Esther 1:12 - Homiletics

The king's anger.

Scripture never spares the great. Their follies and vices are exposed and castigated. The Old Testament has some striking examples of the sin of anger and wrath. Moses gave way to temptation, and sinned in his anger. Nebuchadnezzar was full of fury when the Hebrew youths would not worship the golden image he had set up. Jonah was angry when Nineveh was spared, and when the gourd was withered. In all these cases there was no sufficient cause to justify wrath. So was it with Ahasuerus.

I. THE OCCASION OF THE KING 'S ANGER . His own drunken and foolish wish was thwarted, and thus his pride was wounded. "It is not for kings to drink wine, lest they drink and forget the law." The law of Solon punished a drunken magistrate with death. The wish of Ahasuerus was thwarted by a woman, and that woman his wife. He was not accustomed to meet with opposition or resistance to his will, and could ill brook his consort's disobedience. Circumstances heightened his anger. He had boasted of his wife's beauty and complaisance, and now, in the presence of his lords, to whom he had boasted, his vaunt was proved empty and vain.

II. THE UNREASONABLENESS AND FOLLY OF THE KING 'S ANGER . A monitor might have put to him the question, "Doest thou well to be angry?" If he had not been intoxicated with pride, as well as with wine, he would have blamed himself instead of his spouse, the queen. How much indefensible, unreasonable, and ridiculous anger there is in human society! How often the wrathful would do well to transfer their indignation from others to themselves! "Be ye angry, and sin not; let not the sun go down upon your wrath!" In those occupying high and prominent and influential positions, anger is very unseemly. Here was a man bearing rule over 127 provinces, and yet unable to rule his own spirit!

III. THE RESULTS OF THE KING 'S ANGER .

1 . It was tempered by counsel. Ahasuerus did not act at once under the impulse of his burning indignation and resentment. This was good. But he should have taken counsel of his own heart, and not of flatterers who ministered to his passions.

2 . It led him to part with his wife, and to proclaim his own folly in a public, imperial decree. The man who lashed the sea, who cruelly slew the eldest son of Pythius, who dishonoured the corpse of the brave Leonidas, was just the man to act as here described. It is true that the king's anger was overruled by Providence for good; but this is no palliation of his serious offence. We have in this narrative a warning against yielding to the impulses of capricious anger. There is a time to be angry; but we may well suspect ourselves when we are under the influence of vehement feeling of this kind. "Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation!" "Consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself." Christ left us "an example, who when he was reviled, reviled not again; when he suffered, he threatened not." "Blessed are the meek." "Forgive one another, even as God, for Christ's sake, hath forgiven you!"