This is the evening service at the 4th Presbyterian Church for Sunday, August 12, 1990. This evening, Dr. Norris preaches on the subject an abnormal, ignoble action. He uses as his text, Esther 1-122. This is the first in the series on the Book of Esther. Book of Esther, and for the first chapter there. And we read from the first chapter and to the first verse of the second chapter. Now it came to pass in the days of Ayazewarius. This was Ayazewarius who reigned over 127 provinces from India to Ethiopia. In those days when King Ayazewarius sat on the throne of his kingdom which was in Shushan the Citadel, 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, when he showed the riches of his glorious kingdom and the splendor of his excellent majesty for many days, 180 days in all, 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. The white and blue linen curtains fastened with the cords of fine linen and purple on silver rods and marble pillars, and the couches were made of gold and silver and a mosaic pavement of alabaster turquoise and white and black marble. 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. In accordance with the law the drinking was not compulsory, for serve the king had ordered all the officers of his household that they should do each according to his pleasure. Queen Veshti also made a feast for the women in the royal palace which belonged to King Aesuarius, and on the seventh day when the heart of the king was married with wine, he commanded Mehuman, Bista, Harvona, Bista, Basa, Zita and Hathas, seven unoks who served in the presence of King Aesuarius to bring Queen Veshti to the king, wearing her royal crown in order to show her beauty to the people and to the officials, for she was beautiful to behold. But Queen Veshti refused to come at the king's command, brought by his unoks, therefore the king was furious and his anger burned within him, and the king said to the wise man who understood the times, for this was the king's man at war who knew law and justice. Those closest to him being Karshener and Shaita Admata Tashish, Mary is not Sainan Memukhan, the seven princes of Persia and media who had access to the king's presence and who ranked highest in the kingdom. What shall we do to Queen Veshti according to the law? Because she did not obey the command of King Aesuarius brought to her by the unoks, and Memukhan answered before the king and the princes, Queen Veshti has not only run the king but also all the princes and all the people who are in all the provinces of King Aesuarius. For the queen's behaviour will be known to all women so that they will despise their husbands and their eyes when they report. King Aesuarius commanded Queen Veshti to be brought before him but she didn't come. This very day the noble ladies of Persia and media will say to all the king's officials that they have heard of the behaviour of the queen and thus it will be of excessive contempt and wrath. If it please the king, let a decree go out from him and let it be recorded in the laws of the Persians and the needs so that it will not be altered that Veshti shall come no more before King Aesuarius and that the king give her royal position to another who is better than she and then the king's decree which he had made is proclaimed throughout his empire for it is all great. Wives will honour their husbands who are great and small. And to reply please the king and the princes and the king did according to the word of Mimukan and he sent letters to all the king's provinces to each province in its own script and to every people in their own language that each man might be mastering his own house and speak in the language of his own people. And after these things when the wrath of King Aesuarius subsided he remembered Veshti what he had done and what he had decreed against her. Amen. May the Lord bless. To our understanding this is holy word tonight. I want this evening to draw your attention to the first verse and the second chapter which is the text which we were sure consider and it will be the text that will direct our attention both to the Lord and will use the whole of the first chapter as its reference point for it gives to us an explanation of that first chapter. And some of you who are that there are thinking what is Norris doing now studying for all these weeks the book of Esther. Where on earth did he get this idea? Well I believe that the book of Esther is not only a very important little book but to find it one of those that displays God in his grace and goodness in every part and will show us the Lord and I would urge you week upon week that you might come and hear and see how God unfolding word blesses our soul. It will not always be easy. It will sometimes be convicting and we trust always building for his kingdom. God will use this his word to stir his people of that and convince. Well now turn with me to this first verse in the second chapter. After these things in that phrase we see caught up the great condition of humankind that King he has various shed and in which we also find ourselves caught. What happened is that the King had engaged in activity of which he was ultimately to regret him to be ashamed. He had watched his wife Bastie be separated from him for what had happened was that he determined in the third year of his reign that he would have a great celebration that everyone would see how mighty was the King, how extensive was his kingdom and how wealthy and powerful were the things that he was able to produce and he called together the greatest of all his leaders. He brought his people into the palace and he gave them a great party and they all celebrated and when they would drunk up the seven days of feasting in his drunken desire he called for his wife Bastie the beautiful Queen to be brought into the presence of all for all to ogle and say is she not beautiful is the King not mighty and Bastie in great dignity said I will not come. She knew that he had the power of life and death not only over her but overall in the kingdom. She knew that in her refusal to surrender her dignity she was threatened by her own life and the King when he heard these words was incensed and his advisers around him were incensed. Yeah she is going to overturn the very order of things no husband will be safe in his own house. Every wife will be ready to be able to give an answer back to him and there will be no leaders in home or in country. You must do something and this is what you must do you must put it apart from you. Get rid of her choose another and let all see that the King is King in his palace and lord over his own home dispense with her. Let's establish our own authority and our own power everything that is necessary. They as you are yes did as he was commanded after these things what did he do he sinned before God in his dunquins in his arrogance in his determination to set aside a wife that he had chosen he sinned before God. He sinned before his wife he violated the woman who was his queen chosen and given to him. He violated the woman who was the wife of his home he violated everyone who looked to him to lead the kingdom. These are the things that he did these are the events that he undertook he disobeyed God setting aside the standards of God that he might see himself lifted up but he might enjoy the confidence of those that were his closest advisors that the people who listened to him would say well done we are safe he sinned before God that's what that says. After these things what things the things of shame the things of disobedience the things are giving in to the freshers that come to him from all the voices that he listens to these things after these things. And he heard people say well compromise yourself so that we will be able to stand firm do what we ask be a part of us solidify your control over your house and over your kingdom. These things he disgrace God's words God's way set aside your wife divorce her not even in the royal household of the kings of Persia was divorce an easy thing nor even in ancient Persia with all its barbaric ways could you treat people less but he didn't. He violated God's way he violated God's ordinances and commands for all human kind what the scripture refers to as the creation of principles God laid down in creation things not simply for Christians to do but for all humankind to follow in and walk with. And marriage was that which was given by God for all men and women to walk in it was given for Christian and non-Christian alike and they as you are as though he knew not God violated the way that God had appointed for him to walk in after these things. After listening to the council of people and wanting to be thought well of by his counsellors he did what was wrong. These are the things that made us to the conclusion that that passage teaches us this that he sinned. Now there isn't one of us that has not sinned in precisely and exactly the same way going because other people have commanded us surrendering our principles giving up and doing what others have thought we ought to do when we have got ourselves into predicaments instead of doing the right trying to squeeze our way out of it. And avoid and put the blame on other people that's what a as you are dead and it is sin. It is a violation of God and of his way in the world it's a violation of his standard for all humankind and it's a violation of God's direct command to you and to me this night. Here you see where he sinned the king for all his power sinned before God but listen. After those things when he had come to his senses when the wrath of King he has you where he has subsided he remembered that he knows the second thing that we see. All his anger all his drunkenness passed away and he waken the next morning and the scriptures as he remembered that he wasn't angry anymore but what he had done he had done. He had signed the command he had mistakenly done that which his counselors had appointed him to do and he remembered that he and he was sorry. That's what it means he remembered bash the Hebrew phrase and Willard and I as we were talking earlier recounted the fact that he learned Hebrew as it deals with this text the Hebrew of this particular verse indicates that he weakened with regret. He remembered when he had come to himself what he had done. And he was sorry for it he was sorry that he had ever had such a dreadful party he was sorry that he had ever got into such a position he was sorry that he had got rid of nasty. But listen what she had done and what he had decreed against her but this he did not do. He did not change it and he did not change it because he could not he could not change the past he had acted he had moved and what he had done he had done and so he decided that he would simply raise it out on the rest of the story is how we will see as to the Queen come to replace bash the Queen but as you areas this person takes probably zixies the great king this man who reigns for so many years between 486 BC and 465 BC decided that he would simply made a mistake he was sorry about it. But that was all he was going to get on with his life. Now here is the predicament of the King there's the position of the King but it's not only the position of the King and the predicament of this man it is also the predicament by Nietzsche that every one of us finds ourselves in. We have violated the commandments of God we've broken that which he has set from the beginning of the world we have gone in a way others in his way and we have listened to people we call it peer pressure we call it to the voice of others we have gone in a way that is wrong and we say well I am sorry I'm sorry that that happened I wake up the next morning and I wish that this was not my experience. I wish I was somewhere else in a different position having done something very different than this. I remember when I was very much younger and enjoyed hitchhiking that I hitchhiked against the better advice of some from Rome to NATO's and I knew as I was hitchhiking that I ought to start late at night nobody picked me up when I was on this awful road and so I went to sleep in a ditch one of the most miserable nights of my whole life. Sleeping in a ditch and it rained not only did it rain but every conceivable wild animal that you can imagine roamed all around and I thought I wish I had not chosen to do this. If I listened to the advice of others wiser and fabler than I would not be here I would be in a youth hostel in Rome but I did not and I was very sorry for my choice but I was still in the ditch. Soaking wet utterly miserable and not able to do anything about it until the next morning when I caught a bus and gave up hitchhiking for the whole day. I made a choice and then I simply was caught in it. The king made a choice and he was caught in it and there was nowhere else for him to go he said except forward. I will have to live where I am and move with it and we bring that worldly mindset to our Christian faith. One of the greatest problems that we face as Christians today is that we imagine that this is the way in which we live our Christian lives. I think nothing I can do about it I will say sorry to God and I will wake up the next morning the recipient of his grace and forgiveness and I will get on with life and I will be able to pretend nothing has happened let me tell you this. We will produce a generation of people whose Christianity is absolutely liquid and weak and without any strength or sense of God majesty. Without any sense of his outpouring or blessing and of love because we have brought the world that it used is very as attitude. I made a mistake nothing I can do about it and sorry I wish I hadn't but that's the way life is I will just get on with the best of it and I will call that God's forgiveness. Now in Christian terms what we do is to say well you know Jesus Christ has died. Jesus is God he has come and he has died upon Calvary that I might be free. All I've got to do is say well Lord please forgive me and there grace is sufficient and I can live for him. That makes me a Christian. My friends that does not make me a Christian. This evening what we are confronting is precisely the age old problem what is it that is a Christian it's mess. It is when I am brought into the full consciousness of what I have done to God and to God's people and to God's way. When suddenly I recognize that I have not simply made a mistake that I haven't simply been foolish that I have not simply done a stupid thing and therefore I say well Lord forgive me let's get on with life now. It is when I recognize that the God who made heaven and earth is the God against whom I have committed and have sinned. His laws are broken his way is violated and I have sinned and sin is no small matter. It touches me and it touches everyone affecting and always destroying. Do you know what he has where he has did? He destroyed his marriage. He described the dignity of a proud and noble and beautiful woman. He destroyed the God-given covenants of marriage and he destroyed the integrity he had with his princes and he thought he could wake up in the morning and simply go on. We don't have to deal with God's wrath. We don't have to deal with God's mercy. We have some easy antidote. When we come into the presence of the living God, when we see His Holiness and when we say I have sinned and we begin to rehearse of repentance then we begin to know what it is to be a Christian. The Lord Jesus Christ is no easy answer to our problems. Oh, He is God's remedy. But I tell you this, until you say I see what I have done wrong, I will not run away from it. I will not pretend that I can brazen it out. I will not blame some cheap graces so God doesn't really worry about my offense and about the disastrous life that I have left scattered upon this earth. Until I come and I say not I am sorry Lord, but God forgives me the cheapest of sinners. We come out of publicants. We come not beating our breasts. Well, you know, this much I have done, this good I am king of all the birds that I offer myself to you. God forgives me. I have nothing. I bring nothing and I am inexcusable. I am endless for you. I have nothing. That produces what our ancient forbids cause a sense of God dealing with our lives, a contrition that brings to us an awareness of our own need of God. And you know, it is no bad thing to reach peers. We jump quickly as people who want to lift the burden that others carry. When someone says, well, I feel that I have sinned against God. We want to jump instantly and say, well, you don't need to worry about that. Christ has died for you. Your sins will be forgiven. When God would bring us to the place where we see ourselves as people that He has come for, not with a great deal of worth, not as the kings and the powerful and the beautiful of this world, but as those that have been broken. And necessary, He has took the mud of this world or lifted it out of it. One of the reasons that the Christian community lacks power is precisely found here. We have never come to genuine repentance, refined and easy answer. Jesus Christ has come. He has died upon the cross. The blood of God has been shed for my sins and for all that I have done to break relationship and to sever all the basic things that He has done. God has come to restore us and it is not easy for him and it is not easy for us either. And if we develop an easy religion that can wake up and say, I must simply go forward. We will never experience the enormity of joy that falls out of our hearts when I sing as unto God, as sin as saved by grace I am. I have never known the grace that stood to pick me up. How can I ever rejoice in it? How can I ever worship Him with a heart that falls if I have never known what it used to be broken? To say, that was not simply done, that was evil and wicked. The gospel of God condemned me and in the condemnation of myself it lifted me up. There is nothing superficial about that gospel, except the heart. It negates all our human desires to be able to save ourselves and to be able to offer good things to God. We cannot go forward, it stops us and it says here, you confront those living God when the mighty apostle Paul right into the Roman's cries, all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. It was the final condemnation upon the whole world and its way of salvation and he said there is another way. God's way is the provision of His Son. He is supporting out of His life and His blood and His heart. It is not cheap. You can't trample on it. It is sacred, with holy and it isn't trivial. I believe that our evangelical church has trivialized the most precious commodity we have. The grace of God in Christ and its reflection is in our worship that we do not see Him and are not ordered by Him. The reflection is in our lives that we are not truly grateful for that which we could never achieve without Him. Christ died for my sin and all the majesty, the mercy of God. The night as you leave this place, remembering this ancient story, take one application with you, have one vision to see God's grace, to you. Your life, before Him, is stained and sinful and it doesn't matter how good it is. You have stood where this thing has stood. You have broken His laws, you violated His ways. And all the sorrow and all the same sorry does not put it right. Only God's provision in Jesus Christ only hears just antidote to His wrath. Only Him making the restitution is sufficient.
The sin will touch every aspect of your life, every relationship, and like these kings it will impact the nation, cry to the God. Every one of us cry to Him, Lord I see what Jesus is. Lord I see the enormity of the gift of Calvary. I see the blood of Christ shed there. And I do not take it for granted. And it isn't something I can smile about and it isn't something that easily slips from me. It makes me a people obsessed, serious in my worship single in my focus, broken in my heart. It makes me a man, a woman, a boy, a girl who sees why God has come and what it means for Him to have forgiven me means but there. In general repentance, I can find Him. Don't worry, leave this room tonight. However you came in, until you have found the living God's texture soul. In some way you were in His presence and all you were with His grace and then surrounded with His love, in a simple words, no easy formulas. But by a confrontation with the majesty of God on high and the beauty of Jesus Christ is saying, making us hit on, pray with Him. Our gracious Father, pour out the anointing of your spirit upon us, grant to us understanding that we might see you. And as no simple sorrow but that profound repentance that turns aside and begs and in our misery lists our eyes and sees that Jesus is provided. God in Christ reconciling the world and the darkness of Himself fill us in you with that message of majesty. Teach us in you the all of worship that we might give all that we are in the Okay. But we seek it in Jesus' name and for His things, to His praise and to His glory upon us. We continue our worship and close as we sing the last hymn on our hymn sheet, that single prayer as we stand to sing, be thou my vision or Lord of my life. It is the closing hymn and you find it on the back of our hymn sheet. So Lord bless us, grant to us that we might understand your way, grant to us to know ourselves and what we have done to you. And grant us that serious cause in your Son, desiring the majesty and fire of heaven to be our experience, bless us, keep us direct us now in Jesus' name.