"God Compels" Esther 4 Sunday Evening Worship Service

Tonight we look at Esther chapter four, which is really a story about the sovereignty of God over salvation.

In many ways, Esther chapter four parallels the book of Philemon, for example.

In the book of Philemon, the main message of the book of Philemon is that God's will is going to be done, but he calls on us to be obedient to his commands and to serve him.

Or this chapter parallels the truths taught in Ephesians chapter 1.

Ephesians 1 · chapter mention

Ephesians chapter 1, which teaches that God has the power to choose and to save whomever he wills, and that nothing will keep his children from coming to faith.

Ephesians 1 · chapter mention

And that basic truth in the Bible, that God chooses whom he will save, and that we have a responsibility to respond in faith, and that we have a responsibility to evangelize, those are two pillar truths of the Bible.

Anyone who denies either one of those truths has drifted away from what really is the clear teaching of Scripture.

So if somebody embarks on a journey that says, the Bible doesn't teach that God knows whom he will save, they've committed error.

The Bible certainly teaches that God knows whom he will save and that God will go save them.

That is a clear truth in the Bible.

Not one more or one less person than God has ordained will come to faith.

The Bible makes that incredibly clear.

The other truth, on the other hand, is that people have a responsibility to respond to God in faith and a responsibility to go in the world preaching the gospel.

And anyone who denies that truth also errs.

Anyone who says that because God will save whomever is going to save, it doesn't require a response from us, commits a serious error.

Or anybody who says that people don't have a responsibility to evangelize or to respond in faith commits a similar error.

And these two errors have been committed all through church history.

I mean, you can really line the road of the theology of the Christian church with both of those two errors.

On the one side, the first error is what's often called hyper-Calvinism or fatalism.

The idea that because God has chosen whom he will save, there's no need for a human response or no need for human action or no need for evangelism.

This was the attitude that some of the early missionaries, particularly I'm thinking of Hudson Taylor, ran into as he was trying to launch his mission to China and India, the inland Asian mission.

He ran into the opposition that if God wanted to save the heathen, he can do so without our help, without our partnership.

That's the air of hyper-Calvinism.

The idea that evangelism doesn't matter because God's going to do what God is going to do.

That's fatalism, and it is indeed a serious error.

On the other hand, if you have hyper-Calvinism on the one side, you have Arminianism on the other side, which would allege that the lack of personal evangelism could be the cause of someone going to hell.

The lack of personal evangelism could, if not the immediate cause, a secondary cause of someone going to hell.

There's a person out there who could conceivably be saved if only you would have done more evangelistic work, if only of you would have pled with them more, if only you would have been more persuasive, if only you would have invested more into missions and evangelism, there would be more in heaven, but because of our failure to do so, we have short-changed people who will now find themselves destined to hell.

The air of hypercalvinism produces lethargy or spiritual apathy.

The air of Arminianism produces a guilt that is unbearable.

A guilt that if we're not doing enough, people might be lost to eternal judgment.

How would a hypercalvinist go to work for the Lord?

Or how would an Arminian rest?

Rather, our confidence is in God's goodness.

It's not in that we have done all we can do.

You don't have confidence.

You're not able to put your head down on your pillow at night.

You're not able to come to terms with the fact that a loved one has died apart from the Lord by telling yourself you've done all that you could do.

Because who could ever say that?

Who could ever say, I've done all I could do to win the lost?

I have evangelized in every way I could, I made every appeal possible.

No one could ever say that in any situation.

There was always more to be done.

And so it's critical to understand that our confidence, our ability to sleep, comes from the fact, not that we have done all we can, but that God's plan is good and that he is in control.

I love the parable Jesus tells in this parable Mark 4, I believe, of the sower and the seed, where after sowing the seed, the little detail he drops in there that after sowing the seed, the farmer went home and took a nap.

I just love that little detail put in there.

That he sowed the seed.

Salvation isn't up to him, it's up to the Lord who produces the harvest.

The sovereignty of Christ should give us comfort.

There's no point in us staying up all night worried for anything in life.

You can tell the Lord, listen, Lord, one of us needs to stay up and worry about this.

And you don't sleep.

So I may as well go to bed.

But the hypher Calvinist just never gets up and goes to work.

He says, God, since you're doing such a good job at night, I don't need to labor during the day.

And of course the Bible teaches that there is work to be done in the daylight.

Labor as long as it is day.

Now these two truths are often pitted against each other as if they're contradictions.

Perhaps you've heard it said if if a person can't if a person who's not chosen by God can't respond to God's call for him to be saved, then it's a contradiction.

There can be no such thing as election.

But there's no contradiction there.

There's no contradiction that salvation for the elect is secure, and yet people have a moral obligation to respond.

We like to invent a contradiction because we don't do dealt well with these truths.

These truths make us uncomfortable.

The sovereignty of Christ makes us uncomfortable because it's not easy to be a man in a boat in the middle of a storm where the one who controls the wind and the waves is sleeping in the boat.

That makes us uneasy.

You remember what Peter said when the Lord woke up and rebuked the wind and the waves?

Peter was undone.

He was afraid of the storm, and then he was horribly afraid when he realized the one who controlled the storm was sleeping in it.

It's hard to be a fisherman when the man next to you knows where all the fish are.

It's uncomfortable to be losing your hair and knowing that not a hair of your head falls to the ground except by the express will of God.

So if that's true, why evangelize?

I want to bring these truths together tonight.

I want to look at where God's sovereignty and human responsibility meet.

And of course, there's the famous Spurgeon description that the rail of God's sovereignty and the rail of man's responsibility, they're the two rails of the railroad track, and we look as far as the track.

We can see the track, and we don't see them meet, but believe me, they meet in God.

They meet in glory.

We will understand this better than we do now.

We'll understand how God is sovereign over our choices, how God is sovereign through our choices, and yet we have a moral responsibility to respond and to act.

Both of them are true.

Oftentimes they seem in contradiction to our feeble minds, but it is a grave error to say, because I don't see how they work together, I must discard them.

So let's look at this tonight.

Esther 4.

What a wonderful story that brings these two rails, these two truths, together in perfect harmony.

The first step to understand this is to grieve that salvation is impossible.

To grieve that salvation is impossible.

Not just to understand that salvation is impossible, but to be broken over the fact that no one can save themselves.

Chapter 4, verse 1, when Mordecai learned all that had been done.

All that had been done was the decree at the end of chapter 3, where the emperor, the king, made a decree based upon the manipulation of Haman to slaughter the Jews.

I know tomorrow is the first day of the feast of Pernam.

And when this book of Esther is read to the Jews, they all boo at the name Haman.

Oftentimes they have wooden blocks and they hit it with a chisel, with wood.

They make a like no, we would call them noisemakers, little kids' noisemakers.

It's symbolatic of or emblematic of trying to scratch Haman's name out of history.

In fact, I know the our our Aquacon campus that's live streaming this, they all have those noisemakers tonight.

So I know that the dads told me that, and their kids will have the noisemakers, so I should be careful how many times I say the name Haman.

But Haman with the emperor contrived a way to eliminate the Jews.

Chapter 3 ended with the couriers rushing out hurriedly by order of the king.

The decree issued in Susa, the citadel, the capital.

The king and Haman sat down to drink.

The city of Susa was thrown into confusion.

What an incredible scene were those two men up on their palace rooftop, is where I picture it.

Cocktail hour in the king's palace.

Weeping and wailing spreading through the streets as couriers blaze out into the sunset.

Mordecai hears about this.

Mordecai was Esther's uncle.

Esther is the queen.

Mordecai was basically her adopted father.

He raised her.

He's now a high official in the court of the Persians.

He's an elevated official.

He's not in charge of everything.

He's not the prime minister.

He's under Haman's authority.

Nevertheless, he does have significant authority in and of himself.

He was a judge at the city gates.

He did spare the king's life at one moment.

And when he uncovered in chapter 2 a plot to kill the king.

But in chapter 3, he refuses to bow to Haman because of their conflict, because of his pride, because of their ethnic clashes.

Mordecai descends from the tribe of Benjamin and personally Saul.

Haman descends from Agag, the Amalekites, specifically King Agag, who was hacked to pieces in front of Saul and this rivalry, and Mordecai has not anticipated this the right way.

Whether or not the Jews are going to be annihilated because of Mordecai's sinful pride or because of his religious convictions, there are those that think Mordecai wouldn't bow out of some kind of religious convictions.

I'm not persuaded that's true.

But regardless, even if it is true or if it's his sinful pride, either way, it's his actions, it's his convictions that are leading to the Jews being annihilated.

The very command the Israelites were given to do to the Amalekites, which they failed to do, obviously, has now been given to the Amalekites to bring to bear against the Jews.

And it is all Mordecai's fault.

And when Mordecai hears this, chapter 4, verse 1, he tears his clothes, he puts on sackcloth and ashes, a sign of mourning, and he went into the midst of the city, and he cried out with a loud and bitter cry.

Again, this would be noticed.

This says echoes of Ezra in Ezra chapter 9 when he hears about the divorces and the remarriages of the Israelites, the sinful divorces and the marrying of these pagan women.

Ezra 9 · chapter mention

Remember, Ezra goes to the temple and starts wailing and moaning and mourning and praying out loud at the temple out in the open, in the public.

This was noticeable.

Mordecai is a noticeable individual.

He's on the who's who list.

You would recognize him in the streets.

He's one of the king's officials.

Only now he's wandering around the streets of the Persian Empire, their capital, in sackcloth and ashes and mourning and wailing, letting out a loud, bitter cry.

Verse 2, he went to the entrance of the king's gate.

For no one was allowed to enter the king's gate clothed in sackcloth.

So normally he's inside the palace.

Normally he's allowed into that hall.

That's the hall that's in there where the judgments and the verdicts are made, where the king reigns from.

That's where Mordecai normally is and where he wouldn't bow.

That's the source of these problems.

Now he cannot go in there because he's wearing sackcloth.

In every province, all 124 of them.

Wherever there were Jews, wherever the king's command and decree reached, there was great mourning among the Jews.

Fasting, weeping, lamenting, and many of them lay in sackcloth and ashes.

Notice what's missing from this list: fasting, lamenting, mourning.

You would expect the next word to be praying.

But the whole theme of the book of Esther is what happens with the Israelites when they are outside of God's promises, when they are outside of God's will, when they have been removed from the promised lands, they're not under his will.

This is part of their the Mosaic covenant.

They rejected God, and so they're under the curses of the Mosaic covenant.

They've been cut off from his promises.

They are now foreigners in an alien and strange land with an emperor who doesn't speak their language, who doesn't worship their God.

That's the consequence for their sin.

And so they are not praying.

This is why in the book of Esther there's no reference to the book of Yahweh or the Lord Adonai or to God Elohim in general.

There's no reference to that.

There's no reference to praying in this book.

Certainly some of the Jews are praying, but remember, this book is capturing this theme, this picture of them, apart from God's will.

And so there is no prayer mentioned in the book to make this precise point.

It's a desperate situation.

We saw at the end of chapter one, we saw at the end of chapter two, we saw at the end of chapter three that the king's edict in the Persian Empire cannot be broken.

That's a theme of this, remember?

In chapter one, he fired the queen with an edict that went to all of the empire, and the edict declared that men should honor their wives and that Vashti will no longer be the queen, and this cannot be broken.

There's no way to undo it.

This is how proud their kings and their emperors are.

They think their rules cannot be broken.

Well, now the rule has gone out that the Jews will be put to death, and this rule cannot be broken, it cannot be erased, it cannot be backtracked.

There is no solution to this problem.

When Esther's young women and her eunuchs came and told her, remember, Esther is the queen now.

Esther here, they're using her Persian name.

They told her the queen was deeply distressed.

And what did they tell her?

It seems that they told her Mordecai is outside the gate in sackcloth and ashes.

It does not seem she knows about the command to kill the Jews.

She just knows.

Nobody knows that she's Jewish.

It wouldn't occur to them to tell her.

They just know that Mordecai is outside the gate wearing sackcloth and ashes.

So she sent garments to clothe Mordecai so that he might take off his sackcloth.

I mean, that's a little bit of a scene right there, isn't it?

He's wailing and mourning in sackcloth and ashes, and Esther responds by giving him new clothes.

I mean, some commentators kind of make fun of Esther for this, like, oh, that'll fix it.

You know, your people are going to be annihilated, but at least look good when it happens.

I want to give for Esther a little bit more sympathy here than that.

I mean, the problem is that Mordecai can't come in.

He's clearly wailing in sackcloth and ashes, so Esther is trying to make a way for him to approach.

Put this on.

It's not fitting for one of the king's trusted advisors, somebody in Mordecai's position, to be wearing sackcloth and ashes.

I mean, that's the kind of stunt that will get you killed.

Like the food taster faking his own death, you know?

This is not acceptable.

Verse 5, Esther called for Hattash, one of the king's eunuchs, who had been appointed to attend her, and ordered him to go to Mordecai to learn what this was and why it was.

So Mordecai rejects the clothes.

Esther now dispatches a trusted eunuch, a trusted advisor.

He's named here.

This is not just one of the messengers who were sent earlier.

This is someone whom Esther trusts.

And he goes out to Mordecai.

Mordecai would apparently know this person.

She wants some answers.

She sent out a nice suit.

It came back unopened.

The Brooks Brothers' tie did not win him over.

Hattach went out to Mordecai in the open square of the city in front of the king's gate.

In other words, this is happening in the wide open world.

Everybody is watching this go on.

This is not a private conversation in a corner somewhere.

This is someone who is visible and notable and noteworthy in sackcloth and ashes.

And now the queen's most trusted eunuch is talking to him in the courtyard.

Mordecai's already in trouble for not bowing to Haman.

I mean, this thing is out there now.

There's no clawing this back.

Mordecai told him all that had happened to him, which includes his refusal to bow to Haman, which includes the edict that has gone out to all of the Persian and Mede Empire, that the Jews would be annihilated, including the exact sum of money Haman had promised to pay into the king's treasuries for the destruction of the Jews.

Remember, it was a ridiculous amount of money.

It was an exaggerated, the$10 billion kind of fund.

They're going to loot everything from the Jews and give it to the king.

That's how the king went along with us.

We looked at that last week.

Mordecai gave him a copy of the written decree issued in Susa for their destruction.

So this is not an exaggeration here.

Mordecai is not crying wolf.

He's not blowing smoke.

He's got the actual edict.

Here it is.

He wants it shown to Esther, the middle of the verse says, explained to her, and commanded her to go to the king to beg his favor and plead with him on behalf of the people.

So this is Mordecai's solution.

Go to the king, Esther, beg the king.

Mordecai has lost all of his pride now.

Whatever pride he had last chapter is gone.

He is broken now.

He's in sackcloth and ashes, and he's telling Esther, forget this whole being a secret Jew thing.

Esther, you go, you put on sackcloth, you put on ashes, and you go fall at the king's feet and beg for mercy.

So Hattach, this whole conversation is happening via messenger.

Hattach went and told Esther what Mordecai had said.

Esther spoke to Hattash, commanded him to go back to Mordecai.

All the king's servants and the people of the king's provinces know that if any man or woman goes to the king inside the inner court without being called, there's one law, he'll be put to death.

Except the one the king holds out his golden scepter, so that he may live.

As for me, I have not been called to come into the king these thirty days.

In chapter two, people, specifically the king, loved me.

In chapter three, the king even trusted me.

But now the king doesn't know me.

I'm just one remember the king has this whole palace of the concubines, the women who were tried and found wanting.

And Esther is just given over to that group.

It's been a month and she hasn't been called.

In other words, there's I can't help you, Mordecai.

I can't help you.

I can't help the Jews.

This is an impossible situation.

I love that chapter 4 begins with the description of how impossible this is.

There is no way around this.

You cannot circumvent the law of the Medes and the Persians, and Esther cannot just waltz into the king's palace.

She certainly can't.

Fall at the king's feet in sackcloth and ashes and beg for mercy for her people.

That would not be tolerated.

If Vashti was fired for refusing to come back in chapter one, Esther would probably have a worse fate for barging in and asking the king for something that just would not be acceptable.

These emperors in this part of the world, in this era of world history, were so cognizant of the perception they would be manipulated by queens or by women.

The irony is that in all of all of Arta Xerxes' fear of being manipulated by women, he's only been manipulated by women this whole book.

But there's certainly no way one of these kings would let a queen walk into his palace and ask him for something, and it would be granted.

So there's no possibility here.

In order to begin to understand where God's sovereignty and human responsibility meet, you have to understand the impossibility of salvation.

What was true here on a story, on a narrative level in Esther chapter 4 is a fact that is true for all of mankind.

Esther 4 · chapter mention

This is not only about the Israelites in the Medo-Persian Empire.

This is about every human being in Adam.

There is no way for us to be saved.

We cannot save ourselves by works.

I love it.

Matthew 19, there's another place where people come to Jesus and they ask him, What must we do to be saved?

I just love looking at how Jesus answers those questions.

Because his answer normally is something to do that's impossible.

What must they do to be saved?

Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.

And love your neighbor as yourself.

Do that, you'll go to heaven when you die.

And it cracks me up when the lawyer says, Oh, I got that covered.

Are you kidding?

What must I do to be saved?

Well, Jesus says, Do you know the commandments?

Keep them.

And he says, I have since I was a little kid.

Is that a joke?

And so Jesus says, okay, and tells him the story of the Good Samaritan.

That's what loving your neighbor looks like.

Forget about loving God.

That's what loving your neighbor looks like.

And it's easier to love your neighbor than it is to love the Lord.

And you can't even love your neighbor the right way.

It's impossible for people to be saved.

There is no way for a person to be saved.

No way at all.

In fact, Jesus, Matthew 19, verse 24, after telling that story, he declares that it is easier for a camel to go through an eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.

Matthew 19:24

And of course, he is not saying that it's harder for rich people than other people.

He is saying that if a rich person can't do it, there's no hope for the rest of us.

Commentators always try to find a wiggle, wiggle rim in that by saying, oh, there was a camel, there was a gate called the camel gate.

And people would, or a needle gate, sorry, there's a gate called the needle gate, and people try to push their camels through.

The camels will be loaded down, they have to get behind the camel and push the camel through the needle gate, which is just not true, first of all.

But secondly, is really funny, isn't it?

That that's what Jesus is likening salvation to, pushing a camel that is loaded through a really small hole.

Okay.

The point is that it's impossible to be saved.

And that's what Peter understood then.

When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astonished, Matthew 9, 25 says, saying, Who can be saved?

And Jesus looked at them and said, push the camel really hard.

No, it's not the next verse.

Jesus looked at them and said, With man it is impossible.

There's no way for people to be saved.

And you cannot appreciate salvation until you realize it's impossible for you to get it.

You can't earn it.

There's no application form for it.

There's nothing you can do to be saved.

The second truth.

The second truth.

Submit to God's plan is inviolable.

And this word, inviolable, simply means it can't be voided, it can't be broken, it can't be avoided either.

Not only not voided, but not avoided.

Mordecai told them to reply to Esther.

And here is where Mordecai, you just see his wisdom, you see his strength, you see his knowledge.

Oftentimes people know better theology than they act out.

And here Mordecai's actions and his words are catching up to what he knows to be true.

This whole nonsense of earlier of don't tell people you were a Jew, just try to fit in, earn pleasure, be a people pleaser, that's all cast aside now.

Mordecai's cast it aside himself as he's there in his sackcloth and ashes.

He's telling Esther to do the same, and he gives her just a speech for the ages.

Through the eunuch.

I mean, this whole thing is surreal.

Do not think to yourself that in the king's palace you will escape any more than all the other Jews.

And in other words, Esther, come to your senses.

You are going to die also.

If you keep silent at this time, relief and deliverance, and this is one of the most astonishing windows of faith in all of the Bible, from the lips of the most unlikely person, Mordecai, right here.

If you keep silent, Esther, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another place.

But you and your father's house will perish.

You and your father's house will perish.

A powerful rebuke to Queen Esther, that you are going down.

But notice that behind this rebuke is this knowledge that God will save the Jews.

That's what's incredible about this.

There is no way, in light of point one, there's no way that the Jews will be saved.

But Mordecai is not even, he doesn't even trip over that part of it.

In fact, understanding the impossibility of it is what gives him the confidence to act like he's acting now.

He says relief and deliverance will come from somewhere else.

The Jews will be rescued because God made a promise to Abraham that his descendants will multiply, the Savior will come through them, and they will reign on the earth, and that has not happened yet.

And so, even though they're under the curses of the Mosaic covenant, before the Mosaic covenant is the Abrahamic covenant, and I believe it, and God's not going to let them be wiped out.

He will let them be exiled for 70 years, but he's not going to let them be annihilated.

That much is true.

Mordecai doesn't know how God is going to do this or when God is going to do this.

I mean, there's remember, there's a year that's going to go by before the assassination date.

But Mordecai does know that God is going to do it.

God has a plan for the Israelites, He has a plan for the Jews, and He is not going to set it aside.

This is the basic teaching of Scripture that despite the fact it is impossible to be saved, God still saves people.

And he does so at his action and his direction according to his plan.

Abraham did not choose God.

In other words, he chose Isaac, not Ishmael.

God says, Jacob I loved, not Esau.

And he declared that before they were even born or had done anything good or bad, so that God's purpose and the doctrine of election would stand.

Therefore, it's written that the younger, the older will serve the younger.

Therefore, we learn that salvation does not depend on man who wills or man who runs, but upon God who saves.

Faith is the gift of God.

So salvation doesn't depend upon our effort.

Sometimes we think that God might save people who want to be saved.

That God might save people who sign up or who are a little bit better, a little bit more receptive.

But the truth you find in the Bible is the opposite of that.

I think it's a helpful comparison to think of Pilate versus Saul.

Poor Pilate.

Pilate had affection for Jesus, didn't he?

He tried to get Jesus off the hook, sort of.

He tried to reason with the crowd.

His wife even rebuked him.

You see this, a man torn.

He certainly didn't have the kind of disdain for Jesus that so many others had.

And yet he wasn't saved.

Turn the page, a few flips, and you run into Saul.

Proud, arrogant, riding, probably with an entourage.

Bold, boasting, thinking of himself as powerful.

And what's he doing?

He's going pursuing Christians to kill them.

He's holding the jackets of those that stone Seven.

He's taking official orders to persecute Christians all the way to Damascus.

That's what Saul's doing.

He is so proud on his high horse.

God doesn't save Pilate.

He saves Saul.

Just because that's what he wanted to do.

There's no explanation for it at all given in the scripture.

Except 2 Timothy 2, verse 19, this firm foundation stands.

2 Timothy 2:19

The Lord knows who are his.

That's it.

That's what Jesus says, John 1, verse 13, he came to his own, his own received him not.

John 1:13

Nevertheless, to those who did receive him, they were born not by the will of man, but by the will of God.

That's John 1.13.

And Jesus understands this, John 6.39, I will lose none of the ones whom you have given me, Jesus said.

God has a plan, and his plan cannot be broken.

And that, brothers and sisters, should give you such confidence, shouldn't it?

Such confidence.

If you believe that God's plan is good and loving, then you should rest in the fact that he will execute it.

It will not be broken.

That's what Mordecai is doing here.

Mordecai says, Esther, I don't know how this is going to play out.

But if you go against God's will here, you will die.

Not God's Mordecai is not upset here about the Jews, the possibility that they really will be annihilated.

You see underneath all of this the steadfast confidence that God's promise stands.

That God's promise stands.

Mordecai may die.

The Jews in Susa may die.

Most of the Jews may die.

Remember that the Jews have waxed and waned through the years.

Mordecai is certainly grieving the mass casualties that are coming, but he in no way believes for a moment that this will be successful in eliminating the Jews.

God will deliver them from somewhere else.

Jesus holds on to this promise himself, doesn't he?

When he's prophesying about the great tribulation, false prophets will come.

Hope that you're not in the hills or the country when this happens.

Hope that you're not in labor when this happens, because it's going down.

People are going to die, you're going to be begging the mountains fall on you, and the false prophets will be so persuasive they would deceive even the elect if that were possible.

And Jesus knows it's not possible.

Mordecai knows the same thing.

This is going to be horrible.

But it's not over because God has a plan and his plan will not be broken.

Third.

Marvel that our response is essential.

You grieve that salvation is impossible.

You submit to God's plan is inviolable.

And then you marvel that our response is essential.

He says this.

I mean, there it is.

Mordecai.

Mordecai says, I don't know God's secret plan.

I know his revealed plan to protect the Jews.

I don't know his secret plan.

Don't know how he's going to do it.

However, as an observer here, I have seen this orphan immigrant girl go from nothing to being queen of the Persian Empire, and she's Jewish.

I mean, God's got to be doing something with that.

That's not just an outrageous coincidence.

Mordecai is like, this is a lot of work went into that.

Not sure of everybody's motives involved, not even my own, but God's doing something.

All right.

Are you kidding me?

God's going to take this Jewish orphan and make her queen and just leave it there so she can watch the Jews die?

I mean, that seems absurd.

Certainly, God is at work.

This is the basic point that God uses means.

I mean, Jesus himself makes this point that if we're all quiet, the rocks will cry out.

Have you ever heard a rock preach the gospel?

No, because God uses us.

God uses means.

I've heard it said, you know, an angel could write the gospel in the sky.

Sure, I've never seen it.

Because God uses us.

God uses means.

We have the responsibility to respond to our knowledge of number one and two.

Our knowledge that people cannot save themselves, our knowledge that God has his elect and he wants them to come to faith, and that he's going to use people.

How outlandish is it that you got saved?

And for some of you, it's a crazy story.

It's a crazy story for some of you.

There's no human explanation.

The things that God did to you to get you to come to faith and the people he puts you around and the unlikely circumstances you found yourself in, and then you get radically saved.

And why did God do that?

I mean, to save you, of course, but you got anything else up his sleeves?

Certainly he's doing something with you.

Certainly he has a plan for you.

That's what Mordecai tells Esther.

You gotta be kidding me.

I don't want you to die, Esther.

And you might.

Remember, Mordecai doesn't know God's secret plan.

He doesn't know how God's going to do it.

He knows his revealed plan, that he will do it.

He doesn't know his secret plan how.

So Mordecai is saying, listen, Esther, as unlikely as it seems, if you decide to not do anything, you will die.

I can't imagine that happening because God put you here for a reason.

But you will die if you don't act.

But I just can't believe that that is what the story is about.

I can't believe Esther 1 through 4 would be written in Esther die in chapter 4.

Come on.

What is this, the book of Samuel?

Esther tells him to reply to Mordecai, Go.

Gather all the Jews to be found in Susa, hold a fast on my behalf.

Do not eat or drink for three days, night or day.

I and my young women will also fast as you do.

Then I will go to the king, though it is against the law, and if I perish, I perish.

What a great line, huh?

I have a different plan.

Esther tells Mordecai, I have a different plan.

It's not yours.

I have a different one.

But I'm gonna do it.

It's risky.

There's great risk involved.

But if I die, you know what?

I die.

And that's okay.

And I just love in the narrative flow of Esther, the end of chapter four is funny.

Mordecai went away and did everything as Esther had ordered him.

This book has been driven by kings and people in power getting orders from people underneath them.

And now the table's just got turned on Mordecai.

He was telling Esther what to do, and the chapter ends with Esther for the first time speaks.

And Mordecai goes obeying her.

The Bible teaches that God uses people.

He saves us and leaves us here on earth when he could have taken us home to heaven, and he leaves us here for the purpose of evangelism.

He leaves us here to fill up what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ, is what Colossians 1.24 says.

That oftentimes our evangelism is fueled by our suffering, just with the driven knowledge that God has his people.

Paul is being persecuted, and God tells Paul, you know what, go to that city where you will be persecuted because I have many people there.

I have many people there.

God has a plan to save whom he's going to save.

And by the way, God often uses weak means.

He uses people from positions of weakness.

He uses us to advance the gospel so that he gets all the glory, so that when we are weakest, God is most glorified.

He uses Esther from a position of brokenness and of desperation.

There doesn't seem to be a way forward.

There doesn't seem to be one.

It doesn't seem that Esther has a path forward.

We don't even know her plan here.

We're going to find out her plan next week.

But she's got one.

And it may very well result in her death.

But because God is sovereign, we have confidence in our actions.

And that's the point of this book.

God is not dependent upon our actions.

I hope you understand that.

God is not dependent upon us.

But he uses us to accomplish his plan.

For some people, that sounds like a contradiction because they just can't come to terms with the fact that somebody is sovereign over their actions.

They say, if God is sovereign over me, then I don't really make choices and I can't have that.

The Bible teaches that God is sovereign over you and you do make choices and that God is sovereign over your choices.

And you say, Yeah, but if God is sovereign over my choices, then that means I'm not really a free agent.

I got news for you, my friend.

Good thing you're sitting down.

You're not really a free agent.

You make choices.

You act, you'll be responsible for your choices, you'll be judged for your choices, but you don't make a single choice that doesn't happen under the sovereignty of God.

Mordecai asks Esther, look back through your life, Esther.

Certainly we've made mistakes, but certainly we can't explain how this came about.

I don't know the secret plan of God, but God's gonna do something.

The truth taught in Esther 4 is a universal passage about the glories of evangelism in light of the sovereignty of God.

It's a complicated answer, but the people cannot thwart, change, alter, or avoid God's plan.

Instead, we're an essential part of God's plan.

He has a design to use us.

Why would God save people?

Why did God save Israel?

Why in Esther IV does God have his affection set in Israel?

Is it because Israel was a courageous nation?

No.

Because they had convictions that they lived by?

No.

Because they were a holy nation?

No.

But God will save them because he set his love on them.

And if God's grace is sovereign, it can go wherever, to whomever he chooses, and he chooses to use us to bring it to other people.

It's true that God saves us who call to him.

And the Bible teaches that as well.

All who call upon the name of the Lord will be saved, but I just have a question for you.

How can someone call in the name of the Lord if they don't believe in him?

And how can someone believe in the name of the Lord if they've never heard of him?

And how can someone hear of Jesus Christ unless someone preaches to them?

This is why the Bible says how beautiful are the feet of those who bring the good news.

This happens under the sovereignty of God when we understand that salvation is impossible, that God's plan is inviolable, but our response is essential.

Lord, we're thankful that you hold what is to us a mystery, how you can reign over so many people in absolute sovereignty.

You are not like our deserts, who can can't even keep control of his family, much less his nation.

You're not like Mordecai, who apparently has miscalculated in his showdown with Haman.

You're not like us.

As we read tonight in Proverbs 20, we can plan our ways, but you direct our steps.

It is you that rules, you who reigns.

And we love you because of it.

We don't know the future, but we know that you know the future.

And we desire to be used by you.

We desire to experience the joy that comes from being the person who opens our mouth to share the gospel with others.

So we pray that you would use us even this week to bring the gospel to others.

We ask this in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Let me ask you all to stand as the uh the guys come forward.

Thank you for being with us today.

And now a parting word from Pastor Jesse.

If you have any questions about what you heard today, or if you want to learn more about what it means to follow Christ, please visit our church website, emmanuelbible.church.

If you're not a member of the local church and you live in the Washington, D.C.

area, we'd love to have you worship with us here at Emmanuel.

I hope to personally meet you this Sunday after our service.

But no matter where you live, it's our hope that everyone who uses this resource is involved in their own local church.

Now may God bless you this week as you seek Jesus constantly, serve the Lord faithfully, and share the gospel boldly.