"God Orchestrates" Esther 2 Sunday Evening Worship Service

Let's open our Bibles now to the book of Esther.

Esther chapter two.

Resting between Nehemiah and Job.

Page four ten, if you have absconded with one of our Pew Bibles.

Hey, if you need it, take it.

It's yours.

Esther chapter 2.

Esther 2 · chapter mention

We find tonight the continuation of our story of how Esther comes to the throne in the Persian Empire.

And it's worth remembering as we look at Esther 2 tonight that one of the punishments God told Israel they would experience if they rejected him was that God would hide his face from them.

Deuteronomy 31, God says that if you go after other gods, Israel, if you chase pretend gods, assuming that they're real, he says, You will turn and look for me, and you will not find me.

That he will be hidden from his own people.

And that is certainly what happens to the book of 2 Kings.

As Israel follows idols, they receive God's judgment as he sends opposing armies to purge them for their sin, and they call out for deliverance, and then deliverance gets further and further apart.

God soon removes prophets from them, even also prophesied in Deuteronomy 31.

He says, I'll hide my face from you and I will remove the prophets from you.

And that certainly happens through Israel's history.

This is another one of the many facets that's behind Jonah and his having to flee to Nineveh.

Is that it was part of God's punishment on Israel, that if they followed other gods, God would hide his face from them, and he would remove his prophets from them.

And so lo and behold, Jonah, who's the prophet of Israel during this time, is even physically removed from Israel.

And God says, you won't have dreams, you won't have visions anymore.

And that's what happens to Israel.

They lose their prophets, they lose their priests, who are in 1 Kings or 2 Kings 17, 18, replaced by lions.

God removes the priests and sends the lions in to the lands.

The lions are more effective minister of God's word than the Israelite priests were.

Others, later on, a hundred, hundred plus years later, were taken in the Babylonian captivity to Babylon.

Babylon would fall to Persia.

That's Daniel's group, where that happens.

And then Daniel is at the end of his life.

The captivity ends according to Jeremiah's 70 years, and the Jews are allowed to go back by the command of Cyrus.

That's what we've been looking at in the story of Ezra.

But in the Assyrian part of the empire, it would fall to what today is the, you know, Iran.

It's the becomes the Medo-Persian Empire.

And that's a group of people that were Israelites.

And they find themselves not in Babylon, but in the Persian Empire.

In fact, eventually, when the Persian Empire conquers Babylon, now you have kind of a reuniting of some of God's people in exile.

That's the story of the book of Esther.

And so it is noteworthy that in the book of Esther, you don't see anybody praying to God.

You don't see any prophets in the book of Esther.

There are no prophets in this book.

Esther is not a prophetess, and there's no prophet they find.

There's no miracles in the book of Esther.

When the Israelites were chased before by the Egyptians, God parted the Red Sea and had the Egyptian army swallowed up by the ocean.

He fed them with manna from the ground.

He spoke to them veiling Moses and bringing Moses up to the mountain.

It was a very dramatic, supernatural revelation.

That's how God spoke to them initially.

But because they left God, now you see in the book of Esther, there's no more prophets, there's no more miracles, there's no more communication with God, no more prayers.

These are people that are cut off.

They're receiving the curse from Deuteronomy 31.

They are experiencing what it's like to be cut off from God.

And you know, if this, if you're a parent and you have one of your little kids, like the six-year-old runs away.

They're upset because they don't get to watch 14 episodes of Eliana the Princess, only 13.

And so they've had it.

They're gonna go find a different family.

Out the door.

They come back because they want food.

They come back because they want to they didn't even make it out of the backyard.

And they come back.

And of course, you give them their granola bar, and all is forgiven.

In a sense, this is Israel's story.

They've had it with God, and they've pulled the running away stunt many, many times.

And finally God says, You're done.

There's no more prophets for you, no more revelation for you, no more visions for your people, no more miracles.

What's it like to be on your own?

You're gonna experience it right now.

There you go.

And so the book of Esther has fasting, it has desperation, and it has providence, which is pretty much how we live now, by the way.

We have God's word, but we don't have prophets.

We pray, unlike the Israelites in Esther's time, because we are in a relationship with the Lord.

But I want you to see that there are more similarities from the Israelite captivity in our own life than perhaps we would initially understand.

This is why this book is encouraging to read, because the Israelites, even in captivity, cut off from God, they still are underneath God's overarching purposes, and God providentially is orchestrating all the affairs of their life for his kingdom and for his glory, even though they don't see it.

And that is a tremendous encouragement to us who are in a relationship with God, who do seek first his kingdom, to know that if God can providentially orchestrate the affairs of the people of Esther's life without miracles and without ongoing revelation, he can do so for us.

And because of that, I think it's encouraging to see some truths that come out of this chapter.

Some truths that come out of this chapter.

Let me give you a little outline here to follow along.

And three truths to help you live in the world, but not be of the world.

That's going to be the theme we'll chase through as we're too tonight.

Three truths that you can be in the world, but not of the world.

This is how Christians are supposed to live.

It is how God's people were supposed to live when they were in captivity.

They were supposed to be devoted to Him, and yet they had been assimilated into a foreign culture, and that's not unlike our own current circumstance.

And you know what this is like.

There's always the, you know, there's the Christian gray areas and the Christian liberty that we are in the world.

We have jobs in the world.

We have our children who are going to school in the world.

We live our lives in the world.

We have our money in a worldly bank.

Unless you're Amish.

You figured out how to get around this.

You don't dress like the world.

You don't, you know, have metallic buttons because that's so worldly.

You stitch things and you wear clothes distinct from the world and horses and buggies, and there's gradiations.

There's some of the Mennonites that will accommodate a car, but not a red one.

Seriously.

You know, there's different segments of the Amish or even some Mennonite communities that say what color of window shades are allowed to set you apart from the world without being worldly.

You have that what I'm gonna call it one extreme.

And on the other extreme, you have the, you know, microbrewery pastor.

The church plants in the in the bar.

That would be the other extreme.

I feel safe identifying that as another extreme because we're in a church with a giant cross on the roof.

We're safe.

Everybody feels like they navigate those tensions well.

You know, the Amish say, the Amish would look at us and see the microgrew pastor, the micro pastor, the microbrew pastor would look at us and see the Amish.

Everybody feels like they navigate that tension well.

It consumes more of our thoughts than than we maybe understand.

We really are called to be citizens of God's kingdom, living set aside to him, living a holy life, but we find ourselves in the world.

And there's a lot of similarities in Canester 2 that will help us understand our relationship to this because this story is a remarkable proof that while God is invisible, he has not forgotten his people, while God can't be seen through miracles and ongoing revelation, he is not forgotten, and he is in fact at work.

And one of the things he's doing is bringing his kingdom promises to pass through the lives of people that are trying to navigate this dichotomy.

And let me give you three examples of what I mean by this.

First, only God's word is permanent.

To help you be in the world, but not of the world, which is our reality, you have to remember that only God's word is permanent.

Only God's word stands the test of time.

And that song we sang, Father Long Before Creation, that second stanza just jumps out at me where it says, Though the world may change its fashion, God is e'er the same.

He will ever be the same.

Fashions come and go, styles come and go.

What is worldly comes and goes.

But God's truth stands the test of time.

And we see this here in chapter two through the lens of irony, chapter two of Esther verse one.

After these things, when the anger of King Ahazarius had abated, he remembered Vashti and what she had done and what had been decreed against her.

Now this is taking you back to chapter one.

If you remember that in chapter one, there was the long celebration, the six-month feast that was drunken revelry.

I don't think orgy is a word that is misused to describe chapter one.

I mean, it is over the top in chapter one.

And at the end of this, the king calls the queen to present herself in her beauty to all of his closest advisors to demonstrate that he has the authority to conquer the world because that's what he was doing.

He was trying to raise his army to go attack the Greece Empire.

And Vashti refuses to come.

She won't be displayed, she won't be put on display as one of the king's trophies.

And so the king finds himself in a difficult situation.

He's declaring that he's the most powerful person in the world, but he can't control his wife.

And you remember the king asks his advisors, what should I do?

And the advisors say, Fire the queen.

You're fired, queen.

And so she is.

The crown is removed from her, and the king goes off to war, marches his army off to war, attacks the Greece Empire, and loses.

Chapter 2 is three or four years later.

The events of chapter two are significantly after the events of chapter one.

So I like the chapter break there.

There's some people that would move the chapter break down to keep the firing of the queen all in one place, but it is appropriate to have the chapter break there because years go by.

He marches off to war.

He marches through Israel, by the way.

This is the Persian king's only emperor or only visit to Israel and his way to war there.

He loses the war.

He attacks Greece by water, loses 300 ships, which is not, you know, this is like old school Spanish armada.

They go down.

300 of these ships are lost in the sea.

The story is that when the king comes back to the shore in Egypt, he lands back in Egypt, he takes off his belt and he begins whipping the ocean in anger until he passes out from exhaustion, and his troops have to rescue him from drowning in the ocean.

He was fighting the ocean at the end of this.

The guy is nuts.

It's one thing to run through the waves, it's another to punch the water until you pass out.

But that's what happened.

And he comes back to his capital city with his proverbial tail between his legs here, humiliated in defeat, and it's at this point he remembers Queen Vashti and how wicked she was, and she wouldn't listen to him.

It's all her fault, isn't it?

If she would have come when he asked, he wouldn't have lost all those boats.

Verse 2, the king's young men who attended him said, Let beautiful young virgins be sought out for the king.

Let the king appoint officers in all the provinces of his kingdom to gather all the beautiful young virgins to the harem in Susa, the citadel, under custody of Hagi, the king's eunuch, who's in charge of the women.

Let there be cosmetics given to them.

Let the young woman who pleases the king be queen instead of Vashti.

This pleased the king, it says.

And he did so.

Let's do a national beauty contest all over the empire.

We will get the hundred most beautiful women, and we will gather them together.

We will prepare them for a period of time so they will be remarkable, and they'll be paraded in front of you.

You can try a different one every day if you want, king, and you can choose whichever one you like to be the best.

And somehow the king thought this was a good idea.

It's also noticeable here that this is the second time in just a few paragraphs at the end of chapter one.

It was the same thing.

The king didn't know what to do with Vashti, and so he asks his advisors, and his advisors tell him what to do.

And remember, his advisors are not advocating for what is best for the kingdom.

His advisors are advocating for what is best for their own marriage.

Remember?

They're concerned what their wives will do if their wives hear what Vashti did.

So therefore, emperor-wide decree, because the edict of the king cannot be moved and changed and permanent, you cannot be challenged.

What will happen if people find out about this?

So we gotta let everybody know.

That was the end of chapter one.

You see the same thing again in chapter two.

This king is being manipulated.

He thinks he is strong and in control and the most powerful, powerful person in the world, but his decrees basically have the authority of whoever is closest to him.

He is influenced by whoever has his ear at that moment, which is not a position of strength or a position of leadership.

He is being manipulated.

And here it is, he's seems like at the end of chapter one, too, he's being manipulated by the men who are around him who are using him to advance their own agendas, specifically in relationship to women.

The guys in chapter one wanted him to do an edict because they didn't know how to manage their own wives.

These guys in chapter two, it's not the same crew as chapter one.

In chapter two, he's surrounded by younger men, it says.

It just draws your attention to that in verse two.

Then it's the young men who say, Hey, I've got an idea, King.

It's these bunch of young men.

I mean, what is the young, young men in this world?

Most commentators say 17, 18 years old.

It's these young men who are around the king and say, I know what you should do.

You should have a beauty pageant and get the most beautiful women in the world to come here.

Now, why would that be a good idea for the young men?

Again, you're supposed to see that.

It's supposed to just glare at you.

Sometimes we don't notice those kind of things because it's the Bible, after all, but it's not very subtle when you look at it, even.

The young men are like, this is a great idea.

Now, the custom, what most commentators say is that these Persians and Midianite kings and emperors would often have very large harems.

They would have a group of women, they would have some wives, and they were polygamous.

They would have some of these kings that would have dozens of wives even.

It's very interesting that Ahazarius only wants one wife at a time.

This would be unusual.

Many of the emperors had multiple wives, but they also had many concubines.

And unlike some of the other nations around them, where the concubines would be in isolation except for the king, in the Persian practice was that the concubines would be in relative isolation, but they would have relationships with the king's advisors, the king's counsel, the young men around him.

This was to keep the women in the harem, I guess, relatively social and not depressed and despondent by being locked away, which was the normal custom in other empires, by the way, is that the women who had once been with the king were isolated and cut off for the rest of their lives.

They didn't do this here.

So that's another reason these young men around the king were kind of excited about this plan.

And the king's gonna do it.

It pleased the king the end of verse 4.

It says you can picture these guys going, I cannot believe we got away with this.

It's definitely a mockery in verse 4.

That the young woman who pleases the king and be queen instead of Vashdi, this pleased the king, and he did so.

This is a mockery of what it means to have the unbreakable breakable laws of the Medes and the Persians.

The truth is, the king's edict is only as strong as he's manipulated by at the moment, and he is often manipulated.

This is supposed to be a contrast between God and his word.

It's supposed to be glaring at you.

These kings, they say that their edict is final, they say their rule is secure, they say their decree is absolute, but they even forget about it.

Did you notice it?

He comes back and he's angry at Vashti, and he has to be reminded by his advisors hey, do you remember a few years ago you made a decree that cannot be moved or shaken or broken and remains forever, it's eternal.

You decreed it.

Do you remember it?

It is really absurd.

These guys think they have unmitigated power and that their word is unbreakable and they can't even remember what they said.

And it will be a theme through the book of Esther, and I've gone back and forth on how much of spoiler alerts that I should give you here in the Book of Esther.

I know that some of you don't know what happens in the book because you've told me that, and some of you are very familiar with the story, but there is a little bit of foreshadowing here.

I decided not to ruin it so you can be engaged as we go along.

You know, if you want to be spoiled, read the book on your own.

But if you want to be engaged for the next few months, then just follow along for the ride.

But it is a little foreshadowing that a theme that's going to come up in this book is how do you circumvent the king's decrees?

He says something that cannot be broken.

How do you get around it?

Very different from God's word, which is unbreakable.

Matthew 5, verse 18, Jesus says, Truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, not the smallest Greek symbol, the smallest Hebrew jot or tittle will pass away from the law until it is all accomplished, Jesus says.

Matthew 5:18

All of the law will be brought to fulfillment.

Mark 13, 31.

Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away, Jesus says.

They will not pass away.

Every word that God breathes is eternal and sure and sufficient.

Everything pertaining to life and godliness has been granted to us through his word, and none of it will be erased.

Luke 16 says it a little differently.

Luke 16, verse 17, it is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for one dot of the law to become void.

Luke 16:17

In other words, it's easier for the whole planet to poof, disappear, where'd the earth go, kind of thing, than it is for one vowel to be missing from the law.

That's the power of God's word.

Very different than the so-called power of these kings and emperors that are just really arrogant and grasping for just, they're trying to elevate their pride.

Well, that's the first principle here.

Only God's word is permanent in contrast to these kings.

Second principle, that God's people ought to be different.

God's people ought to be different from the world.

And we're going to see that by means of contrast here, verse 5.

There was a Jew in Susa, the citadel, whose name was Mordecai, the son of Jair, the son of Shemiah, the son of Kish, a Benjamite.

You weren't expecting to see a Benjamite.

I mean, they were rare enough in Israel before the exile.

Benjamin was the tribe that almost was eliminated, be at the end of the book of Judges.

But there were a few of them there.

They were so small, they were kind of absorbed into the tribe of Israel.

I mean the tribe of Judah.

They were taken to captivity.

Most of them would have gone to Babylon, but not all of them, apparently.

Here's a group that is in Susa.

They've been carried away from Jerusalem with the captives carried away, with Jeconiah, the king of Judah, whom Nebuchadnezzar.

Knezar king of Babylon had carried away.

Now, he wasn't really with that group.

He'd be over a hundred years old at this point, and he's certainly younger than that.

But his family was who that group is the point here.

He has continuity with God's people, specifically to the tribe of Benjamin.

He was bringing up Hadash, that is Esther, the daughter of his uncle, for she had neither father nor mother.

The young woman had a beautiful figure and was lovely to look at.

And when her father and her mother died, Mordecai took her as his own daughter.

So here is this Jewish family in exile in the land, carried off, it seems initially to Babylon, and through these events, they've ended up in Susa here, out in the Persian Empire.

They are Jewish, connected with God's people through Benjamin, and yet nobody knows that.

That's going to be a key theme through the book of Esher.

We'll see it later on in this chapter, even.

Nobody knows that Mordecai is Jewish.

There's a huge contrast between here and Daniel.

Daniel, remember, wanted to be known for being separate from the people.

He wouldn't eat their food.

He would pray facing Jerusalem.

He went out of his way to be kosher and keep the law.

Not so Mordecai.

This is no Daniel we're dealing with here.

This person has been fully assimilated into the Persian culture.

You wouldn't know he was Jewish by looking at him.

He's not eating different food.

He's not praying facing Jerusalem.

He's not dressed differently.

The Jews were supposed to dress differently.

They're supposed to wear their hair differently.

They were supposed to have tassels.

They were supposed to stand out.

The Jews, with Daniel and his friends, did so.

Mordecai is no Daniel.

He is fully assimilated.

And yet, he cares for his cousin, Esther.

Esther has two names.

Hadasha's how I'll say that word.

Esther and Hadasha, and it's interesting, she is the only person in this book with two names.

And I think that's intentional here by the narrator to let you see that her feet are in both worlds, even though she doesn't even realize it.

At this point, she doesn't know her future in the story.

She is an orphan girl of a bunch of exiles.

They're essentially refugees.

I mean, she is the lowest of the low in society.

That's the point here.

This is, you know, less divorce court, more Cinderella story is the idea.

Chapter one, divorce court, chapter two, Cinderella story.

She is as low class as you can be.

An orphan girl in a refugee family who's being raised by her uncle.

She's a minority culture, a minority religion, but assimilated, probably for the sake of survival.

She has her feet in both worlds, though.

It would not occur in her mind, in her wildest dreams, that God would be using her to eventually bring relief and deliverance to the Israelites.

That would never cross her mind.

She would be happy if she gets to live out the next year of her life.

That's her lot in life.

She was beautiful, though, and Mordecai had been raising her.

Verse 8.

So when the king's order and his edict were proclaimed, and when many young women were gathered in Susa, the citadel, in the custody of Hagiah, Esther was also taken to the king's palace and put in custody of Hagiah, who had charge of the women.

There's a passive verb in here.

She was taken.

That's, I think, used here to demonstrate that this is not Esther or Esther's idea.

Hadasha was not a willing participant in this.

She didn't initiate that.

There's no indication she was fighting against this or she rebelled against it, but she is the one being acted upon.

Mordecai is doing this to her, and she is listening to Mordecai.

She respects Mordecai.

Again, she has no other options here.

Susa may be her address, and Babylon may have even been her home province, but none of that is where she really belongs.

She belongs in Jerusalem.

She's not there.

She's just along for the ride in this story.

As are all the characters.

I mean, that's the beautiful thing with the book of Esther.

Nobody here is really acting on their own.

Everybody in this book is being orchestrated by God in his providence.

As I said, she has two names.

She's supposed to be stressed as living in two worlds.

And she finds herself now under the charge of a man who has this harem of women.

Verse 9, the young woman pleased him and won his favor.

Speaking of Haggai's favor, he quickly provided her with cosmetics and her portion of food with seven chosen young women from the king's palace and advanced her and her young women to the best place in the harem.

I mean, this is like a reality TV show here.

There's all the contestants, and she makes not only the first cut, but the producer is like, whoa, she stands out among all the rest.

So I'm going to take some of the eliminated contestants and make them wait on her.

So she now has a little bit of power.

Again, this is very opposite Daniel.

Daniel did not have people waiting on him, and Daniel wanted to stand out, and Daniel would not eat the chosen food, whereas she is just, she's doing all of it.

She now is elevated the best place in the harem.

I have no idea what that means.

But there she is, whatever the best place is, she's in it.

She was the leader of the, you know, the audience polling at the end of this episode.

Verse 10, Esther had not made known her people or her kindred, for Mordecai had commanded her not to make it known.

In other words, people didn't know Mordecai was Jewish, people didn't know Esther was Jewish, and every day Mordecai walked in front of the court of the harem to learn how Esther was doing and what was happening to her.

You see a picture of a tormented person here, don't you?

This guy has put his daughter, for all practical purposes, his adopted daughter, into a harem for some pagan emperor with a short temper who fired his previous wife, and he puts his daughter into that harem, and now you see him pacing outside the door looking for news through the window of how is she, is she still alive?

I mean, what a messed up story this is.

He's anxious to know how she's doing.

This is a world where fortunes are not decided by work ethic, where fortunes are not decided by intelligence, by laws, or by justice.

Instead, people are subject to personal whims, especially women, are subject to personal whims, and whoever is agenda can manipulate the self-aggrandizing king, and that's where Esther finds herself now being moved around.

She is certainly in both worlds, and you see her compromise here.

Her Jewish identity is so far buried under the surface that nobody would see it.

This is supposed to be a lesson to us.

We are not meant to live this way.

We are meant to be more like the Daniels in the story.

We are meant to stand out in our society.

Esther does not, at Mordecai's direction.

Verse 12, when the turn came for each young woman to go to King Ahazarius after being twelve months, 12 months under the regulations for the women, since this was the regular period of their beautifying, six months with oil of myrrh, and six months with spices and ointments for women.

What?

You thought a two-hour massage was excessive?

They're in this place for a year getting poked and prodded, fattened, and fumigated, perfumed and prepared.

For twelve months at a time to go before the king, all for, you know, the one-night show with the king.

And that's what this is all about.

Verse 13, when the young woman went into the king in this way, she was given whatever she desired to take with her from the harem to the king's palace.

So she gets to choose what she wants, how she's going to dress, what gift she wants to take.

In the evening, she would go in.

And this is talking about all the women.

In the evening, the woman would go in, in the morning she would return to the second harem in custody of Shaskiaz.

This is like the lower-ranking guy.

He gets all the women who have gone with the king, and the next day they now go to him.

So they're out of the year-long beautification program, and they're back into the holding tank for the king's court.

This is where the king's women will stay the rest of their lives.

The king's eunuch who's in charge of the concubines, that's where they go.

She would not go into the king again.

So none of these women would get to go back to the king for a second night.

Unless the king delighted at her.

And she was summoned by name.

This is going to be hard for this king.

He can't say, Oh, I want the girl from a few nights ago.

No, he needs to remember the name.

That's the rule.

That's the rules as they said it.

These rules cannot be broken, of course.

Esther may have had a heart to serve God.

It doesn't seem that way, but she may have had one.

But her life is so buried in the world that it will not stand out.

Nobody would see that or notice that.

When Esther's turn came in, verse 15, who is the cousin here of Mordecai who had taken her as her own daughter to go into the king, the verse says, She asked for nothing except what Haggai, the king's eunuch, who charged the women, advised.

And so because she has a favorable ear with the king's eunuch, and you can see why eunuchs are the ones in charge of this process before she goes in with the king, the eunuch has advice for her and gives it.

And that's as discreet as the scripture is.

Now Esther was winning favor in the eyes of all who saw her.

And when Esther was taken to King of Hazarius into his royal palace, into the tenth month, which is the month of Tibeth, in the seventh year of his reign, the king loved Esther more than all the women.

She won grace and favor in his sight more than all the virgins, so that he set the royal crown on her head and made her queen instead of Vashi.

So Esther won the contest.

She didn't even have to go back into the tank to be called out later.

I mean, it was that next morning the king declares, This is the winner.

Cancel all of the other girls.

The show is over.

Verse 18, the king gave a great feast for all his officials and servants.

This is the old school trickle-down economics.

New queen, no taxes for anyone.

That was funnier in my mind than you guys thought it was.

The king gave a great feast.

He granted a remission of taxes to the provinces and gave gifts with royal generosity to everyone.

Well, I would say Esther is in the world.

I would also say she's of the world at this point.

She's now married to the pagan king.

There's nothing godly about this scene.

You know, the Bible tells believers we also have a little bit in common with Esther.

We are in two worlds.

We're citizens of two kingdoms, subject of two sets of codes of conduct, but our affinity and loyalty has to be to one over the other.

2 Corinthians 5 makes this point where Paul says, I tell you to do not have any partnership with the sexually immoral that are in this world.

And he says, I'm not telling you about the sexually immoral that are in the world.

I'm telling you about those who are believers who are so-called believers that live lives of sexual immorality.

Paul says, if I were to tell you to not have anything to do with the sexually immoral of the world, you'd have to come out of the whole world.

That's 2 Corinthians 5.

You're supposed to navigate this.

You're not supposed to lead a sexually immoral life, and you're not supposed to associate with believers who do.

You're supposed to have a different kind of life.

John 8, verse 12, I'm the light of the world, Jesus says, and listen to this.

John 8:12

I'm the light of the world.

Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have life, will walk in the light of life.

Notice that statement.

If you are following the light of the world, you will lead a life that is filled with light.

There's no light in this chapter, no light at all.

This is a perverse chapter.

There is no light in here, but Jesus says, if you love the light of the world, you will lead a light of life.

You will lead your life in a dark world, but you will lead it differently.

2 Corinthians 1, verse 12.

2 Corinthians 1:12

Our boast is this, the testimony of our conscience that we behaved in the world with simplicity, with godly sincerity, not by earthly wisdom, but by the grace of God.

Notice what Paul says.

I boast in the fact that though I lived in the world, I did not act with an earthly wisdom towards you.

I lived differently, he says.

You want to lead a life that's in the world, but not of the world?

Remember, only God's word is permanent.

Don't be swayed by the so-called fashions of the day.

And secondly, know that you are called to be different, to walk in the light.

And thirdly, none of God's plans are contingent.

None of God's plans are contingent.

Only God's word is permanent.

God's people ought to be different.

None of God's plans are contingent.

In other words, God arranges all the details of every encounter for his glory.

He has no fallback plans.

There is no plan B when you're dealing with providence.

And if you remember this truth, you will not panic when things go your way.

You won't be threatened.

You won't feel like you need to compromise in order to have integrity because you recognize no God is in control of every situation.

When the virgins were gathered, verse 19 says, Together a second time, Mordecai was sitting at the king's gate.

Esther had not made known her kindred or her people as Mordecai had commanded her.

For Esther obeyed Mordecai, just as she was brought up by him.

So Mordecai has told Esther, Don't let's let anyone know you're Jewish.

And she obeyed him.

In those days, as Mordecai was sitting at the king's gate, this is a not loitering here, that's a position of being a judge.

The king would put people at the gate who would hear cases, you know, you needed to hear from the king.

You think of our own country.

You know, the White House used to have all the way through President Garfield, he used to have an open door policy.

Do you know this?

The president every day would start his day on the lower floor of the White House with the back door open, and anybody who wanted to could walk in and take up their cause with the president.

And that worked great, all the way up until one of the people who met with President Garfield was upset about him and then killed him.

And so that ended that policy.

Now there's advisors you meet with.

Now there's advisors.

And this is kind of what the Emperor of Persia is doing.

You can't just walk in to meet with him, he's putting advisors at the different gates.

You got a beef that needs to be brought to the emperor, you meet with one of his advisors.

So notice a little bit of the nepotism here.

Esther is queen, she's not in charge of much, but she puts her uncle as one of the king's advisors at the gate.

She got that accomplished.

In those days, verse 21, Mordecai was sitting there.

Big Thun and Teresh, two of the king's eunuchs, who guarded the threshold, became angry and sought to lay hands on King Ahazarius.

So Mordecai is hanging out, and remember, these eunuchs are probably comfortable with him because he's been walking outside the palace for the virgins all along.

And they begin arguing, and they Mordecai hears this, and they're going to harm the king.

This came to the knowledge of Mordecai.

He told it to Queen Esther.

Esther told the king in the name of Mordecai.

So Esther goes to the king and says, Hey, Mordecai, whom I know and trust, who's at the gate, I put him there, has heard your two eunuchs, and they're going to come harm you.

The king orders it investigated.

Of course he would.

Verse 23 says, He doesn't, he barely knows Esther.

Married her, don't even know her.

When the affair was investigated and found to be so, the men were both hanged on the gallows.

It was recorded in the book of the Chronicles of the presence of the king.

Now I just want you to end here by noticing this is a very providential encounter.

Mordecai was just placed there, and he happens to overhear two eunuchs arguing.

There's so much to say about that, which we'll skip.

But these two eunuchs are going to harm the king, and Mordecai is placed there.

He hears it.

This is just God's providence that this happens.

They could have been arguing in front of anybody, but it happens to be Esther's uncle.

And so they're found out.

And Mordecai gets exactly zero reward for this.

I mean, this whole point, he manipulated all of this to get Esther in a position of power so that Mordecai could climb the ranks.

He's that kind of guy we find out later.

He wants to climb the ranks, and this happens, and he gets no reward.

It's as if it didn't happen.

Not even a thank you.

And he could be unjust.

He could be upset about this.

He doesn't want a thank you.

He wants some kind of reward.

I remember when I was a busser at a restaurant, one night we had a tour bus come in late, and so we worked super hard to feed this group right after closing.

And when they left, our manager gave us all$50 bonuses and a score.

And a few months later, the same thing happened.

A tour bus from the same tour company came and we stayed late and worked really, really hard, and our manager called us into his office afterwards and said, Because you guys stayed late and worked so hard tonight, I'm going to put a note of commendation in your file.

What in the world?

So, in my permanent record at the county line restaurant in Albuquerque, New Mexico, is a note that I worked really hard one night.

Who who cares?

I want my 50 bucks.

That's where Mordecai is.

He wants his 50 bucks here and he doesn't get anything.

Just a note.

A note in his file.

But we're gonna see in God's providence that note is going to be meaningful.

That note is gonna be used by the Lord to deliver the Jews.

All of this comes together here.

They don't understand how.

Mordecai doesn't understand how God is using him, Esther doesn't understand how God is using her, or even that God is using her.

None of these people are thinking about the Lord in any of this.

That's pretty clear.

And yet God is at work.

And believe me when I say God is at work in a way more powerful than drowning Pharaoh's army in the Red Sea.

When you start to appreciate providence, you understand it is more miraculous than manna from the ground.

It's a million puzzle pieces, all put together just so.

This Christmas we did the, my family did the hardest puzzle we have ever done in our life.

And at the end of it, there was one piece missing.

I know, and so for two days, this almost finished puzzle sat on our table with one piece missing.

And Geneva, the youngest girl, found the piece.

And do you know where it was?

Sitting on top of the puzzle the whole time, on top of the finished puzzle.

There was one piece resting there.

It looked just like the picture it was part of, and it had been sitting there for days, and we didn't.

You can imagine, I did not have the fruit of the spirit when I discovered this.

I can't keep track of a thousand pieces of a puzzle.

And God controls all of the affairs of all of the world, and he misses zero pieces.

Well, these two men are hanged on the gallows, and the gallows are interesting.

I don't like the ESV translation of that.

The word isn't gallows.

We have an English concept of gallows where you hang people with a rope around their neck.

This is not that.

They build a stake and they drop the dude on top of a 20-foot stake.

That's what this means.

It's not hung, literally hung, not like a rope around his neck.

The guy is impaled on a stick and prop, which is propped in his yard as a warning to everybody else.

That's what this is.

If you remember from a study in the book of Jonah, this is the means of death that became crucifixion.

This is what the Romans took over from the Persians, that they morphed into the cross.

You hang somebody on a stick as a warning to everybody else, that becomes crucifixion.

So here in the middle of this providential encounter, we find the first reference to crucifixion here as we're working through the Old Testament.

Lord, we're thankful that in your providence you direct all things for your glory and for the good of your kingdom.

Even when people don't understand what you're doing, you are at work.

Even when we don't understand how you will bring about your kingdom, we know that you are working to advance your gospel in this world.

We can barely manage our own affairs.

We can barely manage our own life.

We are like the king.

We make make a decree today and forget what it was tomorrow.

Yet your word is eternal.

I pray for our congregation.

I pray that we would remember the eternality and unmovability of your word, that we would remember we're called to be light in a dark world.

And that we are called to have confidence in your will and your plan, knowing that even when things don't go our way, even when we are thwarted, you are at work even in the injustice of this world.

You are at work for your glory and our good.

We give you thanks for this in Jesus' name.

Amen.

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 a 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.