TAKING CARE OF BUSINESS--Esther 3:1

Woody Rimes

Sermon • Submitted 4 years ago

0 ratings

· 12 views

Notes

Transcript

Taking Care of Business

Esther 3:1

1 Samuel 15:1-24

3/7/21

520 BC

Zechariah Begins to Preach

Zechariah received his first prophetic message in October 520 BC. directed toward the Jew The primary message was for the Jews to return to God so that he would return to them.

516 BC Temple Is Completed

479 BC

Esther Becomes Queen of Persia

474 BC

Xerxes Allows the Jews to Defend Themselves

Haman, prime minister to King Xerxes of the Persian Empire, was infuriated by the refusal of Mordecai, a Jew, to bow down to him. In retaliation, Haman plotted to have all Jews in the empire executed. He received permission from the king to set a date for the mass execution of the Jews eleven months later (Esther 3:1-15). Mordecai persuaded Queen Esther, his adopted daughter, to risk going before the king and ask him to spare their people. Esther found favor with the king, and he agreed to her request. However, since a Persian law could not be changed, the king issued another decree on June 25, 474 BC, granting the Jews the right to defend themselves from attack. Haman was hanged on the gallows that he built for Mordecai, and Mordecai replaced Haman as prime minister (Esther 1–8).

Because all Jews lived within the Persian Empire, this decree was a direct threat to God’s program of redemption.

The key to understanding this confrontation between Haman and Mordecai, and all the Jews, can be found in the name of Haman’s father: Hammedatha the Agagite (Esther 3:1). The name indicates that Haman and his father descended from Agag, the king of Amalek (1 Samuel 15:20)

Around 500 years earlier, an event took place in Israel,—the founding of the monarchy—it was actually the expansion of the kingdom.

Saul, Israel’s first king, disobeyed God and spared Agag, rather than putting him to death as God had commanded. Because of this disobedience, God rejected Saul as king (1 Samuel 15:1–35)

READ 1 Samuel 15:1-24

CALL OF SAUL

(vv. 1–9)

VS1- “And Samuel said to Saul, ‘The Lord sent me to anoint you king over his people Israel; now therefore listen to the words of the Lord’ ” (v. 1).

Saul was no ordinary king

There were three elements that made his kingship unique.

The first element was that the Lord was the one who had made him king. Saul was not king by virtue of some right of birth or position. He did not become king by his cleverness or strength, or even popularity. “Never forget, Saul, that you are king because and only because God chose to make you king” (see 1 Samuel 9:16; 10:1, 24).

The second element was that King Saul had to submit to the prophet Samuel. This is clearer in the original Hebrew where the word “me” is emphasized. “It is me that the Lord sent to anoint you king,” said the prophet. “Never forget, Saul, that even as king, you are not the ultimate authority around here. You are subject to God’s prophet.”

The third element that defined the uniqueness of Saul’s kingship was that the people over whom he reigned were not his people, but God’s people. “Never forget, Saul, that Israel is the Lord’s people.”

One essential thing was required of this king:

“Now therefore listen to the words of the Lord.”

They were privileged to have heard the sound of the words of God at Mount Sinai in the days of Moses. At that time God had said to Moses, “Gather the people to me, that I may let them hear my words” (Deuteronomy 4:10). Much later Moses reminded the people of that day: “Then the Lord spoke to you out of the midst of the fire. You heard the sound of words” (Deuteronomy 4:12). To be the people who heard the sound of the words of God was Israel’s unique calling. A king over this people must therefore, more importantly than anything else, be one who listens to the sound of the words of the Lord.

The Sound of the Words of the Lord (vv. 2, 3)

“Thus says the Lord of hosts, ‘I have noted what Amalek did to Israel in opposing them on the way when they came up out of Egypt. Now go and strike Amalek and devote to destruction all that they have. Do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.’ ” (vv. 2, 3)

Here is the deeply disturbing “sound of the words of the Lord.”

Amalek was a grandson of Esau (Genesis 36:12). His descendants (referred to as Amalek or the Amalekites) had a long history of violent hostility toward the Israelites. They were the first human threat to the people of Israel after the exodus (see Exodus 17:8–16). On that occasion God told Moses to write down this promise: “I will utterly blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven” (Exodus 17:14).

About four decades later, before the Israelites entered the promised land, Moses reminded them:

“Remember what Amalek did to you on the way as you came out of Egypt, how he attacked you on the way when you were faint and weary, and cut off your tail, those who were lagging behind you, and he did not fear God. Therefore when the Lord your God has given you rest from all your enemies around you, in the land that the Lord your God is giving you for an inheritance to possess, you shall blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven; you shall not forget.” (Deuteronomy 25:17–19)

Amalek was a people deeply and consistently set against God and his people. Hostilities from Amalek continued after Israel entered the land of Canaan . However the time had now come for the terrible judgment of God to fall on the Amalekites.

Notice the terrible but clear terms of Saul’s mission in 1 Samuel 15:3. “Devote to destruction” is one word in Hebrew. No one was to be “spared.” There was to be no escape.

What, then, did King Saul do?

What the King Did (vv. 4–9)

First we see him preparing to carry out the words of the Lord:

So Saul summoned the people and numbered them in Telaim, two hundred thousand men on foot, and ten thousand men of Judah. And Saul came to the city of Amalek and lay in wait in the valley. (vv. 4, 5)

The location of Telaim is not now known. Neither is this “city” of Amalek. What matters is that Saul with considerable forces appears to be preparing to obey the sound of the words of the Lord.

Secondly, in verse 6 we see him taking considerable care to not go beyond the words of the Lord:

Then Saul said to the Kenites, “Go, depart; go down from among the Amalekites, lest I destroy you with them. For you showed kindness to all the people of Israel when they came up out of Egypt.” So the Kenites departed from among the Amalekites. (v. 6)

Thirdly, with the Kenites safely out of the way, we see Saul begin to carry out his terrible task: “And Saul defeated the Amalekites from Havilah as far as Shur, which is east of Egypt” (v. 7).

And he took Agag the king of the Amalekites alive and devoted to destruction all the people with the edge of the sword. But Saul and the people spared Agag and the best of the sheep and of the oxen and of the fattened calves and the lambs, and all that was good, and would not utterly destroy them. All that was despised and worthless they devoted to destruction. (vv. 8, 9)

That special Hebrew verb appears three times in these two verses. Saul devoted to destruction all the people with the edge of the sword, but there was quite a lot that Saul and the people would not utterly destroy (same word), although all that was worthless they devoted to destruction. Another word is repeated from verse 3, where God said, “Do not spare them”: “Saul and the people spared Agag and the best” of the animals.

For the moment we can only see these actions as outside observers. We are told nothing about why Saul took Agag alive or why he and the people spared the better animals. We can just remember the sound of the words of the Lord: “Do not spare them.”

There is something very odd about this action. What would motivate sparing “the best” animals when all the people (except the king) and the worse animals were destroyed? The first scene in this drama leaves us wondering.

THE WORD OF THE LORD TO SAMUEL

(vv. 10, 11)

The word of the Lord came to Samuel: “I regret that I have made Saul king, for he has turned back from following me and has not performed my commandments.” (vv. 10, 11a)

Literally, “he has not fulfilled my words.” In other words, his actions had been determined by something other than the sound of the words of the Lord.

The depth of the tragedy recorded here may be appreciated if we recall the only other occasion where this language is used in this way. In the days of Noah:

(Genesis 6:5, 6)

Samuel’s Response (v. 11b)

The tragedy was not lost on Samuel: “And Samuel was angry, and he cried to the Lord all night” (v. 11b).

All that night Samuel cried out to the Lord. He understood the enormity of what had happened. The king the Lord had sent him to anoint over his people Israel had failed to listen to the sound of the words of the Lord.

What happened next was one of the most spectacular confrontations in the pages of the Bible, when the prophet Samuel met the defiant King Saul after the events we have just witnessed.

Saul’s mission to judge the Amalekites was a local, small-scale anticipation of the judgment that will finally come on the whole world at the hands of God’s appointed king.

THE REJECTED KING

—1 Samuel 15:12–35

This chapter is a brilliant study in the deceptive, corrupting power of sin.

We have followed the first two of the three scenes of the drama in 1 Samuel 15. In Scene 1 we saw that King Saul had been sent to bring God’s long anticipated judgment on the Amalekites (1 Samuel 15:2, 3).

Scene 2 took us to some other unspecified location where God spoke to the prophet Samuel and said: “I regret that I have made Saul king, for he has turned back from following me and has not performed my commandments” (v. 11).

Scene 3

A dreaded confrontation with the king could not be put off: “And Samuel rose early to meet Saul in the morning and it was told Samuel, “Saul came to Carmel, and behold, he set up a monument for himself and turned and passed on and went down to Gilgal.” (v. 12)

This was not the famous Mount Carmel—Notice those words: “a monument for [or to] himself.” Presumably it commemorated his great victory over the Amalekites!

Saul’s Warm Greeting (v. 13)

Saul was the first to speak: “And Samuel came to Saul, and Saul said to him, ‘Blessed be you to the Lord. I have performed the commandment of the Lord’ ” (v. 13).

Literally he said,

“I have fulfilled the word of the Lord”

—the very thing God had told Samuel that Saul had not done (v. 11).

Samuel’s Question (v. 14)

Samuel could hear the incriminating sounds: “And Samuel said, ‘What then is this bleating of the sheep in my ears and the lowing of the oxen that I hear?’ ” (v. 14).

Literally Samuel said, “What then is this sound of the sheep in my ears and the sound of the oxen that I hear?” The air was now filled with the sound of his failure to do so!

Saul’s Deceived Defense (v. 15)

Listen to his response, and witness the depth of sin’s deceitfulness:

Saul said, “They have brought them from the Amalekites, for the people spared the best of the sheep and of the oxen to sacrifice to the Lord your God, and the rest we have devoted to destruction.” (v. 15)

Where have we heard something like that before? “The man said, ‘The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate’ ” (Genesis 3:12).

He called him not “our God,” certainly not “my God,” but “your [Samuel’s] God.” Saul stood in the great tradition of sinners since Adam who minimize and deny the guilt of their actions because they have turned away from God. That, of course, is what God had said to Samuel the previous night: “He has turned back from following me” (1 Samuel 15:11).

SAMUEL’S ACCUSATION (vv. 17–19)

First, Samuel reminded Saul of his position: “And Samuel said, ‘Though you are little in your own eyes, are you not the head of the tribes of Israel? The Lord anointed you king over Israel’ ” (v. 17).

This may be a reference to Saul’s humility at an earlier stage of his life. When Samuel had first spoken to him, Saul had said:

Second point in the case for the prosecution is the mission on which Saul had been sent:

“And the Lord sent you on a mission and said, ‘Go, devote to destruction the sinners, the Amalekites, and fight against them until they are consumed.’ ” (v. 18)

Calling the Amalekites “the sinners” emphasizes that Saul’s mission was no ordinary military conquest. As God’s anointed king, Saul was to bring God’s judgment on these “sinners.” The terms of the mission were unambiguous and weighty.

third point: “Why then did you not obey the voice of the Lord? Why did you pounce on the spoil and do what was evil in the sight of the Lord?” (v. 19).

His disobedience was “evil in the sight of the Lord.”

Saul wanted to blame “the people.”

“Why, Saul, did you do it?”

SAUL’S DEFENSE

(vv. 20, 21)

Saul responded by reiterating the defense he had already presented:

And Saul said to Samuel, “I have obeyed the voice of the Lord. I have gone on the mission on which the Lord sent me. I have brought Agag the king of Amalek, and I have devoted the Amalekites to destruction. But the people took of the spoil, sheep and oxen, the best of the things devoted to destruction, to sacrifice to the Lord your God in Gilgal.” (vv. 20, 21)

Remember how in 1 Samuel 15:1 Saul had been told that he must “listen to the sound of the words of the Lord.” Now he claimed that was exactly what he had done: “I have obeyed [or listened to] the voice [or sound] of the Lord.” “I did what I was sent to do. I destroyed the Amalekites.”

But did you notice the little piece of new information Saul slipped in in verse 20? “I have brought Agag the king of Amalek”! Up to now the interrogation had been about the animals. Samuel had said nothing about Agag. But presumably Saul was well aware that Agag’s presence could not be hidden for long. He therefore took the initiative and presented this information with the best possible spin. He slipped it in between his assertion of obedience (“I have obeyed”) and his claim to have destroyed the Amalekites.

SAMUEL’S VERDICT (vv. 22, 23)

Samuel’s role now shifts from presenting the case for the prosecution to pronouncing the verdict.

And Samuel said,

“Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices,

as in obeying [or hearing] the voice of the Lord?

Behold, to obey [or hear] is better than sacrifice,

and to listen than the fat of rams.

For rebellion is as the sin of divination,

and presumption is as iniquity and idolatry.

Because you have rejected the word of the Lord, he has also rejected you from being king.

” (vv. 22, 23)

Saul’s disobedience was a rejection of the word of God, which was a rejection of God himself. The consequence was God’s rejection of Saul as king over his people.

SAUL’S CONFESSION AND PLEA (vv. 24–33)

Saul said to Samuel, “I have sinned, for I have transgressed the commandment of the Lord and your words, because I feared the people and obeyed their voice. Now therefore, please pardon my sin and return with me that I may worship the Lord.” (vv. 24, 25)

He had listened to the wrong voice, and now he knew it. The seriousness of the situation can only be appreciated if we remember the terms on which this king experiment had been allowed to proceed:

Mordecai is described as a descendant of Kish (Esther 2:5), who was the father of Saul (1 Samuel 9:1–2). So, five hundred years after King Saul lived, his descendant Mordecai continued to battle the Amalekites—Agag, the King of Amalek--Haman the son of Hammedatha, the Agagite.