Esther 2:1  After these things, when the wrath of king Ahasuerus was appeased, he remembered Vashti, and what she had done, and what was decreed against her.
2  Then said the king’s servants that ministered unto him, Let there be fair young virgins sought for the king:
3  And let the king appoint officers in all the provinces of his kingdom, that they may gather together all the fair young virgins unto Shushan the palace, to the house of the women, unto the custody of Hege the king’s chamberlain, keeper of the women; and let their things for purification be given them:
4  And let the maiden which pleaseth the king be queen instead of Vashti. And the thing pleased the king; and he did so.
5  Now in Shushan the palace there was a certain Jew, whose name was Mordecai, the son of Jair, the son of Shimei, the son of Kish, a Benjamite;
6  Who had been carried away from Jerusalem with the captivity which had been carried away with Jeconiah king of Judah, whom Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon had carried away.

God is the One Who instituted marriage. In Canada and some other countries, the state has assumed that it is their responsibility to supervise marriages. The problem is that the state does not know what a marriage consists of. We are told that two men can get married or that two women can get married. That is contrary to God’s will.
Genesis 1&2 tell us that God created Adam and Eve. He brought them together and they were “married”. There was no formal ceremony. There was no need for a marriage license from the state. Throughout the time of the Bible, marriages were not under the authority of the state. Yet we have adopted the lie that we need the permission of the state to get married. Of course many people do not even bother with marriage anymore. They just move in together and live together until things do not work out and then they find someone else. Sometimes they get quite possessive over their live-in and they become abusive and even murder them. There are too many marriages that do not work out and people get divorced and then find someone else.
That was the case for Ahasuerus and Vashti. Ahasuerus liked his liquor more than he loved his wife. He thought his wife was his plaything. She resented that and did not bow to his unjust demand and that upset him. He became quite angry because his ego had been severely bruised. His wise men counselled him to get rid of Vashti and find someone better than her.
Now we read in chapter 2, that after he sobered up, he got to thinking of the benefits of being married to Vashti. We need to remember that neither one of these two knew the true God. They lived in a pagan culture and yet even there, they understood the importance of marriage. They did not know how to behave properly in a marriage.
The Bible tells us that in a marriage the two — the man and the woman become one flesh. That is a fact. The Bible also tells us that for those who do not get married but want to sleep around, they also become one flesh and they create massive confusion because they have been joined to many different people. This is talking about men and women, not men and men or women and women.
Jesus reminds us that what God has joined together, let not man put asunder.
We need to keep in mind that most marriages are between unsaved couples. God has still put that together in that He ordained marriage. The couple may not even have sought any godly direction in their pursuit of marriage. They may have had some form of preacher officiate at their wedding, but the booze flowed freely at the reception. There was no interest in honouring God. Just because a couple chose to marry without seeking God’s blessing, that does not give them license to divorce and find someone else.
If Ahasuerus would have had some wise counsellors, they would have told him his drunkennes was wrong and they would never have counselled him to put away his wife. We do not read that the king had any wise counsellors in his presence. He was not privileged in the same way that Nebuchadnezzar had been.
King Ahasuerus was far too proud to admit he was wrong in what he had done. His counsellors were far too proud to admit they had given him foolish counsel. Thus there was no fixing the problem. They tried to find a solution without fixing the problem. That is how many people approach life. Many marriages run into trouble and rather than seeking godly counsel, the couple might seek some secular counsel and they may eventually even separate and divorce.
However, they still desire that intimacy that comes with a marriage. There are countless numbers of ungodly counsellors that will encourage them to find someone else and they will also officiate at those adulterous affairs. Many of those ungodly counsellors call themselves pastors. They are the blind leading the blind. They both fall into the ditch of sin.
Marriage is not something we get to play around with. It is a picture of God’s salvation and the pastor needs to study this matter out so that he does not sin against God in making evil choices. Rather than rush into officiating at marriages, he needs to be sure he understands God’s design for marriage before he officiates at any weddings. He will be accountable to God for his teaching.
In our text, the king was not about to go hunting for a replacement for Vashti. He was much too dignified for that. His counsellors had a much “better” plan for him. He was the king. He could appoint officers throughout his kingdom to find fair young virgins and bring them to the king and see what he thought of them. It was not enough that he had spoiled the life of Vashti. Now he would spoil the life of some young virgins. The virgins were vain and thought it would be great to be married to the king. After all they would have all the things a girl could ever want. They would have everything except what any young woman would want, and that is true love.
We read that these women should be found and brought to the custody of Hege, the king’s chamberlain, the keeper of the women. The Hebrew word translated as “chamberlain” refers to a castrated eunuch. It was a man who have been neutered. This man would be a “creepy” man in that he would be in charge of the women. That is not the role of a godly man, for certain.
We are not dealing with a godly kingdom here. We are dealing with a pagan kingdom and even if the parents would not approve of having their young daughter taken to be in this harem, the parents were afraid to refuse this “request”.
In verse 4 we read that the king was pleased with this wicked plot. Thus things were put into action to fulfil the lust of the king. Verse 5 tells us there was a certain Jew in the palace of Sushan. He was certainly not of the character of Daniel. His name was Mordecai. He was in the presence of the king, but the king did not know he was a Jew. He also did not discern that he was a God-fearing man, because it seems he was not. This Mordecai was a Benjamite. According to the text, he was taken captive during the second invasion of the Babylonians upon Jerusalem. Prior to that invasion, his uncle and aunt had a baby, named Esther. They died and he adopted the child. Thus he took her along when he was captured. He raised this girl. She had respect for him. He raised her but not in a God-fearing manner. He seems to have adopted the false idea that they were in a foreign land and they needed to be quiet and just try to get along with the people. This silent attitude would come back to bite not just these two, but the entire Jewish population that was left in Ahasuerus’ kingdom.
It is never a wise thing to just be quiet just to try to get along with others. We know that Daniel and his three friends did not take that approach. They had a great influence over the entire Babylonian empire. Daniel also had a great influence over the Medo/Persian empire. He was not a silent Jew. He was not a trouble maker. He was a humble servant of God and was willing to make God’s will known in a pagan land. Mordecai was not such a man. He trained Esther to keep quiet about who she was. We will see further the negative effects of this deceptive way of life.
God raised up the Jewish nation for them to be a light among the nations. He wanted them to live for Him so that the other nations would see the importance of knowing the true God. Israel as a nation, chose to rebel against God and they suffered at His hand due to that rebellion. They were far too stubborn to repent and turn back to God. They continued to defy the Lord and eventually He punished them with exile. Even then, most of them did not repent. They chose to assimilate in a foreign land and they tried to blend in. They were secret Jews and if they kept any of the Jewish customs, they did so quietly.
In the New Testament, we learn that God set aside the Jewish nation for a time and graffed in the Gentiles through true local churches. Saved Gentiles and Jews make up those who are the members of a true local church. We are saved to serve the Lord. We are saved to be a light shining in a dark place. In my lifetime, most churches have taken a similar approach to that of the Jews of Mordecai’s time. Most have submitted to the state as their head. They have passively allowed the state to dictate policy for them. They have done so because they wanted the benefit of being able to give tax breaks to their members. This way they could get more money from their members and thus they could do more things and have fancier buildings. The pretext was that they would be more effective reaching the lost. This compromise has caused confusion and it has also empowered the state into taking greater control over the local churches. They now believe they can tell churches when they can be open and they also believe they can tell churches when it is appropriate to sing in their churches and how much social interaction there should be between members.
We can rest assured that the state will enact further restrictions upon churches in the future. They have not apologized for their overreach. They are still dragging true pastors to court. It is time for true saints to wake up. We need to pray for the boldness of Peter and John who were threatened with beatings and prison if they would not stop preaching in Jesus’ name. Peter and John knew the risks but they also knew Who their Master was:

Acts 5:29  Then Peter and the other apostles answered and said, We ought to obey God rather than men.

The true local churches of that time were not state run churches. The true churches of our time cannot be state run churches either. We need to remind our governments that Jesus Christ is the head of every true local church. We need to help people to see that the true local church is the answer to their needs. The state is good at wasting tax dollars. They are good at protecting criminals. They are good at promoting drugs and alcohol which destroy lives. They have taken control of the health care and made a mess of that.
The true local church functions in a different manner. We offer real hope and help to people. We have the answer to troubled marriages. We have that answer because we turn to God’s Word for the answer. We can help the hurting and the depressed. We can offer true hope to the grieving family. There are so many benefits that are only found in a true local church. Be sure you are a part of a true local church so that you can enjoy the many blessings associated with that. If you are saved you can be a help through that local church to help others to see the blessings of knowing the true God.
Pastor Bartel