"Jew & Gentile One in Messiah"

As it was in the beginning so it will be in the end-of-days

A Choice…Purim-HB000 2008

 Ecc 1:9  What has been is what will be, what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun.

Nothing new under the Son. When we see the Scriptures we always see a pattern. We see a way in which Adonai does things. Our Adonai is the same yesterday, today & forever. From B’resheet to Revelation we see the same Adonai. But without the understanding of the beginning we will fail to understand the end. Especially in times of trouble we need to run closer to Him not away. In the Book of Revelation we see the enemy of Adonai wants us to take his mark. Has this happen before? Each of us will have to make a choice to take this mark that is against Adonai or not to. Adonai is telling us in advance that we will have a difficult time and we will have to choose who’s side you will be on. Will you do man made festivals of follow ordained things found in Scripture? Things that have specific dates on His calendar. Hear how the Feast of Purim ties together with the End-of Days and Revelation!

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Purim Overview

Purim, the Feast of Lots, is observed on the fourteenth day of the Hebrew month of Adar (February-March). This is a celebration of the deliverance of the Persian Jews over one of the most dastardly plots in history to exterminate the Jewish people. The book of Esther in the Old Testament tells the story of how the beautiful Jewish woman Esther (Hadassah) and her cousin Mordecai thwart the evil Haman, who plots to massacre the Jews.

The book of Esther has been referred to as “a monument in the history of anti-Semitism.” The anti-Semitism shown in the book of Esther is religiously based. The anti-Semitism shown in later Hellenistic-Roman literature through today is purely ethnic hatred. The Jewish people have faced elimination as a group many times through ancient, medieval, and modern societies. They have said, Come, and let us cut them off from being a nation; that the name of Israel may be no more in remembrance (Ps 83:4).

At this time, the Hebrew people lived in Persia. Many of the Jews socialized with the Persians and became more and more worldly. They were accepted, integrated citizens who blended in to Persian life. In fact, a Jewish woman became the Queen. Imagine their shock, in a moment their lives were drastically changed. Out of the blue, the Prime Minister convinces the King to destroy the entire Jewish nation.

The Jews had a rude awakening! In a brief instant, they went from their normal daily routines to persecution to the point of death. They were hated, on the verge of destruction because of their race. During these years, the Jews were divided into two kingdoms, Israel and Judah. Both kingdoms had fought with each other. The prophets had tried to get the two groups together. Now that the Hebrews faced extinction, they joined kingdoms and turned to God for mercy.
Imagine a Parallel

Think about how you would feel if a similar situation would happen to Christians in America today. What if the nation decided all Christians should be destroyed just because there are a certain people scattered around the country who keep laws other than the state laws, and they are separate from normal people because of their radical religious beliefs (Esther 3:8). What if they were persecuted because they remain a different, distinct group, with morals and values that do not line up with the world’s standards? Not just persecuted—the entire group receives the death sentence! Maybe it would wake up some worldly-leaning Christians!

Covenant and Promise

Purim is a story of when the Jews lived outside the land of Israel. The Jews are the people chosen to live in the promised land. It was God's land, and he chose one people to live in it to the exclusion of all others. Displacement from the land was punishment for sins, a jail sentence. The Bible explains, when the Jews failed to keep God's commands and betrayed the covenant, He sent them out of the land. I will deliver them to be removed into all the kingdoms of the earth ...And I will send the sword, the famine, and the pestilence, among them, till they be consumed from off the land that I gave unto them and to their fathers (Jer. 24:9-10). The Jews restoration to the land is a sign that God kept His promise. The covenant of the Promised Land is still valid.

Background and Study

The name Feast of Lots comes from the fact that the day was chosen for the Jews to die by way of lottery. It is interesting to note that the word pur is not Hebrew, but Persian. Thus the Torah, when mentioning it, translates into Hebrew: “Pur: That is, the goral (lot).” All other festivals, including Chanukah (another post-Mosaic holiday) have Hebrew names.

While God’s name never appears directly in Esther, it does appear in acrostic form in Esther 5:4. It is the first letter of each of four successive words - yod hay vav hay, YHWH. This is the only book of the Bible that does not directly contain God’s name. There is no doubt, though, that God was clearly in charge behind the scenes!

Purim celebrates the salvation of the Jewish people, in the year 3405 from Creation (356 bce), from Haman's plot "to destroy, kill and annihilate all the Jews, young and old, infants and women, in a single day."

Haman was prime minister to the Persian emperor Achashverosh. Enraged that Mordechai the Jew "would not bow or prostate himself before him," Haman argued before Achashverosh that "one people, scattered and divided in all provinces of your realm, whose laws are different from those of all peoples" ought not be allowed to exist. Endorsed by an emperor whose dominion extended from India to Ethiopia, Haman's decree boded the physical destruction of every Jew alive on the face of the earth at that time.

Mordechai rallied the Jews to repentance, and gathered 22,000 Jewish children with whom he prayed and studied Torah to awaken God's mercy. He also sent word to his cousin, Esther, who had been chosen by Achashverosh as his queen several years earlier, to appeal to the king. At great risk to her own life, Queen Esther engineered Haman's downfall at a private wine-party to which she invited the king and the minister. She prevailed upon Achashverosh to hang Haman and to issue a second decree, empowering the Jews to defend themselves against those who sought to destroy them.

On the 13th of Adar--the day selected by Haman's pur (lottery)--numerous battles were fought throughout the empire between the Jews and those who attempted to carry out Haman's decree (which was never actually revoked). The following day, Adar 14, became a day of feasting and rejoicing in celebration of the Jews' victory over their enemies. In the ancient walled capital, Shushan, where the battle went on for two days, the victory celebration was held on Adar 15.

Mordechai and Esther instituted that these two days should be observed for posterity as the festival of Purim, Adar 15 in walled cities, and Adar 14 in unwalled towns by public readings of the story of the miracle as recorded in the "Scroll of Esther," sending food portions to friends, giving gifts of money to the poor, and enjoying a festive meal accompanied with inebriating drink (recalling the fateful wine-party at which Esther turned Achashverosh against Haman).

A time-honored Purim custom is for children to dress up and disguise themselves--an allusion to the fact that the miracle of Purim was disguised in seemingly natural events. This is also the significance behind a traditional Purim food, the hamantash--a pastry whose filling is hidden within a three-cornered crust. The day before Purim is "The Fast of Esther," in commemoration of the fasts of Esther and her people as they prayed for God's salvation from Haman's decree.

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