Providence at Work

We are in the midst of understanding and exploring the story of Esther, which is one of the most amazing stories in the Bible.

And interestingly, the name of God does not appear in this book.

Prayer specifically is not mentioned in this book.

But the hand of God is clearly on Esther and all the participants that we read about.

God is at work.

Theologians call this truth, this doctrine, providence.

God is preserving all of his creatures, all of the time, in all of the events and circumstances of our lives.

It's an incredible thought when you think about it.

And we see it in this story of Esther.

By the way, I hope that many of you find getting the sermon text on your emails on Friday to be helpful.

To read, I know many of you do.

You tell me.

You begin reading and studying and praying when you get the email on Friday in preparation for Sunday, and that's a great way to go about preparation.

Well, this week it would be even more helpful because we asked you to read chapters 5 and 6.

I'm going to read chapter 7.

We pick up the story, and if you're new to the church or to the story of Esther, Esther is now the queen of Persia.

She replaced Queen Vashti.

Vashti refused the king's invitation to come into his court, and so she was replaced by Esther, a Jewish woman raised by an older cousin, Mordecai.

But because of her beauty and her charm, she found her way into the king's harem.

Talk about getting involved in the dirty politics of this world.

There she was in the king's harem.

And now she had a job to do because the king, King Xerxes' best friend, I suppose, the second in power, his name was Haman, an evil man.

Haman was really angry with Mordecai, Esther's cousin, because Mordecai refused to bow before him.

What a proud man Haman was.

And so now Haman has gone about manipulating the king to issue an edict that in eleven months all the Jews in the kingdom, and this is a kingdom that spread far, would be exterminated.

Haman didn't hate all the Jews.

He just hated this one Jew in particular.

Mordecai.

God, how can you let this happen?

How can you let all of your people be wiped out because of one evil man?

And so he gets word to Esther inside the palace.

Esther, you need to do something about this.

You're the only person that has the king's ear.

She says, I can't.

Don't you understand the way it works?

You never go uninvited into the palace to the king.

Because if he doesn't want to see you, it means the end of your life.

As a matter of fact, there are some reliefs, some pictures that we have in antiquity of the Persian king on his throne, and standing behind his throne is a man with a large axe.

And he's there to do the king's bidding.

When people make the king angry.

To make it even more dramatic, Esther hasn't been called into the king in 30 days.

And she tells Mordecai through a courier, I can't do it.

And then Mordecai, through prayer and fasting, Mordecai sends word back to Esther.

Esther, don't you think that God raised you up in this place at this time for such a time as this?

Don't you see that God has put you here to do something great and mighty?

Esther says, I need three days to think about it and pray about it.

We pick up the story.

So the king and Haman went into a feast with Queen Esther.

And on the second day, as they were drinking wine after the feast, the king again said to Esther, What is your wish, Queen Esther?

It shall be granted you.

And what is your request?

Even to the half of my kingdom it shall be fulfilled.

Then Queen Esther answered, If I have found favor in your sight, O king, and if it please the king, let my life be granted me for my wish, and my people for my request.

For we have been sold, I and my people to be destroyed, to be killed, and to be annihilated.

If we had been sold merely as slaves, men and women, I would have been silent, for our affliction is not to be compared with the loss to the king.

Then King Aheshuas said to Queen Esther, Who is he?

And where is he?

Who is dare to do this?

And Esther said, A foe, an enemy, this wicked Haman.

Then Haman was terrified before the king and the queen.

And the king arose in his wrath from the wine drinking and went into the palace garden.

But Haman stayed to beg for his life from Queen Esther, for he saw that harm was determined against him by the king.

And the king returned from the palace garden to the place where they were drinking wine, as Haman was falling on the couch where Esther was.

And the king said, Will he even assault the queen in my presence in my own house?

As the word left the mouth of the king, they covered Haman's face.

Then Harbona, one of the eunuchs and attendants on the king, said, Moreover, the gallows that Haman has prepared for Mordecai, whose word save the king, is standing at Haman's house, fifty cubits high.

And the king said, Hang him on that.

So they hanged Haman on the gallows that he had prepared for Mordecai.

Then the wrath of the king abated.

This is the reading of God's holy word.

Please pray with me.

Father, thank you that you indeed are a sovereign God who works all things according to your plan.

You did in Esther's day and you do today.

May we believe that.

What's going on around the world as well as what's going on in our own personal lives.

May we see it in a new way.

May we trust you in ever-growing ways.

Open the word before us this morning, Holy Spirit.

Amen.

So the story.

This morning I have four points, but they're really just story points, the plot.

We're going to consider a proud heart, an evil plan, a sleepless night, and a world under control.

A proud heart.

Haman.

Haman has manipulated the king so effectively to sign this decree to exterminate all the Jews in his kingdom.

It would have been a lot of Jews.

We don't know the exact number.

Why?

Well, again, not because Haman hates the Jewish people.

He has no beef with the Jewish people.

It's one Jewish man in particular that he hates.

Why?

Because Mordecai refuses to bow before him whenever he passes by.

Mordecai hung out in front of the gate of the palace to stay in contact with Esther as much as he could.

Now he had to send messages.

He couldn't go into the palace.

But so Mordecai is hanging out there.

Haman comes to the palace often.

He's really, think of Haman as second in command.

And every time Haman walks by, everyone else bows to him because he's a power monger.

He's a proud man.

And it just really bothers, it really bugs Haman.

How come he's not bowing to me?

Who is that man?

And it just starts to really grate on him.

Haman is a very proud man.

How ironic.

At the end of the story, Haman is going to be the one bowing.

Not only before the king, not only before Mordecai, but even Esther, which was unthinkable in that world at that time, for a man to bow before a woman.

Haman wasn't the first proud man, nor the last.

Who's the father of the proud?

Class.

Who's the father of the proud?

Satan, that's why he was kicked out of heaven.

Right?

That's why he was kicked out because of his pride.

And every time you see a really proud man or woman, that's just comes from Satan.

Satan was cast out because of his pride.

One day Satan will be crushed because of his pride.

Paul says in Romans chapter 16 that the day will come when we will participate in some mysterious way.

Romans 16 · chapter mention

We will participate in putting our foot on his neck in the crushing of Satan.

A proud heart, secondly, an evil plan.

Haman devises a plan again to exterminate the Jews.

He wasn't the first or the last with that plan, as we well know.

There's a memorial just a couple miles up the road, right?

There's a Holocaust memorial.

There have been others who have had that same plan to exterminate the Jews.

And so he goes and builds a gallows 75 feet high.

Now that's really high.

75 feet high.

These are the gallows that he prepares on which to hang Mordecai.

But interestingly, the scriptures tell us with all these literary effects.

Haman was an Amalekite.

And the Amalekites were the people that when the Israelites came out of Egypt centuries ago, the Israelites had to pass through the land of the Amalekites.

And the Amalekites said, no, you can't pass through our land.

We don't care who you are, we don't care whose God you have.

They did everything they could to wipe out the Jews, the Israelites, as they went through their land.

And so God was going to take care of that.

And years later, when King Saul, the first king of Israel, was in command, God gave a specific order to King Saul, wipe out the Amalekites.

They have evil on their hearts, they're getting in the way of my purposes.

Wipe out the Israelites.

And so King Saul musters up his army and he goes into battle and he destroys many, most of the Amalekites, but not all.

Some of you remember that that's where we read in the book of Samuel that Samuel the prophet is sent by God to go to him and say, Saul, why did you not obey God's clear command to wipe out the Amalekites?

And he said, Oh no, I did.

He said, No, you didn't.

Well, that's true, I'm not all of them.

I spared the king.

I spared probably, you know, the brightest of them.

And it's true, I kept some of the rewards, the plunder, the best.

But I did it mostly right.

And Samuel says, No, you didn't do it mostly right.

Because there's nothing like halfway obedience.

And you know that, right?

There's no such thing as partial obedience.

There's no such thing as taking the test and getting half right and saying, okay, that's alright, right, God?

He says, No, that's not alright.

When I give you a command, I expect you to obey me all the way.

I don't give you the right to change the terms.

Are you going to obey me or not?

And so God says to Samuel, You tell Saul that I am taking the kingdom of Israel away from him because he disobeyed me.

Now that was a steep price to pay for that disobedience.

This is all a backstory.

Haman's plan wasn't the most evil plan ever, but it was an evil plan.

Centuries later, another king we know would do his best to kill the king of the Jews, not just Mordecai.

You see how the gospel was just weaved in this story?

The gospel was weaved in all the stories of the Bible.

Sally Lloyd Jones says it so well in the children's Bible.

The name of Jesus is whispered in every story in the Bible.

Here it is.

The day would come when there would be even a more sinister plan of evil.

He reminds us of this.

We struggle not against flesh and blood, but against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.

Wow.

That is one of the most chockful paragraphs in the Bible.

We don't have time to dwell in this, but I'm going to read it again.

I want you to hear this.

We struggle not against just people, but against the cosmic powers.

Okay, there's a spiritual world, and there are spiritual beings, Satan himself in charge of evil.

But Satan has many angels and minions who work under him, who work for him, who like him are trying to destroy that which is good in this world, including us.

The present darkness.

I love that phrase.

Do you know the darkness is not going to continue forever?

Do you know the darkness that you see in this world, the darkness that you see in your life that you're up against is not going to last forever.

This present darkness.

That little phrase gives me so much hope.

Tom, hang in there.

Don't give up.

Don't give in.

Fight present darkness against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.

This was an evil plan.

Thirdly, a sleepless night.

Some of you here might have had a sleepless night last night, if you're a Nats fan.

Some of you are a little bit more tired this morning.

Disappointing game.

All right.

But this was a sleepless night far worse than ours.

God's providence is at work, all because the king could not sleep.

And this is what we read earlier, right?

So the king can't sleep.

And so he, in his insomnia, he doesn't take Tylenol P.M.

You know, he says to his court historian, read me a story.

But not a story fable, but read me the events of my kingdom.

And let me review the court records.

And so the court historian comes in and he starts reading.

And all of a sudden he gets to this part in the story where he reads about this man named Mordecai, who actually saved the king's life five years ago, when Mordecai, placed by God in front of the palace, overhears a plot by two of the king's attendants.

And Mordecai just happened to be there that day, right?

No, he was placed there by God.

And it gets the word to the king.

These two people that you think are with you and for you are against you, and they're plotting your death.

And so the assassination attempt is foiled.

And the king is laying, I guess, in his bed, trying to go to sleep.

Wait a minute.

Who?

Tell me that story again.

Mordecai?

What have I done to reward that man?

Nothing.

Nothing.

He's not been rewarded.

And that was five years ago.

So the story pivots.

The sudden reversal, which leads ultimately to Haman's death and Mordecai's exaltation.

The king now determines to reward Mordecai that we read in chapter six.

What a masterful irony in this story.

You know, nobody writes a story like God.

Hollywood tries.

And actually, Hollywood does a pretty good job.

But if you really probe deep into the best movies that Hollywood comes out with, there's always a little gospel in the story.

Right?

There's always a good guy, there's always a bad guy.

In the end, the good guy wins, usually.

But there's this the antagonist, the protagonist, there's all these characters.

And it keeps you on the edge of your seat.

And it just kind of reaches out and grabs your heart.

It gets your emotions stirred.

A good story does.

God writes the best stories.

The king says, What shall be done to the man whom the king delights to honor?

Now, this is the next day.

Haman comes back into the palace.

I mean, Haman was this guy, he got to fly Air Force One.

He got all the king's perks and powers.

He had everything at his disposal.

So Haman goes back into the palace, and the king says, Haman, I've got an idea.

I want to reward the man in whom the king delights.

And you know what Haman's thinking, right?

Well, that that must be me.

What should I do for the man in whom The king delights.

And hear this arrogant man going for the gold.

Well, King, I have an idea.

That's a good question.

I'm glad you asked me.

I think that what you should do is put your own royal robes on that man.

Leave that, let that man go through the city gates, let everyone bow before him, pay him homage.

Haman's thinking that's going to be me.

Little does he know.

Can you imagine how his heart dropped when the king looked at him and said, Let it be done for Mordecai?

Has there ever been a greater shock in any conversation?

Mordecai?

No, no, no, no.

But he can't really say that because this is the king.

And they're friends, but the king is clearly in power.

At this point, Esther speaks up.

Esther says, she took the risk of approaching the king.

She did that, right?

After 30 days going in.

She had a big decision to make.

Is she going to remain under cover or is she going to reveal her true identity?

As we saw two weeks ago, who was Esther becoming?

And this is the question for you.

Who are you becoming?

Was she going to be, because up till now the king didn't even know she was a Jew.

She kept that secret.

I mean, why not?

She wasn't required to.

She was being treated so well.

But now she has to take a stand.

And so she takes a stand.

And she speaks to the king.

And she says, King, have you heard you know about the edict that in 11 months all the Jewish people are going to be wiped out?

King, I'm a Jew.

And now the king is just in a quandary.

He's already signed the edict.

But who was Esther becoming?

I think I read this quote a couple weeks ago by Leland Richin.

And Leland Riken just reminds us that Esther is the only person in the story with two names.

Her Hebrew name, Hidasa, and her Persian name, Esther.

Riken reads this as an indication of the identity crisis that Esther was faced with after being raised as a Jew, but now she's in the king's court where she must live as a pagan.

Her Jewish character led her to obey Mordecai, which means paradoxically that she must change.

She must become bold and courageous.

She had found favor in the king's court, enabling her to become an agent through whom God would fulfill his promises to his people, whether she was aware of it or not.

Up to this point, Esther was pretending to be a pagan.

She was controlled by her circumstances.

She has been passive in the story, not initiating action, but following along the path of least resistance.

But now, God says it's time, Esther, to step up.

It's time to become the person I made you to be.

It's time to find your gospel boldness and courage and faith.

And you know this is not just for Esther.

You know this is for you.

You know this is for me.

I don't know what that looks like in your life.

I have to learn day by day what it looks like in my life.

But Esther is not the only one.

God is calling each of us to step up in new ways, to find our identity in Christ, not in trying to fit in with the world.

This is all going on.

All going on.

The fourth point is that there is a world that's under control, and it's under the control of a loving king who's got it all in his hands.

And even when it seems like evil is winning, he's in charge.

Esther takes the risk of approaching the king.

She makes a big decision.

She's going to reveal herself.

And she says to herself, if I perish in trying to save my people, I perish.

Esther experienced great spiritual growth in this time of her life.

And yes, it required a trial.

It usually does.

Without the Holy Spirit's transforming work in her life, she would never reach that spiritual ceiling in her life.

Are you thinking about that spiritual ceiling, friends?

I'm not going to let us forget.

Where's that ceiling?

Where's that spiritual ceiling for you?

Are you bumping your head against it right now?

Are you falling into the lie of believing that you've pretty much tapped out to your spiritual growth?

And you're believing that because you just are living your life by what you've seen, what you've experienced.

You're not yet learning how to live your life by the promises of God.

Don't spend the rest of your Christian life determining your spiritual sealing by what you've already experienced.

Open up the Word of God, invite the Spirit of God into your heart, into your life, and say, God, I need you to give me faith, to trust your promises, and your spiritual sealing is going to be much higher than you realize.

Esther had to find her true identity as a daughter of God, not just a queen of Xerxes.

She must be prepared to leave the palace.

She must be prepared to die.

She didn't know how the story ends.

You get that, right?

We sit down here now and we read the story.

Oh, of course that's what happened.

She didn't know that.

She might very well have died as far as she knew.

If I perish, I perish.

But I will leave the palace.

I will not live for the palace.

I will not live for the perks of this world.

And as we saw two weeks ago, that points us to the one who left the biggest palace.

And when Jesus left the palace to come to earth, to be born as a baby, and to live among sinful people who rebel against him, that he might one day redeem them and free them.

Jesus knew full well that it was not if I perish, when I perish.

Esther was stepping up.

Esther is not the hero of this story, as we said two weeks ago.

Mordecai is not the hero.

They point us to the God who is the hero, Jesus Christ.

But we too must be prepared to leave our palaces.

And so Esther now speaks up and reveals her identity.

I'm the Jew.

And the king now wants to know when she says, My people will perish, she says, Well, who is he who is behind this evil plan?

Where is he?

The king is furious.

And she says, It's Haman.

You can picture the tense moment, the drama in the room?

Haman?

The king looks at his best friend, Haman, and he gets furious.

He goes outside, like maybe some of us do when we get really angry.

Just step away.

He goes outside.

What am I going to do now?

Because of this evil edict.

What does Haman do?

He does the very thing you just don't do.

He gets on the couch with the queen.

There's actually a Persian law that no man would ever step from the queen.

And he not only comes within seven steps, but now pleading for his life, thinking that he can get Esther to save his life, he falls on the couch, probably not to molest her, but probably just to plead with her.

But the king comes back in, and what does the king say?

Now his anger just goes to a whole new level.

Wait a minute.

Now you're trying to take advantage of my queen.

What a story.

So the king says to his attendants, you take Haman to the gallows that he built for Mordecai, and you hang Haman on that gallows.

God's providence in our lives, the events that lead up to his good.

And we're here this morning not just to think about Esther and Mordecai, but what about you?

One person put it like this: the most significant work of God in your life comes about through chains of events, each of which probably seemed unimportant at the time.

How were you converted?

Where were you?

Did you just happen to be someplace where someone presented the gospel to you?

No.

God planned it.

God made it happen.

You're not here by accident.

You're not on this earth by accident.

You're not in this sanctuary this morning by accident.

God never wastes anything in our lives.

The place that he places you, the pain that he permits in your life, as well as the purpose for his great plan.

But don't expect to see it all unfold right before your eyes.

It just doesn't work that way.

Many times it just seems like the question is, where's God?

Oh, he's there.

And he's doing something spectacular for his glory and for your good.

The place he places you, the pain he permits in your life, and the purpose for the greater plan.

That's just who he is.

And that's just what he can do.

But ultimately, it is Jesus who's the story in the story.

Satan had the proudest heart of all.

Satan had the most evil of plans.

Who had the sleepless night?

Jesus.

The night before his death.

Yet there was a king in control.

And that king made sure that his plan came about just the right way.

God does use the greatest evil ever committed to accomplish the greatest good ever seen.

Friends, if God can do that with the plan of redemption to get your salvation, he can do it with your life story, whatever that may be.

The gospel.

The gospel is scattered and smattered all over this story.

In just a moment, we're going to sing a song about the great unknowns in our lives.

And there I will find you in the mystery.

Your grace abounds in deepest waters.

Spirit, lead me where my trust is without borders.

What would that look like for you to leave this room today to be able to believe that and pray that?

Spirit, lead me where my trust is without borders, where I'm not putting up conditions and saying, this I will do, God, but that I will not do.

Take me deeper than my feet could ever wander.

So we pray.

Please join me.

Father, we ask.

We ask you now by your Spirit to please open our minds, teach us, renew our minds, open our hearts, conquer our stubborn wills.

Lord, make us a people without borders of trust.

Give us eyes to see, even if we can't understand why everything's happening.

Give us faith to trust that your plan is best.

And that you are a good God.

And that you will bring good even from the hardest things that we can face in this life.

We can pray this because your son suffered the greatest evil.

We know that you are for us.

How could you be against us if your son delivered us?

Thank you, Jesus.

Amen.