Then Haman said to King Xerxes, “There is a certain people dispersed among
the peoples in all the provinces of your kingdom who keep themselves separate.
Their customs are different from those of all other people, and they do not obey
the king’s laws; it is not in the king’s best interest to tolerate them. Esther 3:8
Today we feature the first in a series from a house church pastor’s sermon in
China:
The Bible is written to persecuted communities, and we must learn from each
community the peculiar blessings and dangers of persecution. I would like to
draw your attention to some lessons from the persecuted community in the time of
Esther.
Esther was Queen of Persia sometime after 483 BC. She was a beautiful woman
with a secret—no one except her adopted father knew it. It was her racial
origin. She was a Jew.
There came a great persecution. In Esther 3:8, we
read that the king of Persia’s advisor says he should not tolerate a certain
group of people. The king agrees, and issues a decree calling for the
extermination of all Jews.
The Jews are devastated, including Esther. How they got into this situation,
how they get out of it, and what happened afterwards all reveal great truths
about suffering churches—of which we are one.
Where does persecution come from? What is its source? The text shows us
clearly. Persecution is the result of pride. Pride on the part of the
persecutor.
Haman is the culprit. He is humiliated because a Jew called Mordecai refuses
to bow low enough to him. We are not given the reason why Mordecai would deliver
such a calculated snub, but it makes Haman see red. Instead of just trying to
get rid of Mordecai, though, he has to project his personal humiliation into
something grand. He won’t admit it’s all just a personal grudge, but concocts an
elaborate plan to get rid of all Jews because they are in breach of the king’s
laws.
His plan is a good one. The Jews are different, he says. True. They are so
different, they are not good citizens, he adds. False, but the king is right to
be suspicious of any group that seems to have other loyalties than just to him.
It’s the same in China. Our government persecutes us because we are different.
We are honest, separate, and we have greater loyalties than just to the state.
That makes us an object of suspicion.
But the root of it all is pride. The cause of the persecution was simply that
Haman was angry. I have read that in Russia, the terrible persecutions that were
visited upon the churches there came from the fact that Lenin’s brother was shot
by the Tsar’s forces, and what galled him in particular was that a Russian
Orthodox priest blessed the proceedings. He carried his personal hatred with
him…It’s a pride matter. It always is. The source of suffering is always found
in human pride.
RESPONSE: Today I will check my pride at the door and realize that God is
still in control!
PRAYER: Pray that prideful leaders will humble themselves to acknowledge
the God of the universe.
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