Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - The Tables Were Turned | The Writings | Esther 9-10

Episode Date: June 24, 2024

We all love a good comeback story. With their back against the wall, the underdog pulls off a last second victory to knock off the favorite. It never gets old. In today's episode, Keith shares how Esther 9-10 reminds us that no matter how dire the circumstances, God always turns the tables in favor of his children. Read the Bible with us in 2024! This year, we’re tackling a group of Old Testament books traditionally known as “The Writings”— Psalms, Chronicles, Proverbs, Daniel, Ruth and more! Download your reading plan now. Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it so that others can find it, too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit our website and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter @TenMinuteBibleTalks. Don't forget to subscribe to the TMBT Newsletter here. Passages: Esther 9-10

Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life. In the time it takes to get to work. I'm Keith Simon. I'm sure you're at least somewhat familiar with the phrase, the tables were turned. If you turn the tables on someone, you reverse the fortunes in your favor. Maybe there's someone at work who it looks like is going to get a promotion instead of you, but then you do really well on a project and you turn the tables on them, and you receive the promotion instead of them.

Or you can turn the tables in sports. Go online and you can find in-lawful. debates about which comeback was the greatest. Some of you might remember the 2017 Super Bowl when the Atlanta Falcons were beating the New England Patriots 28 to 3 at halftime. No team had ever overcome that big of a deficit in Super Bowl history. But the Patriots turned the tables on the Falcons and they won the game in overtime. Well, in the Book of Esther, we're getting ready to see one of the greatest comebacks in Jewish history. Here's Ezra 9, verse 2. On this day, the enemies of the Jews had hoped to overpower them, but now the tables were turned, and the Jews got the upper hand

over those who hated them. Even if you've been listening to the story of Esther with us for the past few days, you could probably use a quick recap, and if you haven't been listening, you definitely need one to understand how the Jews turned the tables on their enemies. Esther is a book written after the Jews had been kicked out of Jerusalem and taken captive in Babylon. Eventually, Persia conquers Babylon, and Cyrus, who's the king of Persia, let the Jews returned to Jerusalem to rebuild the temple. That's what the books of Ezra and Nehemiah are all about. But not all the Jews left Persia and returned to Jerusalem. Many stayed and thrived in the Persian Empire. So one question Esther is wrestling with is, does God still keep his covenant promises

to his people when they are living in exile outside of the Holy Land? King Xerxes is the ruler of Persia at the time this book is written. Zerxes right-hand man is an evil man, name Haman. For very petty reasons, Haman doesn't like the Jews, and so he decides he wants to kill all of them. He tells Xerxes that there's a group of people in his empire that he shouldn't trust because they follow different customs. Zerxes gives Haman permission to kill all these people, which turns out to be the Jews. Haman wrote an official edict in the king's name and sent it out to all the provinces in the Persian Empire. Here's Chapter 3. Dispatches were sent by couriers to all the king's provinces with the order to destroy, kill, and annihilate all the Jews, young and old,

women and children, on a single day, the 13th day of the 12th month, the month of Adar, and to plunder their goods. A copy of the text of the edict was soon to be issued as law in every province and made known to the people of every nationality so they'd be ready for that day. Well, Queen Esther is Jewish, and when she hears about the edict, she very courageously decides that she will approach the king and talk to him about it. It takes a lot of courage to do this because in ancient Persia, the king had absolute power. Only the people he requested could come into his presence. Anyone who entered his throne room without being called would be killed. To make matters worse, Xerxes hadn't called for Queen Esther for 30 days. She took a great risk, walking into his court

on her own prerogative. Through a bit of cunning, Esther turned the tables on the evil Haman. The queen convinced the king that Haman's plot to kill the Jews was really trying to to kill her because, unbeknownst to any of them, she was Jewish. So the king ends up ordering his soldiers to kill Haman by impaling him on a pole. It sounds like a horrible way to die. Then the king transfers all of Haman's wealth to Queen Esther. She had really turned the tables on him, and it sounds like that should be the end of the story. But then you remember that there's still an edict out there to kill all the Jews, and the day of the massacre is rapidly approaching. Remember, it's because of that edict that Esther had risked her life and approached the king.

Haman might be dead, but the edict remains. So what happens next? Well, Esther goes to the king and begs him to save her people, but according to Persian law, the king can't overrule his own edict. So he tells her that she can write a new edict in his name and he'll sign it. Esther wrote an edict that allowed the Jews to defend themselves and kill anyone who attacked them. Then the king's messengers got on the king's horses and distributed the message throughout the empire. So this takes us back to where we started the story. Here's the

beginning of chapter 9. On the 13th day, the 12th month, the month of Adar, the edict commanded by the king was to be carried out. On this day, the enemies of the Jews had hoped to overpower them, but now the tables were turned, and the Jews got the upper hand over those who hated them. Did you hear that? The tables were turned. It looked like God's people were going to be destroyed, but God isn't going to like that to happen. Instead, he's turned the table so that his enemies are in a bad spot. Here's verse 16. Meanwhile, the remainder of the Jews who were in the king's provinces also assembled to protect themselves and get relief from their enemies. They killed 75,000 of them, but did not lay hands on their plunder.

So the Jews turned the tables and were able to defeat their enemies militarily, but they didn't take any of their possessions, because this wasn't about them getting rich. It was about the survival of God's people. Verse 20. Mordecai recorded these events, and he sent letters to all the Jews throughout the province. of King Xerxes near and far to have them celebrate annually on the 14th and 15th days of the month of Adar, as the time when the Jews got relief from their enemies, and as the month when their sorrow was turned to joy and their mourning turned into days of celebration. He wrote them to observe the days

as days of feasting and joy and give presents of food to one another and gifts to the poor. The Jewish people still celebrate this religious holiday today. It's called Purim, and it usually falls in late March. So what are they celebrating? Well, we just read it. They're celebrating when the Jews got relief from their enemies, when their sorrow was turned to joy and their mourning into a day of celebration. They celebrate the day that God turned the tables and rescued them from their enemies. What do the takeaways for us? Well, when you're in a difficult position, put your hope in God who can save you regardless of how bleak the circumstances look. God has a history of turning the tables. He turned the tables on Pharaoh and the Egyptian army when they drags.

in the sea while his people walked through on dry land or remember the story of how Gideon defeated the Midianites even though they greatly outnumbered him. You see you should never look at God through your circumstances. Instead you should always look at your circumstances through God, the God that nothing is too difficult for. Second takeaway is that God promises to turn the tables in eternity. Jesus said the first will be last and the last will be first. The greatest among you is the one who serves. You can be rich in this life and poor in the next one, or poor in this life and rich in the next one. That's why Jesus tells us to lay up treasures in heaven and not on earth. He says the poor and spirit will inherit the kingdom, those who mourn will be comforted, the meek will inherit

the earth. The third takeaway. The ultimate example of God turning the tables is when Satan thought he had defeated Jesus on the cross. Darkness celebrated on Good Friday, but it was short-lived because on Sunday morning heaven rejoiced. Jesus's resurrection turned at the tables on sin and Satan. That means that we as Christians can never give up in a broken world. We don't ever give up on a lost friend. We don't ever give up on someone struggling with addiction. We don't ever give up the chance that we can gain victory over sin in our life. No, we can't give up because Jesus was raised from the dead. There is always hope. Put your hope in God, the God who can turn the tables. Nothing is impossible for him.