Esther 8:11 – “The king’s edict granted the Jews in every city the right to assemble and protect themselves; to destroy, kill and annihilate any armed force of any nationality or province that might attack them and their women and children; and to plunder the property of their enemies.”

An interesting feature of the story of Esther is that even when the King discovers the plot to exterminate the Jews (Haman was planning to commit genocide), there was no measure taken to prevent this from occurring.  Instead, Mordecai and Esther convinced the King to authorize resistance by God’s people against their enemies.  This was partly due to an unusual feature of ancient Persian law, which made the previous edict irrevocable; the best they could do was try to offset it or cancel it out with an equal counter-measure.  Instead of prohibiting anyone from attacking the Jews, the new edict simply authorized the Jews to assemble and to protect themselves, and to destroy any who attacked them.

At the same time, it foreshadows prophetically what God would do through the faithful church.  When Jesus came, he defeated the Enemy by dying on the cross and rising again – just as Haman suffered defeat in Esther.  Even so, Jesus did not prevent all evil in the world from occurring thereafter; he did not even prevent persecution from coming upon the faithful church for hundreds of years.  Just as the King in Esther allowed the original genocide plot to stand, Jesus allowed this world to continue under the dominion of the evil one for the time being (see 1 John 5:19), but established the faithful church to advance and develop as a counter-measure.

This is hard for some people to understand, and the story of Esther provides a nice, clear illustration.  For us, Jesus has given us the authority or right to assemble and to preserve ourselves spiritually (of course, this has nothing to do with Christians using violence today, which would be unbiblical).

“For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms…”  (Ephesians 6:12).  We never need to resort to violence against other people in carrying out the Lord’s mission.  We do fight a spiritual war, however, to advance the Kingdom of God and to protect the faithful church within God’s project.

Assemble – For us, assembling points to the privilege God gave us to gather as the BODY, with the faithful church.  The first purpose of this is “to protect” ourselves spiritually.  There is spiritual safety, covering, and protection when we are in regular fellowship with other true believers, when we gather and actively participate in the service of the saints.  Today we assemble in the Body of Christ.  The Church is a body of believers who gather together in fellowship and prayer.  Great victories can occur this way.

THE RIGHT to assemble – God gives us the opportunity and the choice.  If we want to participate in what God is doing in the world, if we want to see His kingdom spread, we will actively participate in a faithful church.  Failure to do so may not be a sin or keep us from going to heaven, but we are more vulnerable to the attacks of the Enemy without gathering in the Body.  “Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.”  (Hebrews 10:25).

Destroy, kill, annihilate – The gates of Hell will not stand against the faithful church (Matthew 16:18).  It is not God’s intention today to justify a crusade or so-called “holy war,” but rather for us to use the “Means of Grace” to make progress.  This is our personal responsibility.

Two days – This points to the two periods of church history when Christians would best function as a Body in carrying out God’s plans – the early church and the faithful church of the Last Days.

Plunder – They did not avail themselves of this right (Esther 9:9 and Esther 9:15).  They were not concerned with materialistic gain, but with the preservation of God’s holy people.  We should have this mentality as Christians  – the purpose of God’s miracles and victories today is NOT for our materialistic gain, but for His project of salvation (eternal) to make more progress.

THAT MIGHT ATTACK – Spiritual attacks and struggles in this life will happen.  It is only a matter of time – yet God has already determined a victory and provided us all the resources we need to overcome victoriously.