God's Hidden Hand in Justice | Esther

Providence family, it's good to see you.

Would you bow and let's pray together?

Father in heaven, we Lord, we come before you, our Maker, and we are grateful for this new day.

We are grateful for the privilege to gather, to be able to sing, to open your word.

And we are grateful for Jesus Christ, your Son.

Your greatest gift is given to us out of the depth of your love.

We are so incredibly humbled, Jesus, that you would be willing to love us and to see us, to hear us, to cry for us, to pray for us, to die for us, to rise for us.

We praise you for your salvation and how you mediate for us and reconcile us.

And as we open up your word now, I pray that you would open up our hearts.

And in particular, as we look at Esther 7 and we see a portrait of justice, I pray for people in the room who are experiencing the bitter residue of injustice.

I pray for those who have been abused and assaulted and maligned and mistreated.

And for those who feel like what's been done to them has not been met with justice.

Would you help us to see what you're doing?

Would you help us to see what you were doing when it happened?

Would you please speak through weakness?

Would you help us to see that within this passage there's something that's personally at stake in our own lives?

God, please, would you bring people who are far from you close?

And use your word to do it.

We pray in Christ's name.

Amen.

And if you happen to be brand new and maybe you didn't um in your hand you don't have a Bible, there's lots of Bibles in the chairs in front of you.

And if you don't have one of your own, I would encourage you not to feel bad about that.

I would simply encourage you to take that one that's in front of you home as a gift.

That's why they're there.

It's the story of redemption.

Perhaps you're brand new to church.

Maybe you're brand new to the Bible.

And one thing you need to know about the Bible is it's filled with all kinds of stories, amazing stories, true stories, the true stories.

And what's interesting is Esther is one of those stories.

And what's beautiful and remarkable is that God has inspired the recording of all of these stories and his interaction in people's lives through history in order to tell one cohesive story about redemption.

And the Bible was completed a long time ago, and yet your story, your life is written into this redemptive story.

Its implications are for us, for me, and for you.

And so I pray that it's going to be encouraging to you.

In the beginning of the story, it begins, as you can imagine, in the beginning, God creates the heavens and the earth.

And the Bible says that we sinned against God.

We broke his commands.

And the Bible says that when we did so, is that God in his pain for the injustice that we brought to him, the unrighteousness that we brought to the world that he created, that he still loved us and he made a promise to send a son who would be a savior.

He had to choose a line, a family line.

It was a son that was going to be born of a woman, so there had to be a woman, and he didn't want us guessing which son that was born on the earth was the Christ.

So he tells us early in the story that he would be born of a Jewish line, one of the sons of Abraham, in the line of Abraham, I should say.

And what's interesting is throughout the rest of the Old Testament, is that God, in order to fulfill his promise to bring his Savior, our Savior, through the Jewish line, he had to keep that line alive.

And they faced and they still faced repeated attacks over and over and over again through the Bible.

And interestingly, throughout the Old Testament, is typically God saved his people, and he did so very dramatically.

With his visible hand, people knew that God was working for them, fighting for them.

Seeds were parted.

There would be bushes that would be burning and yet not consumed.

He spoke with an audible voice.

It was this remarkable display, this visible, dramatic display of his salvation.

But in Esther, the one book in the Old Testament that God is not mentioned, he does not save dramatically, he saves providentially.

His hidden hand moving through edicts and people and decisions and relationships in order to bring the course of events to his saving purposes.

And what this book does for us as people, there's been people ask, why are we studying Esther?

Like there's a lot of books that mention God.

Why don't we talk about one of those?

Well, we talk about those all the time, and we're gonna keep talking about those.

But what's so interesting about this book is it perhaps of all the books in the Old Testament is most like our life.

See, most of us, we don't see burning bushes and parting seas and hear audible voices from heaven.

And sometimes we wonder what's God doing, even when he's working, his hands in our life seem hidden.

And so one of the things you find is this is that there's an interpretive key to the book of Esther that once you understand it, it helps you to interpret your own life.

You see, by looking at the words of God and interpreting through the words of God in the rest of the Bible and using those words to interpret the book of Esther and what he's doing with his hidden hands in this book, you use that same thing and you use his words to interpret his hidden hand in your own, and suddenly you can begin to interpret and understand what God is doing in your life when it seems like he is so far from you.

The book of Esther is set in Persia, modern-day Iran.

There's a king, his name is Ahasuerus, we know him as Xerxes.

Then in chapter one, we're told that he threw some feasts, then eventually he got drunk, and then he deposed his queen, Vashti, because she refused to participate in her being objectified in front of a bunch of drunk men.

When you get to the end of chapter one, you're supposed to think that's unjust.

And then we get to chapter two, and in chapter two, we're told that beautiful virgins, women, young women from all over the empire were literally sought, taken, and brought, put into a harem, and given one night with the king so that he could choose his next queen.

And you're supposed to look at the human trafficking, and you're supposed to look at the objectification of these women, the robbing of their lives, and you're supposed to say that's unjust, because it is.

And what we find is in that chapter that this king he chose this beautiful young virgin Jewish woman named Esther.

When we get to chapter three, we're introduced to the villain of the story.

His name is Haman, and we're introduced to him at the very moment when he's being promoted to second a command over the entire Persian Empire.

There's a man named Mordecai who happens to be the cousin of Esther.

And he refuses to bow down to Haman, to regard him as holy, to, and as a result of that, he begins to hate him.

But he doesn't want to just hate him.

He resolves in his heart not simply to kill Mordecai, but all of Mordecai's people, which were the Jews.

So he goes to the king and he goes and he says, listen, he goes, there's this people group, this Jewish people group, and what they do is they have their own laws and they are disruptive to law and order in Persia.

The best thing to do would be to annihilate, the kill them.

And the king takes the signet ring, he hands it to Haman, and he authorizes him to send out an edict, 11 months to the day that anybody in the empire who had a Jewish neighbor, that on a certain day, 11 months from then, that they would be able to kill them without cause and plunder their goods.

And we're supposed to read chapter three and say that's unjust.

And then we come to chapter four.

And in chapter four, the queen Esther, who who has been now the queen for five years and no one knows that she's Jewish, is that she resolves that she has a responsibility to seek justice for her people and to mediate for her people by going to the king, but the king has not invited her.

And the king of Persia, he really cared about not only security but privacy.

And so to enter into the throne room when he was there uninvited, was met with one of two results.

He could either extend to you his golden scepter, which is a sign of his mercy coming upon you, or his guards would extend their swords to you and you would be killed on the spot.

And we're supposed to think that this is a king who's been entrusted with authority from God on high, who welcomes us into his presence.

And so when we find a king who is so separated from his people and would even kill people without cause only because they came into the room with you, you're supposed to think that's unjust.

Then we get to chapter five.

And in chapter five, Esther comes before the king.

He extends, thankfully, for the story, his scepter, receives mercy, or he gives mercy.

She receives it and he gives her a request.

And she says, He says, What is your request?

What is your need?

You wouldn't walk in here, you wouldn't risk your life for nothing.

Up to half of my kingdom, it will be fulfilled to you.

And she says, Would you and Haman come to a feast that I've already prepared?

So they come to the feast, and at the feast the king says a second time, up to half my kingdom, what is it that you want?

And she says, For you and Haman to come to a feast tomorrow that I will prepare.

And so they leave, and Haman goes home.

And he goes home and he's boasting that he's the only person in the empire who's been invited to eat and drink at two feasts with the king and the queen.

But on the way there, he sees Mordecai and he's filled with hatred towards him.

And so he goes home and he gathers his wife and he gathers his friends and he's boasting, but he says, But all this means nothing to me so long as Mordecai is still alive.

So they advise him to build a set of gallows in his backyard that is 75 feet tall to hang him.

Mordecai.

But he has to seek permission, and he's going to do that in the morning by going to the king and saying, Is it okay if I kill Mordecai?

That same night, the king can't sleep.

And so his servants bring in this book called The Chronicles, all these deeds of different people, and they happen to turn to the page where Mordecai in chapter two save the king's life by foiling a plot upon his life by two other servants.

And the king says, What was Mordecai given in response?

And they say, You've done nothing for him.

And we're supposed to think at the end of chapter six, well, that's unjust as well.

Interestingly, the next morning, Mordecai, I'm sorry, the king, is waiting for Haman.

Haman is waiting for the king.

They come and they both want to talk about Mordecai, but for very different reasons.

The king gets to speak first.

And so he says to Haman, What should be done for the man for whom the king delights to honor?

And Haman can't imagine that the king would want to honor anyone more than himself.

And so he gives his own wish list.

Let that man you want to honor, let him wear your robe and sit on your horse, and have one of your chief officials, your servant, someone real high in your government, walk in front of him down the streets and saying, This is a man whom the king delights to honor.

And the king says, That's a great idea.

Haman, you happen to be one of my chief servants.

Now go do that to Mordecai.

Mordecai goes home ashamed.

He's speaking with his wife and with his friends.

And that's where we come to verse 14 in chapter 6.

It says, While they were yet talking with him, the king's eunuchs arrived and hurried to bring Haman to the feast that Esther had prepared.

So the king and Haman went in to 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 of the king.

Then King Ahaswer said to Queen Esther, Who is he and where is he?

Who has dared to do this?

And Esther said, A foe and 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 you 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 had prepared for Mordecai, whose word saved 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.

And then the wrath of the king abated.

This week and last week, I had more than one person ask me, What was God doing when I was assaulted?

And what is he doing now in response to it?

And that is a hard reality.

And one of the things we find here is an answer to that question.

What is God doing in his righteousness and sovereignty and justice?

When he looks down upon the earth and he sees people that he sees, that he has power, he's good at heart, and bad things happen on the earth.

There's a lot of people who dismiss their unbelief in the reality of God on the basis of the evil that they see within the world.

Because they think if God is all powerful, all-knowing, and good, then this couldn't happen.

But it did happen.

So what is God doing in light of and in response to the injustice that's all over the world.

Two things this morning.

First, God is providentially working to bring evil into the light.

You know, there is just a vast amount of evil that is done under the cover of darkness.

Sometimes the darkness is the dark of night, sometimes it's in broad daylight, and yet people don't see it.

Sometimes people who are very unjust, it seems like they got away with it.

Whether it's financial fraud, whether it's emotional, sexual abuse, doesn't matter what kind, it's all wrong, and so much evil is done seemingly in a way that it seems like people get away with it under the cover of darkness.

And one of the things we find here is that God is committed to using events and providence and his people to bring it into the light.

Her Bible would have been the Old Testament, it would have been the law of Moses.

We don't know because it doesn't say.

And so we don't know if she understood or knew Proverbs chapter 25, but there's no doubt that her life exemplified Proverbs 25.

Proverbs 25 · chapter mention

For there it says that with patience a ruler or a king may be persuaded, which is what she's trying to do, and with a soft tongue will break a bone.

What we find in her story is this is a woman who's pretty amazing.

The first thing we learned about her was that she was an orphan, she was adopted, and then we learned that she was attractive.

But now all of a sudden she's this brave heart, she's full of courage and wisdom.

And what we find here is that with a soft tongue, meaning her soft words, her tact, her wisdom, and with her patience, her patience, not just to run into the throne room and say, This is what's wrong with the world, and this is what you did, and it was your signet ring, but instead she invites him to two feasts to fill his belly before she fills his ear.

She has gotten the most powerful man in the world.

I want you to think about this.

This beautiful young woman has gotten the most powerful man in the world through her patience and her soft tongue to say to her three times what he says in verse two, and that is, what is your request?

Even up to half of my kingdom, it will be fulfilled to you.

Think about that.

He's saying, good mood, good food, green light.

What is it that you want?

My heart is favorably disposed to you.

I'm leaning in your direction.

I want to fulfill what is on your heart.

I want to help you.

What is it?

And there's attendants around who are hearing his testimony three times over that he intends to say yes to what her request is.

It takes a tremendous amount of wisdom to be able to get the most powerful man in the world to be so favorably disposed to you three times over.

And it's interesting when we finally get here, it's time.

You see, she's been hiding her Jewish heritage for five years.

No one knew, which meant that she wasn't eating according to the Jewish dietary law.

She wasn't practicing Passover and all the other beautiful, wonderful feasts that the Jewish people were.

She wasn't praying to the God of the Bible in a way that people understood where she was.

Perhaps it was all in private.

She wasn't worshiping in public places, but now all of a sudden, in this time, at this space, she's so full of courage that she is unashamed in her connection and her devotion and participation to say, I am with the Jewish people because they are my people.

Such courage.

So many of us should take this page and apply it to our own life because outside of this realm, we tend to live with secret mode out there.

And it is time for many of us to unashamedly stand with God's people and with his son.

She says to him, If I have found favor in your sight, O King, let my life be granted me for my wish, my people for my request.

We've been sold, I and my people, to be destroyed, to be killed, and to be annihilated.

I want you to see in this these two verses, there's three things.

First, there's a premise.

The premise is if I have found favor in your sight.

Five years ago, this is what she's saying, five years ago, you looked upon me with favor.

And if I still have that favor, then what that means is that my life is connected to your joy and your peace and your benefit.

I am with you and you are with me.

If I have found favor, that's the premise, then there's a petition.

You have asked me what my need is, my request, and my wish.

My wish is that I get to stay alive.

My request is that my people, the Jewish people, get to stay alive.

Now, this is an amazing thing to serve up as a petition in light of the premise.

And the reason is because the premise is all about favor.

What she's saying is this is an assault on the queen is an assault on the king.

In particular, if the queen has received favor from this king.

And so she gives the premise, she gives the petition.

And then she gives a charge.

And the charge is this we have been sold to be annihilated.

Now, why would you say the word sold?

Isn't that an interesting word?

Why sold?

And the reason is because in chapter three, when Haman comes before the king and asks for the king's authorization to destroy the people, he says, if you grant permission to destroy the Jewish people, then I will pay 10,000 talents of silver into the king's treasuries.

Both Haman and the king have been involved in this sale.

But when the king asked, who has dared to do this?

Esther wisely implicated only one because she's talking not only to the most powerful man in the world, but perhaps the most volatile.

And she says, A foe and an enemy, this wicked Haman.

Now, this is one example where God is using Esther to bring evil into the light.

And why it's so important is because what we find here is going to be extrapolated in perfection when Jesus Christ comes back and when we stand before his throne and all sin will be exposed.

What we find here in a tiny example is literally only a just a just a brief reflection of a greater justice that is coming, a greater exposure to all sin in the world, including our own.

So what do we do with this?

This knowledge that God is committed today to bring about moments where that which is hidden can be seen.

And in many cases, it needs to be because that which is done and it's hidden sometimes is perpetuated by other people if no one else knows that that person is a risk.

So there's two things here, two applications.

First, let me encourage us to seek justice as we rest in his sovereignty.

Friends, God is sovereign.

In the Bible, he doesn't say that he behaves righteously and he behaves with justice.

It says he is the standard of righteousness, he is the standard of justice.

So to stand in front of this standard, it's like a mirror to where we see our sin and our injustice.

We're told in Psalm 89 that his throne has been established on righteousness and justice.

And we're told within the Bible that this sovereign God has given us agency.

Sometimes people say the word free will, which we know what that means, but it's really not accurate.

Free will assumes that you can make any decision you want.

But the fact is, is there's so many thousands of decisions that are not at your disposal.

Free will says, if I want to do it, I can do it.

But there's a lot of things you just can't do, and you don't get the ability to choose.

But he does give us agency.

And with that agency, what we've found is that each one of us can make decisions with the ingredients that are in our life and in front of our life.

And with that agency, every single one of us has made really good, kind, loving, thoughtful decisions.

And with that agency, each one of us has also made very bad decisions where we have sinned against God, and that sin splashes up and it harms and mistreats other people.

You say, What is he doing?

Well, throughout the Bible, in particular the minor prophets, God goes out of his way to express his emotional distress when he looks down from heaven upon the earth in his righteousness and justice, and he sees sin and injustice taking place on the earth, this place that his he's so pure, and yet he looks and he says, This is what I created, and yet this is what I see upon the earth.

He's not aloof.

He sees the injustice, he hears your cry.

He feels your pain.

He goes out of his way to tell us that.

And some people look at this in just a moment.

Some people say, Well, why didn't he just stop it?

Some people ask me that, and I say, Well, let me just ask you, how would you have liked for him to have stopped it?

And some people, on the basis of the severity of the abuse or mistreatment, they're like, Why couldn't God just kill him?

But don't you understand when the Bible says that we've all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, and what that means is that the standard of his justice has to be applied evenly to all of us.

And so if that's really what we wanted him to do, then don't you understand within a matter of about five or ten minutes, everyone on the earth would be killed.

Because we've all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

And so he does see, and so what are we supposed to do?

We're supposed to rest in his sovereignty, and at the same time, we're told in Isaiah chapter one that we're to learn to do good and to seek justice, that we're to correct the oppression and bring justice to the fatherless and plead the widow's cause.

We're supposed to rest in the fact that he has authority and he's gonna bring the world to rights, and at the very same time, we're supposed to be an instrument of that justice, just as Esther was.

Throughout the Bible, you find that this justice, this biblical justice, is found in three words: impartiality, generosity, advocacy.

You see this over and over and over again, where he says, if you see an image bearer of God, it doesn't matter what how old they are, if they're a male or female, if they're white, if they're brown, if they're black, it doesn't matter if they're old, it doesn't matter what they are, if they're an image bearer of God, then impartially we are to, with generosity and advocacy, seek justice for people who are being oppressed.

And so for each one of us, when we hear this story, when we see Esther and all of her courage going to the king and saying, This is what's taking place, you have to understand this is that God anticipates and expects that when we see injustice taking place, and if we have a voice, that we use that voice.

We use the voice for people who don't have one.

And the second thing I want you to consider with me, application-wise, is let's trust that God will expose all sin.

Nothing in all the world is hidden from his sight, nothing escapes God's sight.

You see, when we sin and sin in a way that there's like a public scandal, right?

Where we do something, we're just like, wow, I can't believe that happened.

We even will say to one another or to ourselves, man, I just didn't see that coming.

I want you to know God has never said that.

He always sees it coming.

In fact, within the Bible, it's interesting is that he uses a metaphor, and the metaphor is childbirth.

It's fascinating.

We all understand this, okay?

And so we know that when we see a little baby, little tiny baby, like, wow, that baby just didn't arrive.

It didn't just show up.

There was a process.

And so what we know is first of all, there was desire.

And then there was conception.

And then there's this little bitty human being within the womb, and a little tiny thing that no one could see.

And there's no evidence initially.

Maybe, maybe mom knows she's not feeling so well, but but but but for the rest of us, it doesn't look like anything.

It doesn't look like there's a baby.

And all of a sudden, there's just a little.

And for a lot of us, we go through that, like, what's going on there?

Should we no, don't say anything.

Let's just wait.

This, this way.

This is just better to wait.

And but eventually you're like, okay, now I know.

Now there's a baby, and all of a sudden that there's growth, and then eventually there's a baby, right?

Well, God says, this is what I see when people that you say, oh, he fell morally.

She fell morally.

He says, Let me show you the process that I've been watching for a very long time.

In James 1, he says this.

He says, desire when it is conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death.

In other words, God says, I've been looking at you, and I see desire in your heart for whatever that sin is, and I see conception within your heart.

And not only that, but I saw and have seen these little tiny, tiny assumptions that you've been making and allowances that you've been making in order to satisfy whatever that is.

It's still hidden, it's so small.

But here's the thing tiny allowances, our heart gets bored with tiny allowances, and so what happens?

They get bigger.

And eventually they get bigger and bigger and bigger until finally we act upon it.

And now all of a sudden there's public sin.

And people say, I can't believe it.

And God says, I've been watching it for months.

And some of us, it's so interesting, it's so important for us to ask this question what is the most likely area of our fall?

Some of us say, Well, I'm not there right now.

Isn't that beautiful?

It's a beautiful thing if that's not happened to you.

But don't you understand?

It's so important, if this is the case, to ask yourself this question.

What is the most likely way in a year or nine months from now?

What is the most likely way that I would shame Christ or myself?

You say, Well, how would I know?

This is how you know.

Look at the area right now where you give little allowances and to know that your heart's gonna get bored with those little allowances and so they're gonna grow.

See, each and every one of us, we sin against God.

And many of us, when we sin against God, we feel guilt.

And when we feel guilt, we tend to hide.

And we try to wait and we lay low until that guilt subsides, and we look around and we think, you know what?

No one is saying anything.

I think I got away with it.

And Numbers chapter 32 says, your sin will find you out.

Numbers 32 · chapter mention

Ecclesiastes chapter 12 says, God will bring every deed into judgment with every secret thing, whether good or evil.

Ecclesiastes 12 · chapter mention

Whether that sin is ever exposed here on the earth, or where you stand before God Almighty and in full exposure, everyone, he, you, everyone will see.

He will bring it to light.

And therefore, the only path that the Bible gives to us as followers of Christ to avoid those moments of destruction where our sin can be removed as far as the east is from the west, is that we live a life of confession of sin to God and to one another and repentance, where we take those tiny allowances and we sever them.

We make no provision for the flesh.

We say, I'm not gonna give myself an allowance or permission in small ways, because small ways eventually become big ways.

Your sin will find you out, whether here or in front of his throne.

So I urge you, I urge you to confess and live a life of repentance.

The second thing I want you to see is that God is providentially working to bring justice to the world.

There is a day coming, friends, when Christ is gonna return and he's gonna set the world to rights.

And every now and then here on the earth, just as in the story of Esther, we see a portrait, a glimpse of the perfect justice that is coming, and we see it in one individual life right now.

Every now and then someone gets caught.

Every once in a while, somebody's like, okay, that was unjust, and now all of a sudden there's justice, and we see it delivered, but so much is waiting.

And so we come back to the story in verse 7, it says, The king arose in his wrath from the wine drinking and went into the palace garden.

Now, this is a combination, right?

Anytime your heart is full of both wine and wrath, yeah, it's a dangerous combination.

He goes out to gather his thoughts in the garden, and as he's in the garden, we don't know what it says that he was thinking about, what he was, but can you imagine what could what he could have been thinking about in that moment?

I I don't know if this is what happened.

This is what I imagine.

I imagine in this moment he knows, he sees what's going on.

He's like, Esther's Jewish.

Didn't know that.

Haman's evil.

Didn't really know that either.

I am culpable.

You see, he knew at this moment that he was just as responsible for the edict as Haman to kill the Jews, and maybe more so because he was the king.

Interestingly, there's two other people back at the table, you remember?

Can you imagine what that was like?

Not only was it awkward looking at each other, but I want you to know something, it was illegal.

In Persian law, the king left, any man in the presence of the queen also had to leave, so there was no possibility of assault upon the queen.

But he knows he's a dead man anyway, so he stays and this is the only hope I have anyway, is to beg for mercy with Esther.

Now, this is amazing.

You remember the night before he's with his wife, and he says, Wife, you're not gonna believe this.

Her name is Zerish.

I'm the only person that Esther invited to have a meal with the king and the queen.

How lucky am I! And now all of a sudden he knows why he's been invited.

Haman stayed to beg for his life when he saw that harm was determined against him by the king.

And then the king returns.

Now we know his motive of being there was not to assault her, it was to beg for mercy.

But as he's begging, it appears that he stumbles and he falls on the couch where Esther was.

And this was not a small thing because what this did is it provided the king justification to kill Haman without having to trace it back to the edict that he signed with his own ring.

And he says, Will he assault the queen in my presence in my own house?

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

Now, I want you to think about this.

Darkness in the daytime.

Why is that important?

Because in Job chapter 5, we're told that the schemes of the wily or the wicked are brought to a quick end.

Job 5 · chapter mention

They meet with darkness in the daytime.

Suddenly one of the king's advisors says, I don't know if you know this, but Haman had built a set of gallows in order to kill Mordecai.

And the king says, Hang Haman there.

Now we are almost done, but what I want to do is something uncomfortable first.

Anytime we read a story like this, in fact, it's very interesting.

This story is read every single year by the Jewish people, even today, at the Feast of Purim, which we'll look at in two weeks.

And when they do, and they read the story, they hear Haman's name and they boo until they get to this moment, and then they cheer.

And you can imagine why.

I can imagine why.

He sought to kill all of them, and God delivered them.

In order to deliver our Savior.

You see, nobody here wants to identify with Haman for good reasons, but we all resemble him.

Haman was made in the image of God, and so are we.

Haman was a sinner before God, and so are we.

Being far from God, Haman had a longing within his heart, this unsatiable desire to be loved and noticed and feared and revered, respected by people, and so do we.

Haman felt insecure and overcompensated for it.

And so do we.

Everyone around here, you may not tell anybody, but I promise you, you and you know this, you're more insecure than the person next to you knows how insecure you are.

So we all compensate in some directions.

Some people get loud, some people get shy, some people get boastful, some people start with self-loathing.

All of it is a way to compensate for our insecurity.

Am I enough?

Haman found his identity and how much power he could have, so do we, how much money he could have, so do we.

What neighborhood he lived in, so do we.

And he passed his days in envy and hatred.

And what does Titus say about us?

He says, we ourselves are once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another.

You see, just because we don't have the same amount of money that he had to resource his evil heart, and just because we don't act on every impulse within our heart to do evil things to people, it doesn't mean that we don't have a problem, a sin problem before a holy God.

You see, we have to ask this question.

If God Almighty, who is just and righteous, brings all evil into the light and gives his perfect justice, then what about our sin?

We've all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

Esther chapter 7 gives us a picture of his perfect justice, but this picture only points to the perfected justice that's made possible by Jesus Christ that we all desperately need.

Esther 7 · chapter mention

You see, unlike Haman who received justice for his evil, it was Jesus the Christ who received judgment for our evil.

Just imagine.

You talk about heroes in the Bible and how there's only one true hero.

Just imagine if when the king had come and said, hang Haman on the gallows, if Esther had said, forgive him, for he knew not what he did.

It proved that she wasn't the ultimate hero of the Bible.

But many years later, Jesus was born.

He grew up and he lived without sin.

He healed people, he loved people, he cared for people, he taught people, and then he walked to Jerusalem, and there he was falsely accused, and he was condemned, and they laid him down upon a cross, and as they were striking the nails, he prayed, Father, forgive them, for they knew not know what they do not know what they're doing.

The true and better hero is Jesus.

The Hebrew word for gallows is tree.

The Persian's form of crucifixion was to impale a man on a tree and then to let him hang.

And what did they do with Jesus?

They impaled him with nails upon a tree and then they hoisted him up where he hung for six hours.

And he gave up his breath, he gave up his life, he died, he was buried on the third day, just as he promised, because he has all power and all authority, and because he did not die for his own sin, he rose from the dead.

And when he rose from the dead, he extended an invitation to the whole world that if we would acknowledge that we have a sin problem, that we cannot pay, that we all have a date with justice that is in our future, and we are not ready for it.

But if we would put our faith in Jesus Christ, who died on our behalf, and if we would confess him as Lord, that we would be forgiven of our sin, we'd be given eternal life.

Peter says it this way: Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God.

Friends, if you've been brought near to God, it's through Jesus and Jesus alone.

And not only when we put our faith in Christ are we forgiven of our sin, and our sins are removed as far as the east is from the west, so that we do not have to fear the day of justice.

We get to relish the day of justice.

Not only do we receive that benefit, but don't you understand it is this is why the news of his justice is why Christians can relinquish our desire for vengeance by trusting that God is going to deal with sin perfectly.

And so today I urge you if you've never put your faith in Christ, that you would do so right now.

Right now.

So let's pray together.

Father in heaven, as we consider our own sin problem and we consider the righteousness of Jesus Christ the Savior of the world, I pray that you would help those of us who have already put our faith in Christ to rejoice and to be grateful, and to be trusting, and to be motivated to be an advocate for people, to be humble.

And I pray for those who are here who have never put their faith in you, that you right now would lead them to call out to you, that they could pray to you right now.

That they right now would acknowledge that they have a sin problem that they cannot pay.

That they would call out to you and acknowledge that they have put their faith and trust in Jesus Christ alone.

And that they would call out to you and turn the reins of their life, the controls of their life over and confess you as word of the life.

And Father, I pray for those who are putting their trust in you that you would forgive them and cleanse them and heal them.

Jesus, we believe that you are the hero of the whole Bible.

Promised as the special son at the very beginning.

Promised hundreds of times over where you would be born and what you would do throughout all of the law and the prophets.

We see, Jesus, that you're the fulfillment of it all.

And so it's with hope that we sing to you now.

And we pray this in Christ's name.

Amen.