Esther
INTRODUCTION:
A well-known theologian was once asked to prove the existence of God. He replied that he could prove God’s existence in two words: “The Jew.” From ancient history to today, many nations have attempted to exterminate God’s chosen people.
• Starting with the Ancient Egyptian Empire who originally enslaved them and then tried to kill off all male babies,
• The Philistines and other nations who tried to annihilate them when they arrived in Canaan.
• Assyria, the Babylonian Empire and the Persian Empire, who massacred thousands, exiled them from their land, destroyed their temple and sometimes outlawed worship of their God.
• The Roman Empire, the Greek Empire, the Byzantine Empire, the Spanish Empire, the Crusaders, Nazi Germany, and Russia have all singled out the Jews for persecution.
• Today the Jewish Nation is surrounded on every border by countries who have declared their intention to destroy Israel.
Miraculously, the Jewish people remain as a distinct people --- one of the smallest, yet most powerful, of all nations. Certainly the most indestructible! As one Jewish historian puts it, “We have a Friend in the highest of places, so play nice.”Am Yisrael
Today we’re going to look at one of these attempts to wipe out God’s people. The book of Esther records an event that happened about 480 BC during the reign of Xerxes in the Persian Empire. Some of the Jews had been allowed to return to Israel and rebuild Jerusalem, but most Jews were still held captive in Persia.
The setting of our Story is the Palace in Susa, the capital city of Persia. The main characters are King Xerxes, Queen Esther, and Esther’s uncle Mordecai. And the villain of the story is the Persian Prime Minster … a man named Haman.
1. The Villain
Haman was a descendant of the Amalekites … who were the first tribe to oppose Israel when they approached the Promised Land. The Amalekite’s hatred for the Jews went back centuries. But Haman had a personal reason to hate the Jews. One of the King’s guards was a Jewish man named Mordecai. Everyone else bowed down to Prime Minister Haman, but Mordecai refused to bow. This infuriated Haman.
So in his arrogance, he hatched a plot. The plot would make it possible for him to murder Mordecai legally. More than that, it would make it legal to murder every single Jew in the whole land of Persia.
Haman convinced King Xerxes that the exiled Jews were his enemies and should all be exterminated. To sweeten the deal, he told the King that all the Jewish wealth would be confiscated and a certain portion of it would end up in the King’s treasury. The King didn’t really want to be bothered with details. The king said, “The money and the people are both yours to do with as you see fit.” Esther 3:11 Then he gave Haman his signet ring so he could make whatever decree he wanted.
So Haman issued a Royal Decree that on March 7 (less than a year away) the people of Persia had permission to kill every Jew without penalty, and they could take all the Jew’s possessions for themselves. This decree was sent out across all 127 provinces of Persia … from the borders of Egypt to the borders of India.
Let me tell you, this decree had the potential to completely wipe out all of God’s chosen people. It’s hard to explain why these enduring people have been the target of similar hatred from almost every country on earth at one time or another … except to realize that it has always been the heart of Satan’s plan to eliminate the people of God. You see this in the pages of the Bible. And you see the same violent plots against Israel in the pages of today’s newspapers.
The plot against Israel in the book of Esther never came to pass. And the rescue of God’s people came through the brave action of the heroine of this story … Queen Esther.
2. The Heroine
Esther started life as nothing more than a poor young Jewish exile. The way she rose to become the Queen of Persia reads like a fairy tale. When the King decided to find a suitable Queen, he sent out across the land for every lovely young woman to be brought before him in the Royal Palace.
Mordecai had a lovely cousin named Esther. He saw an opportunity to increase Jewish influence in the country, and he insisted beautiful young Esther should enter the contest. She did … and she won the King’s heart.
It was several years later when Mordecai came to Esther again with a desperate request. When Mordecai heard about Haman’s Royal Death Warrant, he sent a message to Queen Esther in the Palace. Mordecai asked her to go before the King and ask him to cancel the decree.
To the Queen, this looked like Mission Impossible. Esther had replaced Queen Vashti … who had been banished for displeasing the King. Esther would be breaking protocol if she barged into The King’s presence without an invitation. On top of that, no husband wants his wife telling him how to run his business. Esther told Mordecai “If I do what you’re asking, I’ll be signing my own death warrant.”
Mordecai sent this reply to Esther: “Don’t think for a moment that because you’re in the palace you will escape when all other Jews are killed. If you keep quiet at a time like this, deliverance and relief for the Jews will arise from some other place, but you and your relatives will die.
Who knows if perhaps you were made queen for just such a time as this?” Esther 4:13-14
Esther asked Mordecai to have all the Jews of Susa fast for three days, while she and all her maids would do the same. “And then, though it is against the law, I will go in to see the king. If I must die, I must die.” Esther 4:16 That courage is what makes Esther a heroine! God answered those 3 days of fasting and praying, by giving Esther an inspired plan.
Even back then, the way to a man’s heart was through his stomach. So when Esther entered the King’s chamber, she invited him to a banquet. In fact, she invited not just the King … she invited the man that she knew was the power behind the throne … Haman.
The story tells us that Haman went home and bragged to his family about how everything was going his way. The King had made him the most powerful man in Persia, and the Queen herself had invited him to an exclusive banquet … just the King, the Queen, and Haman.
Now, we’ve talked about the Villain, Haman and the Heroine, Esther. It’s time to focus on the most important person in the drama … the Director.
3. The DIRECTOR
In the story of Esther, God is never actually mentioned. This is the only book in the Bible that never refers to Jehovah or even to prayer or worship. This was probably because the book was written in Persia where mentioning the God of the Jews was a federal offence.
But make no mistake; God was directing the action of this story. Behind the scenes, God has been setting the stage in ways that Haman … and even Esther … couldn’t have imagined. Here’s what happened the night after Esther invited the King to her banquet.
That night the king had trouble sleeping, so he ordered an attendant to bring the book of the history of his reign so it could be read to him. Esther 6:1 The part of Persian History he read that night happened to be about Mordecai. It told about a time in the past when a man named Mordecai overheard two of the King’s guards plotting to assassinate him.
When the King read that Mordecai had exposed the plot and saved the King’s life, he asked His servant, “What reward or recognition did we ever give Mordecai for this?”
His attendants replied, “Nothing has been done for him.”
“Who is that in the outer court?” the king inquired. As it happened, Haman had just arrived in the outer court of the palace to ask the king to hang Mordecai on the pole he had prepared. Esther 6:3-4
There’s a lot of “coincidence” in this story. The King “just happened” to have insomnia that night. He “just happened” to read about Mordecai. And then, when he wanted to talk to someone about giving Mordecai a reward, guess who “just happened” to be nearby. Not only was Haman in the courtyard, he “just happened” to be constructing a pole so he could ask the King to hang Mordecai on it.
Let’s stop here for a minute. At this point in the “lower story” none of the characters … Esther, Mordecai, Xerxes, and Haman … none of them have any idea that God is setting the stage for the Salvation of His People. To the characters, it seems like life is just a series of unrelated events that just happen.
That’s how life feels while we’re living it. We can’t see the pattern to all the “just happens” of our lives. But God is always constructing an amazing pattern in the “upper story”. In the book of Esther, God was putting everything in place … step by step. And His justice would be absolutely perfect.
Here’s what happened. The King asked Haman, “What reward should I give someone who has pleased me?” Haman figured, “He’s got to mean ME!” so he answered, “Dress him in royal robes and set him on a royal horse. Then have one of your high officials parade him through the city, shouting ‘This is what the King does for someone he wants to honor!’”
“Great idea!” said the King. And the next thing Haman knew, he was leading Mordecai through the city shouting the very words he came up with: “This is what the King does for someone he wants to honor!” All the time Haman was leading that Royal Horse through the city with Mordecai seated on it --- Haman was thinking, “Oh well, I’ll just put up with it for now. Soon it will be March 7 and I’ll have Mordecai hanging from that pole in the end!”
Then Haman and the King attended Queen Esther’s banquet. It was great! And, better yet, she invited them back for a second banquet. It was at this second banquet that Esther found her golden opportunity to speak up. I can’t tell this part of the story any better than the original!
Look in Esther 7:2-10: On this second occasion, while they were drinking wine, the king again said to Esther, “Tell me what you want, Queen Esther. What is your request? I will give it to you, even if it is half the kingdom!”
Queen Esther replied, “If I have found favor with the king, and if it pleases the king to grant my request, I ask that my life and the lives of my people will be spared. For my people and I have been sold to those who would kill, slaughter, and annihilate us. If we had merely been sold as slaves, I could remain quiet, for that would be too trivial a matter to warrant disturbing the king.”
“Who would do such a thing?” King Xerxes demanded. “Who would be so presumptuous as to touch you?” (Isn’t this perfect!?)
Esther replied, “This wicked Haman is our adversary and our enemy.” Haman grew pale with fright before the king and queen. Then the king jumped to his feet in a rage and went out into the palace garden.
Haman, however, stayed behind to plead for his life with Queen Esther, for he knew that the king intended to kill him. (Now it gets even better!) In despair he fell on the couch where Queen Esther was reclining, just as the king was returning from the palace garden.
The king exclaimed, “Will he even assault the queen right here in the palace, before my very eyes?” (Wow! Nothing’s going right for Haman, is it?) And as soon as the king spoke, his attendants covered Haman’s face, signaling his doom.
Then Harbona, one of the king’s eunuchs, said, “Haman has set up a sharpened pole that stands seventy-five feet tall in his own courtyard. He intended to use it to hang Mordecai, the man who saved the king from assassination.”
“Then hang Haman on it!” the king ordered. So they hung Haman on the pole he had set up for Mordecai, and the king’s anger subsided.
Now, justice doesn’t get any better than that! But it’s not the end of the story. The King’s decree couldn’t be taken back. Instead, the King issued a second decree that basically said the Jews could fight back against anyone who tried to harm them. That’s what they did, and they won decisively. Once again, God stepped in to save His people.
Ever since that time, the Jews have celebrated the Feast of Purim in March of every year, to remember how God saved his people from destruction through the bravery of Queen Esther.
CONCLUSION:
Maybe you feel like your own life is no more than a series of meaningless events that “just happened.” We may not see the pattern of our own lives, but just as in the story of Esther, God is always directing behind the scenes. We see the lower story, but God is at work in the upper story.
Someday we’ll see our lives from His vantage point and we’ll understand the promise in Ephesians 2:10: For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.
In this respect all of us are like this story’s heroine, Esther. God made sure that Esther was in the perfect place for the good works he had prepared in advance for her to do. Mordecai was right when he told her, “Perhaps you were made queen for just such a time as this?”
God has done the same for you and me. Every one of us has a part in God’s plan. We have influence on people that no one else can influence. We have opportunities that no one else will have. We have a purpose in God’s upper story. Will we be like Esther and step out in faith to do what God has called us to do?
