We are in Hour 10 of Learn the Bible in
24 Hours. And we’re going to talk now about what’s
called the Post-Exile History. We had the historical books up to the Monarchy. Then we had the Monarchy, then we had the
Exile, the Captivity and all of that. Now we’re going to have the period of
history from the Exile. That is when ... the return from Babylon up until
the end of the Old Testament period. And that primarily will involve 3 books; Ezra,
Nehemiah and also the charming book of Esther. And so we’re going to touch on the Decree
of Cyrus. I made mention of it last time, but we’ll
focus on it for some special reasons here, because it shows up in the book of Ezra. And we’ll talk about the book of Ezra
which has to do with the rebuilding of the temple, the book of Nehemiah which follows
it, which is the rebuilding of Jerusalem. I want you to be sensitive to the distinction. In Ezra we’re trying to rebuild the temple
without the permission of being able to build the city wall. Nehemiah comes along and gets that permission.
And so he solves a lot of the problems, the leadership problems by doing that. And the book of Esther actually occurs during
the final years of the book of Ezra. But it’s a separate book and it happens
to be in your Bible after Nehemiah. But it’s a drama that is incredibly colorful. The more you know about it the more colorful
it is. But also the text itself harbors some surprises
that I think you’ll enjoy. And we have a few remarks at the very end
about the inter-testament period, the period between the 2 testaments. Well, the book of Ezra, the Building of the
Temple. Now in, we talked about this, the Babylonian
Captivity, the first siege, the second siege and the third siege that made up the ...
took Judah captive. And the first siege starting the Servitude
of the Nation, which ends with a Decree of Cyrus that we’re going to explain
here in a minute. And so the book of Chronicles also ends with
the Servitude of the Nation. The book of Ezra picks up where Chronicles
left off. In fact the verses overlap. Many people believe that Chronicles, both
First and Second Chronicles and Ezra and Nehemiah were collected by the same scribe. The Desolations of Jerusalem as I indicated
started from the third siege and it ends where Ne- book of Nehemiah really introduces the
Decree of Artaxerxes Longimanus. That of course triggers the 70 weeks of Daniel
that we’ve just reviewed. But it actually happens, the decree takes
place in the book of Nehemiah. So Esther as I say occurs chronologically
near the end of the book of Ezra, but we have at the end of our Bible to avoid confusion. Daniel, of course, is speaking all through the
Babylonian period and following. Ezekiel’s transported in the second
siege. Haggai is the prophet that is cotemporaneous
this with the historical book of Ezra. Nehemiah is contemporaneous with Zechariah and
Malachi in his years. That’s a quick feeling. Cyrus is another one of these incredible leaders. He established the Medo-Persian Empire. His father was Cambyses the First. He was the king of Anshan or East Elam, Elam
being the ancient Biblical name for the forbears of the Persians. And Cyrus’ mother was Mandane, the daughter
of Astyages, the king of Media. So Cyrus is in an interesting position
because he’s half Mede and half Persian, which he trades on to weld an empire. But in 550 BC, he attacks his father-in-law,
the wicked and corrupt Astyages. And he captures his father-in law’s capital Ecbatana
without a battle. That’s going to characterize his ... he’s a
very shrewd guy. He captures most of his things without actually
… by having military might, but not actually having a battle. And he’s a very modeled leader. Many people throughout the world, he’s been
fabled through ... in some respects even greater than Alexander the Great for his diplomacy,
his leadership and so forth. He welded the Medes and the Persians into
a unified empire that continued for over 200 years. Interesting guy indeed, Cyrus the Great. Want to focus on the conquest of Babylon on
October 12 539 BC. His general captured Babylon without a battle. The Persians, they diverted the river Euphrates
into a canal upriver. By then they had conquered several of the
towns, the outlying towns and they were able to divert the water so that the water level fell
to the middle of a man’s thigh at Babylon, which rendered the flood defenses
useless and allowed the invaders to slip in under the gates and take over the city. There were residents that didn’t know they
had been taken over for 3 days. No battle. Very important point. Herodotus is the ... he was the ... he wrote in
the 5th century BC. He’s considered the father of history and he details a lot of
this. But what’s interesting, a few days later
after his general conquers Babylon, Cyrus makes his grand entrance and when he makes
his grand entrance he’s greeted by guess who? Daniel. The elderly Daniel. And he shows him a scroll that had been
written 150 years before Cyrus was born. And there’s a letter addressed to Cyrus in the
scroll. I want you to imagine yourself Cyrus the conqueror,
this guy comes up to you and shows you this aged scroll that says "to the deep, be dry
and I will dry up thy rivers: thus sayeth of Cyrus." (Laughs) That’s my name, Cyrus. "He is my shepherd and he shall perform all
my pleasure, even saying to Jerusalem, thou shall be built and to the temple, thy foundation
shall be laid." "Thus sayeth the Lord to his anointed, to Cyrus." Here it is again. What a strange thing to find in a Hebrew text. To his anointed? Strange word. Of a gentile king? "Thus sayeth the Lord to his anointed to Cyrus
whose right hand I have holden to subdue nations before him and I will loose the loins of kings
to open before him the two leaved gates; and the gates shall not be shut. I will go before thee and make the crooked
places straight. I will break in pieces the gates of brass
and cut in sunder the bars of iron" and he goes on. There’s a very humorous sidelight here because
Belshazzar, when the handwriting on the wall is writing Daniel 5, it says his loins
were loosed. We didn’t make a big thing of that because
it’s hard to talk about that in mixed company, but you got the picture. What’s interesting, that was a public awareness
embarrassment, because Cyrus recognizes that here, because God says I will loose the loins
of kings. He probably chuckled. He knew exactly what he’s talking about
what happened 12 days ago. God continues, and says "I will give thee the
treasures of darkness, the hidden riches of secret places that thou mayest know that I,
the Lord, which called thee by thy name, am the God of Israel." God is writing this 150 years before Cyrus
was born with the deliberate intent of getting Cyrus’ attention. Notice the next verse. God says "for Jacob my servant’s sake and
Israel mine elect, I have even called thee by thy name. I have surnamed thee though thou has not known
me." Can you imagine Cyrus as he’s reading this
thing? God says "I am, I am the Lord and there is
none else. Theirs is no God beside me. I girded thee though thou has not known me." Now it’s tragic to have to cut this
off. If you read this in Isaiah 44 and 45, God
goes on with this incredible declaration of God’s own greatness. It’s one of those rare places in the Bible
where God argues for Himself. It’s outstanding, but we, we’ll go on
here. Cyrus of course was impressed. Wouldn’t you be? So he frees the captives. He discovers that the, among his, ... the
things he’s captured here are Hebrew slaves. And he turns them, he not only turns
them loose, he gives them financial incentives to go home. He makes donations to make the temple, to
help the temple getting built. And he returns to them the vessels that had
been plundered 70 years earlier by Nebuchadnezzar that were used as party tools in this party
12 days ago. He gives them to them for the temple. His incentives ... Now less than 50,000 take
advantage of it. Many of the Hebrew captives have found a home
in Babylon. They are happy to be there. But less, just a little under 50,000 pick
up and go back to rebuild a new life in their ... in their old city. Now, if you go to the British Museum in London,
go there and look up the Cylinder of Cyrus. It’s there on display. It’s about 12 ... 15 inches, if my memory
serves me correctly. And it has the translation where he brags
that he conquered Babylon without a battle. I mention that because later on we’re going to talk about Babylon in one of the subsequent sessions. How Babylon is being rebuilt today and then
because of Jeremiah 15:51 and Isaiah 13 and 14, Babylon has a destiny to once again emerge
as major capital to be destroyed like Sodom and Gomorrah was. There’s never, that’s never been done. Many of your Bible helps are wrong. They say well that happened in 539. No, it didn’t. Babylon was conquered by the Persians,
but without harm. It forms, it’s a capital, a secondary
capital for the Persian Empire for 200 years until Alexander conquers the Persians. And Alexander makes it his capital till his
4 generals, when he dies, the 4 generals divide up the empire and by then another city has
become more relevant and Babylon gradually decays. It atrophies. But as late as the 1800s, you know, in 19th
century, the archeologists were able to hire locals to help build, to help excavate. In other words it hadn’t been destroyed. There’s no inhabitants and all the conditions
that are described in the prophecies. So anyway, without a battle he entered the
town, sparing any calamity. I returned to sacred cities on the other side
of the Tigris, the sanctuaries of which had been ruins for a long time, established for
them permanent sanctuaries. I also gathered all the former inhabitants,
returned them to their habitations. So it’s an allusion that is consistent with
what the Bible says. And you find this decree also recounted in
the opening verses of the book of Ezra, which is why we are getting into it. "Thus sayeth Cyrus the king of Persia, the
Lord God of heaven hath given me all the kingdoms of the earth, and he has charged me to build
him a house at Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Who is there among you of all his people? His God be with him, and let him go up to
Jerusalem, which is in Judah and build the house of the Lord the God of Israel. He is the God which is in Jerusalem." Notice the focus of this is the temple, not
the city. That’s the difference between Ezra and Nehemiah. We’ll talk about the city when we get to
Nehemiah. In Ezra they got permission and money to go
back and build the temple, and they struggle. They don’t get very far because they are
harassed by all kinds of adversaries. They don’t really get … It’s a very
discouraging time. Haggai the prophet keeps talking about, for
them to get their act together and keep at it, but it’s an uphill battle. So Ezra is probably the author of First and
Second Chronicles also, not only Ezra and Nehemiah. All of this was regarded as one book earlier. Ezra is sometimes assumed to be the, ... credited with establishing what we call the canon, the basic foundational documents of
the Old Testament. And about 49,697 returned in 536 BC. About 80 years later under Ezra we had another
couple of thousand that joined. In 515 we have the temple finally rebuilt,
not quite finished. In 558 we have another couple of thousand
under Ezra. All this is in the book of Ezra. The book of Esther occurs approximately 483
BC we figure. So it’s in the ... in that era that we explored
yesterday. Without Esther, we’d never have the temple. We’d never have anything else. You’ll see why when we get to the book of
Esther. It’s far more important historically than
most people realize. In 445 BC, that’s 13 years later, of course,
after the other one, that Nehemiah obtains the authority to rebuild the city of Jerusalem,
to build the wall and protect themselves against their enemies. And that’s the big event, that’s the one
that triggers, of course, the 70 weeks of Daniel. Okay, now as we’re talking about the temple
and that’s really what the book of Ezra’s all about. It’s interesting to notice
that in the New Testament, it says you are the temple of God, right? Did you realize it says that 7 times? Well, that caught my attention. My wife pointed that out to me. 7 times you are the temple. Now that may just be a figure of speech because, we are the temple of God since the Holy Spirit dwells in us. And, of course, that’s
true, but it turns out there may be far more significance in the architecture of the temple
to enable us to understand our internal architecture. And so the great commandment defined by
Jesus Christ quoting from Deuteronomy 6, "Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord." By the way, the one Lord, the word there is
Echad, not Yashi. It’s one in the sense like a bunch of grapes. It’s ... it’s unity. Doesn’t mean there’s one God. It means that God is in unity, it’s a tre-
there’s, you can find the trinity in all of this, but I’ll keep moving here. "Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one
Lord. Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all
thy heart, with all thy soul, with all thy might." And when Jesus, He quotes it He adds
thy mind, right? All thy strength and all thy mind. So here it’s 3 things and, or, Jesus mentions
4, but the point is, what does that mean? That’s the greatest commandment. What does that mean? To love God with all thy heart as opposed
to all thy soul? Or with all thy … How are those different? Those are terms we throw around rather loosely,
and these are actual … You see the real you is not hardware. It’s software, using modern vocabulary. And how do you determine the architecture of software? You can’t do it … you can’t determine
the architecture by external behavior of software. You have to have the owner’s manual. There are different words. The word heart Kardia in the Greek. The word soul, psuche in the Greek. Spirit, pneuma. And each one of these has a Hebrew equivalent
also. Heart, soul, spirit, mind. There are places in the scripture … My wife
spent 20 years tracking down every use of every Greek and Hebrew word that relates to
any of these things, plus a few others, and made a number of discoveries that I lean
on heavily, just rather exciting. The word mind is the most leading of all
probably, because we think of the mind as brain. No, the mind is far more than the brain, even,
even neurologically, but it actually is the channel for willpower … It comes close
to, that’s where you exercise volition. But if you look at the, the temple, the original
tabernacle, we studied that when we were in Exodus, but when you get to Solomon, God appears
to Solomon and gives him some additional details. Some things are in the temple that are not
in the tabernacle namely, among other things the 2 pillars, Jachin and Boaz, which
carry nothing. They're pillars with no weight on top. In his strength, in his counsel, in his might
is what the words mean. And you have the strange porch there. Everything inside the temple is gold. Everything outside is bronze. Everything outside is bronze because it can
endure, it can deal with sin and judgements of what … Inside is holy, is pure. That’s the concept that underlies all this. And around the temple we also find there are
these wooden chambers, and each one of these has some provocative possibilities. These wooden chambers were this private storage
places of the priests, where they could store their personal implements, including idols
or whatever. Their secret private little chambers. And obviously there are cases in the scripture
where they needed to be cleaned out. So do ours. See, the Holy of Holies, of course, is the inner thing.
The Holy Place is the precedant to that. And then you have this porch, this strange
place called the porch. Then you have the inner court and the outer
court. These are the elements of architecture of
the temple. My wife was the one that really explored the
possibilities that these represent our architecture. The outer court represents say the body. The inner court, the soul. The heart is the Holy Place in a sense. And the spirit is in the Holy of Holies. And the great mystery of course is we know
God dwells within us, right? Why is it we can’t tell by your behavior? If God dwells in you, why is it that we are
so ornery, so self-willed? Because that doesn’t mean He’s not dwelling
in us. It means we are throttling His ability to
work through us. And that’s what, that’s why this is all
so relevant. And we are faced with our will power. Are we choosing His ways that making, are
we making faith choices or self-choices? If we make faith choices, God will align our
desires to our choices. What we choose first and feel afterwards,
if we are walking by faith. I’m over simplifying. My wife has done a trilogy, The Way of Agape,
Be Ye Transformed, and Faith in the Night Seasons, that deal, that expand this in practical
personal walk terms. So that the Holy Spirit can shine out of us if we let Him. We constantly throttle Him by our self-will. And also leads to this interesting thing of
the chambers, which look likely are correlative to the subconscious, and the subconscious
is not a Freudian concept. He was very much absorbed with that. It actually goes way back to Augustine and
earlier. It‘s in the scripture in a dozen places. I won’t get into that debate here, but simply
to say that you need to let the Holy Spirit help you clean out our closets, all of us
because if not they will invisibly affect our behavior. Well let’s get, let’s move to some more
fun stuff, the book of Esther. The name Esther means something hidden. I do understand some Hollywood stars have
adopted that name. I wonder if they know what it really means. But anyway. In the kings of Persia we are going to
move down and pick up a guy by the name of Xerxes. He was the Ahasuerus of Esther, and he’s
quite a character, very colorful character. The Greek translation of a very complicated
name to pronounce is the Greek translated is Xerxes. The English adaptation of the Hebrews is Ahasuerus,
but the same guy we believe. And so, but he was quite an impulsive
guy. He had a …. He had very, very passionate
extremes. He had gigantic ideas and very imperious temper. He actually built a bridge over the Hellespont,
The Dardanelles. When a storm took it down, he ordered 300
strokes of scourge on the sea for doing that. And threw a pair of fetters in the sea,
and then he had the builders of the bridge beheaded, as if it was their fault. And there’s a guy named Pithius who was
a Lydian. He was offered a sum of 5.5 million, whatever’s
towards the expenses of the military expeditions. Xerxes was so impressed that he sent the money
back and gave him a handsome present. And yet when Pithius wanted his eldest son
excused from an expedition, Xerxes was so upset by that that he cut him into pieces
and had his army match among the pieces. So the picture you get of Xerxes, he’s very chimerical, up one time down another, very hard to predict. And we see that temperament in the book of
Esther. And he is... This is a wild man that is the ruler of the
world during the days of Esther. Now, the drama that occurs is second to few
in all of history. The King throws a lavish royal banquet, and
during that banquet he asks his queen Vashti to immodestly reveal herself in this drunken
revelry that’s going on, and she refuses to do that, to her credit. But because she refuses to do that, she forfeits
her crown. The other nobles are so incensed and they
feel that by her not obeying the king, it’s going to cause all the wives to start ... Stop
obeying their husbands. Got to make an example. So the King he ... Vashti loses her place
as his queen. But that sets the opportunity for Esther. And
she's an orphan Jewish girl, raised by her cousin Mordecai. And she ultimately gets selected as a replacement
for Vashti. So she becomes the queen of Persia. Mordecai, who has raised her, is smart enough
to warn her, don't let him know you're Jewish. So he doesn't know that, and she doesn't
call attention to that, so that's ... But in her situation there’s going to be a time
when it's going to be life threatening. And so, now there's a little incident that
occurs early in the book that seems incidental but turns out to be very important. Mordecai somehow finds out about a plot against
the King. And Mordecai tells Esther and from that this
plot is thwarted, the guys are apprehended and killed or whatever. And it’s just an incident, unrelated to
everything else and it turns out be very pivotal. Mordecai never gets acknowledged for that,
but God, it’s one of those things, God's timing is phenomenal. Watch what happens here. Mordecai, to really understand what's going
on here, you really need to know the rest of your Old Testament. Way back in 2nd Samuel 16, there's one of
the descendants of Saul that's harassing David. Obviously Saul has passed, as he’s gone. David is now in charge, but this guy Shimei
is along the hills cursing David and throwing rocks at David. And his men want this guy squelched. And David says, “No, let him, if he's cursing
let him curse.” He spares Shimei. Because he spares Shimei, one of his descendants
is Mordecai who is on the scene in Esther. Got the picture? It gets deeper than that. He was a desce- see Mordecai was a descendant
of Shimei of the House of Kish, the father of King Saul. So he's ... So Mordecai is a product of David's
grace, right? Get the picture? Yeah, wow is right as you understand how this
all ties together it really blows you away. Now he's going to ultimately confront the
villain of the whole story, Haman. Haman is a result of Saul’s failure to follow
God's instructions. See and ... See Mordecai ... Haman hates Mordecai
because Mordecai refuses to bow to Haman. So Haman is ... Haman has a vendetta against
Mordecai. That's the plot of the whole story, but what
you got to understand, see this whole story is the flesh versus the spirit. This goes way back to Jacob and Esau. Remember when they're struggling in the womb. And Amalek descended from Esau. Amalek fought with Israel at Rephidim. The doom of the Amalek ... Amalekites and
Edom are foretold by Balaam in Numbers 24, by Moses in Deuteronomy 25 and the whole book
of Obadiah deals with this. Edom represents the flesh versus the spirit. Now we get to Saul in 1st Samuel 15. He's instructed by God to destroy the Amalekites,
which includes the King, Agag the King. Saul spares the King Agag, the King of Amalekites. And when Samuel finds that out, he's really
upset. “What's all this? What are all these sheep braying?” He’s take ... Saul has taken spoil rather
than wipe it out. Because Saul didn't do what God told him to
do, the Kingdom is taken away from Saul. What you need to understand is that who is
a descendant of Agag, King Agag. A guy by the name of Haman, which shows up
in Esther. So in Esther, you've got the result of Saul’s
failure to do what God said on the one hand, and you got Mordecai ... It’s Haman, and
you got Mordecai the result of David's grace in this. Now Haman is out to wipe out all the Jews. He’s particularly after Mordecai, but he
wants to wipe out all Jews in the Kingdom. If he had succeeded, there'd be no temple. If he had succeeded, there'd be no Redeemer. So God’s not going to let that happen. He's very invisibly behind the scenes obviously. But Haman does succeed in getting the King
to order the extermination of all Jews in the Persian Empire. Think about it. And once that’s signed the King himself
can't change it. Now Mordecai realizes that the fate of the
Jewish people hangs on Esther, because she's the queen, she has access to the King to somehow
do something about this. And for her to approach the King uninvited,
subjects her to the possible death. So she's taking a huge risk in the court procedures
of the Persian Empire, but Mordecai says to her, “Thou art come for such a time as this.” He's convinced that she is where she is because
God wants her and has her there for a ... Her destiny. And she finally after being very concerned
about this, she finally says, “If I perish I perish.” She gets to the point where- ... she's going to do this,
she knows that she may not survive the ordeal. So she asked for 3 days of fasting and prayer
understandably. Then we get to the critical moment, Esther
enters the inner court of the King, and at that moment the King seeing her extends his
scepter, which is inviting her to come. So she's gotten over the first hurdle. He didn't kill her for violating the procedures. And all she does ... She's a very shrewd gal,
or the Spirit’s leading her, or maybe both. She invites the King and Haman to a banquet. She’s going to throw a banquet. That's what she wanted. That’s what she wanted, invited he and Haman
to a Banquet. The King says, “Okay, great, super.” He's obviously a party animal you know. And Haman, of course, because he's invited too
thinks, this is great stuff. He is on an ego trip. Then she invites them to a subsequent banquet. And what a day brings. Haman is so gloating, because he's on the
inside with the King and the Queen. So the scripture says, “He prepares a gallows
for Mordecai.” That's an erroneous translation. We think of a gallows as a place that you
hang somebody. The translators of the King James that's the
way they visualized the Hebrew word. The words actually imply impaling on a tree. The Persians invented crucifixion. The Romans really ran with it later, but the
Persians invented it. And what's really talking about here is impaling. He's going to impale Mordecai on a tree like
a crucifixion. But while he's building this so-called gallows
or whatever, it happens that night the King can't sleep. And when he can't sleep. He does a smart thing. I don't know about you, I do the same thing. If I wake up in middle night I find if I try to roll over,
I don’t go to sleep anyway. So I get up and read for a little while. Half an hour, whatever. Then I go at it, and I can ... I fall right
away, you follow me? In the middle of the night get up, you can't
sleep, okay read. Pick up something to read. It's apparently what this King did. He picked up the chronicles, the journal of
what's going on. And as he's reading, he discovers something
that really bothers him. He discovers that when he ... He’s reminded
of this plot where he was going to be killed and Mordecai apparently thwarted this on his
behalf. And he realizes Mordecai has never been rewarded
for that incredible gesture for the King. So he's ... That's on his mind. So the next morning, Haman’s in the court,
and the King comes out, he asked ... He asked Haman, “Hey, Haman what would you do for
someone ... What should I do for somebody I really want to honor?” Haman, of course, jumps to the conclusion he's
talking about me. So he said, “Well if you really want to
honor him you put him on your robe, given him your signet. Put on your crown, and parade him through the
town for a day, let him be King for a day and parade him through the, so all the people
will know that you're honoring this person.” Mordecai ... I mean Haman obviously visualizing
himself in that role. Let everybody see me and bow down, I’m the
King for a day. And the King says, “Good idea, do so for
Mordecai.” So this backfires, of course, and that, of course,
humiliates. That makes Haman even more upset, but it also
makes him nervous. He's getting advice from his friends, “Hey
buddy, you may not realize it but you are in deep yogurt you know.” So the second banquet when Esther has the
King and Haman present, King says, “Okay, what's on your heart?” She’s like, “I'd like my life to be spared.” The King is shocked, “What do you mean your
life being spared?” She explained she's Jewish and he signed his
decree of all Jews killed. And he of course is so shook up by that. He is so shook by this that he can't even
respond. In fact he says wait a minute and he goes
out on the balcony to compose himself as he thinks through the implications of this. He begins to realize not only is his beloved
queen is Jewish, but he realizes that Haman engineered this. He’s a victim. So he’s really ang- he’s out on the balcony
for a bit. While he’s out, Haman realizes his life's
at risk and he falls on his knees in front of the couch that Esther’s on, pleading
for his life. Haman realizes he’s in jeopardy. As he does so, when the king walks back in,
he misconstrues. He thinks he's attacking the queen, and he’s
really upset now, (laughs). The king misconstrue- construes the move and
orders Haman hanged or more precisely, impaled. And he gets impaled on the very gallows that
he built for guess who? Mordecai. It gets worse. Haman’s entire estate is escheat to the
crown and it is set under Mordecai’s supervision (laughter). Do you see a little irony here? Isn’t God Great? Now, the king can’t undo the decree that’s
gone throughout the realm. It’s already a done deal, but he’s regretted
it. So all he can do, the next best thing, he issues a second decree which authorizes
the Jews to defend themselves in 127 provinces, from India to Ethiopia. He also instructs all the magistrates of the
King to assist them. So, the Jews, obviously, they celebrate
this whole event every year at the feast of Purim. And it’s ... and Purim
is the Hebrew word for lot because they cast lots to determine the date earlier in the story. An incidental thing I won’t go into the
details because I’m sure the text is probably hard to read on the screen, but the 10 sons
of Haman are also hung, crucified or impaled. And as you read the Persian names and try
to decipher them, you discover the 10 names means curious self or busy body, weeping self,
self-pity, assemble self, self-mobilize, self-sufficiency, general self, spend thriftiness or self-indulgence,
weak self, self –consciousness, strong self, assertiveness, insisting on one’s own way,
pre-eminent self, ambition and so on, bold self, imprudence, dignified self, prude, haughtiness,
what have you, and pure self, worst of all self-righteousness. But, it’s interesting that the names of
these 10 sons exemplify self traits that stand in the way of a relationship with God. And so all of us need to hang our sons of
Haman in our lives, but let’s move on. The book of Esther is often disparaged by
some, even Luther said it shouldn’t be in the Bible because the name of God does not
appear in the book. Well, that’s kind of interesting. But you see the word Esther means something
hidden. So let me share with you some surprises. There are hidden codes in the book of Esther. There are 5 acrostics that are well known
among Talmudic scholars. And I published those in our news journal
many years ago. And one of our subscribers is a Rabbi by the
name of Yakov Rambsel who sent me a note and said, by the way Chuck, there’s 3 others
you don’t about. Let me share them with you. And so, in Esther verse 1 and verse 20, there
is an acrostic that spells YHWH Yahveh, which is the, the unpronounceable name of God. It’s the initial letters of these 4 words
because the event that’s being alluded to there is initial, but it spells God’s name
backwards because He’s turning back the counsels of men. Okay, cute little thing. Esther 5, again we have initial letters because
God’s initiating the action, but, this time it’s spelled forward because God is ruling
and causing Esther to act. Kind of curious. Esther chapter 5 again we have YHWH Yahveh,
the finals letters of the words because Haman’s, Haman’s end is approaching. They’re written backwards because God is
overruling Haman’s gladness and turning back Haman’s counsel. In Esther 7:7, you’ve got again YHWH Yahveh
that is final because Haman’s end had come and forward because God is ruling and bringing
about the end that He had determined. Now, these interpretations are the rabbinic
interpretations. Why they are forward or backward. Firstly, whether they are forward acrostic
or a backward acrostic and whether they are spelled forward or backward. You see there’s 4 different things here. And so, the pair, you see the first 2, the
initial letters are used because the facts are initial and the last 2 are final letters
because the facts are final. And the first one is backwards, the second
one is forward and the third one is backward and the fourth is forward. The ones that are backward deal with
the Gentiles and the ones that are forward deal with Israelites because Israelites read that
direction and Gentiles read that direction. There is also a case of introversion, the word spoken
concerning a queen versus word spoken by a queen and the words spoken by Haman and
are the concerning Haman; there’s interest, there’s structure every place you look here. There is even one where, King Ahasuerus answered
and said unto Esther the queen, "who is he and where is he, that durst presume in his heart to
do so?" This is when the king finds out that she is
under threat here. It’s interesting that in the Hebrew of that
phrase if you find the word I am. Yeah, okay. In Esther chapter 1:3 there is an equidistance
letter sequence of the interval of 8. Interval of 8. If you look at those letters, you finds the
word mashiach and it’s 8 just as 666 is the number of Satan, 888 is the number of
Messiah. And there is also another one in Esther 4:7
in which it spells Yeshua, Jesus. And then there is another in Esther 4:2 that
is El Shaddai, the Almighty. (Cough). But Rambsel mentions another one. It’s a shock this one you’ll get a kick
out of. This is an interval of 6, okay. Ready for this? Interval of 6 in the Hebrew it says Haman
and Satan stink (laughter). Something hidden. Now you certainty don’t use those to
build doctrine, but they are in cryptography we call it authentication codes. The little hints there that it’s by design. Those things don’t happen by accident. You can quickly convince yourself that there’s
no way it can happen randomly. The book of Nehemiah, Rebuilding of the City
(cough). In this case we are going to move up to Artaxerxes
the first. Artaxerxes is called Longimanus that we’ve
already talked about a little bit. And as we mentioned Esther is the end of Ezra,
then we have the book of Nehemiah during which we find the decree of Artaxerxes, which of
course triggers the 70 Weeks of Daniel. And so we have the various prophets also supplementing that. Something as you get you through Ezra and
Nehemiah that I like to point out for your own understanding, there are people that try
to build … on the one hand, people make mistake by not being precise enough in the scripture,
but there’s also a corollary type of error where you make precision where there isn’t
precision intended. Where you’re splitting hairs so to speak. There are people that try to build huge cases
about the term Jews versus Israelite. The Jews represents Judah and not Israel. There are some places where that’s true. There some places where it’s not. I want to alert you to something. After the Babylonian captivity, the terms
Jew and Israelite are used interchangeably. I’m asserting that. I want you to check it out for yourselves. Ezra calls the retuning remnant Jews 8 times. He calls them Israel 40 times. They’re used interchangeably. All Israel, and these are in Ezra 2,
3, 8, 10 and so forth. Lots of places. Nehemiah also use Jews 11 times, Israel 22
times. See the point I’m trying to make? They’re used interchangeably. All Israel, being back in the land, Nehemiah
12:47 and so on. Malachi speaks the remnant as the nation,
Malachi 1:1 and so forth. In the New Testament … well, in the New
… Anna, you may recall in Luke 2, knew her tribal identity is the tribe of Asher. Not 10 lost tribes. 10 lost tribes is a myth of literature. It accrues from a misunderstanding
of 2nd Chronicles 11 and a lot of other passages. It’s a myth. I’m excepting the tribe of Dan. It did spin
out in some strange ways, but the idea of the north, the lost tribes. They had faithful
of all 12 go south before the captivity. The idol worshipers went north and got wiped
out. Paul knew he was of the tribe of Benjamin. He calls himself a Jew and an Israelite in
Roman 11:1. The New Testament uses the word Israel 75
times, the word Jew 174 times. At the feast of Pentecost, Peter cries "ye
men of Judea," Acts 2, "ye men of Israel," Acts 2, same chapter, 7, 8 verses later. All the house of Israel in Acts 2. Al 3 terms Peter is using to the people he’s
talking to. Anyway, let’s move on. We the Babylon empire, the Persian Empire,
the Greek empire and the Greek empire of course we had the Septuagint. I’ve alerted you to that so far. There’s another guy that shows up that’s
important by the name of Antiochus Epiphanes. He’s not an important guy in secular history. Antiochus the third has called him Antiochus
the great. Antiochus the fourth is a guy that shows up
whose very important Biblically. And Antiochus the fourth. He came to power in about 175 BC, in about
170 BC Ptolemy of Egypt sought to recover territory ruled over by Antiochus. And so, he invaded Egypt and defeated Ptolemy
the 6th and proclaimed himself king of Egypt. And so he, upon return from his conquest, trouble
broke out in Jerusalem, so he decided to subdue Jerusalem. And people were subjugated, the temple desecrated, the temple treasury
plundered. And from his conquest Antiochus returned to
Egypt but was forced by Rome then to evacuate Egypt because Rome is getting powerful by
now. So he’s really upset about all of this and
so he’s taking it all out on Jerusalem. Which is a buffer state between
the Seleucid Empire and the Ptolemaic empire. So he plunders and desecrates the temple. And
he calls himself Epiphanes, the illustrious one. The kids on the street called him Epimanies
which means the madman, but he makes … He’s, he's bad news. He made Torah reading, reading the Torah,
the 5 Books of Moses, punishable by death. He forced the Jews to eat desecrated foods
… unclean foods. He slaughtered a sow on the altar. You know how the Jews feel about pork, and
how they feel about their brazen, you know the holy altar in Jerusalem. You can imagine how that went over, but he
didn't stop there. His big event was to erect an idol to Zeus
in the Holy of Holies. See an abomination in the Bible is idol worship. Any Idol is an abomination to God. He says Lord … The Lord thy God is
a jealous God and so forth. The most abominable of them all is an idol
that is erected in the Holy of Holies, in the most sacred part, spot on ... If you really
want to insult God, you not only get an idol, you put it the most sacred spot on the planet
Earth, in Jerusalem, in the temple, in fact in the holy place, no in the Holy of Holies,
and that's exactly what he did. And that precipitated the Maccabean
Revolt and ... Mattathias, a patriotic priest had 5 sons, and they … And one of the sons, Judas Maccabeus was an incredible military genius. They actually threw off the yoke of the Seleucid
Empire. It took them 3 years. They read, they … They took the
temple vessels that had been desecrated, destroyed them, made new ones and rededicated the Temple. All this was on Epiphanes’ birthday. He erected the idol on his birthday, 25th
of Kislev of the Jewish calendar. The third anniversary of all this when they
finally were starting to do that, they rededicate the temple and that is celebrated to this
day by Hanukkah. Now Hanukkah, like all holidays, they have some colorful legends around it, but the real point of Hanukkah is the re-dedication of the temple. And it is affe- it is authorized in the New
Testament, in John 10:22. So Hanukkah has a Biblical relevance. Why? Because Jesus makes reference to this. Jesus has a … The 4 disciples come to Jesus
about His return. Peter, James, and John, and also Andrew,
Peter's brother. And they have a private briefing on His second coming. It’s recorded in 3 of the Gospels. We'll take the Mathew 24, 25, Mark 13, Luke
21. And we'll take a quick look at Matthew 24. These all point to Daniel as the key to end
time prophecy. Let's take the Matthew account. Sat up on the Mount of Olives, the disciples
came to Him privately saying, Tell us, when shall these things be, and what shall be the
sign of thy coming and the end of the age? Good question. We're very interested. He gives him a 2 Chapter answer. Jesus answered and said unto them, take heed that no
man deceive you. He opens and closes His presentation by telling
them not to let themselves get deceived, for many shall come in my name saying, “I am
Christ” and shall deceive many. You shall hear wars and rumors of war. See that you not be troubled for all these
things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. They're not signs. Some people list these as signs. No, they’re not signs. The end is not yet. For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom
against kingdom and there shall be famines, pestilence, earthquakes in diverse places. All these are but the beginning of sorrows,
but they're really not signs. He's going to tell us what signs are. The end is not yet. When ye therefore shall see the Abomination
of Desolation spoken by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place, let's pause right
there. How can somebody see something that’s standing
in the holy … because the holy place, the Holy of Holies, is only the high priest can
go in there and only once a year after a great ceremonial preparation. But He's going to
tell them have … Let them which be in Judea, flee to the mountains when you see this. How can they see this? On CNN. This is a politically … I’m not being
flippant. This is a political event, and when they are
conscious of it happening, Jesus says you you split and you split right now. Don't even go grab your coat. You get out of there. They … let them which be in Judea flee
into the mountains. Notice He says Daniel the prophet stand
in the holy place. We covered that before and He had authorized any ...
and He points to Daniel 9 in this passage. Who so readeth let him understand. Do your homework He’s saying. Let them which be in Judea flee to the mountains. Let him which is on the house top not come down
to take anything out of his house. Neither let him which is in the field return
back to take his clothes and woe unto them that are with child and to them that give
suck in those days, and pray that your flight be not in winter, neither on the Sabbath day. What has the Sabbath day got to do with anything? They'll be celebrating the Sabbath at this
time. He’s talking to Jews. The Jew has a problem. How do you flee on a Sabbath day? You pray on the 7th day. For then shall be great tribulation such as
not since the beginning of the world to this time, no nor ever shall be. In other words it's going to be worse than the Holocaust in Nazi Germany. Except those days should be shortened, there
should no flesh be saved. The entire world is at risk, but for the elect’s
sake, those days shall be shortened. Of course we have the Roman Empire phase 1 emerging as we speak. So these things are all taking shape. Pompeii conquered Judea in 63 BC. Herod Antipater was an Edomite and he was appointed … He was appointed to rule, but he had to stay
in Rome. It was too dangerous. In 40 BC, the Parthians conquered Judea. In 37, the Romans again regained Judea. Herod the Great succeeds Antipater who was
not very popular, but the point is even though he's appointed by Rome, he can't rule there
until it's safe enough to get there, because Judea is a buffer state between 2 rival empires,
the Roman Empire to the west and the Parthian Empire to the east. 31 BC, we have the Battle of Actium. That's where the republic becomes an empire
under Augustus. We have the registration census ordered that
we see in the gospel period. In 7 AD the Roman procurator, he removes the
right of capital punishment from the Sanhedrin. They can no longer administer the death penalty. You and I feel that’s a legal technicality. No, they understood what that meant. The high priests went … The Babylonian
Talmud records how the high priest put on sackcloth and ashes and marched through Jerusalem
singing, woe unto us for the scepter has departed from Judah and the Messiah has not yet come. They thought the Word of God had been broken.
Because in Genesis 49:10 Jacob prophesied that the scepter shall not depart from Judah
until the Messiah comes, until Shiloh come. Because the scepter departed, they thought
the Word of God had been broken. They actually thought that. What they didn't know was that up in Nazareth,
in a carpenter shop, there was a young boy growing up to manhood and so He had come. They just didn’t know it. Well, in the next hour when we meet again,
we’ll be looking at the Major Prophets. Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Daniel are the
Major Prophets. We already covered Daniel, but give you
… We’ll talk about Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel as incredible, incredible
treasures. And let’s stand for a closing word of prayer. Let’s bow out hearts. Father, we stand in awe of Your word. We just thank You for who You are. And we thank You that You care so much for
us to have gone to such extremes that we might live. We thank You for Your word, the incredible
treasures that are tucked in every nook and cranny. We thank You for the joy of Your Word. We thank You for the comfort of Your Word,
but above all Father we thank You that Your Word was made flesh and dwelt among us. We thank You Father that through the gift
of Your Son Jesus Christ, we have access to You. We have an opportunity to be clothed in Your
righteousness, His righteousness, not our own. Oh Father, we thank You. We would pray Father that through Your Holy
Spirit, you would open our understanding to Your Word. You alone Father can blindfold our prejudices
and help us to set aside the baggage of misconceptions we've picked up along the way. Help us to understand what You're saying and
what You mean. We ask that through the Holy Spirit Father,
let Him be our real teacher, that each of us might grow in grace, in the knowledge of
our Lord and Savior. And Father we would pray that we each would
be ... Would become more fruitful stewards of the opportunities You’ve placed before
us. Help us to understand what You would have
of us in the days that remain as we commit ourselves without any reservation into Your
hands, in the name of Yeshua our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
