Wed.’s Devo - Save Us!

Read: Esther 1:1-3:15; 1 Corinthians 11:17-34; Psalm 35:17-28; Proverbs 21:19-20 Esther is believed to have happened around 465 B.C. and takes place over four years. This would place it between the time of Ezra when they rebuilt the Temple and the time of Nehemiah when they came and rebuilt the wall. There were still Jews who had not returned to Jerusalem living in Persia. The story opens in a banquet that the King Xerxes gave in the capital of Susa of Persia. It was a huge event that lasted 180 days and all the military officers and the who’s who were invited. During the event, the king showed off the opulence of his kingdom. The queen, Vashti entertained the wives in a separate banquet. On the seventh day of the feast when the king was drunk he told his eunuchs to bring his wife over to his party so he could show her off. She refused to come which posed an embarrassing situation for the king. He was furious and wanted revenge. He consulted his wise men and they knew that if Vashti got away with not obeying her husband then their wives would follow suit, so they proposed to have Vashti exiled. The king agreed and sent Vashti away. After a while, the king missed his wife and the wise men knew they had to come up with a solution or the king might turn on them. They proposed a beauty contest of all the women worthy in the kingdom. He could choose his favorite. Meanwhile, there was a Jewish exile named Mordecai from the lineage of Saul. He had adopted his orphaned niece, Hadassah also called Esther who was very pretty. She was chosen and brought to the king’s harem for beauty treatments. Hegai was impressed with Esther and moved her to the top and gave her the best maids and treatments. Mordecai had warned Esther not to tell anyone that she was Jewish. When it was her time to go meet the king, he was so impressed with her that he set the royal crown on her head and declared her queen. He gave a great banquet in her honor and declared the day a holiday. Later, Mordecai was on his shift at the gate when he overheard two men plotting to murder the king. He got the information to Esther, who had the king warned. The two men were arrested and killed. King Xerxes elevated a man named Haman to top commander of all his nobles. Haman was a wicked man who was drunk on power. He wanted everyone to bow in respect to him but Mordecai refused to bow. Haman had Mordecai investigated and found out that he was a Jew. He decided to ruin and kill Mordecai and his people. Every year at the start of the year, they would cast lots (purim) for every event on the calendar. Haman told Xerxes that there were a group of people in his kingdom who separated them selves from everyone else and obeyed only their own laws. They refused to obey the king’s laws and it was not good for his kingdom to let them live. He wanted the king to issue a decree to kill them and Haman would donate 10,000 sacks of silver of his own to Xerxes bank account. (Talk about a political bribe!) The king agreed and gave him his ring to make it official (making it an executive order). The decree went out and like the lot or purim said, it would happen the last month of the year. The king and Human sat down to drink wine and the whole city was thrown into confusion. You can see the disconnect of the king and his people. Reminds me of America. In Corinthians, Paul says that divisions must come because they make God’s approval obvious. If we don’t disagree and bring it to the table, we will never know what God says. God will manifest his answer. Paul discussed their meeting for eating the Lord’s supper. They would all meet and bring food for a feast. The rich would bring enough to share with the poor. Either before the meal or after, they would partake of the Lord’s supper - the bread and the wine. Paul rebuked them of gorging themselves and getting drunk and not taking God’s supper seriously. They had no self-control and their hearts were not in the right place. Lord, we can see our nation right where the Jews found themselves. A decree has gone forth to kill all of your people and do them harm. We are crying out to you to save us and have mercy. We put all our trust in you.