GLENN'S BIBLE STUDY
Title: THE POWER OF BEAUTY
by Pastor Glenn Pease
THE POWER OF BEAUTY
Based on Esther 2:5-18
By Pastor Glenn Pease
In its 4,000 years of history only one woman became Emperor of China
with absolute power. She was Wu tes-t'ien. She got to the throne of China
for the same reason Esther got to the throne of Persia. She was a startling
beauty. As a young girl she was renowned
for her beauty, and the Emperor made her his concubine. Ordinarily a concubine
like her would be relegated to secluded quarters, after the death of the
Emperor. She would live her life out in quiet retirement. She was so beautiful,
however, that the son of the Emperor
also desired her as a concubine. She was not only beautiful, she was clever.
She bore him several sons, and then promoted them among the leaders as the
legitimate heirs to the throne. She gained many political allies, and so
maneuvered behind the scenes that when the Emperor suffered a crippling
stroke, she was made Empress in 655 A.D. She was brilliant as well as beautiful,
and was excellent in administration. She cut taxes, won a war,and had a
united prosperous country under her long reign.
It is rare, but
the fact is, there are many cases in history of women doing an excellent
job of leading a whole nation. One thousand years before Esther, in 1520
B.C. Hatshepst became the first woman Pharaoh of Egypt, for 21 years she
reigned, and glorious monuments exist to praise her success. When Julius
Caesar marched into Egypt in 48 B.C. there was a vicious dispute going on
as to who the next ruler should be. Should it be Pothinius or his sister
Cleopatra. Cleopatra wanted to plead her case before Caesar, but she knew
if she tried to get to him her brother would have his spies kill her. Nobody
would dare interfere with a gift for Caesar, however, and so a beautiful
oriental carpet was sent from her palace to Caesar. Imagine his surprise
when the carpet was unrolled and a 19 year old girl stepped out to announce
she was Cleopatra, the rightful Queen of Egypt. Caesar fell in love with
her beauty, and she did become the Queen.
If you want to read of how Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Spain, England,
and other nations, were all ruled by greatly honored women, you can find
these fascinating histories in Mildred Boyds book, Rulers In Petticoats.
My interest in these stories for our study of Esther is that they confirm
what we see to be a major theme of this book, and that is, there is power
in beauty. Women know it, and that is why one of the largest industries
in the world is the beauty industry. Billions are spent each year by women
who know their greatest asset is in looking beautiful. Brains and other
qualities are also vital, but it is beauty that opens the door for these
other gifts to get a chance to function.
Many modern women admit they use beauty to their advantage in industry.
They say they dress in a deliberate attempt to win favor with those who
have power, and thereby they are raised to positions of power themselves.
If conflict is developing between them and a male boss, they can calm the
waters by coming on with some feminine charm. In beauty contests there
is nothing subtle and hidden. They are on open display to win prizes, prestige,
and power by means of beauty. Many object to the whole emphasis on beauty
as pagan perversion. They feel nothing is more secular than the parading
of female bodies before the world.
The book of Esther, however,
forces us to focus on this type of secular scene, for God in His providence
uses just such a beauty contest to save his people. It was Esther's beauty
that got her into the palace, and into a position of power where she could
be used to save her people. No other quality but beauty could have gotten
her there. King Xerxes was not looking for a female genius, or the best
woman runner, or sports figure. He was looking for beauty. His demand
for beauty was far beyond what is demanded for a Miss America or Miss Universe
contest. His contestants had to spend one solid year doing nothing but
beautifying themselves just to spend a night with him. After a year of
using oils, spices, and ointments, they would be as soft and smooth as a
baby.
Esther had to have been one of the most beautiful women to
ever live. Out of all the beautiful girls of the Empire, she won the favor
of Hegai, the keeper of the women. Verse 15 indicates she was also voted
Miss Congeniality by the other girls, for she was favored by all who saw
her. Now this really is a Cinderella story in that, aside from her beauty,
Esther had all sorts of disadvantages. She was a poor orphan in a foreign
land, and part of a minority group. Fortunately for her she had a relative
who took her in when her parents died. Mordecai was her cousin, but he
adopted her as his daughter. Here is a rare case of cousins becoming father
and daughter.
Her Hebrew name was Hadassah. That is not a name
known to us, but the largest Jewish organization of women in the world is
called Hadassah, and they support the Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem. Esther
was her Persian name and this has become more popular among Gentiles. Esther
means star. Estelle and Stella come from the same root.
Take female beauty out of this book, and the star is gone. This poor adopted
orphan would never have been heard of in history had she not been blest
with beauty. Even with her beauty would she have won the contest with all
her competitors had she not spent a year using all of the beauty aids available
in her day?
The Bible puts you in a real bind if you are dogmatically
against beauty aids, for they were part of the providential plan of God
that saved the Jewish race. Dr. William Stidger, one of the great American
preachers, and author of over forty books, comes on strong in favor or beauty
aids. He writes, "As far as I am concerned.....there is something sacred
in the everlasting passion women have for making themselves more beautiful.
I have no sympathy with these reformers who find nothing more important
to do than harangue women for using rouge, powder, clothes, and what have
you, to make themselves more beautiful."
Certainly we can all agree,
there is nothing spiritual or superior about being unclean, unkempt, and
unpresentable for public viewing. All of us enjoy beauty, but like all
good things, this too is so easily perverted. Conrad Hilton, the multimillionaire
owner of the Hilton hotel's around the world, was once married to Zsa Zsa
Gabor. He discovered that with her, beauty was a full time affair. She
started at ten in the morning before her dressing table. He says it was
a ritual with bottles, jars, and pots, both large and small.
It could have been the rite of ancient Aztex temple. After lunch and shopping
it was back to the dressing table for more make-up, and agonizing decisions
on furs and jewelry. Hilton learned first hand about the idolatry of beauty,
and of how impossible it is to live with a woman who is obsessed with vain-glory.
So what we have in the power of beauty is another paradoxical power. It
can drive you to the heights of virtue, or plunge you to the depths of vice.
It can lead to one praising God for this gift, or it can lead to pride that
competes with God. It has the power to produce stories of victory, or stories
of vanity. One of the reasons women are so effective in taking the Gospel
into all the world is there beauty. Beauty attracts, and if the attracter
points to God, her beauty is a stepping stone into the kingdom of beauty,
the kingdom of God. Many have the testimony of the poet-
The might of one fair face sublimes my love,
For it hath wean'd my heart from low desires;
Nor death I need, nor purgatorial fires.
Thy beauty-ante-past of joys above
Instructs me in the bliss that saints approve,
For Lo! How good, how beautiful must be
The God that made so good a thing as thee.
Is by the power of beauty that women have had their fair share of the
control of history. By beauty the weak can master the strong, and Esther
decides the course that the absolute monarch will take. The Biblical ideal
of female beauty involves the mental as well as the physical. Brainless
beauty is a joke. Prov. 11:22 says, "Like a gold ring in a swine's snout
is a beautiful woman without discretion." In other words, a beautiful woman
has to use the inside of her head as well as the outside to have any real
power in her beauty. Capito wrote, "Beauty alone, may please, not captivate;
If lacking grace, tis but a hookless bait."
Beauty can be superficial, and without depth, and this is what has
led to the saying that beauty is only skin deep. Prov. 31:30 agrees when
it says, "Charm is deceitful and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the
Lord is to be praised." So we come again to the paradoxical nature of beauty.
It can be vain, but it can also be a great value. It is the paradoxical
nature of reality that leads to so much overreaction, and imbalance in our
thinking. Because everything that is good can also be bad, and perverted,
so as to become a source of evil, there is the constant temptation of abandoning
what is good to avoid that danger. All through history Christians have
abandoned what is good, and left Satan free to use it as a tool for evil.
Just as tanks abandoned on the battlefield will be used by the enemy to
fight those who abandoned them, so beauty, when abandoned by Christians,
will be used by enemy forces against Christians.
The value of studying
the book of Esther is that it forces us to reevaluate our views on the secular
realm of life. It forces us to look at beauty as a tool in the hands of
God, and it forces us to ask questions about beauty, as it did about pleasure.
What we find when we search the Scripture is that beauty is no minor issue
in God's plan. It is basic and vital to the plan of God, and not just for
the saving of Israel, but for saving all men from the pit of hell. It is
no surprise that God is portrayed in the Bible as ultimate beauty. After
all, He is the author of all beauty. Someone said, "God is not only the
all-wise and all-powerful, but the all-beautiful." In Psa. 27:4 all that
David longs for is to dwell in the house of the Lord and to behold the beauty
of the Lord. The hope of all believers is to see the King in His beauty.
When that great event takes place, we will all partake fully of His beauty,
and become perfected, and be like Him.
The goal of God is that all
the redeemed might be like Jesus. To be glorified is to be beautified with
the beauty of Jesus. But beauty is not just the goal, it is a powerful
element of the Christian life on the way to the goal. Three times the palmist
says we are to "Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness." The power
of worship is in beauty. Beauty runs through the Bible, and we are called
upon to behold it over and over. There is the beautiful robe, beautiful
women, a beautiful situation, a beautiful heaven, a beautiful crown,
a beautiful gate, and even the beautiful feet of those who proclaim the
Gospel. There are numerous beauties in the temple, and there is the beauty
of wisdom.
Jonathan Edwards, one of the greatest American preachers,
came to the conclusion, as he studied the Bible, that beauty was really
at the very heart of all theology. We tend to think of beauty as a secular
subject, but he made it the heart of his sacred theology. This man changed
the course of history in America, and he made beauty the unifying theme
of theology. He could see what most Christians never notice. God is beautiful,
and all that He does is beautiful, and so the good and the beautiful are
one. We could not love God if He was not beautiful. If He was only powerful,
He could force us to do His will, but He could not force us to love Him.
Love is a response we can only give to beauty. If we had no revelation
of God's beauty in nature, or in the plan of redemption, we could not love
God. God could only win man's love by the power of beauty.
It works the other way also. Man is ugly in sin, and so it would be
hopeless for us to have fellowship with God, but Jesus became a man, and
by the beauty of His holiness, and the beauty of His sacrifice, the way
was opened for all to become beautiful, and, thereby acceptable to God.
Grasping the loveliness and the supreme excellency of our Lord is the beginning
of the victorious Christian life. Those who do not see the beauty of Christ
will not have the motivating power to follow Him. They will be sidetracked
constantly by the superficial beauties of worldliness. All the fruits
of the spirit are expressions of the beauty of Jesus in human life.
Edwards said, "God is the foundation and the fountain of all being and all
beauty." Sin is a deformity and lack of beauty. All have sinned and fall
short of the glory of God. That is, no one measures up to the beauty God
intended for them. They are all defective. To be saved is to be restored
to the place where you have the right to begin the process of beautification.
The doctrine of sanctification is really a doctrine of beautification.
To grow in Christlikeness is the same as growing in beauty. Beauty is the
measure of God's presence, just as ugliness is the measure of God's absence.
If a man is insensitive to beauty, and can see no beauty in life, or in
people, he is alienated from God. The man who sees most beauty, and is
full of appreciation for it, is the man closest to God.
When all beauty is gone, and all of life is ugly, that is when people
take their own life, for the loss of all beauty is hell. In hell there
will be no beauty, and in heaven there will be nothing but beauty. One's
relationship to beauty in this life is the measure of the hell on earth,
or the heaven on earth, that one experiences. The only way to get heaven
on earth is to see the beauty of heavenly things, and the loveliness of
God's way. Only those captivated by the power of beauty will be open to
the working of God's Spirit. Edwards says that in the hierarchy of values,
first is existence, and then excellence; first is being and then beauty.
Anything defective in beauty is defective in being.
The ability to discern what is truly beautiful from what is only superficial
beauty is the key to the abundant life. Jesus only used the word beautiful
once in the New Testament record, and it was a warning about the danger
of superficial beauty. In Matt. 23:27-28 we read, "Woe to you, Scribes
and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly
appear beautiful, but within they are full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness.
So you also outwardly appear righteous to men, but within you are full of
hypocrisy and iniquity. Here is surface beauty. It has no depth, and is
mere veneer.
Superficial beauty is Satan's primary method of deception.
All men chose what they feel is beautiful. The first sin of choosing the
forbidden fruit was made very attractive. All sin is made to seem beautiful.
Satan does not expect anybody to be tempted by the ugly.
He knows God made man in His image, and so He knows man is made to select
the beautiful, and shun the ugly. So he can only attract men to evil by
making it seem beautiful. People chose folly for the same reason they chose
wisdom. It looks good, and seems like the best way to go. The liquor adds
portray the camaraderie of the bar. Sports
and sex, and all that seems adventurous is linked to this drug, for drunkenness
is not attractive or beautiful. They never show the dead and twisted bodies
of drunk drivers. They never show the ugliness of the vomit, and the awful
agony of families ruined by drinking. Evil can only survive by using the
power of beauty to attract.
God wants us to chose beauty. We are
made to do so, and in Christ we are given the Holy Spirit, who will lead
us to chose the highest in beauty. Christian morality and ethics are built
around beauty. Whatever is truly beautiful, and by truly beautiful I mean
lasting
beauty, is right. What is wrong is that which may have temporary beauty,
but which leads to permanent ugliness. Christian maturity is growing in
your discernment so that you can see the whole, and not just the part.
Much of life is beautiful in part, but awful in the whole.
A poison snake is beautiful in part, as are poison berries, but they are
not wise choices, for as a whole they are ugly and destructive. The power
of evil lies in its use of superficial and partial beauty to entice men
to chose the way of folly. Evil is a parasite which depends
on what is good for its existence.
This brings us back to Xerxes
and Esther. It is because Xerxes lives for beauty and pleasure that God
was able to use his choice for His own purpose. Pagan people, all through
history, have chosen what they feel is beautiful. This does lead to great
evil because of Satan's deception, but let us remember, the world is full
of true beauty as well, and even evil men often chose what is good because
of its beauty. Esther was a beautiful and godly woman. Her beauty went
to the heart, and was not just skin deep. Her beauty would be attractive
to most all men in history, pagan or Christian. The point is, Satan is
not the only one in the beauty business. God's providence also works through
beauty. The beauty of women is one of the key ways God has worked in history.
Esther in her day, and in our day, one of the great stories is that of Mei-ling,
better known as Madam Chaing Kai-shek. Chaing Kai-shek was a Chinese war
lord who was very successful in battle. One of the Christian families of
China sent their daughter
Mei-ling to America to be educated. When she returned, she was active
in the political and social affairs of the nation. On one occasion Chaing
Kai-shek's path crossed that of Mei-ling, and for him it was love at first
sight. He could not resist the charm and beauty of this Americanized daughter
of the Orient. We cannot go into the details of the long five year battle
to win her hand in marriage, but battle it was, for he was a godless immoral
warrior living with a concubine, and she was a beautiful Christian. His
love for her beauty
changed his history, and he became a Christian. He went on to become the
Generalissimo of China, and together they did great things for the cause
of Christ. It never would have happened without beauty.
What all
this means is that we need to keep a dual perspective on life, and especially
the secular life. Take beauty contest for example. Yes there is lust and
perversion of beauty, but do not forget, God is not shut out of that realm
of life. God is working through beauty, and often the winner of these contests
is a dedicated Christian woman. She goes on to touch many lives for Christ,
and all because she was beautiful.
Not all of us have the gift of
beauty that attracts kings, generals, and wide popularity, but all Christians
have gifts that are beautiful. All the gifts of the spirit are attractive,
and they are designed to attract others. Every Christian is to be a light
in a dark world attracting the lost to the Savior. Nothing is really finished
until it is fully beautiful, and that includes us. God will never be done
with us until we are perfectly beautiful. Beauty is our goal, and beauty
is what we need to pray for. The more beautiful we are in every aspect
of life, the more likely the providence of God will work through us to accomplish
His purpose, for there is power in beauty.
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