Sermon: Vashti's Rebellion - Part 1 (Esther 1:9-22)

Vashti’s Rebellion – Part 1
Sunday, December 1^st, 2024
Christ Covenant Church – Centralia, WA

Esther 1:9-22

Also Vashti the queen made a feast for the women in the royal house which belonged to king Ahasuerus. On the seventh day, when the heart of the king was merry with wine, he commanded Mehuman, Biztha, Harbona, Bigtha, and Abagtha, Zethar, and Carcas, the seven chamberlains that served in the presence of Ahasuerus the king, To bring Vashti the queen before the king with the crown royal, to shew the people and the princes her beauty: for she was fair to look on. But the queen Vashti refused to come at the king’s commandment by his chamberlains: therefore was the king very wroth, and his anger burned in him. Then the king said to the wise men, which knew the times, (for so was the king’s manner toward all that knew law and judgment: And the next unto him was Carshena, Shethar, Admatha, Tarshish, Meres, Marsena, and Memucan, the seven princes of Persia and Media, which saw the king’s face, and which sat the first in the kingdom;) What shall we do unto the queen Vashti according to law, because she hath not performed the commandment of the king Ahasuerus by the chamberlains? And Memucan answered before the king and the princes, Vashti the queen hath not done wrong to the king only, but also to all the princes, and to all the people that are in all the provinces of the king Ahasuerus. For this deed of the queen shall come abroad unto all women, so that they shall despise their husbands in their eyes, when it shall be reported, The king Ahasuerus commanded Vashti the queen to be brought in before him, but she came not. Likewise shall the ladies of Persia and Media say this day unto all the king’s princes, which have heard of the deed of the queen. Thus shall there arise too much contempt and wrath. If it please the king, let there go a royal commandment from him, and let it be written among the laws of the Persians and the Medes, that it be not altered, That Vashti come no more before king Ahasuerus; and let the king give her royal estate unto another that is better than she. And when the king’s decree which he shall make shall be published throughout all his empire, (for it is great,) all the wives shall give to their husbands honour, both to great and small. And the saying pleased the king and the princes; and the king did according to the word of Memucan: For he sent letters into all the king’s provinces, into every province according to the writing thereof, and to every people after their language, that every man should bear rule in his own house, and that it should be published according to the language of every people.

Prayer

O Father, every word that you speak is pure, and therefore we shall not add, nor shall we remove from the Holy Scriptures, lest you reprove us and we be found liars. We like Isaiah are a people of unclean lips, who live amongst a people of perverse and lying tongues, and so we ask for the coal of your heavenly altar to be placed upon our mouths, so that only pure words and holy truth might proceed from it. We ask for all of this in the name of Jesus, Amen.

Introduction

Last week we began our study of King Ahasuerus and the kind of king that he is. And we said that contrary to many modern commentators, who mis-identify this king, we said that this Ahasuerus is none other than Darius the Great, the same King Darius who decreed that the temple in Jerusalem was to be rebuilt, and all in accord with the original decree of Cyrus his predecessor.

• To give you a sample of the kind of decree that Ahasuerus made early on in his reign, listen to his words in Ezra 6:7-12, Ahasuerus (“chief among kings”) says, “Let the work of this house of God alone; let the governor of the Jews and the elders of the Jews build this house of God in his place. Moreover I make a decree what ye shall do to the elders of these Jews for the building of this house of God: that of the king’s goods, even of the tribute beyond the river, forthwith expences be given unto these men, that they be not hindered. And that which they have need of, both young bullocks, and rams, and lambs, for the burnt offerings of the God of heaven, wheat, salt, wine, and oil, according to the appointment of the priests which are at Jerusalem, let it be given them day by day without fail: That they may offer sacrifices of sweet savours unto the God of heaven, and pray for the life of the king, and of his sons. Also I have made a decree, that whosoever shall alter this word, let timber be pulled down from his house, and being set up, let him be hanged thereon; and let his house be made a dunghill for this. And the God that hath caused his name to dwell there destroy all kings and people, that shall put to their hand to alter and to destroy this house of God which is at Jerusalem. I Darius (“upholder of the good”) have made a decree; let it be done with speed.”
• So if you study the chronology of Ezra-Nehemiah, Haggai and Zechariah, you discover that this decree from Ahasuerus/Darius must have been in motion around the same time that the book of Esther begins (around 519 BC).
• The book of Esther we are told begins in the third year of Ahasuerus, with a 180-day feast, and then a seven-day feast to top it off. And we said that these two feasts are Phase 1 and Phase 2 of Ahasuerus’ plan for uniting the 127 provinces of the Persian Empire.
  • Phase 1 is the six-month long feast for all the nobles, princes, and influential leaders of the land.
  • Phase 2 is a seven-day feast for the general population of Shushan (“great and small”), who are all invited to live like royalty for a week. They are invited to recline on the king’s furniture, to drink from the king’s gold vessels, to enjoy the king’s garden palace environment.
  • And we said that all this feasting is a type and shadow of the eternal feast that Christ, the True Ahasuerus, the True Chief Among Kings, invites the whole world to attend.
  • In the book of Esther, King Ahasuerus is a type and symbol of God. That is how the earliest and best of Christian commentators have interpreted this book.
• It is noteworthy that just a few months before these two great feasts in Shushan, God sent Haggai the prophet to the Jews in Jerusalem. And guess what the name Haggai means? It means “my feast.”
• And what is the message of God’s prophet whose name is “My Feast?” It is “get back to work so we can feast again in my house!” Rebuild the house of prayer for all nations, so that the sacrificial offerings and the festal gatherings can begin again. The 70 years of exile and fasting are over. Return and rebuild. And when you return, return with a whole heart. That is the message of Haggai “My Feast.”
  • The whole drama of the book of Esther (as we shall see) revolves around feasting and fasting. And the two prophets God sends to his people during this era, Haggai and Zechariah, give rebuke and instruction on the kinds of feasting and fasting that God desires.
    • Haggai’s message is essentially, if you are holy, God will want to dine with you. If you are holy food, a living sacrifice, then God will incorporate you into His Everlasting Body.
    • Zechariah’s message is that the righteous shall have their fasting and mourning turned into feasting and gladness. He says in Zechariah 8:16-19, “These are the things that ye shall do; Speak ye every man the truth to his neighbour; execute the judgment of truth and peace in your gates: And let none of you imagine evil in your hearts against his neighbour; and love no false oath: for all these are things that I hate, saith the Lord. And the word of the Lord of hosts came unto me, saying, Thus saith the Lord of hosts; The fast of the fourth month, and the fast of the fifth, and the fast of the seventh, and the fast of the tenth, shall be to the house of Judah joy and gladness, and cheerful feasts; therefore love the truth and peace.”
    • And so God’s message for Israel in this Era of Restoration isreturn to me with all your whole heart. And the response God wants from His people is summed up by David in Psalm 51 when he says, “O Lord, open thou my lips; And my mouth shall shew forth thy praise. For thou desirest not sacrifice; else would I give it: Thou delightest not in burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: A broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise. Do good in thy good pleasure unto Zion: Build thou the walls of Jerusalem.”
  • So those were the marching orders for Mordecai and Esther, and all Israel in this era. And yet for whatever reason, we are not told, Mordecai and Esther are not in Jerusalem, they are instead, 1,000 miles away, in Shushan the capital of Persia. And it is there that this great drama of feasting and fasting will unfold.
• The title of our sermon this morning is Vashti’s Rebellion – Part 1, and there are two big questions we will try to answer from this text.
  • 1. What is the King’s Command and how does it fit with his plans to unite the Empire?
  • 2. What should we think of Vashti’s refusal to obey the King’s command?
    • So let me give you the outline of our text.

Outline of the Text

• In verses 9-11 we have The King’s Command.
• In verse 12a we have The Queen’s Rebellion.
• And then in verses 12b-22 we have The King’s Judgment.
  • This morning we will focus primarily on verses 9-12, and next week we’ll look at the rest.

Q1 – What is the King’s Command, and how do this fit with his plans to unite the Empire?

Verses 9-11

⁹Also Vashti the queen made a feast for the women in the royal house which belonged to king Ahasuerus.

¹⁰On the seventh day, when the heart of the king was merry with wine, he commanded Mehuman, Biztha, Harbona, Bigtha, and Abagtha, Zethar, and Carcas, the seven chamberlains that served in the presence of Ahasuerus the king,

¹¹To bring Vashti the queen before the king with the crown royal, to shew the people and the princes her beauty: for she was fair to look on.

• Note first that the king is not said to be drunk, he is said to be “merry with wine.” In Hebrew it is more literally, “good in heart.” We would say, “he’s in good spirits.”
  • To be merry with wine, especially on the seventh day is to imitate God’s joy and rest from His work of Creation. And this joy is what God intended for those who know how to use his gifts without abusing them. It says in Psalm 104:14-15, that God “causes the grass to grow for the cattle, And vegetation for the service of man, That he may bring forth food from the earth, And wine that makes glad the heart of man.”
  • What does God command the church to do in the New Covenant on the Christian Sabbath? Eat bread, and drink wine together in His presence. Our worship service is a royal feast that we gather for every seven days.
  • We see other examples of such righteous merriment in that great man of virtue and valor, Boaz. It says of him in Ruth 3:7, “And when Boaz had eaten and drunk, and his heart was merry, he went to lie down at the end of the heap of corn: and Ruth came softly, and uncovered his feet, and laid her down.”
    • Remember that Ruth is identified as a Proverbs 31 woman, a woman of hayil, and notice the contrast and parallels between Ruth and Vashti, Boaz and Ahasuerus. Boaz and Ahasuerus are both great men with authority who are merry in heart, and when they are merry in heart, Ruth approaches Boaz softly and without being asked, whereas Vashti refuses to come even when the King commands.
• Now what exactly is the King’s Command and how is this Phase 3 of his plans for unity?
  • The King’s command is that his wife, Queen Vashti, come into his presence, wearing the royal crown, and show forth her beauty.
    • Contrary to some Rabbinic interpretations, there is nothing here to suggest she must come in naked, or wearing nothing but the crown, or that this is any way a degradation of the queen. Quite the contrary!
    • This is the climax and main event of all this long feasting. This is a kind of coronation and celebration of the Queen as the crown of Persia’s beauty. It is a covenant renewal between the King and his Bride.
    • The closest modern-day example would be something like Inauguration Day for the President at the capital. All eyes are on the President, and when he swears his oath of office, he raises his right hand, he places his left hand on the Bible. And who usually holds that Bible? The President’s Wife. Even Joe Biden kept that tradition.
      • So imagine the scandal, the headlines, if President Trump is about to take his oath of office, and Melania refuses to come and hold the Bible. That is the kind of scene we have here in Esther.
• Now how is this calling of Vashti, Phase 3 of the king’s plan to unify the Empire?
  • Unity only exists where there is a shared love and loyalty for the common good. And without such a principle of unity, war and schism are inevitable. So how are you going to unite 127 different provinces in the ancient world? The King himself is part of that uniting principle, in that He establishes law, order, and justice. But the other half of that principle is the king’s wife. The queen. As Paul says in 1 Corinthians 11, “the head of the woman is the man…[but] woman is the glory of the man.”
    • And so together, King and Queen are the uniting principle of the empire. Ahasuerus is Civil Father, and Vashti Civil Mother.
    • When God describes the relationship between the civil government and the church, it is described in these same terms. God says in Isaiah 49:23, “Kings shall be thy nursing fathers, And their queens thy nursing mothers.”
  • So Vashti, as Queen is not only the king’s wife, she is also Mother Persia. Vashti is the stars and stripes, she is the Statue of Liberty. She is by her very office, is the empire personified. And so it belongs to the “First Lady,” to be a model of virtue, obedience, and submission to the King, because he is her head in two senses. Ahasuerus is Head of State and her supreme civil ruler, and he is also Head of their marriage and household, and her supreme domestic ruler.
    • So Queen Vashti has a double debt of obedience to Ahasuerus as both her husband and king. And yet despite this duty, we read in verse 12a.

Verse 12a

¹²But the queen Vashti refused to come at the king’s commandment by his chamberlains:

Q2 – What should we think about Vashti’s refusal to obey the King’s command?

• To answer this question correctly, we need the straight line of Scripture to help us judge. And we especially need this straight line in our day because our land, our culture, our churches are crooked and perverse. We are a nation that has tried to abolish the family, redefine marriage, invent new genders, and overthrow any kind of God-given hierarchy. So we might be a little biased.
  • This is evident in just how many Christian commentaries on this book, praise Vashti as a proto feminist. For them, Vashti is the modern woman with “enlightened values” caught up in the machinery of an oppressive patriarchal culture.
  • So while the Bible presents Vashti as a cautionary tale for rebellion, we have biblical scholars and Christian preachers, praising her as a martyr for the cause of women’s rights. That is what happens when you listen to the devil. Before he gives you a lie he whispers in your ear, “Did God really say?”
  • And so to bolster ourselves against such lies and deception, we must know what God really says in His Word. Only then can we judge Vashti’s actions aright.
• On the opening pages of Scripture we learn that it is the nature of sin to subvert God’s created order.
  • We know from Genesis 1 and 2 that God created man first, and then woman from his side to be his helper, and together they were to rule creation. Adam was to obey God and teach his wife. Eve was to obey Adam and submit to his teaching. And the animals were to obey mankind. But when we get to Genesis 3 what do we see? That whole order of authority gets reversed. Eve submits to the serpent. Adam heeds his wife. And everyone is guilty of saying with the devil by their actions, “Hath God really said?”
  • So to reject male headship is to reenact the Fall all over again. It is the height of pride to think you know better than God how to do marriage, how to do government, how to do male and female roles. But God is not mocked, a land reaps what is sows.
  • Death, pain, and suffering all entered the world because of this sin of rebellion against authority. You cannot rebel against God’s hierarchy and live. As it says in Proverbs 8:36, “He that sinneth against me wrongeth his own soul: All they that hate me love death.”
• Now just in case we missed the moral lessons of Genesis 1-3, God gives us many other passages to warn us about fiddling with His created order.
  • God says in Isaiah 3:12 to Israel in her rebellion, “As for my people, children are their oppressors, and women rule over them.”
  • When God gives the laws for civil rulers and kings in Exodus 18, Deuteronomy 1, and Deuteronomy 17, the office is exclusively male.
  • In Numbers 30, God decrees how a father can annul the vow of a young daughter in his house, and how a husband can annul the vow of his wife when he first hears it. It says in Numbers 30:13, “Every vow, and every binding oath to afflict the soul, her husband may establish it, or her husband may make it void.”
  • And lest we think that was just an Old Testament principle abolished by Christ, consider the words of the Apostles Paul and Peter.
    • Paul says in 1 Timothy 2:11-14, “Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. For Adam was first formed, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression.”
    • He says likewise in 1 Corinthians 14, in regards to public preaching, “Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience, as also saith the law [What law? The natural law.]. And if they will learn any thing, let them ask their husbands at home: for it is a shame for women to speak in the church [that is in formal public worship service].”
• Perhaps the most relevant text as it relates to Queen Vashti is 1 Peter 2 and 3, where he addresses submission first to our civil heads and then to our domestic heads. So as I read this, consider how Vashti measures up.
  • God says in 1 Peter 2:13-18, “Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord’s sake: whether it be to the king, as supreme; Or unto governors, as unto them that are sent by him for the punishment of evildoers, and for the praise of them that do well. For so is the will of God, that with well doing ye may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men: As free, and not using your liberty for a cloke of maliciousness, but as the servants of God. Honour all men. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honour the king. Servants, be subject to your masters with all fear; not only to the good and gentle, but also to the forward [harsh].”
    • So even if Ahasuerus was a bad man, and not gentle, and a hard and unreasonable ruler, God still requires that Vashti obey him. It was certainly no sin to come before the king wearing the royal crown, indeed it would have been a great honor.
  • The Apostle Peter then addresses the conduct of wives saying, “Likewise, ye wives, be in subjection to your own husbands; that, if any obey not the word, they also may without the word be won by the conversation of the wives; While they behold your chaste conversation coupled with fear…For after this manner in the old time the holy women also, who trusted in God, adorned themselves, being in subjection unto their own husbands: Even as Sara obeyed Abraham, calling him lord: whose daughters ye are, as long as ye do well, and are not afraid with any amazement.”
    • So again, even if Ahasuerus was a bad husband, Vashti was to win him without a word, by her chaste conduct and reverence. She was to be as Sarah, whose name means The Princess, the mother of kings and rulers, and call her husband, “Lord.”
    • That was the duty Vashti had before God, and it was a great rebellion, it was treason, to not come when the king called.
• This sin of Vashti is the same sin that Israel had committed against God, refusing to come when He called.
  • God says in Isaiah 66:4, “I also will choose their delusions, And will bring their fears upon them; Because when I called, none did answer; When I spake, they did not hear: But they did evil before mine eyes.
  • In Ezekiel 16, God likens Jerusalem to a woman that He redeemed and loved and married and made beautiful (she was His Queen!), but then her beauty went to her head, and she became obstinate, rebellious, a disobedient wife, more wicked than her sisters Samaria and Sodom.
• In the spiritual allegory of this book, Vashti signifies the rebellious Jews. God, like Ahasuerus, intended for Jerusalem to be his glorious bride, the jewel in his crown and the desire of the nations. But because Israel was faithless, God divorces her.
  • The book of Lamentations begins with a cry for her saying, “How lonely sits the city that was full of people! How like a widow is she, Who was great among the nations! The princess among the provinces Has become a slave!” And then a few verses later it says, “The Lord is righteous; for I have rebelled against his commandment: Hear, I pray you, all people, and behold my sorrow: My virgins and my young men are gone into captivity.”

Conclusion

• Vashti is a symbol of rebellious Israel. And she is also the symbol of every rebellious soul. To rebel against King Jesus, is to divorce yourself from God. The insanity of Vashti’s rebellion is that she refuses to come and wear the royal crown. She chooses shame instead of the glory and honor the king wants to bestow.
• The great deception of sin is to make God appear less good than He is. That was the serpent’s lie in the garden, and it is where all pride begins. If you think that you know better than God, your end will be the same as Vashti. You will not be permitted to see the King’s face. You will not attain to that beatific vision of the Divine Essence, which is the highest of all goods, and the good that Christ died to give you.
• So keep before your eyes the love and goodness of God. Inscribe upon your soul the promises of His Word.
  • It says in Psalm 37:4, Delight thyself in the Lord; And he shall give thee the desires of thine heart.
  • It says in Psalm 84:11, “The Lord will give grace and glory: No good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly.”
  • God withholds nothing that is good for us, and He knows better than us, what goods we need. That takes supernatural faith to believe!
• So say to your soul what God tells you to say in Psalm 27:4, “One thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek after; That I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, To behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in his temple.”
• May God make give you that desire and make it increase forever. In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost, Amen.