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July 30 Daily Reading- Read the Bible in 1 Year
10 Plays6 days ago
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In today's reading we will begin the Book of Esther, written by Mordecai, her Uncle. We will cover the first three chapters. Today we will read about and contrast disobedience with obedience. The Jewish people in Persia would have trouble with a man named Haman, who was an Amalekite. The Amalekites were supposed to be wiped out by King Saul but he didn't obey God. The prophet Samuel ended up killing king Agag himself, but Saul left other Amalekites alive. His disobedience would have long lasting consequences. The Jews were still considered to be the enemy of the Amalekites and Mordecai would now seek to kill all of the Jews with a royal decree from King Xerxes. Queen Vashti was also disobedient to king Xerxes when he commanded her to present herself and she disobeyed, causing her to lose her position as queen and be replaced. Contrasting Saul's and queen Vashti's disobedience is Esther's and Mordecai's obedience- Mordecai is obedient to God and will not bow down to worship Haman. Esther is obedient to her uncle Mordecai, who raised her, as well as to the man who was looking over her at the palace before she went to see King Xerxes and brought with her only what he advised her to bring.
In our discussion for daily application we will talk about the importance of obedience to God and to those God places over us. Children are to obey their parents, we are to obey the leaders God places over us, wives are to obey their husbands, Jesus is the head of the church, we see that Jesus obeyed God, even to death in order to pay the price for our sins. Obedience is very important. God values obedience over sacrifice, as He tells us in 1 Samuel 15:22. The disobedience of king Saul had negative consequences hundreds of years later. Jesus' obedience has everlasting benefits! We never know how far our disobedience or obedience can reach. It is very important that we are careful to sow seeds of obedience. What we sow will be reaped, even a long time from now!
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Transcript
Introduction and Overview
00:00:03
Speaker
Welcome back everybody. Today is July 30th and we are here for today's reading from the Day by Day Kids Bible written by Karen Henley. Thank you so much for joining me, listening on that podcast, watching on that video.
00:00:17
Speaker
I'm so glad that you're here with me. Yesterday we finished the book of Zechariah and today we are going to begin the book of Esther. So if you are following along on that commitment calendar, it's time to take that out and get your sticker ready or whatever you're using to mark that off because you're about to hear the Bible today.
00:00:36
Speaker
Look at that. We have one more day left in this month and then we are going to be done with seven months this year. Wow. We are getting so close to starting the New Testament, the New Covenant.
Historical Context of Esther
00:00:51
Speaker
Well, I want to give us a little bit of background here as to the timeframe. As we know, we as we just mentioned, we're getting closer to the time of the new covenant. And so ah the book of Esther takes place somewhere between 460 and 350 four sixty and three fifty bc So this is only about three hundred and fifty to four hundred and fifty years before jesus comes This is taking place in Persia and there are still people who were brought out of exile and who are living in Persia.
00:01:27
Speaker
So we are seeing families, not everybody has returned to Jerusalem and God has purpose for them where they are as well. Today, we're going to be seeing the consequences of disobedience.
00:01:43
Speaker
We are going to see that ah you remember when a long time ago, when King Saul was ruling, he battled the king of ah the Amalekites and his name was Agag.
00:01:58
Speaker
And his descendants were called the Agagites, Agagites. And so when he was told by God to kill him and all of the people, he was told to wipe them out.
00:02:12
Speaker
Saul did not obey God. And instead, the prophet Samuel came and said, you did not obey God. And Saul said, yes, I did. I killed everybody. And...
00:02:25
Speaker
it's done. i went out, we had battle. And Saul said, well, then what is all this sounds of animals that I hear? And Saul said, oh, well, the people kept the best of the animals and, and we saved the king. And Saul said, then you did not obey.
00:02:43
Speaker
So because way back then, when King Saul did not completely eradicate, get rid of the um ah the Amalekites and Agagites, we are going to be seeing a descendant giving trouble in the Persian court for the Jews.
00:03:04
Speaker
The Amalekites and the Agagites, Agag is just ah simply and like a name given to the king. So they ah are enemies against the Jewish people.
00:03:18
Speaker
And so when we see Haman, Haman is descendant of them and he doesn't like the Jewish people. So once he finds out that Mordecai is Jewish, he is now going to be going after the Jewish people.
00:03:37
Speaker
So I wanted to point out that this all stems from disobedience. All of the problems that we see today are going to stem from disobedience. And the solution will stem from disobedience as well.
King's Banquet and Vashti's Disobedience
00:03:50
Speaker
Because God uses everything for good.
00:03:55
Speaker
So let's dig into the book of Esther. We're going to be covering the first three chapters of the book of Esther.
00:04:05
Speaker
The first chapter is called the King's Dinner Party.
00:04:10
Speaker
It was sometime after God gave messages to Zechariah. I'm actually going to tell us when this was. This was in the third year of a new King Artaxerxes reign.
00:04:23
Speaker
So now we have a new King Artaxerxes who is after Darius, who made the a law and allowed the people to go back to building the temple. And this is in his third year of his reign. god gave message ah After God gave messages to Zechariah, there was now another king named Xerxes.
00:04:45
Speaker
And he was king of Persia. His palace was in the city of Susa. Xerxes had been king for three years when he had a big party.
00:04:57
Speaker
All the rich men and leaders came. All the army leaders and the princes came. The king showed the riches of his kingdom to everyone for 180 days.
00:05:11
Speaker
That is six months.
00:05:14
Speaker
After that, the king had a dinner party and it was in the king's garden. All of the men of Susa came. There were some important men and some not so important men.
00:05:26
Speaker
The king had invited everybody, big and small.
00:05:31
Speaker
There were marble posts in the garden. White and blue cloth hung from the posts on white ropes. The floor was made from small tiles of stone that cost a lot.
00:05:44
Speaker
And silver and gold seats were all around. Everyone got to drink wine from gold cups. And each cup was different from the others.
00:05:57
Speaker
There was plenty of wine and the king gave it out freely. The king told his servants to serve whatever the people asked for. Now Queen Vashti had a dinner party for the women and it was in the king's palace.
00:06:14
Speaker
Seven days passed. The king was feeling good from drinking so much wine. So he asked his servants to bring the queen in. He said that she should wear her queen's crown and that way everyone could see how beautiful she was.
00:06:31
Speaker
She was very pretty. So the servants went to get the queen, but she would not come. And that made the king very angry.
00:06:43
Speaker
He called his wise men he and he asked them what to do.
00:06:51
Speaker
What does the law say? asked the king. The queen has not obeyed my command. So one of the wise men said, she has done wrong.
00:07:02
Speaker
This is bad for you and all your people. All the women will hear about this and then they won't obey their husbands. And they will say, the queen didn't have to obey the king.
00:07:14
Speaker
And so they won't obey their husbands and there will be fussing and fighting.
00:07:20
Speaker
Make a law, said the wise man and say that the queen can never come to see you again. Then choose a new queen, and the new queen should be better than the old queen.
00:07:34
Speaker
And that way all the women will hear about this, and then they will obey their husbands. The king liked what the wise man told him, so he did it. He said every man should rule his own house.
00:07:47
Speaker
Chapter Two, The New Queen.
Esther's Rise to Queen
00:07:51
Speaker
Later the king cooled down, and he wasn't angry any anymore. He remembered the queen. And he remembered what she did.
00:07:59
Speaker
He remembered the law he had made. Then the king's helpers gave him an idea. Let people look for beautiful young women in your land.
00:08:11
Speaker
Choose men to bring these women to the city of Susa. One of your helpers is in charge of the women. Let him take charge and care of these young women and they can have special beauty care.
00:08:25
Speaker
Then you can see which one you like best. She can be the new queen. The king liked this idea, so he did it. Now in Susa, there was a Jewish man named Mordecai, and he had come from a family of people taken from Jerusalem.
00:08:45
Speaker
He had a cousin named Esther. She was very beautiful. Her mother and father had died, so Mordecai was taking care of of her. and he treated her like his own daughter.
00:09:00
Speaker
Many young women were coming to Susa, and the king's helper was taking care of them. Esther was taken to the palace too, and the king's helper liked Esther very much.
00:09:12
Speaker
He gave her special beauty care and special food. He gave Esther and her maids, he even gave her seven maids from the palace. And then he gave Esther and her maids the best place to stay.
00:09:27
Speaker
Esther had not told any anyone she was Jewish. Mordecai had told her not to talk about it. So every day Mordecai walked around near the palace yard and he tried to find out what kinds of things were happening to Esther.
00:09:42
Speaker
Now the beauty care for a young woman took 12 months. She had six months with special oils, and she had six months with perfumes and makeup, and then she would go see the king.
00:09:57
Speaker
She could take anything she wanted with her. The young women would go see the king in the evening, and the next morning she would leave, and then she would stay with the young women in another part of the palace, and she wouldn't go back to the king unless he liked her, and then he might ask her to come back.
00:10:17
Speaker
One evening, Esther's turn came. Everyone who saw Esther liked her, and the king liked her more than any other girl.
00:10:29
Speaker
So he put the crown on her head, and he made her the new queen. Then the king gave a great dinner party for Esther and all the rich men and leaders came.
00:10:42
Speaker
The king said that that day would be a holiday everywhere and he gave gifts to the people.
00:10:50
Speaker
Now Mordecai kept sitting near the king's gate and there were two guards at the door. These guards got angry at the king and they made plans to kill him. But Mordecai found out about their plans.
00:11:03
Speaker
He told Queen Esther, And Queen Esther told the king, and she told the king that Mordecai had found this out. The king checked it out.
00:11:15
Speaker
He found out that it was true. So the two guards were killed, and they were hanged on poles. And all of this was written down in the king's books.
00:11:28
Speaker
Chapter 3.
Haman's Plot Against the Jews
00:11:30
Speaker
A Letter with Bad News One day the king called in a man named Haman. The king made Haman greater than the other leaders.
00:11:40
Speaker
And the king said that the leaders had to bow to Haman. So all the leaders bowed to him, but Mordecai would not bow down to him. The guards at the gate asked Mordecai, why don't you will obey the king?
00:11:55
Speaker
And every day they asked him, but he still would not bow. Mordecai had told the guards he was Jewish. So they told Haman about it and they wanted to see what he would think.
00:12:09
Speaker
Haman was very angry. He thought killing Mordecai wouldn't be enough. So he looked for a way to kill all the Jewish people. Haman talked to the king about it.
00:12:22
Speaker
There are some people in your kingdom, he said. They are different from all the other people and they don't obey your laws. And that's not good.
00:12:33
Speaker
So you should make a law to get rid of these people. I'll pay you 375 tons of silver to do it. So the king took his ring from his finger and he gave it to Haman.
00:12:47
Speaker
Keep the silver, said the king, but do whatever you want with these people. So Haman had the king's helpers write a letter in every language.
00:12:59
Speaker
They sent it all around the land. And they signed it with the king's ring.
00:13:05
Speaker
The letter said to kill all the Jewish people. It said to kill everyone, young and old, even women and children. And it told the day when they were to be killed.
00:13:20
Speaker
And that's the end of our reading today.
00:13:25
Speaker
I'm going to read us a little bit out of the Big Bible in chapter three.
00:13:32
Speaker
where it talks about Haman.
00:13:38
Speaker
It says, when Haman saw that Mordecai was not bowing down or paying him honor, Haman was filled with rage, but it was repugnant in his eyes to lay hands on Mordecai alone, for they had told him the identity of Mordecai's people, the Jews.
00:13:55
Speaker
So Haman sought to destroy all the Jews, the people of Mordecai, who were throughout the whole kingdom of Xerxes.
00:14:05
Speaker
So, and then it says down in verse 10 that the king took his signet ring from his hand and gave it to Haman, some of son of Hamadatha the Agagite, enemy of the Jews.
00:14:20
Speaker
And, uh, There we go. So what we see is that this is occurring partly because Saul did not get rid of all the Amalekites.
00:14:34
Speaker
And we see his disobedience coming ah to haunt them. All those years later, we don't know just how far our sin can travel.
00:14:46
Speaker
Just like we've talked about that we don't know how how far our good can travel or our sin. It's almost like we make ripples. And the effects that we have carry on and on and on.
00:14:59
Speaker
So it's very important that the impact that we have, that we obey God fully, because we don't know how strongly, or ah they we don't know how many things will be affected in the future by either our disobedience or by our obedience.
00:15:18
Speaker
Mordecai had raised Esther as his own. and he had And we read in the Big Bible that Esther obeyed Mordecai and she did everything she was told.
00:15:32
Speaker
So we see the contrast of disobedience and obedience. We see hey ah Mordecai disobeying and not bowing down to Haman.
00:15:44
Speaker
So why was this important? It looks like he's just disobeying. When they are told to bow down, they are being told to worship. And he had given the reason that he doesn't do that is because he is Jewish.
00:15:56
Speaker
And so he is not going to bow down to any anyone other than God. He's not going to worship. If he had simply been told to worship, pay tribute like to the king, he would have done so as he was respectful to the king.
00:16:12
Speaker
But he was not going to bow down to worship Haman. And so that is what is implied, is that he was not bowing down. And so that's why he said that he didn't do so because he was Jewish.
00:16:24
Speaker
It wasn't simply because he had disrespect for Haman. It was because of the ah way that Haman was looking to have himself elevated. And so the king had elevated Haman to that status.
00:16:40
Speaker
And so we are not to obey rules that are in contrast to God. We have to honor God above all people.
00:16:51
Speaker
And we are to be faithful in the same way that Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego could not bow down to worship the king. they They were honoring to him and they said, may the king live forever, but they did not want to worship him.
00:17:04
Speaker
And we see that their steadfastness and their faith was ah was held up by God when he saved them.
Mordecai's Insight and Esther's Role
00:17:12
Speaker
And so we will see the same thing when God ah is protecting ah Mordecai and he protects his Jewish people, even though the people, ah some of them are still in Persia.
00:17:25
Speaker
which used to be Babylon, remember, God is still looking out for his people and he is in control of all the situation. And we will talk about when Mordecai tells Esther later, you know, that things happen just for such a time as this.
00:17:43
Speaker
And so we see ah Esther's obedience. and And I'm gonna point that out by reading some of the big Bible. So remember how it says that Esther could take anything with her when she went to go see the king?
00:17:59
Speaker
Our version of the Bible left out the fact that when it says on in verse 15, When the turn came in chapter 2, verse 15, when the turn came for Esther, the daughter of Abahel, the uncle of Mordecai, who had taken her as his daughter to go to the king, she did not ask for anything except what Hegai, the king's eunuch, the guardian of the women, advised.
00:18:27
Speaker
And Esther won favor in the eyes of all who saw her. So she did as she and as she was told, she accepted advice and she obeyed.
00:18:39
Speaker
So she um also, let's see, mentioned somewhere else too, that she had obeyed. i think it's in chapter three.
00:19:02
Speaker
but um I can't remember where exactly I read that. I think it was may have been in chapter. Let's see. Let's pause this.
00:19:13
Speaker
Here we go. In chapter 2, further down in verse 20, it says that Esther had not yet made known her lineage or her people, just as Mordecai had told her.
00:19:24
Speaker
Esther continued to follow Mordecai's instructions, as she had done when he was bringing her up. So we see here that Esther is obedient.
00:19:36
Speaker
And what we see in the very beginning was that Queen Vashti was not obedient. She did not obey when the King gave her command to come. He was, he was, um like He was ah showing off all of his riches and his beautiful things.
00:19:52
Speaker
And so Queen Vashti was very, very beautiful as we read. And so the king wanted to show her off as well. And we read that because she was so beautiful and she failed to obey.
00:20:05
Speaker
So because of her disobedience, she would now be she's now being contrasted with Esther's obedience. Everything Esther is told to do, she does. She obeyed her uncle when she was growing up, and we will see in tomorrow's reading that she is motivated to obey the king's laws and that she will do as she is told the best that she can.
Obedience and Authority: Vashti vs. Esther
00:20:29
Speaker
So it's very important for us to remember that we need to obey God as well. That's our daily application. when When we obey those in authority, like like Esther obeyed her uncle, as kids, you're meant to obey your're your parents, your mother and your father.
00:20:50
Speaker
And God does say that we are to obey as wives as well, that God placed our husbands over us. And so the dad is the head of the household. And in the same way, Jesus is head over the church.
00:21:01
Speaker
And in the same way, God is head over Jesus. So there is that hierarchy that we have, and we are meant to obey those who are above us. And we see that Queen Vashti did not provide a good example of obedience.
00:21:17
Speaker
And so the the wise men were actually correct that her example, remember we've talked in the past about being a good example to others, that we may not lead others into sin.
00:21:32
Speaker
her disobedience would cause other people, other women to say, well, the queen doesn't even have to listen to the king. So if the queen doesn't have to listen to the king, other people would not want to listen to the king either.
00:21:45
Speaker
And it would extend beyond just in a household manner of obedience. It needs to show that from from the top all the way down to the bottom, that those who are above us, we are expected to obey insofar as it does not contradict God's laws and God's rules for us.
00:22:05
Speaker
So she was not providing a good example of being a queen. She was not taking her position of leadership seriously. So we don't know when others may be watching and she didn't give any thought to her behavior.
00:22:19
Speaker
And we need to be sure that we are mindful of the fact that we can see that even down hundreds of years later in this case, consequences for disobedience were long lasting. And so in the same way God can bless our obedience, in the same way that he blessed Esther's obedience, as we will see.
00:22:38
Speaker
So that is our daily application today, to be mindful of God and to be obedient to whom we are meant to be obedient to. ah Jesus put it to give to Caesar what is Caesar's and give to God what is God's.
00:22:51
Speaker
We are meant to obey the laws that we are supposed to obey. And in so doing, we show respect. And that's very important for us to do, even if we don't want to.
00:23:04
Speaker
know I don't always feel like obeying, whether it's a ah posted speed limit or whatever it happens to be. We are all guilty of disobedience, ah but we don't know how our disobedience can cause long-term effect.
00:23:17
Speaker
And so we want to be mindful of ah causing good down the line rather than evil or bad consequences. So thank you for joining me today. i hope that you feel that God has lit your light.
00:23:29
Speaker
And I would ask that you please click that light button at the end. You know the one. It looks like a heart. It looks like a thumbs up, but it's really a light. And together we are shining our light for Jesus.
00:23:42
Speaker
Jesus says nobody puts a light on a under a bowl, covers it up so nobody can see it, but he puts it up high so it can show for light. So I want to encourage you to show that light and let's point people to reading God's word and let's spread the word about reading God's word.
00:24:01
Speaker
I hope you have a fantastic rest of your day today on July 30th. And I'll be here for everyone again tomorrow as we continue in the book of Esther.