Standing Firm

Scripture Reading Esther 3:1-11

Standing Firm

We come now this morning to the third chapter of Esther. Last time we left off with Esther finding favor with the King. The King and Esther get married. The older cousin and guardian of Esther, Mordecai, is still cautious though and watching out for her.

One day Mordecai was hanging out at the city gate and overhead a plot to kill the King. The men involved in the plot were a couple of the King’s officers. Mordecai tells Esther about the plot and Esther tells the King.

The King investigates the plot and finds it to be true. He has the men plotting the assignation executed and Mordecai has his name written in the Book of the Chronicles for the King. This is an important part of the story to note for later on.

Because of this assassination plot, the King increases his security and puts a guy by the name of Haman (Hay-man) in charge of the security detail. The people were to bow down and pay honor to Haman because of his position.

But Mordecai would not bow to this man. See Mordecai was a Jew from the tribe of Benjamin and Haman was an Agagite, a descendant of King Agag. The Agagites tried to exterminate the Jews about 1,000 years before the time of Mordecai and Haman, but the feud was still in their blood.

So Mordecai would not bow down and show honor to Haman. Some of the guards tried to warn Mordecai and questioned him as to why he would not bow down. Mordecai replied that he was a Jew and would not bow down, implying he was obeying the 2nd commandment, which forbids idol worship.

After talking with Mordecai several times to no avail, the guards finally bring Haman’s attention to the situation. Haman was filled with anger, fury, resentment, and hatred. Haman doesn’t want just Mordecai punished, but he wants to punish and eliminate the entire Jewish population.

As I mentioned before, God’s name is not mentioned throughout this book, but His hand and presence is shown through out it. The same holds true for Satan. This isn’t simply Haman wanting to kill the Jews, it is Satan’s hand at work to exterminate God’s chosen people.

Haman goes to the King and says “there is a certain group of people that refuse to obey your laws. Issue a decree to have them all killed on a certain day and we will gather their possessions into our treasury.”

The King, as usual, doesn’t ask any questions and makes the order to kill all these people, in one day all around the country. Now, the King didn’t know these people were Jews, nor did he know that his wife, Esther, was a Jew.

The decree was sent out to all of his towns and the people went crazy with confusion. They were confused because they could not understand why the King would show such hatred to a certain group of people.

What can we learn from this Scripture this morning.

Well for one thing, it seems as though political leaders rely on their advisors a little too much. It is good to gather the advice of others, but we need to make sure we have all the facts and ask the right questions before we act. We also need to think for ourselves once in a while.

When we do stand up for what we believe in, we truly need to know just what it is exactly that we are standing and believing in.

Mordecai had his beliefs and he stood for what he believed was right. He was willing to pay whatever price was necessary. When you are standing firm for what is right in God’s eyes, He will stand with you and take care of you and see you through the situation.

The world puts pressure on us to compromise our convictions today. The world says, lets sit down and have a dialogue about this topic and we can come to some type of agreement based upon our discussion.

That is what the world is like, it tries to get us to bend our beliefs and start to think more like the world. Is this what Jesus did? No, not at all!

He didn’t sit down with the Pharisees, Sadducees, or Scribes and hash out an agreement. He stood for what is right. He did not compromise.

Sometimes when we are holding true to our belief we will need to make sacrifices. We may have to give up worldly activities, friends, jobs, or even family members.

Let’s say you have a great job working for a Doctor and one day the doctor says he is going to start to perform abortions. As a Christian you are against abortions, so what do you do? Do you compromise your beliefs and help the Doctor or do you walk away from the job?

It is tough to do what is right sometimes and it may mean making difficult life changing decisions. But as we live for God, we should make the choices and decisions that He would want us to make. It won’t be easy.

You may be harassed or even persecuted for your beliefs, but that should be expected. After all, wasn’t Jesus killed by the world? If it hated Him, won’t the world hate us too if we are here representing Him?

One final though here this morning. None of us is perfect. Sometimes we all give in, we waver a little bit or make compromises. This isn’t because we want to, it is because we are weak.

It is easy to crumble apart and fail when we try to do stand for something on our own. We need to rely on Christ, all things are possible to Him who believes. We need to speak the truth, but speak it in love. And stand firm with God.

Think about the life of Peter. When Jesus was arrested all the disciples scattered. Peter denied the Lord three times. After that, Peter stood firm in His beliefs and he lost his life because of it. Tradition tells us that before he was hung on a cross, he watched his wife be executed and he kept telling her “Remember the Lord, remember the Lord.”

Stand firm in your faith and remember the Lord each day.

Closing Prayer

Lord, Help us to be strong. Thank you for giving us that strength. Give us the courage to be loyal and stand up for what is right in your eyes, even though it may cause us embarrassment or persecution in this world.

We do this not for our own ego, but for your honor and glory. AMEN.