Honor From God Himself Series

Psalm 91:15, “He shall call upon Me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble; I will deliver him, and honor him.” (AFV)

In continuation with this series of Psalm 91, let us study the life of another man whom God honored, though it seemed that everything was against him.

We read in Esther 6:6,“So Haman came in. And the king said to him, What shall be done to the man whom the king delighteth to honor?” (Webster)

The above were the words of King Ahasuerus to Haman. Haman held a very high position in the kingdom, next to the king. Nonetheless, Haman was filled with hatred towards Mordecai who sat at the entrance of the king’s palace. There was no apparent reason for this hostility towards Mordecai who was a godly man.

In general when someone wishes to honor another person, they might give them a gift or throw a party for them and both of these are just expressions of their love and respect. However, there are those who hate others and these people will do things in accordance with the measure of their hatred.

We read in 1 John 3:12, “Don't be like Cain. He belonged to the Evil One. Cain killed his brother. But why did he kill him? Because what Cain did was evil, and what his brother did was good.” (ERV)

Cain and Abel decide to offer sacrifices to the Lord. Before the Lord looked at their sacrifices, God perceived their hearts and their intentions. Based on this God accepted Abel’s sacrifice and rejected Cain’s. This led Cain to be so filled with hatred towards his brother Abel that he went ahead and killed him. The reason Cain killed Abel was simply because his actions were evil and what his brother Abel did was good, just and acceptable to God.

There are many who believe that when they offers gifts and offering to the Lord, God will be appeased and that they will be accepted by Him. The word of God is clear that the Lord analyzes our hearts before He accepts our gifts. Only when our hearts are pleasing to the Lord, does God delight to receive the gifts from our hands.

Some of us may have gone through this experience of being hated by others without a cause. This could be painful and heart-breaking to us, especially when we have done nothing bad to the person concerned. When this happens, be sure to understand that the reason for this animosity is because you are choosing to do good and walk in God’s ways, which becomes an irritation to them. If we decide to live a just and holy life, be assured that those who are unjust will be resentful and therefore try to malign our good name.

Jesus said it this way in John 15:19, “If you belonged to the world, the world would love you as it loves its own people. But I have chosen you to be different from those in the world. So you don't belong to the world, and that is why the world hates you.” (ERV)

Haman’s hatred towards Mordecai

Not only did Haman hate Mordecai, this hatred he also shared with his wife and his friends who joined together in this conspiracy against Mordecai.

Have you observed how the way we converse with each other about a third person in the family, will lead other family members to either like them or dislike them? Often parents discuss such matters about others in great detail before their children. Sometimes these could be matters pertaining to the way they are being treated by their superiors in their work place. What we fail to understand is that children may be silent, but they are actively listening in to all our conversations. We should therefore be very cautious about all that we discuss among ourselves as spouses. When we express our feeling of hatred we can be certain that this is causing a strong impression in our children as well.

We don’t know if Mordecai’s wife and friends had even set eyes on Mordecai, but simply based on Mordecai’s feeling of animosity, they too detested Mordecai.

We read about this in Esther 5:14, “Then Haman's wife Zeresh and all his friends had a suggestion. They said, "Tell someone to build a post to hang him on. Make it 75 feet tall. In the morning ask the king to hang Mordecai on it. Then go to the party with the king and you can be happy." Haman liked this suggestion, so he ordered someone to build the hanging post.” (ERV)

Think about the evil plot of Haman. In order to get even with Mordecai whom he hated, he prepared a post to hand him right in his house. Sadly, his wife and friends spurred Haman to carry out his wicked plan and gave the cruel suggestion to have Mordecai hung, thereby making a way to get rid of him. Haman listened to this vicious advice and built a gallows 75 feet tall so they could make a public spectacle of Mordecai. This gallows that was built was just an outward sign of the deep hatred that Haman had for Mordecai. I am led to believe that as this tall post was prepared, the entire town may have observed and conversed that this was a trap set for Mordecai, which he could never escape.There may be those who went to Mordecai and informed him of the impending danger at the hands of Haman. However, it does not seem that Mordecai was perturbed or worried about it.