After the king got some of his personal desires taken care of he turned to “governing”. Again, we see that he did not have good governing skills. He chose to promote Haman to be above all the princes that were with him. Certainly a bad choice. We are not told what the king saw in Haman. We are told what God saw in him. Haman was definitely a vain man. His main thought was about himself. As we will see his wife and others close to him were equally vain. He had a good thing going for him as long as no thought of God was taken into account. None of them had any fear of God.
We see in verse 2 that the rest of the king’s servants understood the protocol. They reverenced Haman and bowed before him. No man is worthy of being bowed to, but vain people think they have a right to that. We see that the king had commanded his servants to bow before Haman. The king wanted a certain atmosphere and he demanded respect for himself and for his chief man. Respect needs to be earned. Those that demand respect will stoop to all kinds of evil to get it.
We read that Mordecai did not follow the command of the king. He refused to bow before Haman. Mordecai understood this man was not worthy of this honour.
In verse 3 we see that the king’s servants noted Mordecai’s attitude. They asked him what right he had not to follow the king’s commandment. The king’s servants, outside of Mordecai, were yes men. They left their brains at the door and just did as they were told. Obedience and loyalty are good qualities. However, a person needs discernment to be sure that he is obeying that which is right and good.
In verse 4 we see that Mordecai revealed that he was a Jew, but he did not go into detail of why that makes a difference. He just ignored them and carried on doing what he was doing. The next step for these other servants was to go to Haman. He was next in the chain of command. Could Mordecai really get away with what he was doing because he was a Jew? Were the Jews not taken captive by the Babylonians and now under the Medes and Persians? Certainly they had lived in captivity for some time now, but they were still captives. They were foreigners.
In verse 5 we see that Haman did not take kindly to this one man not bowing to him. All the other servants were bowing, but one man was enough to upset this egotistical man. We had the same thing with the Wuhan virus. A small minority of people would not bow to the ungodly dictates of the P.M. and those few were the cause of some further restrictions placed on others.
He is so full of himself that he cannot stand to have anyone thinking for themselves. Once he declares something, everyone else just needs to switch off their brains and blindly and foolishly fall in line. A few refused to do so and the government is still scheming on their next move on this front. We have seen new proposed laws to further their attempts to get everyone under their thumb.
Haman did not have all the tools available now, but he had enough tools to make most people show respect to him. Mordecai was different. He was different and yet not willing to explain why the difference. What was the cause of the difference?
In verse 6 we see that Haman had no time to deal with this opposition. His solution was to get rid of the “problem”. He would get rid of Mordecai. However, he discovered there were more Jews in captivity and he wanted to get rid of them all. He did not know, nor did he care about the history of men like Daniel and Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah. They had been a great asset to the Babylonian empire and Daniel had continued on into the Medo/Persian empire.
Haman had no use for anyone that would not fall in line with what the king said and he approved of. Thus Haman determined that he would destroy all the Jews that were in the entire empire. To him, that was the solution. From a humanistic perspective it is important to have everyone agreeing with what the king wanted. It is much easier to rule a people who will readily submit to your whims and wishes. It is also a quicker way to further corruption. When there are no checks and balances, a ruthless ruler just becomes more ruthless.
In verse 7 we see that Haman had his underlings help to determine the best time to get rid of the Jews. The way they would determine the right time was through casting lots. They would do so for each day until they were satisfied they had the right day. No real direction here. Just some ungodly people wasting time casting lots and depending on “chance”, they would pick a certain day. What a sad way to live and govern.
We see that Haman enlisted the help of these others without consulting with the king. After they had determined what they deemed to be the right time, then Haman went to the king. Of course he went with a trumped up charge. In verse 8 he acknowledged before the king that there was a certain people who were scattered abroad within the kingdom. Haman stated that these people just did not fit in with the common culture. They were not causing any problem, other than that they would not show reverence for a vain man. They were obviously working well within the system. Even Mordecai had some important work to do and he seemingly did all he was told to do except to bow before wicked Haman.
Haman counselled the king that these people were of no benefit to the king. It did not matter that the king was no asset to the empire, or that Haman was of no benefit to the empire. But these certain people just did not fit in. The best thing was to get rid of them.
This again sounds all too familiar with our current government. Our P.M. admires the basic dictatorship of China and he has stated that “evangelical Christians” are some of the most obstructive people to his plans. The pro-Hamas demonstrations that are disrupting life in most major cities, are not a problem to him. The murder of unborn children is not a problem for him. The sodomites who are making more and more wicked demands are not a problem to him. It is those few “evangelical Christians” that need to go. He tried to shut down all churches for a time, but a few “evangelical churches” would not shut down. There were even a few Godly churches that refused to shut down. Some of them still have fines hanging over their heads.
Haman made his pitch more enticing by promising to put some money into the treasury, if the king would sign the designed decree. This proposed slaughter would not affect the treasury of the empire. Haman would foot the bill.
As we will see this vain king had no problem with this proposal. As long as he could see some money coming in for it, that was all that mattered.
Vain people are not the kind of people you want in power. They do not think straight. We have a 60 million dollar arrivescam app that made certain people rich. We are seeing a repeat of the corrupt government of Mr Chretien. The scandals of that government that we paid for are being repeated with different players and different scams. None of that matters to the government. As long as the MP’s get to travel and get their fancy pay checks and perks, that is all that matters. After all, our P.M. stated that deficits will take care of themselves. They certainly will. They just keep getting bigger and bigger. However, so far none of that is affecting the ruling class. The peasants don’t matter. Just keep spending and keep the spin factories well lubricated.
In our text the subject of the wrath of Haman was the Jews. This could never stand. This would never go unchallenged. No one attacks God’s chosen people without consequences. Haman had a plan. Ahasuerus agreed with the plan. He had his new wife. He had paid off the important people so that there was no threat to his rule. The two men who expressed hatred toward him were dead, and so everything was good, for the time being. Wicked people cannot see very far. They assume they have everything under control. However, there is always a judgment day. God is not dead. His laws still apply. His will is still going to be accomplished. His promise to Abraham was still in place.
It would not be the Jews who would lose here. It would be the Gentiles that would lose.
Wise people consult with the all-wise God. Wise people choose God’s way. They do not always have all the perks that the lost have, but they have blessings that the lost cannot have. It is far better to receive God’s blessings than the gifts of vain men.
Pastor Bartel