Knee-Xerx Reaction - Audio
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If you have a Bible, turn to the book of Esther, Esther in your Bibles today, see if you can find it. Old Testament book, not easy to find, Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, before Psalms. So if you find Psalms right in the middle, a few books before. As you're turning there, I want to share a very humiliating moment in my life. I was a young gun, early 20s. That was a long time ago now, actually. My wife and I, we were newly married and we were going to a close Bible church. I wasn't even on staff. I was just sitting in the pew like you and we were going to a Friday night Bible study. We called it Melting Pot. It was a mixture of 20s and 30s. Some had kids, some didn't have kids and I get in there and I walk in the room in Fredlin, a Copeland's house actually back in the day and we walk into their house and I'm meeting new people and there's all sorts of people. Casey and I were brand new to the church and we were shaking hands with everybody and getting to know everyone and this person shall remain nameless. Some of you might know, I don't know. But anyway, I was walking up to one of the brand new fathers. He was a young man in his late 20s, maybe, yeah, late 20s or so. He had just had a baby and coast at the time. We didn't know what babies were. Nobody had babies at coast. It was like the beginning of this influx of babies like crazy. All of a sudden, everyone started having babies and as I looked at this little baby, you know, I was kind of confused. I had never seen one before and I was looking at this baby and this baby was just completely bald, completely bald, like not a hair on her head and I looked at her and I looked at her dad and I said, oh, like daughter like father. And what I thought was a good joke, was not a good joke, right? My wife, Casey just went like that. Like, what are you doing? We're trying to make a good impression here and I thought it would be a funny joke to just point out that, you know, daughter doesn't have hair and dad doesn't have hair. What do you know? Oh, I later apologized and this guy, he's a great, great friend. Many of you probably know who it is, but nevertheless, he's not here anymore, but we had a good laugh about it. But as I went home, my wife was like, honey, how could you say such a stupid thing? And I was like, I don't know, babe. I just, I looked at the baby and I looked at the dad and I just, I saw a similarity, you know, and, and I said it was just a knee jerk reaction. It was just a knee jerk reaction. I, I just put my foot in my mouth. Today, in the book of Esther, we are going to see King Xerxes make a knee jerk reaction and thus the title of today's message in Esther chapter 1 verses 10 to 2, 4, knee zerks reaction. All right, all right, knee zerks reaction. I thought I'd get a grown out of that one. Hey, for those of you that missed last week, I want to just quickly bring you up to speed very quickly. We're not going to take too much on this past history, but if you missed last week, we're in the book of Esther. We just started last Sunday. Here we are this Sunday, chapter 1 verse 10, but a couple items that I want to take care of first. Number one is this. This book, Esther, has a certain kind of genre to it. And the genre that we're dealing with is what's called Old Testament Historical Narrative. As such, go ahead and ramp the next slide there, Josh. As such, as we bring up this slide about Old Testament Historical Narrative, it describes what happened, not necessarily what should have happened. You know, when you read Paul, or when you read the epistles, the letters, you're reading theology, you're reading things that you should follow, should obey, should listen to, not so when you're reading the book of Esther. It's describing a story. It's describing what happened. And just because something happens in the book of Esther does not mean that the Lord necessarily endorses what is happening, both with Xerxes and for that matter with Esther and what Mordecai do, as we'll see later in the book. So as you read this book, read it with a careful eye, knowing full well that it is a narrative. It describes what happened, not necessarily what should have happened. Next point, a little bit of the background here. The author of Esther is very familiar with Persian words, customs, and palace business, but we don't know who the author is. Mordecai is the suggestion of most, who is a main character in the book, you'll meet in the next chapter here. But whoever the author is, this person is extremely familiar with Persian words, customs, and palace business. And finally, the setting, where are we?
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Continuing the series on Esther (1:10-2:4), Pastor Neil discusses the hasty decision made by King Xerxes, and asks us to prayerfully ponder our own decision making processes.