Human Games are ultimately used for God’s gain (Esther 1:19-2:20)

We are looking at the book of Esther. We are in chapter two. I did the very controversial thing and split chapter 1 and two into two halves, two sermons. It’s only controversial because the whole introduction to the book carries right through to the end of chapter 2, which is why we started right at the end of chapter 1 for us to get a little bit of the context of what’s happening there. We’ve called the series A Light in the Silence because one of the significant things about the book of Esther is that God does not show up in a visible kind of way, unlike many other books. His voice doesn’t appear often. We don’t see exactly what he’s doing. What we see is the invisible hand of God in the book of Esther. It’s an incredibly unique book in the Bible in that sense.

One of the things that I think is helpful for us as we think about it is for us in our context. If there’s ever a time that we felt like if you wished God would just do something that really confirmed him, where you could see or hear his voice like we do sometimes in stories in the Bible, if you ever wished that, then Esther could be a great book for you because she is precisely in that place. If you’ve ever thought, “I just wish I could understand what God is doing here,” especially in times of difficulty, then Esther could be a great book for you, because that’s precisely where she is, wondering what God is doing.

We’re going to follow Esther’s journey in the difficult decisions that she has. And even though God is not mentioned in the way he is in other books, what we see in the book of Esther are these great contrasts between the kingdom of the world and the kingdom of God. It’s not that we can’t see God as we open Esther, but the book of Esther is less about the dos and don’ts of following God and more about who God is in amongst the kingdom of the world as we live out in that space. And so we get these contrasts. We’re going to focus on some of them as we go through chapter 2, which is our first introduction to who Esther is.

One of the big contrasts we see in this story is that the human games that are played ultimately come out as God’s gains in his plan. The human games are ultimately used for God’s gain. We’re going to see that contrast as the book goes on. Although chapter 2 is just setting that up for us, and we’re not really going to see that unravel until later on, what we do see is a contrast between this human kingdom and the godly kingdom. What we see is that the human kingdom is a system that takes, and the godly kingdom is a God that places.

A System That Takes, But A God Who Places

This is a system that takes. We saw the context of this last week. If you missed last week, a quick introduction: Xerxes is the king over Persia. It’s the world empire at the time. We’re told that he puts on this party, just a short party. It goes for 180 days. I was at a 21st last night and tapped out at about 10:30. He was going for 180 days. And just to show his generosity, he said, “I’m also going to do another party.” That one was for the nobles and the royals. “I’m going to do another party for the from the most significant to the least significant that live in my fortress.” And it went for 7 days, which to be fair, compared to the 180, sounds pitiful, but a 7-day party is still significant. It culminates in this moment where he’s having a party with all the men. His queen, Vashti, is having a party with all the women, and he says, “Go get Vashti and parade her in front of my men so that they can see how beautiful she is.” She says, “No.” And he says, “Get out. You’re no longer my queen.” That’s where we finish chapter 1.

We get to chapter two and we’re told he’s suddenly regretting that decision. This is what we were told in verse one. He’s been thinking about the decree he made. And so suddenly the king goes, “Ah, it was nice having a queen. Maybe I should do something about that.” And what we see right from the beginning, off the back of chapter 1, is this is quite a pitiful man. He’s a powerful man, but he’s quite a pathetic man. And he is using his power to prop up his pride. That’s what’s going on in this story.

A Pathetic Man Using His Power To Prop Up His Pride

One of the amazing things about the book of Esther, I said last week, is that archaeology aligns very strongly with Esther. The fortress that Xerxes’ father built, Darius, you can still see the foundation today, and it hasn’t had other things built on it. Great archaeology has happened and aligns with the story. The other amazing thing about the story of Esther is other history books align with the story of Esther. When we’re going this far back in history, it’s often hard for historians to piece together all the pieces and how it fits. Sometimes they struggle to see how the Bible stories might align, and there are questions about it. That’s not the case with the history of Esther. It’s very clear.

One of the things we see is we have the date that he banished Vashti. We also know that that year, straight after that, he goes off to war, and it’s the famous battle of the 300, right? The 300 Spartans, a movie made about them recently. According to the movie, soldiers that wore nothing but a nappy and a cape. Apparently, that’s the thing. And according to the movie, 300 soldiers held off the whole of Xerxes’ army. Just quietly, there were also a few thousand Greeks and a whole lot of slaves, but 300 men. Amazing. They had this great battle, but nonetheless, it was the Spartans and the soldiers die to Xerxes. But it is a devastating blow to Xerxes because they hold him off long enough for the rest of the Greek army to get around with their armada and have a big battle and actually push Xerxes back to Persia. It’s a really devastating defeat for him. We know that that has happened in this context as well.

Here we have a guy whose pride was hurt when his bride, his queen, wouldn’t come before him. His pride is hurt now that the Greek Empire becomes the next biggest empire in the world. So one of the biggest rival empires has knocked him back, and so he goes back into his kingdom. His pride is hurt, and what we get is a pathetic man using his power to prop up his pride. That is the context that we get this.

A Game Show Of Finding A New Queen

He puts on this game, this game show of finding a new queen. I got AI to try to give me some fun puns on game shows for Esther. You’ll see the brilliance of AI here. These are some of its suggestions:

• Who Wants to Be an Esther Millionaire?
• Deal or No Esther
• Wheel of Esther-tune
• The Weakest Esther Link

For the younger crowd here, your job this morning is to come up with a better game show host than AI. That’s your job. After the service, you tell me what the best alternative to AI game show is. Because the way chapter 2 plays out, it sounds like The Bachelor, right? That’s what it sounds like. Here’s this guy, and there’s a whole group of women, and they’re all vying for him, and they all want to become his bride, his one, his chosen one. They all want that. That’s the picture we get. They say he says we will see that they’re given these beauty treatments. It sounds like this beautiful kind of bachelor thing. I don’t know what you think of The Bachelor. Maybe it’s your guilty pleasure and you just quietly love it. Years ago, I was at a youth conference, trying to work hard. I was a youth minister trying to network with the other youth ministers, and one of the guys in quite a larger church than mine was there at a table. I was like, “This is a great opportunity to go sit and have lunch with him and talk to him.” I sat down next to him, and he and the girl across from him just talked about The Bachelor the whole lunchtime. So I have a lot of bitterness towards The Bachelor. It ruined my opportunities. Who knows where I’d be today if it wasn’t for The Bachelor.

Whatever you think of The Bachelor, however high or low you grade it as entertainment, this is worse. Just get that clear. No matter what you think of it, this is much worse. For starters, this is young girls. Verse two, “let us search the empire to find beautiful young virgins for the king.” Now the word “virgin” is used in the Bible often just to refer to young women, unmarried women. It’s often used that way, although I think the more literal interpretation is fairly clear in this context. They’re being brought to have a night with the king. This is young, exploited women.

What is happening here? These women are exploited. They’re commanded to be there. This is Taskmaster, P. Diddy style. This is at gunpoint. These women have been told—this is the words, “As a result of the king’s decree, Esther along with many other young women were brought into the king’s harem.” This is a command. It’s not a bunch of women that said, “Hey, I’ll go up for that challenge. Hey, I wouldn’t mind being a princess in the castle.” This is a command that women are rounded up and brought in. History shows us the dates that Vashti left and Queen Esther is crowned is about four years. The picture we get is that every night a different woman is being brought before the king. If that was for the whole four years, that’s over 1,500 women. He goes off to war at one point. There’s a preparation for the women. But you can imagine even if this is for two years, there’s a significant number of women that are brought through this. This is not, let me say it again, The Bachelor. It is much worse.

There’s a language that goes on here that these women have been captured for this. This is Persia’s Next Top Monarch: Squid Games edition. If you’ve seen the movie Squid Games, it’s quite a violent movie. You may not have seen it, but it’s a game show where people are captured and they wake up in this game, and the consequence of the game is death if you lose a round. These are captured women. In fact, we’re given the language there that Esther is brought before—she’s brought in with the other women. She’s brought before the king. Quite literally, that word in the Hebrew manuscripts is the same word that is used when slaves are captured from a nation. They’re brought with them to the other country. That’s the language that’s going on here. This isn’t a gentle “hold your hand and let’s go for a walk.” This is captured language. This is much worse than any kind of game show. This is a horrific thing. This is a system that takes.

God At Work In The Difficulty

I think the challenge we face as we come to this story is we say, “Okay, Xerxes is a bad guy and it’s the system that takes and he’s using people in a bad way.” But where is God in all this? He seems silent. He seems to be allowing these things to happen. I said at the beginning, this is a system that takes, but a God who places. It’s easy for us to say, “Isn’t this just a God who’s also using?” If it’s human games used for God’s gains, isn’t this just God also taking and using? Well, the author of Esther gives us this language that really sees God at work in that difficulty. We don’t see it in this chapter, but we see in verse 8, for example, she’s captured. She’s brought. But later on, for Xerxes’ purposes, she’s brought, but for God’s purposes, the language we’re going to see is opportunity to choose.

In chapter 2, she’s forced to go to the king. But throughout the book of Esther, God is going to give her choice. She’s going to have agency. She’s going to have the ability to make choices. For Xerxes’ purposes, her identity is stripped from her. We saw in this chapter that she’s told to hide that she’s of her Jewish heritage, to not tell anyone. Throughout, we see that for Xerxes’ purposes, her identity is stripped from her. But for God’s purposes, as the story goes on, her purpose that God uses for is anchored in who she is as one of God’s people set aside for God. For Xerxes’ purposes, she’s brought in for the satisfaction of the king. For God’s purposes, we will see that she is utilized for the survival of her people. There is this huge contrast in language that sees an earthly system that takes, and God in his hand, even though it’s often hard to see and even though it’s this silence that we find in Esther, God in his hand is providing for her the whole way through and that he has placed her in this place.

Sometimes people use the language, Christians use the language, “for such a time as this.” That is from one of the latter chapters in Esther. That’s what’s happening here. God places her for this time, for this moment, anchored in her identity, giving her purpose in God’s purposes. I want us to pause there for a moment and think about what some of this looks like for us. Because, like I said, we sit in a space where often we’re asking the question, “Where is God? What is God doing?” We’re often asking the question, “What choice do I make in this situation? I just wish things were clearer.” And there’s a moment for us to ready ourselves for what God might be calling us to.

We have those moments where we might be under a toxic leader, a difficult workplace, someone who is treating us badly or even immorally, someone who’s doing wrong things that might impact us. And God might be calling us to honesty and integrity to model what it looks like to be a person who’s committed to God’s purposes even in the difficulty. Or maybe we’re just in a place or a context we don’t want to be in. We’ve had to move schools or we’ve had to move home. We’ve had to move location, and the turmoil that causes for us, the brokenness of not seeing people that we want to see or not having access to the people, the friends, the places that we know and love. And maybe God is calling us to new opportunities where his purposes are at work in these new contexts.

Or maybe we’re wrestling with those health struggles, those times where our body isn’t doing the things we want it to do. Or maybe it’s far worse than that, where we look at inevitable change in our bodies, damage, disease, even death on the horizon. And we might be called to focus more on who we are rather than what we can do. As we face that incredible limitation of what we can do, God might be calling us to find our identity in being a child of God rather than the things that we can achieve. Or maybe we’re judged by people, feel like we just can’t live up to their standards, things that they look at us and judge us, and we feel like our identity is stripped from us. Maybe God is calling us to dig deeper in finding our worth in his view. Or maybe we’re facing failure, a failed project, dismissed from a job, not having access to the resources that we once had access to. And maybe God is challenging us to trust in his provision rather than our performance, because the system takes, but God places. Even in the most difficult circumstances, God is using his people.

The System Erases But God Graces

The system erases but God graces is the picture that we get in Esther. There is a big picture happening here of erasing Esther’s identity and degrading these women that are in the story. We’re told that they have this 12-month beauty regime. I could insert jokes about how long it takes women to get ready, but I won’t lower myself to something like that. Twelve months of beauty regime. This is the ultimate “get ready with me.” Even if you watch it on two times speed, it’s taken a long time to get through this. And it sounds like it’s something incredible. These women are told they get to take anything worth of clothing or jewelry with them when they go before the king. It sounds like they’re given so many things, but this is an incredibly degrading process for these women. This is 12 months that they’re dedicated to getting ready for one night with the king. That’s the picture. They’re being entirely prepped for that to be used and discarded at the whim of this one man.

A Degrading And Erasing Process

Most likely as well, throughout history, often in modern times we think of the picture of beauty as often slim and tanned, but that’s actually the opposite to what most of the world throughout history has said is beautiful. Most of the world has said large and pale has been beautiful. The reason for that is it’s only the ones that are wealthy enough that can have access to the food to be large. It’s only the ones that are wealthy enough that can get away from the sun in order to not have darkened skin. Not a race comment, but just across races. That has been the picture throughout history. So most likely there’s a 12-month regime going on here to prepare them for the king. This is a fattening up regime that’s going on here. That’s most likely what is happening. This is Meal or No Deal. That’s what’s happening. I came up with it, but it’s one of my worst. This is All About That Bass, No Treble. I looked up the lyrics of that song in preparation for the sermon. These are the great things you do as a preacher. An AI bot just appeared next to it to explain the lyrics for me. It just said, “The singer puts the words ‘boom boom’ to refer to two buttocks.” I was like, “Oh, insight from AI. Amazing.” It is going to take over. Of course, it’s going to, the power of AI. It’s amazing. This is The Fresh Princess of Belly Air. This is Love Handle Island. This is Persia’s Muffin Top Model. That’s all I got.

This is a 12-month beauty process. It is preparing these women. It’s not something that’s building them up. This is something that is degrading. This is something that takes from them, but also it’s seeking to erase who they are. It’s in every context trying to make them something they’re not. As we look at Persian history of the time, other things that were considered beautiful would be long flowing hair. So often the women would have wigs put on them to make their hair even thicker and fuller. The eyes large, and so ash and stuff was used around the eyes, similar to modern-day mascara. Everything that’s happening to these women is erasing who they are for the sake of this king. This system erases.

The Danger Of The Worldly System

The challenge I think is that at points it sounds like it’s a system that’s giving, not taking. At points it sounds quite good. These women have most likely come out of poverty, most likely wondered where their next meal was going to be. Now they’re in a kingdom where they’re getting given huge amounts of food. They get given oil treatments on their skin. Most likely they didn’t know about security, and the guards of the Persian Empire had the power to do with them as peasants whatever they wanted. Now they’re brought into the king’s harem and they will have some level of guards looking after them. There’s a danger we see that this is the system giving to them, but it really isn’t. It’s taking and it’s erasing.

If once again we stop and take a moment on ourselves, I think we fall into the same danger in our own lives of seeing the worldly system as a system that’s giving to us. There’s access we have in this world to incredible luxuries. There’s access we have in this world to different pleasures that we might have. There’s a danger sometimes that we can think living God’s way is actually not enjoying those things. We’d prefer to lead into the world’s way, which feels more giving to us. That God’s way seems like it’s just strict rules. If we live his way, it’s about living without all the good stuff. But if we live the world’s way, it’s about living with all the good stuff. Like the story of Esther, that is a complete lie. And like the story of Esther, that is an erasing of who we are as God’s people.

To make ourselves something else for the sake of success, for the sake of people accepting us, that’s precisely the danger we fall into. But this is a system that erases. But we see a picture of God’s grace in this. A picture of God who does genuinely give.

A Picture Of God’s Grace

The picture of God’s grace in Esther chapter 2 comes significantly through the contrast of language. For example, we see that Esther is beautiful according to the author before any of those body treatments. Verse 9, this is before the body treatments, before any of the 12-month process, we’re told, “he was very impressed with Esther and treated her kindly.” Before any of that, her identity is already set as beautiful. Three times the passage uses references about her being shown grace and favor by other people. The first one is there by Hegai, the head of the harem. The next one is in verse 15, which is when she is brought out. The contrast language there is she doesn’t take anything from the clothing except what’s suggested for her, which sounds like a wise thing, but there’s an undertone there that says the other women have just been piling up. They were told, “Take anything you want to take for the king, before the king, and you get to keep it.” So they’re not just thinking about what the king might like, they’re thinking about what they get to keep. They have picked out the most finest things, the most expensive things they’ve worn. But there’s a contrast there with Esther. We’re told she just takes what she’s advised to take. Verse 15, “she was admired by everyone who saw her.”

Here’s a woman that seems to have not tried to adorn herself with everything. And yet that same word of grace and favor in the original Hebrew manuscripts, it’s the exact same word that is used by Hegai before she does the beauty treatment. The same is true when she comes before the king. Look at verse 17. “And the king loved Esther more than any of the other young women.” That’s translated off that same word. Deliberately, the English translation is trying to give us that picture that this is more than just she looked beautiful. This is more than just skin deep. The king felt a connection with her. There’s this language of her identity shining through even in the midst of all these things that are trying to strip her of her identity. This is a woman that isn’t just blessed by God with beauty. This is a woman who is of God’s blessing. That is who she is as a child of God is oozing out of her in all kinds of ways. We’re going to see that quite explicitly later in the book’s story, how the blessing that she has received by God flows out to be a blessing to others. This is a woman whose identity is wrapped up in God’s grace and favor.

You imagine the idea of an orphan, which is what we’re told Esther is. There’s a picture of God’s purposes in her weakness. You imagine the story of an orphan who has nothing and finds out through a will of a king, finds out, “Oh, you’ve inherited the king’s kingdom.” There’s nothing who they are, what they’ve done, but suddenly because of who they are through their inheritance, through their heritage, through their father, they suddenly receive all these blessings. Imagine them using that to bless others. That’s the picture we get of Esther, that this inheritance is part of everything she is. This is a system that tries to erase. But this is a God who’s full of grace, and it oozes out through her, through Esther’s identity. We see it right here in chapter 2. We’re going to continue to see it as we work our way through the book.

The Contrast Between Power And Weakness

Let me finish with this. One of the great contrasts in these two chapters is the contrast between power and weakness. We see Xerxes, who is a man of incredible power, probably the most powerful person on the planet at the time. We got this man of incredible power, and we actually see his hidden weaknesses. We see his hidden weaknesses in his ego and that he is really just a man-child. But he is a man of great power. Then we see Esther as the complete opposite in all worldly senses. She is a woman of incredible weakness. She is an orphan. Both her parents have died. The person who’s been looking after her whole life, Mordecai, is her older cousin. The person who’s been her parent figure is her older cousin. She’s a Jew that is living in Persia. Some of the Jews returned back to Israel by this point, but some of them are still in Persia, in a foreign land. She’s in Persia and she’s captured and taken into a castle against her will. Everything says weakness. And yet we see in this story great beauty in the weakness.

Beauty In The Brokenness

A great illustration of that is a Japanese art form called kintsugi, which is taking broken pottery and mending it, but mending it with gold. The final product is you see no longer a broken piece of pottery, but actually the breaks, the cracks—and the more of them there are and the bigger they are, the greater amount of gold is used to fill those cracks.

That’s what we see in this story. There is beauty in the weaknesses that come in the story of Esther. God is at work in those weaknesses. We see God’s goodness in the brokenness of this story. There’s a danger we approach the story and feel like Esther’s accepted by this king because she’s ticked all the boxes and done all the right things. But the author gives these little hints all the way through that no, this is actually God at work. This was her inner beauty right from the beginning that is seen by the king and not all the external things that she’s done.

God’s Goodness In The Brokenness

We get that pattern of God at work. We get it through the whole Bible, that it’s not the things that we do that tick the boxes that make us pleasing to God. But ultimately, it’s who he identifies us as: as his children. That’s what we see on the cross of Jesus. That it’s not what we’ve done, but it’s what Jesus did for us. That even though we are broken, even though we are sinful, even though we do things that are not pleasing to God, because Jesus made a way by paying the price for us, we might be seen as righteous in God’s eyes despite our weaknesses and despite the things we’ve done.

The Man On The Cross Next To Me

I was reminded just last night of a great illustration by a great preacher, Alistair Begg. I was reminded through Jackie Hill Perry, a quite a young woman preacher who is almost the opposite end of the spectrum from Alistair Begg, using his illustration. The illustration is you imagine the thief on the cross next to Jesus. If you remember the story, one of the thieves crucified next to Jesus, Jesus looks at him and says, “Today you’ll be with me in paradise.” You imagine that guy shows up to heaven and they say, “Hang on, what are you doing here? You’re a thief. You spent your whole life doing horrible things.” And he says, “I don’t know. I don’t know what I’m doing here. You’re as confused as I am.”

The angel or Peter or whoever we’re putting at the pearly gates says, “Look, get a manager. Get someone out here.” Talk it through, going through the list of things. “Have you done this? What have you done? What have you done to get you here?” They go through the list of things and say, “Did you go to Moore College? Did you tick that box?” “I don’t think so.” “Were you spending your life giving to the poor?” “No, I don’t think so.” “Were you kind to everyone you saw?” “No, I don’t think so.” And so they end up saying to him, “Just tell us, why are you even here?” And he says, “Because of the guy on the cross next to me said I could come. That’s why I’m here.”

That’s the message we get throughout the whole Bible, that God is making a way that his people who turn to him and receive his salvation, not because of anything we’ve done, because of what he’s done, might be like that pottery that has been repaired with gold. That we might be reformed in our weakness. That we might be seen as righteous because of the righteous one.