. Countries like Iran and other Muslim nations constantly call for the annihilation of Israel. In many of their schools, the nation of Israel is not included in their geographical maps. Many liberal leaders here in the West, including the current President of the US and our PM in Canada, are not fans of Israel. They support the enemies of Israel and open us here in the West to the wrath of God.

Today we will explore the actual day of the battle; we will jump ahead a few months as to what happened on that day – the day that Haman had appointed to eliminate the Jews.

The Jews were ready, verses 1-2

They had been warned by Esther’s letters, and they were ready to defend themselves. This is all that Esther wanted was that her people would not be caught off guard and slaughtered. God blessed her efforts, and a great victory was accomplished. We will explore more of this later in the lesson, but here we want to simply look at what happens when we step out in faith. Esther trusted that God could help her people, and she simply put herself and her life on the line. I was at a conference once, and the speaker talked about how we all want to stand out, but to do so, we must first stand up. Esther stood up. God honored her standing up, and there is an eternal record of her actions and what God did as a result.

Today is April 8th, 2021, and as I sit here writing, there is a church in Alberta that has been barricaded by the health authorities to try and prevent them from assembling for their church service this coming Sunday as a response to the COVID mess. Their pastor had recently spent 35 days in jail for leading a worship service. He was unable to get bail and get out. If he had been a rapist or murderer, he would have been able to post bail; but for the crime of worshipping the Lord Jesus, they kept him in jail for 35 days. There will always be enemies of the Lord’s people. Some will say that he is disobeying the laws of man, and he was, but those laws violated the laws of God.

I do not know this pastor personally, but I am sure that this coming Sunday, whether in the parking lot or in a field, this local church will have a worship service with the 600+ persons that are normally present. Like Esther, it may be that the Lord has him here for a time like this. The news coverage on this and the political fallout is already happening to the leaders in Alberta. Somewhere along the line, people need to stand and be counted. Esther stood, and God used her bravery and obedience to change the world around her. If you take the time to read the book of Nehemiah, it would appear that the favor for the Jews lasted long after Esther was dead and gone. What a legacy she and Mordecai left!

What will be your legacy here for the generations that follow? Will it be one of cowardice and compliance, or will you be one who stands for the truth and sets a tone of obedience no matter the cost? This is what I wrestle with in this time; I suspect that many more pastors are in the same fight. We know that the need to assemble is essential to the life of a church. It is commanded in Hebrews 10:25 that as we see the last days approaching, we are to make an even greater effort to assemble. Yet the power around us, in the name of safety, wants us to disobey God. We can distance, we can wear masks if they like, but we must assemble; this is God’s command.

We know from current studies that about one-third of all practicing Christians, according to an article from Barna published in July 2020, have stopped attending church completely, even the online versions. There will always be reasons for people not to attend church, but when a government determines that the liquor store is more ‘essential’ than the local church, we need to stand up and show that is a lie.

God’s people have not had to fight for a long time; we have enjoyed relative peace and tranquility here in the West for decades. But the fight is coming; make no mistake. The fight on the homosexual agenda and the Rainbow agenda is real; the fight to thwart or limit speech, thus making parts of the Bible, if not most of it illegal, is real; and the threat to shut down the local church as a response to the pandemic is just as real. Many will say that others have been affected, and you are right. The economic costs are staggering, the human costs in areas like suicide, depression and many other mental issues are staggering, and the spiritual costs are staggering. The division in churches for those who only see the COVID and don’t see any other things is real.

We were blindsided by this mess and caught off guard. Just a couple of weeks, they said, then a few months, and now it has been a year, and they project even more time. But somewhere along the line, God’s people need to stand and stop being afraid. You and I will die when God wants us to die and not a moment sooner. But too many of us have stopped living; we might as well be dead.

The leadership of Mordecai verses 3-5

We have spent a lot of time talking about Esther, and rightly so, God did name the book after her. But in the shadows and long before Esther was the queen, there was Mordecai. He loved the Lord and loved Esther and taught her the truth. He taught her how to be obedient, loyal and brave. He taught her the history of her people and the truth about who she was as a Jew.

We see that he was a man of integrity and one to not tolerate fools like Haman nor bow to him. He did his job faithfully, serving the king but never forgetting that he was a Jew. Well, the Lord was always noticing, and when the time came, God elevated Mordecai and destroyed Haman. God promoted Mordecai and killed Haman. God did it at the right time. We have a hard time waiting on the Lord. I do; Lord, help me. But Mordecai became the leader in the palace, and his influence empowered the Persians to stand for the Jews as well.

“And all the officials of the provinces, the satraps, the governors, and all those doing the king’s work, helped the Jews, because the fear of Mordecai fell upon them. For Mordecai was great in the king’s palace, and his fame spread throughout all the provinces; for this man Mordecai became increasingly prominent. Thus the Jews defeated all their enemies with the stroke of the sword, with slaughter and destruction, and did what they pleased with those who hated them.”

In everywhere that Persia had an embassy or an office, the leaders there banded with the Jews to defeat their enemies because of the influence of Mordecai. What influence do you have in your world? Do you inspire people to be more obedient to the Lord? I am always astonished that people will come and ask me to pray for them; even Muslim people will come and ask me to pray for them. The leaders feared Mordecai; maybe some were afraid of him, but the fear here is more of reverence, not fear like they had with Haman. He was a cruel man, but Mordecai was a godly leader and a good man. Now that he had the power, he was not going to change; what you saw was what you got. Nevertheless, because of his influence, the political leaders sided with the Jews and helped them to prevail.

What is your influence? What are you and I like when we are endued with power? Do we become mean and let the power go to our heads, or are we humbled by God’s grace and become better servants?

Mordecai got even better; he could now influence the people in the ways of Jehovah. In Proverbs 29:2, we are told that the people rejoice when the righteous are in charge. The king did not have to worry about Mordecai trying to subvert him or take his power or steal from him. Mordecai is a godly leader, and so should we be. We should be godly fathers and mentors, godly workers and the best servants, even when we are in charge.

I pray that we will stand up and stand out like Esther and Mordecai. May we fight and encourage others to stand when needed, and may we influence others to do what is right as we lead.