Beauty Vs. Lust: Why Christians Should Celebrate Purim & Lessons From Esther

Today on Radiating Faith (a ministry subseries of Couple O’ Nukes), I break down Purim (the Feast of Esther) and explain why believers in Christ should take this holiday seriously—not just as Jewish history, but as a living reminder of God’s protection, deliverance, and providence. I ground this message in Esther 9:27–28, focusing on the phrase about “all who joined them,” and connect it to the New Testament reality of unity in the body of Christ. 

From there, I walk through the Book of Esther as a story of hidden providence—God’s sovereign work unfolding even when His name is not explicitly stated. I also highlight Esther’s strategic positioning as queen and the famous challenge of Esther 4:14 (“for such a time as this”), applying it to modern life: where we land, what influence we have, and how God calls us to use our position to serve others, not ourselves. 

This sermon is also shaped by my recent conversation with Christian influencer and podcaster Aggie Park and the pushback Ms. Park has received for bringing faith into beauty pageantry. Using Esther’s story, I make the case that beauty is not the enemy—God designed beauty as טוֹב (ṭôḇ [tov])—good, fitting, and desirable in the right covenant context. I contrast biblical beauty (purposeful, honorable, disciplined) with a system that reduces women to consumption and competition, and I tie that directly to what Scripture teaches about outward adornment versus inward character. 

Finally, I challenge modern culture’s distortion of beauty into lust, monetization, and endless comparison—especially in online spaces that function like a “digital harem.” I call listeners to reclaim covenantal beauty: beauty that honors God, protects others from temptation, and serves love rather than exploitation. I close by encouraging you to read Esther, understand Purim’s practices (including fasting and generosity), and ask a personal question: what gift, identity, or calling are you “hiding” that God intends to reveal at the right time for the good of others? 

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/unspoken-stories-difficult-paths-to-faith-with-aggie-park/id1657865479?i=1000750575884

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Transcript

 Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to Radiating Faith, which is a ministry Subseries on the Ka Nukes podcast where I deliver solo sermons, review scripture as well as faith-based book. And it is going to be a good time today because it is the Feast of Esther known as Perim that starts today and will be celebrated today and tomorrow, and I want to get into that.

It is based on the historical account of Esther from the Bible. It is an amazing read, a great historical count. If you have not read it, I highly encourage it, especially during this time of the year. Again, PERM is a different time of the year every year, so you can always look that up online to figure out when that date is going to be.

But it is an amazing time. It is a celebration of a couple different things, and I really want to get into that, starting with why. Christians should celebrate it. Traditionally, it is a Jewish holiday and celebrated mainly and only by the Jewish people, but I believe that everyone should celebrate per who is a believer, and that's not just my opinion.

It is backed by scripture and we're going to look at that right now with Esther chapter nine, verse 27 and 28, where it says. The Jews took it upon themselves to establish the custom that they and their descendants. And here's the key part, all who joined them should without fail, observe these two days every year in the way prescribed and at the time, appointed.

These days should be remembered and observed in every generation, by every family, and in every providence and in every city. And these days, a perm should never fail to be celebrated by the Jews, nor should the memory of these days die out among their descendants. Now I want to back up to the part where it says All who joined them.

So while this was, you know, for the Jewish people, it says, all who joined them? Should without fail, observe This day now we look at the New Testament and what do we see? We see unity through the body of Christ. We see that all Jews and Gentiles alike are saved when they turn their life to Christ and establish a relationship with the Father again.

So. If we are a Christian, if we are a believer of any denomination, we believe God, we believe Christ, we should celebrate prayer then. It only makes sense. Perm is a day of celebration of yes, the salvation of the Jewish people from a mass genocide, but it is also an acknowledgement of the fact that even when we don't credit God in our lives, even when we don't give him the credit or acknowledge him or know he's there, he's working on behalf throughout the historical account of Esther.

God's name is not mentioned directly. It is the only time in the Bible that we see that, and it helps show. And we're gonna get into messages of hidden, you know, salvation and hidden godly works and doings. But it is part of that. And so perim, if you are a believer, you should celebrate it because all of us as believers, regardless of our level of faith, have at times not given God the credit and acknowledgement he deserves.

And so with that said, I want to just establish what program is briefly. Again, you can look up the different festivities and the different things that you're supposed to do during this time. Part of celebrating it for me this year was. Hosting this sermon last year. I read the entire book of Esther with some commentary.

I read it again this year, and that was privately because this sermon, I didn't want it to just be a copy and paste. I felt a calling in my heart to do a different sermon. Beauty versus lut, God's Ultimate Beauty Pageant Queen. Now, this sermon was inspired by an episode recently with Aggie Park. Aggie Park is a Christian influencer and podcaster who hosts the Unspoken podcast.

I have been on her show and she has been on mine. And that being said, we both have had great godly conversations on both podcasts during my episode with her where she was on my show. Couple of nukes, and you can find that LinkedIn description below to listen to. It was a great time where she shared. You know her journey of faith, her testimony talked about, you know, some of the trauma in her life and how she has gotten through that and how God has blessed her.

And during that time, we mentioned how God is using her in the world of beauty pageantry. Now, as a result, she has gotten backlash. People have made comments such as, you know, your nails and makeup aren't going to make it into heaven, or aren't going to get you into heaven, vice versa. Beauty, beauty, pageantry, essentialness, all these things, all these ideas have been kind of skewed by society and even believers in the sense that we often say, Ooh, if it's beautiful, if it's central, if it's, you know, this or that, it's not Christian, it's not of the faith, and that's not true, and we're gonna get into that today.

So. God created beauty. He loves beauty. He celebrates beauty, and he uses beauty. That's what this whole story is about. This sermon, we're gonna focus on Esther because of the time of year and tie it into how it's, you know, essentially a beauty pageant that, that God had, you know, for lack of better words, or rather we'll be looking at how Persia had a corrupted system, a you know, ungodly beauty pageant and God used.

A good faithful woman in that system. Sin attaches beauty from its covenant and turns it into consumption, right? We've seen that before. We see it very much so in the modern day. That's why if you see the, the thumbnail for this episode, or if you, you know, stick around to the end, you'll see what we're gonna talk about.

The modern versions of beauty and, and how lust has really twisted it, how sin has detached it from its true purpose. You know, God invented beauty. Beauty is holy. In fact, beauty is very holy in itself. When it serves love instead of lust. It when it feeds lust, it's not good. And lust and central are different, which we're gonna get into that as well.

And the problem isn't that beauty exists, but rather that it's become a product monetization tool marketing, and it is become, you know, a vice of the enemy to trap many people to cause a downfall on many people, not just now with the digital world. But this has been since. The historical Biblical times lust has been a huge temptation and a downfall of many great people who strayed from the biblical covenant beauty that we're gonna be talking about today.

God did not tell Esther to hide her beauty, but rather he said, use it for a godly purpose. I will use your Godly purpose right now. That's not what he said exactly, but that's what we see through the actions that take place in the historical account investor. Esther is very beautiful. We know that from the text itself tells us about her beauty.

Not in great detail, but it's very evident, especially with how favor is constantly upon her from these gentlemen that God blesses her favor through her beauty, but. Or fast. And she risks her life to serve others. She does not use her beauty to make money, to have the, you know, the equivalent of what would be prostitution or online, you know, pornographic content or anything like that.

She uses her beauty. To get into a position of power that is ultimately used to save her people. And she didn't even purposely throw herself at the king or anything. She was just kind of part of the system. So that was God using her in that beauty pageant, right. That we are using that analogy of, so that he could have that and, and later on we talk about, in the scripture it says, what if you got into your position for a time such as this to paraphrase?

So Esther's beauty, it's paired with courage, self-denial, timing, and intercession, right? It's biblical beauty. It's not passive, it's not ornamental, it's purposeful. And beauty is meant to be purposeful, is meant to be part of God's kingdom, right? He said in Exodus right, he prescribes beautiful garments for the priesthood.

We know that God himself is beautiful. We have seen that in the scripture and you look at, I wanna share the Hebrew word here to right. That is when God says in Genesis, everything is good, right? Repeatedly we say in God saw that it was good, or God deemed it good, right? That word is toll. It's not just morally good.

What it means is pleasant, desirable, fitting, right? So God designed form, color, attraction, desire, beauty. It's not accidental. Right? Now I want to give a brief overview of Esther, right? Like I said, I'm not going to read the whole story here, the historical account rather. But I do wanna share a brief overview of it.

Essentially, Quinn Vashti refuses to come out before King exes when he's hosting this several, several days. I mean, we'll, we'll get into the exact time period of banquets and feasting and showing off the prosperity and the splendor of the kingdom as a result. He counsels with the wise men that he has, and they say, listen, the queen disrespected the king.

She did not obey his command. Other women are going to see this in the kingdom, and they're not going to respect their husbands either. We need to make a public example that disrespect is not tolerated. Now again, we never see in the text why Queen Vashti did not come out, and it could be said that perhaps God compelled her not to come out just so that all these events would take place.

Further down the line, king exes listens to his wise men and he says, all right, we're gonna do that. We're gonna get a new queen. And they go through the process of looking for a new queen. And that's what we'll get into with the text in the sermon today. The way they looked for a new queen was very shallow.

It was very secular. It was based off of beauty, not covenantal or biblical beauty, but just splendor and display ornamental beauty, which we'll get into. And so. That is the bulk of the sermon that we'll be focusing on in a sense of the beauty pageantry style event that happens. However, to fast forward throughout the historical account investor, we get into how eventually there is an enemy to the Jewish people, Haman, who wants to.

Destroy all of them. Also called Haman, who wants to wipe out the entire Jewish population because of his hatred for a single Jewish man named Mordecai, who is Queen Esther's cousin. Fast forward again. Because of Esther's position as queen, she goes before the king which was punishable by death at that time, if not summoned, but he puts down his scepter and lets her speak because God's favor is upon her.

Again. It says She found favor in the king's eyes as she found favor in many people's eyes, and she says, there is a man trying to kill all of my people. She reveals that she was Jewish at that time. She had kept her nationality hidden at the request of moca. And the king allows her to make this decree where all the Jewish people can fight back against the enemies who wish to destroy them.

And the Jewish people are successful and have great victory. And that leads to the celebration of Perim. Perim comes from Perh, which is a lot because Haman casted a lot. To decide a day he would destroy the Jewish people, all because a single, you refused to bow down and worship him as a king decreed because he said the only person, he doesn't say exactly morkie, but it's implied.

I do not bow or worship anyone other than God, right? He doesn't say the name of God. He doesn't explain it. He just tells that he's Jewish. That's what we see in the script. But we understand as people who have read the Bible or involved in scripture that bound down and worshiping to right? No one other than God is what we are called to do.

Now, again, Jesus Christ does tell us, give to Caesar what is Caesars? Respect the government, right? But pray for our leaders and to, you know, respect them. But again. It's not the compromise of your morality, right? So we're gonna get into it, which. I mentioned, you know, Persia's, pageantry you know, that's not exactly what it was, but that is what I am referring to it as, and it can be seen that way.

You know, it was a system of selection, consumption, competition status, and control for a position of power. Whereas, you know, the historical account investor flips that God uses, like I said, that woman placed into a corrupt system to display courage, restraint wisdom, and covenantal identity. I. One of the things we talked about with Aggie Park is needing the believers in these spaces.

A lot of people put Christianity and the faith into a small bubble, and because of that it shrinks. But our great commission is to go to other religions, to go to other places, to go where sinners are, and to spread the word to preach salvation, right? Yes, the pageantry industry is full of lust. The digital industry is full of lust streaming you know, all these online different things, whether it's video game or content or creators or influencer broadcasters.

There's a lot of sexual immorality. There's a lot of sin. There's a lot of these types of things. The beauty industry, industry is very shallow. Right, and I'm not attacking it because I'm sure there are plenty of women who want to show their beauty in an honorable way, which is what we talked about with Aggie Park, which is having believers in this space is important to give the honor and glory to God as a testimony when they win that pageantry or even along their journey if they don't win.

Thanking God for the beauty, right? Again, God does not despise beauty. He created it. There are many biblical characters. Not characters in a fictional sense. They're real historical figures who were described as beautiful. The twisting comes with scripture where it talks about beauty is on the inside.

That is true. However, it's not limited to that. That is first and foremost not, you know, all that it is. Beauty is both inside and outside. But if your inside is ugly and your, your outside is beautiful, right? Then you're not living right. But that doesn't mean don't be beautiful on the outside. It means with your beauty, honor God and one another.

Our beauty was made for our partner, our, our, our, you know. The biblical story of relationship in a sense of, you know, God made man and woman. He said it was not good for man to be alone. You are to find God has that one partner in your life unless he calls you to seek to Cleveland to one flesh and unity.

And your beauty is meant to be for your partner to enjoy within the confines of marriage, within that covenant between you and your partner and God, right? That's not to say displaying your beauty for good reasons beforehand is evil. Right? But people get it all twisted up and I think it is good to be cautious, but oversensitivity means that we are losing the faith and believers in those spaces and they are only going to get more and more corrupted.

And so we need believers in those pageantry spaces. As Aggie Park and I were talking about that, I said, well, you know what, God won a beauty pageant once with a woman who was a believer. Every other woman there was not a believer. They were Persian or median or you know, pagan. And so God has done it before and he, he can still do it today.

In fact, he wants to do it today. And I'm not gonna speak on God's behalf or will, but. We are called to evangelize and to spread the gospel in all spaces. So of course God would want us to go into those spaces. He has prepared a way for us. He has prepared a winning pageantry for us. We just had to step into it and follow him in faith.

And it doesn't even matter how much makeup the other people are doing, how much plastic surgery, how much whatever they are doing to enhance their beauty. Because we're gonna get into the text today how Esther was a natural beauty. And that's really important, especially when we look at today, when we get into the sermon later on about how beauty has been distorted in the modern reality.

Like I said, biblical centralist is covenantal and honoring. Modern sexualization is extractive and idolatrous, right? Social media is essentially a digital harem, you know, with endless scrolling, endless bodies, you know, endless comparison. And I like to say this right here. Lust doesn't ask who you are, but it asks What can you do for me, right?

Beauty is supposed to be honoring and serving, but not in a way that is exploited or extractive. Now, one note I want to make beauty aside is just about Esther in general, something that maybe people don't look or maybe have overlooked. And if you're watching this on YouTube, you can see the background behind me is kind of like, render what this may have looked like. And I say that the historical account of Esther starts off as a slap in the face. It's really a juxtaposition, it's cruel irony. As soon as I read it, I felt a pain in my heart, and any believer should feel that same pain. If you are familiar with scripture, if you were Jewish at the time, you would've known how painful this was.

So I say that in the context of. The historical count starts, were setting the scene, were in the, you know, Mele Persian empire at the time. It was flourishing, and that's important for several reasons. The setting, because I want to go back to Daniel, right? So this is part of the Bible, the amazing cross connections, right?

We see this Mele Persian empire was prophesized in the historical account of Daniel. And I wanna read from Daniel chapter seven, verse five, here from the new international version. The beast that was used to symbolize that many scholars say represented the MEO Persian empire, which was, and there before me was a second beast, which looked like a bear.

It was raised up on one of its sides, and it had three ribs in its mouth between its teeth. It was told, get up and eat your Phil flesh. Many of you're probably familiar with that creature in that description. And what we know, at least we have, you know, cultivated is that the raised up on one side how the bearers.

Like creature is great on one side was representative of how the Mele Persian empire had a you know, imbalance between the Meads and the Persians. And so we see that historically in, in historical accounts across the world, that the Mele Persian empire did have that balance, you know, that struggle of balance and power, and that ultimately it led to its downfall Now.

Why we're here. I just wanna make a side note. Many teachers connected three ribs to the three major conquests of Medo Persia, often known as Lydia, Babylonian, Egypt. However, you know, scripture does not directly tell us that, but we know based off of all the prophecies fulfilled and the symbolism that has been verified through historical counts, that is most likely what it is.

And so I just say that to show that you know the book of Esther. Is connected to many other parts of the Bible, right? We know that this was not just one fictitious story, this was different people across generations fulfilling prophecy in God's story as he put forward, as he intended. I. So, as I mentioned, the medial Persian society was prospering at the time, and I'm gonna read from Esther chapter one verses four through eight now, to show that, to talk about this pain in my heart that I, I wanna share with you and I hope it's a pain in your heart as well, not to inflict pain on you, but so you understand some of the sorrow of the biblical account and why, like it's gonna hold us accountable in a minute here.

So in. The first chapter of Esther. You know, it starts with, and I, I, I re-read some from verses four through eight as well. For a full 180 days, he displayed the vast wealth of his kingdom in the splendor and glory of his majesty. When these days were over, the king gave a banquet lasting seven days in the enclosed garden of the King's Palace, for all the people from the least to the greatest who were in the citadel of suse.

The garden had hangings of white and blue linen fastened with cords of white linen and purple material to silver rings on marble pillars. There were couches of gold and silver on a mosaic pavement of parry marble, mother of pearl, and other costly stones. Wine was served in goblets of gold, each one different from the other, and the royal wine was abundant in keeping with the king's liberality by the king's command.

Each guest was allowed to drink with no restrictions for the king. Instructed all the wine stewards to serve each man what he wished. Ladies and gentlemen, does that sound familiar at all? If it does, you understand the pain, then the pain in my heart, the pain in the heart of the Jewish people who were, you know, living there.

This is exactly mirroring the prosperity of King Solomon with all his riches, all his abundance. If you read, go back to to Second Kings and One Kings and second Chronicles and go back to Kings and Chronicles and you will find what you will find. That at one point the Kingdom was unified and prospering, and especially under King Solomon's reign.

They tell you how many sheep and cows were slaughter a day just to feed his palace guards. How many baked goods were made, how much flour was used? I mean, you look at how much money there was, it was the most prosperous time that nation ever saw. And here we are not too long later in, in the grand scheme of things, so to speak.

It was quite a while later. Where all of this has now been turned over to their enemies. What it shows in this juxtaposition, this cruel irony is God promised this greatness. We had it, we lost it, we gave it up. We strayed from God, and now our enemies have it. That is a slap in the face, at least when I read this text.

That is what I felt in my heart. I, I, I read this. I said, look at all this gold and silver, and all these costly stones, and all this wine, and all the stuff that we get into in the text here. This is what Solomon had for us, and we lost it because our hearts were not aligned with God. Not just us, but the leaders as well.

This should be a pain in the heart to any believer, and this should be something that, that you're not like, Hey, well I wasn't, you know, with King Solomon during that time, and I'm not an amido Persian empire. Take this and look at your life. What in your life was so prosperous that you had, and now your enemies have it because you strayed from the Lord?

What are we looking to reclaim that we gave up because of our sin?

So I just want that to sit with everyone for a moment.

And I want to get into, again, focusing on the beauty pageant tree, but I, I had to bring that up, you know, it did not sit right in my heart when I, I read that and I was just, it hurt me. It hurt me like on a personal level, and I hope that. Reading this, you, you weep, you lament over the failures, the consistent failures of the people of God.

Yes. Maybe you're not Jewish, maybe you weren't there during King Solomon's reign, but this is an account of humanity. This is our origins, this is our historical story, and it shows how much we have messed up and failed a God who was consistently loving. But what do we see? We see that this me, Persian empire does not last, that is not as beautiful as the eternal kingdom of Jesus Christ, our, our Lord and Savior in heaven, who come down and get us.

You know, we know that it is, it is all secular based. We know that we are ultimately promised glories and riches far greater than this. But to know that we have had great prospering here on Earth and given it up through our folly, that pains me. And it's something to weep, I lament over, to reflect upon and to look at our lives and say, God, are we wasting?

Are we throwing away what you have given us in prosperity? And so it is a pain in the heart. It is a deep pain, but it is also a moment of reflection and purpose to drive forward and to do better.

Now the distortion of beauty that we've talked about so far already really starts just in the first chapter. I wanna look at Esther chapter one, verse 11 here, and this is in context of the king commanding to bring before him, queen Vashti, wearing her royal crown in order to display her beauty to the people in Noble for.

She was lovely to look at. Two things there. To display her beauty. That's number one. She was lovely to look at, right? Not to honor, not to be in a covenantal relationship with, to look at, to lust after. Right. That's not to say any woman who is beautiful to look at, who is lovely to look at. That is a lustful or evil thing, right?

But look at the context here of the king wants to display her beauty, and I really like to say it like this. Now again, I am kind of taking this with a bit of leniency, so to speak, for lack of better words, that we don't know exactly how the king felt. But we know the context of this, right? Because you go back to for 180 days, he's displaying the vast wealth of his kingdom and the splendor and glory of his majesty, not of God.

What does it say of his majesty himself? Right? So this isn't about honoring God or praising God or thanking God. This is about men showing off their own conquest, right? So then we look at that with him wanting to display Queen Vashti. Well, it's not a man saying, behold my wife, and she's beautiful. This is a man saying, behold my wife, because she's beautiful.

That single word being changed changes so much. We are not to love people for their beauty or because of their beauty. We are to love their beauty. In addition to themselves, we know that the king. Does not celebrate Vashti as a covenant partner, right? He summons her as a spectacle. Her beauty is instrumentalized.

And then I want to go to how the council addresses this issue. When Queen Vashti doesn't show up, they say also let the king give her royal position to someone else who is better than she. Right. They're saying give the position of the queen to someone who is better than she. Now, fast forward to Esther chapter two

verses two through four. Here we have. That proposal followed up. Then the King's personal attendance proposed. Let a search be made for beautiful young virgins for the king. Let the king appoint commissioners in every providence of his realm to bring all these beautiful young women into the harem at the citadel of suse.

Let them be placed under the care of Haga, the king's eunuch, who is in charge of the women, and let beauty treatments be given to them. Then let the young woman who pleases the king be queen instead of vashti. This advice appealed to the king and he followed it. Does this make any sense to anyone? The queen failed to obey the king.

He tried to summon her. She said, no, we don't know why. We're not gonna get into that today. But we know that she, in their eyes, disrespected him and was disobedient. So find someone who is better than she. Now, you and I as logical thinkers we're thinking, well, who would be better than she? Someone who is obedient and respectful, right?

We're lacking respect and obedience, so we're gonna look for that, but that's not what they look for. What do they look for? Beautiful young virgins, beautiful young women to bring into a harem, giving them beauty treatments, and it'll be the young woman who pleases the king. She's not pleasing him with her respect and obedience.

I mean, to a degree, yes, but it's based off of her looks. This is when we talk about people loving for the wrong reason, looking after someone, having a relationship for the wrong reason, right? I'm gonna combine that now with one of the things that we are told in scripture, right? You look at first Peter chapter three, verses three through four.

Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as elaborate hairstyles in the wearing of gold jewelry or fine clothes, rather, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which of is of great worth in God's sight? Again, beauty is not wrong. But it should be in addition to your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle inquired spirit, which is of great worth in God's sight.

They don't look for that. Like, yes, they want a queen, obviously, who is respectful and obedient. We know that that's why they got rid of Vashti, but that's not how they prioritize their search for it. They start by searching for a young version who is beautiful, giving them beauty treatments. In fact, I want to get into those beauty treatments.

Because they are. They are insane. Here they are. In Esther chapter two, verse 12. Before a young woman's turn came to go into King Exerci, she had to complete 12 months, so that's a year, 12 months of beauty treatments prescribed for the women. Six months with oil of Myrrh and six with perfumes and cosmetics.

Now. We're gonna look at how Esther is natural versus, you know, all the artificial beauty, though she does go through these treatments, we're gonna talk about that. However, it is imperative that we backtrack, right? So we're gonna start with who is Esther in introducing her. So in chapter two, verse seven, it says, Mordecai had a cousin named Hadassah, whom he had brought up because she had neither father nor mother.

This young woman who was also known as Esther, had a lovely figure and was beautiful. Mordecai had taken her as his own daughter when her father and mother died. Now this is a great quote right here for a couple reasons. One, I want to reference back another quote of scripture. I don't have the exact passage and chapter for you, but I know it by heart, which is though my father and mother forsake me.

It is the Lord who receives me. So we see here Esther is an orphan. So we already see right now a a story and historical account of the redemption of Orphanhood. You know, God wants us to have a father and mother, right? That is divine design. But because of the sin of this world, families are torn apart.

There's a lot of, you know, marriages made in an immorality that separate. However, we see the redemption of an orphan right here. And what do we know That God receives her? God receives her very well. He appoints her to be a queen. The, the salvation of the Jewish people at this point in time. We also see that Esther had a lovely figure and was beautiful.

So this is a godly woman who serves a godly purpose, who is lovely and beautiful. So loveliness and beauty is not evil. A lot of people say the Bible is misogynistic because the downfall of many men was a beautiful, lovely woman. And so obviously beauty and loveliness is villainized. There are historical accounts of that, right, Bathsheba, Delilah, right?

We have women whose beauty was used for evil or led to the downfall of men. You know, Delilah weaponized her beauty. Bathsheba did not. But here we have a godly woman with a godly purpose who is beautiful and lovely and is not evil. It is honoring, it is serving a purpose, and so the Bible does not villainize or weaponize women or beauty.

There are accounts on both sides of how beauty can be used. One account God's purpose, the other evil. And I, I don't want this sermon to come off as men are not held responsible for their actions, right? Men who lust after beauty, they distort it. They are in the wrong. Now, I want to go over something that many people don't really look at is that Esther isn't her real name.

Her name was Hadassah, and we don't know why they say she's also known as Esther other than probably the fact that they were trying to hide her nationality, right? Mordecai had commanded her to hide her nationality, which we see throughout the historical account until the second half. So most likely they changed her name to Esther to be more Persian in nature.

And we're gonna go over that name. So Hadassah, right? It comes from Hadas, which is Myrtle Tree in Hebrew. Right. And a Myrtle tree is, we know historically, if you look at the names in the Bible, they do not lack meaning. In fact, they serve great meaning and purpose. And so we look at Isaiah chapter 55, verse 13.

We see restoration and blessing symbolized in scripture through the Myrtle Tree. Instead of the thorn bush will grow the juniper, and instead of Breyers, the myrtle will grow. Right. The myrtle is replacing thorns and breyers and it's beauty replacing curse. And that's powerful in relation to the story of Esther, because we know that she's an orphan.

She's in exile, she's in a pagan empire, but she's used as salvation for the people at the time, right? So we see the, the curse and rule of pagan leaders of the, the, all this prosperity that was supposed to be the Jewish peoples. We see that slowly being replaced with Queen Esther, right? She's a, a myrtle growing in Persian soil, for lack of better words.

And in Zechariah chapter one verses eight through 11, it mentions Myrtle trees in a vision associated with God, watching over his people during foreign domination. And what is the historical account of Esther? It is the Jewish people. Under foreign domination, and though God is not mentioned by name, we see constant alignment of God's people being saved.

I mean, the Book of Esther could, you could read it and say It is coincidence after coincidence, after coincidence if you did not believe and know that God was lining everything up. I mean, everything is like you look at, for example, if you're not familiar with the text, this, hopefully I can give you enough context here.

The King, for some reason is restless one night. He's like, read to me the stories about my life. Right? And you could have a chuckle there at that. He says, read to me about myself, so I might fall asleep. And they're reading it and they say there was a, a Jewish man named Mordecai who saved the life of the king by, you know, he had reported that to conspirators were gonna assassinate the king.

They were guards that had grown disgruntled with the king. We don't know exactly why, but King Xes is like, whatever happened to this man? And let's bless him. And then the man who's trying to kill him walks in immediately after that. And then, you know, the king asked him, how should we bless this man? The king favors this man who walked in was, Hey man.

And he thinks it's him. So he tells his stuff and you know, so if you read it, you'll understand the great irony and like uncanny timing of everything and, and it's almost, we could say. We can speculate rather that God put a spirit of un restlessness, of, of, or restlessness, you know, on the king that night, so that he did not sleep right, because if the king had just gone to bed, he would've forgotten about Mordecai.

Haman would've came into the court and said, I'd like to kill Mordecai and all the Jewish people, and the king would've said, all right, sounds good. Which initially he did because he didn't realize, but. We see that God is watching over his people in a foreign domination just as referenced in Zaria, and that's what we see here now, her Persian name Es star, right?

And people pronounce it Esther as well. There's a few speculations, last theories about it. Many scholars connected to the Persian goddess Ishtar, right? But there's a second meaning that people take from a root. This possible meaning really aligns with everything we're talking about. It comes possibly from the root meaning hidden.

And what do we see? We see that God is quote hidden throughout the historic whole count that Esther has her nationality and you know, later uses it for the salvation of the people, right? So we look at it. God names never appears. Right. He is hidden, yet sovereign. And then we see Hadassah meaning myrtle, which is covenant beauty, along with Esther, which is God's providence hidden in exile.

We know that myrtle is not towering like a cedar, or it's not flashy like a palm tree. It's not this big, you know, flashy plant. It's not louder. It's fragrant. It grows low and steady across the ground, thriving even in rough terrain. And that's what we see with the historical account of Esther. You know, it's similar to biblical beauty.

And so fast forward going back to, you know, Esther's turn for the quote, beauty pageant unquote, when the turn came for Esther, the young woman, Mordecai, had adopted the daughter of his uncle Abha to go to the king. She asked for nothing other than what head guy, the King's Euch, who was in charge of the Harem suggested, and Esther won the favor of everyone who saw her.

What we see here is trust in God. We see I'm not gonna ask for anything special. Whatever is given to me, I will use with my natural. Now the king was attracted to Esther more than to any of the other women, and she won his favorite and approval more than any of the other virgins. So he set a royal crown on her head and made her queen instead of Vashti.

And so we see favor upon Queen Esther. We see her natural beauty taking her place is God using her beauty to have this greater purpose. And we see that trust in, in God. And so. One of the things we see nowadays is a lot of people not being okay with their bodies 'cause of social media, people getting, I hate to say it and I, I don't want to villainize it, but it's true.

All these plastic surgeries. From breast implants to butt lifts, to you know, penis enlargement, surgeries to you know, how I hate to be crude, but all these different surgeries, Botox in the face, you know, all this stuff. We see the beauty of God distorted. We see us taking into our own hand, our own hands, like we need to make ourselves more beautiful.

God made us beautiful. Aging and this, you know, distortion of our skin and our body parts over time is the result of sin, right? God didn't want it for us, but he certainly doesn't want us to artificially try to fight these consequences of sin and make our own beauty. I, and I just wanna go through fast forward to one of the most important parts of the.

Historical account investor in chapter four, verse 14, for if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father's family will perish and who knows that, that you have come to your royal position for such a time as this. I want to talk on this.

I know it's a little sidetracked from the beauty parts, but I think this is really important. One, it talks again about one of about not being a bystander. We have seen in several other historical accounts, especially Ezekiel, that we are not called to be bystanders. We are called to do god's will, to share God's will and to intervene when morally sound.

Here we see, you know, the consequences for not bystanding or for, sorry for bystanding and not acting. And the last question and who knows, but that you have come to your royal position for such a time as this. Oftentimes in life, we end up somewhere where we didn't expect it or we don't understand it, and we don't realize that God is serving a purpose with it.

We are to always look at where we are in life and what can we do to serve God's purpose. Everything we do should be to serve God and others. Right. So he's saying you are a queen. Yes. It wasn't just to. Have this relaxed life. God is using it for a purpose. God is using your beauty for a purpose, right?

Your royal position. So I think we should take a step back and look at where we are and how can we use this, how. How would God want to use this? And you might be saying to yourself, I don't know what God wants. I don't know what I'm supposed to do. And I would tell you, get into the scripture, get into prayer.

Right? God will show you what he has prepared for you, and he will show you how to use that position for the greater good, for the salvation and blessing of many. And going through the rest of Esther, we, there's not much else to talk about, but. Something that's interesting, which is here in Esther chapter six, you look at verse 13.

I just wanna share this. I know it's again, a little astray from the beauty part, but it is perm. So I wanna speak on this and say, and told Zish, his wife and all his friends, everything that had happened to him. This is speaking of Haman, after he went to try to go, you know, plot revenge even further about Mordecai, and then the king honors him instead.

And told Zish, his wife and all his friends, everything that had happened to him, his advisors and his wife, Zish said to him, since Mordecai before whom your downfall has started is of Jewish origin, you cannot stand against him. You will surely come to ruin. Now, hold on. What this implies is a fear of those of Jewish origin because of their God.

And that's not me, just speculating. This is a pattern in the Bible. Look at Jonah. They cast lots to see whose God quote is the cause of the storm that's going to destroy the ship. And they ask him, where are you from? Who are you from? And he says, I serve the Hebrew God maker of heaven and Earth. And they all say What you?

You're gonna kill all of us. That like they have a fear of the God of the Hebrew. Even though they don't believe in that, God, we've seen this in other accounts where people are afraid of the Jewish people because they have seen their blessing upon them. They have seen, you know, and by their blessing, I mean the, the blessing that God bestowed upon them, they have seen God's protection in favor.

And so I think it's so interesting that here in Esther, they say the man. Speaking of Mordecai before whom your downfall has started is of Jewish origin. You cannot stand against him. You will surely come to ruin. And I just think it's so interesting that we see, again, this recognition from other people, and this is what I want to say.

Sometimes we don't even recognize God as much as our enemies do. Think about that. Are our enemies more afraid of God than we are?

And then of course, you know the rest of Esther is just sharing about how this happened. And again, like I said in Esther chapter nine, it establishes that all who should join them celebrate per, and so that's where we are today. And that kind. It wraps up our overview of Esther. Now, I just wanna get into looking at how modern society has distorted beauty.

Now we see that beauty nowadays is based on sexualization, right? We know that every, it's about 10 to 15 years, but really just periodically throughout history and time, the beauty standards change. We know that every culture has different beauty standards. So I'm speaking mainly for America. I'm not speaking for the, you know, the Asian cultures or the African cultures or European.

Strictly speaking on the majority of American culture and especially the culture that is online, we see that beauty is equivalent to sexualization. So the more busty you are, right, we see that. What makes someone more beautiful is the size of their penis, the size of their breast, the size of their buttocks, right?

We see sexualization, we see what makes a girl beautiful, right? If her tongue is split, how many, you know, how long her tongue is, right? We see, unfortunately, and again, this isn't everyone's personal standard. But in general, we see the monetization and the selling of these types of beauties, right? We see women with disabilities who are marketing their disabilities to make sexual content and money.

We see people with this is really evil. We see people putting on filters, AI or we see people putting on AI filters to look like they have Down Syndrome or other types of special education disabilities to market their sexualized you know, services such as these digital online platforms where you can view images and videos of them, the collaborations, right?

We see this continuous sexualization of everything and we see that beauty. It's based off of that sexualization, right? Like I said, the busts, the thickness, the length, the height. We see so many people judging men and women, both men and women, but especially judging women based off of their sexualization rather than the content of their character, right?

Again, outward beauty is a good thing, but we see it being monetized and sexualized, not. Honored and for their partner, we see public display rather than private sharing. And so I think, you know, there is a big difference between beauty and lust, but the line between them has become more and more distorted as we have gone throughout history, especially as we have gone into this digital harem era.

And so. What I want the takeaway to be isn't like beauty is wrong, lust is, you know this. I want to get into how you can reframe your mind around. Beauty is covenantal. It is honoring. It is God designed. It is for your marital partner. And it's not something to hide from everyone if you are honoring God with it and using it to serve a purpose.

But that purpose shouldn't be sexualization or money, and that's what we've seen. So my takeaway for you is to look at. Your beauty and say, how can I use my beauty to honor God and serve others? And how can I hold the people in my life accountable who are using their beauty as sexualization and public display and, and for evil gain?

What can I do to not tempt others with my beauty in a lustful way, but to pursue honorable relationships relationships that honor God and one another. So I think that's really important and I ask you to look out for one another. You know, honor each other's beauty, compliment each other's beauty.

But do not let lust lead you astray. Do not be sexualized or monetized. And to remember that beauty isn't wrong. You know, there's a lot of people who are believers who kind of say that beauty is secularization. It's not Beauty is God design. It is the distortion of it that is evil. And so I ask that you go forward from the sermon thinking.

How can I use my beauty for a greater purpose and serve others? And how can I be honoring covenantal just as Esther was? She was a natural beauty, and her beauty was used by God to save the Jewish people from Annihilation on that day. And maybe your purpose isn't as grand as that, but maybe it is to win a beauty pageantry and to share a testimony to God.

Maybe it is to get. Favor. And again, I don't mean favor in in those kinds of ways, but to have things align in your life for that greater purpose. And so I ask that you not weaponize beauty, but that you honor it and ask God how to use it. And so with all that being said, I hope that you have a great per If it is something that you're going to research or celebrate, I highly encourage that.

I think it is an amazing thing to do. I think even if you're not Jewish, like I said, it is for all people and if you are a believer and you believe that God is working in your life, even when you don't acknowledge or credit him, then you should be partaking in this holiday. Today is a day of fasting and you know, there is a time of celebration and Purim celebrates, also giving to the poor and you know, celebrating and being serving.

And so I asked that. You know, what are you hiding in your life that is a talent that God wants to use for a greater purpose, and when is the right time to reveal that? I.