Courage to Stand Alone | Mordecai's Defiance | Esther 3:1-15

Show Notes

Episode 688: 
In this episode, we dive into the gripping story of Esther, focusing on the villainous character of Haman and his sinister plot against the Jewish people. We discuss the escalating tension between Mordecai, Esther's uncle, and Haman, who has recently been promoted to a position of great power by King Xerxes. Mordecai's refusal to bow down to Haman infuriates the latter, leading him to plot not just against Mordecai, but against all Jews in the empire. We explore the implications of Haman's actions, which are rooted in a long-standing animosity towards the Jewish people, and how this reflects a broader theme of good versus evil throughout history.

What is The Bible Guys?

Whether you’ve been following Jesus for years or you’re just starting to ask questions, there’s a seat for you here.

Join Jeff and Chris for honest conversations about Scripture, faith, and the everyday stuff we all navigate. With humor, personal stories, and plenty of back-and-forth, The Bible Guys explore what the Bible says and how it connects to your life.

Subscribe, bring your questions, and get to know the Bible one conversation at a time. Head over to TheBibleGuys.com for more information!

You're listening to The Bible, guys, a podcast where a couple of friends talk about the Bible in fun, in practical ways. Hey, everybody, Welcome to the Bible guys. We are smack in the middle of a story, an epic story of Esther. And today there's a bad guy named Hayman. Yes, and he's plattin ham Haman's don't don't don't yep. Yes. But before that, Yes, we have a strong commitment on this show, yes, to bring the most important news and special interest information to our listeners all today. This one is specifically for the men in particular. And uh, well it's a warning to the men. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And there's a new trend and we just want to caution you about it. Right here we go. Babylon b is where we get our news from. It's the most trustworthy news we can find out on the internet. It's a satire website, it says, wife beginning to suspect husband's thoughtful relevant responses to her texts might be AI generated. It's so good they're catching on, guys. Yes. According to sources, local wife Sue Page is beginning to suspect that her husband's thoughtful and relevant responses to her text might be AI generated quote. I first became suspicious when I asked him what movie he wanted to see for date night, and he replied back with an entire list of movies, their ratings, and a brief synopsis of each. Page said, no one talks like that. What confronted Her husband reportedly said he would need a minute to think. He then came back several minutes later with a prepared response. He claimed to have typed out so that he could organize his thoughts. He read, sweetheart, I'm sorry you feel somethings off. I've just been trying to be more thoughtful than my replies, maybe overthinking it a bit. I'm just trying to say the right thing because I care so much about you. How can I make you feel more connected? Would you like some ideas to help us grow in our relational closeness? Would you like would you like some ideas? That is funny? She s said the husband totally genuine. When Page continued to suspect AI had generated the statement, her husband again excused himself, saying he needed time to think and put his thoughts together. At publishing time, Sue Paige had decided to outsource dinner to AI. That's funny, that's great. Yea. So so hey, if you've never used AI, I have to tell you. For those people who haven't jumped on the bandwagon. Uh, there, it's pretty It's pretty useful at times, isn't it. It's pretty amazing. Yeah, it's pretty amazing. I use it a lot, not not to generate ideas ideas, but I like to use it like as a research assistant, and then to help correct grammar, yes, and shorten up what I type. Yeah, and oftentimes, So my brother works for Creation Magazine to say this, and uh, in fact, one of your old time colleagues came in and he gets the Creation magazine, you know, the pub and he had he had. Said, hey, does your brother work at this place? Oh? He said why and he goes Because he goes there's a photo of them, and he goes and that's aw zar bon And I thought. It has to be how are the right right? Right? Well, they're not very many and uh and so anyway, so I said, yeah, that's my brother. Anyway. So the point is is that. He called me and said that they're writers because it's a science magazine, so their writers are very sophisticated, and so they're but they're trying to reach a younger audience. And so he says, he goes, he goes. The problem is, he is, you know, I'm. Trying to make videos that are more captivating and have humor and everything else. He goes, But that's not just the problem. The problem is the writings and so and so I said, so what are you going to do? And he goes. Honestly, he goes, I. Took the entire article, and these articles are very long, he goes, And I just copied and pasted it, threw it in AI and said, hey, make this article that has written for fifty year olds, make it more relevant for. Twenty year olds. And he said And within three seconds, this you know, fifteen page article, right, he's comes out and it's like this long, you know, this is Tate whatever, this big paper and he said, uh, it's amazing, right, And so AI is pretty darn wonderful. It's pretty powerful, but I'll get you in trouble if you're trying to use it. And communicating with your wife. That's that's the danger there. So we thought, since we're talking about this the dynamics a husband and wife over the last couple of days. Yes, right, King getting mad at this queen. Is that the transition? Then we thought that we would, you know, warn our people, because there's other warnings that need to be happening. In today's there. It is in today's passage there it is right because. Haman is plotting. Hayman is plotting that that is that is good. And by the way, uh, this is Can I read. This real quick please? Before chapter three? It says Mordecai Esther's uncle. Oh look, see he is his uncle. You said he was his cousin, said cousin. Yeah, it said uncle, and yesterday okay, Mordecai had adopted his younger cousin, Esther. Oh so maybe he was both. Maybe she was technically a cousin and then he became an uncle. Huh. But anyway, it says Mordecai, Esther's uncle, refused to bow down to Haman. With everyone else, Mordecai would only bow to God. Haman was infuriated. Oh, I'm sorry, you're telling the story. I am, but that's I'm so sorry. I thought this was going to summarize some backstory, but it's actually skipping ahead. Okay, Sorry, go ahead, okay. So in Ester chapter three, well, now I'm excited to hear how this is going to turn out right. Sometime later, King Xerxes promoted Haman, son of Hamadatha the Agagite, but whatever over all the other nobles, making him the most powerful official in the empire. All the officials, all the king's officials would bow down before Hayman to show him respect whenever he passed by, or so the king had commanded, but Mordecai refused to bow down or show him respect. Then the palace officials that the king's gate asked Mordecai, why are you disobeying the king's command? They spoke to him day after day, but still he refused to comply with the order. So they spoke to Haman about this to see if he would tolerate Mordechai's conduct, since Mordechai had told them he was a Jew. When Haman saw that Mordechai would not bow down or show him respect, he was filled with rage. He had learned of Mordechai's nationality, so he decided it was not enough to lay hands on Mordechai alone. Instead, he looked for a way to destroy all the Jews throughout the entire Empire of Xerxes. So in the month of April, during the twelfth year of King xerxes reign, lots were cast in Haman's presence. The lots were called piram to determine the best day and month to take action, and the day selected was March seventh. Nearly a year. Later, then Haman approached King Xerxes and said, there is a certain race of people scattered through all the provinces of the empire. Keep themselves separate from everyone else. The laws are different from those of any other people, and they refuse to obey the laws of the king. So it's not the king's It's not in the king's interest to let them live. If it pleased, the King issue decreed that they'd be destroyed, and I will give ten thousand large sacks of silver to the government administrators to be deposited in the royal treasury. The king agreed, confirming his decision by removing his signet ring from his finger and giving it to Haman, son of Hamadatha. The Agagite, the enemy of the Jews. The king said, the money and the people are both yours to do with as you see fit. So on April seventeenth, the king's secretaries were summoned and the decree was written exactly as Haman dictated. It was sent to the king's highest officers, the governors of the respective provinces, and the nobles of each province in their own scripts and languages. The decree was written in the name of King's Exerxes and sealed the King's signet ring. Dispatches were sent by swift messengers into all the provinces of the Empire, giving all ordered that all Jews young and old, including women and children, must be killed, slaughtered, and annihilated on a single day. This was scheduled to happen on March seventh of the next year. The property of the Jews would be given to those who killed them. A copy of this decree was to be issued as law in every province and proclaimed to all peoples, so that they would be ready to do their duty on the appointed day. At the King's command, the decree went out by swift messengers. It is also proclaimed in the fortress of Susa, and the King and Haman sat down to drink, But the city of Susa fell into confusion. M HM that's terrible. Yeah, it is actually like this is this ring's up there with one of the worst. You know. It reminds me of Herod when he ordered all the children, male children two years and younger to be slaughtered. This is this is even worse. This is a genocide, genocide, full on genocide every Jew in the kingdom. Right and uh and by the way, what a guy Haman is? Haman's worse than Xerxes. Right, So Xerxes is, uh, you know, obviously the most responsible because he decides to say, hey, whatever you want. That's what it feels like to me. It takes off his ring. It's like, I'm not. Even gonna bother to read the uh, you know, the signet stamping laws that I should, you know, be responsible for. I'm sure to give it to you. Here's my just use it as a seal for whatever you come up with. Right, gives him the ring and says, you stamp it's a blank check. Yes, it's a blank check. Yeah, and he says, yeah, I agree, I agree. And all he really is listening to is a sales pitch, and the sales pitches is, hey, there's a group of rebellious people that don't want to listen to you at all. Shouldn't we kill him? That sounds right to me? Ye, kill him? And uh and so yeah, it's it's a pretty horrible thing, this Hayman. And uh, you know, so it's pretty clear here, even though it doesn't say, it's pretty clear. Here that what I started to read. Remember that summary that almost gave everything away if you go back and read it now, it says Mordecai, Esther's uncle, refused to bow down to Hayman with everybody else, he would only bow to God. What does that sound like? Sounds like shadrack me shaking a bend again? Same thing, right, he was a Jew? Yeah, and so there's a reason why the verse actually says and verse number h four where it says, uh, Mordecai's conduct since Mordecai told them he was a Jew. So the only reason why Mordecai would have ever told them he was a Jew is because he's defending why he's not bowing down to Haman, right, and so yeah, it doesn't say so specifically, but we are left to believe that that's exactly the reason why, which, by the way, also connects to Hayman's explanation that says their rules are different than everybody else's rules. Right, they refuse to bow down. So it's very obvious that Mordecai is a man of faith and that he refuses to bow down to anybody who isn't God. So I think it's interesting. I just looked up. I thought, hey, there's a connection here that Agagite. Right, Remember Hayman is an Agagite. So remember king a gag. It sounds like popeyegg. Yeah, remember King a gag of the Amalekites. Saul was supposed to wipe them out. Oh wow, that's the same thing. Come on, stop it. Yes, I was just sit there. Thinking a gag egga guites a g So I looked it up. Yeah, that's that's that's true. So think about that for a minute. So Saul would have done what he was supposed to do, and Esther wouldn't have in this prediction. So so the Amalekites hated the Jews in general. This is why it escalated from I hate that guy to oh he's a Jew. I hate all of them. And now it dawns and I've got all the power. I'm number two in the kingdom, the most part kingdom in the world. Let's just exterminate all of them. So it elevated from that, think about what would have happened. There's so many things. We look at politics, We look at powerful people and events in history as just being one off events, things that happened. But do you understand Saul should have wiped them out, That's what God said, and he didn't. Samuel comes and and and kills a gag, but he doesn't. They didn't wipe out the Amalekites. So now here we are all this time later, and Haman hates the Jews because of what they had done, a gag being a member of his family. If now, if Haman if his plan to exterminate all the Jews, you understand, this is all the Jews in the entire kingdom of Serxes. That means all the Jews that were in Israel too, in Palestine, all of them. If that had happened, because in the entire kingdom is what he said, then. God's plan for the Messiah coming from the Jewish people could not have happened. Right, So we look at him as all one off events in history, and it's the forces of good and evil always manipulating and moving and moving towards the cross. That's that's what's happening here. Again, if Saul had done what he was supposed to do, then it wouldn't you know. Saul lost his kingdom over this one. Remember he's said, oh, I thought I'd bring all the sheep back, then, all the goats back his big sacrifices for God. And we talked about this, I don't know months ago, and I thought I'd bring King Agaga and some of the others back in where we're going to embarrass him in front of the kingdom. And Samuel was like, God told you to wipe them out, don't leave anything, don't even leave the donkeys, right, that's what God said. And and you didn't do it. And so now the kingdom is going to leave your kingdom and it's going to become the kingdom of David. Right, That's that's what happens. It's going to leave your family no more. You're gonna is your son will not be the king. There'll be a new king in Israel. He lost his kingdom over the fact that he didn't defeat the aggag and the Malakites. Now it's the the tide has turned. Now instead of God wiping out the Meleekites, it's the Malakites want to wipe out Agagites want to wipe out the Jews, and if they did, they would have destroyed the Son of David becoming the Messiah. So the sermon Manyman's probably in there, but one of the sermons could be that we don't have to understand everything that God understands. Right, So when God asked. Playing checkers, God's playing like four D chess right right. Right, star trek chess. Yeah, yeah, so, uh wow, I can't believe I pulled that one out. That was awesome. It was yeah, it was amazing. The uh what I was going to say is is that many times we want to understand the why, and so God will ask us to do something, and sometimes we're just like, I don't really quite understand. What's not necessarily our job to understand. It's our job to just determine whether or not the Holy Spirit is asking us to do something. Right, like it reminds me of every day that time when we pulled off the freeway, my wife wanted to give a bunch of money to the guy on the edge of the freeway. Everyday that I don't think so my wife. So we're in Atlanta. We pull off and we see a guy with a cardboard sign and he says he's got you know, he's got you know, he's wanting to help. And so I take a left hand turn to go home and my wife says, turn the car around and give me all the money you have in your wallet. And this is back in the nineties. I had like eighty dollars in my wallet, so that might have been like four. Hundred bucks today, right, And I said, I said, I'm not going to give you all the money I have my wallet. So I turned around. I gave her twenty dollars and she goes, that's not what I said. She goes, I said, give me all the money in your wallet, please, And you know, she was very kind about it, right, she was, but this is this is what I feel like God wants us to do. And I said, okay, everybody calmed down, Okay, there's no way I'm giving you all this money. And she's like, I really believe that we're supposed to give this to this person. And listen, my wife has the gift of giving, which is her number one gift. So she gives away everything and she loves it, and that to her is better than anything. But at the same time, I. Mean, I give but that's not my gift, right, But at the same time, the more important thing is she says, this is what I feel like God wants me to do. That's the important thing, right. So she feel like that's what God wants her to do. I can't question that. So I'm like, I don't want to do this, but I'm like, so I just reluctantly give her all eighty dollars and she gets out and she prays with this person and gives them this money and you know, and all this kind of stuff. And I'm thinking to myself, like I can't believe that just happened. So I pulled away, and she's like, that's the right thing to do. God told us to do that. And I'm like, no, God told you to do it, right, Like, you better speak louder next time for me to hear it. YEA, yeah, right, Liz, Yes, give away everything that Chris has. Right, right? Yes, yes, how about. Next time, God just say Liz, give away everything you have that that's say. It the Lord. So anyway, the point. Is there's my shoes, here's my jacket. Yeah, well, that wasn't her struggle. It's my sandwich. Right, that wasn't her struggle that day. It was my struggle. And I wanted to know, like, come on, like, is this person really going to use this, you know, for the right reasons? Is this person going to you. Know, is there a need here that costs eighty dollars that I'm unaware of? Is there a medical need? But it's not my job to understand. The only job I have is to determine is this from God? Or is it not? And if it is, then I better do it. And such as the case was sold, right, So I had no idea was at stake. He had no idea that, you know, years later this was gonna. He knew the clear word of God. Right, that's all. That's a word of God. There's a note in here. As I was as you were talking, I realized that it was in here the clear word of God was destroy the Amalekites and erase their memory from under heaven. And it was because they hunted down and killed the weak and the poor and the sickly on the backside of the people of Israel. As they were leaving Egypt. Remember they were leaving Egypt, they were going out into the wilderness. Yes, And the Amalekites just swooped down and they didn't square off of fight against the fighting men. They came and they killed all the sick and the elderly. And God said, that's a particularly wicked idea, and I want them all gone because they as a people, they will never get better. And here we are a thousand years later, and they're calling for the extermination of all Jews. Right, because Hayman clearly is an awful human being. Right, he wants to keep it genocide because he has animosity against the Jews. Right. And this probably goes down, goes back from generations, right because of exactly what you just said. Yes, right, And so that's pretty amazing. So I love Mordechai's determination. This is that highlight moment, I think for in Mordecai's story. He has a few of them, but this is the one where he decides, I'm not going to bow. And in this situation, they had set Hayman up almost as a god. Right, it's god like. Well, it actually says the King's Order, which means that the order of the king is the bow down. Whenever you see Hayman, that's. An act of worship. Yeah, it's incredibly arrogant of him to demand. And then here here he is everything the king and buying to him, and he has one guy, one guy who doesn't do it, and it infuriates him to where he wants to commit genocide. Right, that's how arrogant this guy is. Well, the Life Application Study Bible says he did not take a poll first to determine the safest or most popular course of action. He had the courage to stand alone. And that is phenomenal. It's just fun. And it wasn't one time. It was day after day after day, is what it says, whenever he passed by. Right, But Mordecai refused to bow down. And then they came to him day after they spoke to him, day after day, but still he refused. So talking about pressure, the sheer pressure of every day. They go, dude, you got about out do it this time. Don't cause us trouble, right, And he just saw this as they're not asking me to bow down out of respect. They're asking me to worship this guy, and I'm not going to do it, right, I only have one God. And so even though at that point they didn't know that Mordecai was Jewish, he finally admits it, I only have one God. I'm not going to. Bow right, And there is this sense sometimes, you know, there's the there's the diplomatic and kind thing to do, you know, when you step in and just follow cultural norms. And you know, I've been in. Places before where everybody bows and they'll place their hand over their heart, or they'll fold their. Hands and they'll bow to each other, and that's a politeness. But when it comes to here's a guy and he's wearing a fancy hat and a fancy robe, and he expects you to bow before him and kiss his ring or whatever. I've been in multiple situations like that with important people, powerful people who expect the bow and the kissing of the ring, and I've never done it ever. I just stand there, I stick my hand out, offer to shake it. I kind of act dumb, right, like I didn't know that that was the thing. And I was with one powerful leader and my friends that were with me. One of my friends he did, he bowed and kissed the ring, and then I stuck my hand out offered to shake his hand. He didn't shake my hand, but then he smiled and I said, I'm sorry, I'm just I didn't bow to kiss your kiss your ring, and he said, well, I didn't expect you to. You're not of my people. And he kind of let me off the hook in the moment there. He could have made it really difficult and the meeting could have ended too right and that, but it was definitely a you humble yourself before me kind of moment, right right, And that's that's Mordecai felt that to be an act of worship. That's what you're doing. You're worshiping me. And there's no doubt in my mind that in the moment that I was there, the other people who bowed and kiss the ring, it was an act of worship. I felt like they were in the presence of a saint. Yeah, and I'm like, I'm not going to do that. Do you remember when the Hulk and Roady war Machine get off in Wakanda and they saw the king walk up and then he says, oh, yeah, we're supposed to bow. Do you remember that? And then he bows and he goes, he goes, we don't do that here. And wrote He's like, he starts laughing, he's hilarious shooting bow. He's like, oh yeah, absolutely, yeah, absolutely, and he doesn't bow. So this is that moment that he decided he has the courage to stand alone. And I think that idea, whether you're talking about the three Hebrew boys in the fight with the fire furnace or Daniel bending a knee and praying when nobody else would This theme here at this part this section of the Bible seems to be a recurring thing over and over, having courage when nobody else. Is willing to do it. You have the courage to do the right thing anyways. And God bless us every time that we see somebody willing to have the courage to not cave in to do the wrong thing, but instead they have the courage to stand alone and do the right thing every time, God blesses them. That's what we're going to see happens with Mordecai. Yeah, well that's great. Well, hey, that is a great place to end, and we will pick up tomorrow with chapter four and we hope you join us on the Bible. Gus