Why Do Bad Things Happen To Bad People? Series

LIVING FOR GOD IN A GODLESS CULTURE

WHY DO BAD THINGS TO HAPPEN BAD PEOPLE?

ESTHER 6:14-7:10

INTRODUCTION

-Have you ever noticed that people have philosophies about life?

-My dad is one of the greatest philosophers I know:

-“If you mess with the bull, you get the horn.”

-“The worm turns.” (What goes around, comes around)

-“If you can’t do the time, don’t do the crime.”

-My favorite…“if you’re going to be a turd go lay in the lawn.”

-You can see my ability for profound thinking is genetic.

-The people in the world also have philosophies and ideas about life. If you listen carefully you’ll hear what they think.

-They have ideas about God and good and evil and they are revealed in some of the things they say.

-The philosophical question we hear over and over again in our godless culture, I’m calling it the…

The Big Question: Why do bad things happen to good people?

-That’s what we’re talking about this morning in our Esther series.

-Today we are going to see how all of the things that Haman has done and how it finally plays out for him.

• Esther ha been preparing to ask for mercy.

-She chickened out at first & then asked for a second banquet.

• Haman was preparing to ask for Mordecai’s death!

-The very morning that Haman was going to have Mordecai killed, the providence of God intervenes and…

• Mordecai was rewarded instead, for saving Xerxes!

-The once proud and narcissistic Haman was now….

• Haman was humiliated.

-We pick up as the second banquet is about to take place.

Esther 6:14 While they were still talking, the king’s eunuchs arrived and quickly took Haman to the banquet Esther had prepared. (2nd banquet)

-Last night Haman dined w/Xerxes and Esther and bragged…

-Today he spent all day parading Mordecai through town on the king’s horse, wearing the king’s robe, and announcing how great and honored Mordecai was.

-Now he’s going back to dinner with Xerxes and Esther humiliated

-From a reader’s point of view we can see the walls closing in on Haman, he had sowed a bunch of trouble and it’s catching up.

-This second banquet starts out very similar to the first.

VS 7:1 So the king and Haman went to Queen Esther’s banquet. 2 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!”

-This is a rerun from two weeks ago so I won’t get into it much.

-He is essentially asking, “What can I do for you?”

VS 3 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.

-This probably put a screeching halt to the party mood that Xerxes and Haman were in.

-They had been drinking wine, eating good food, probably being waited on hand and foot, had some live music in the background.

-“My people and I are begging for our lives,” she said.

-This is like your daughter announcing at Christmas dinner she’s marrying a guy in Supermax she met through prison pen pals min

-This is like your son telling you at the Thanksgiving table that he’s joining the Hare Krishna’s and will selling flowers at the airport.

-It was a party, the king was having fun.

-And suddenly Esther says me and all my people are about to be slaughtered and I’m asking you to spare us.

-You can see the King maybe choking on his wine.

-Probably sat up straight. Killed the band playing in the background…maybe literally, he liked to kill people.

-She goes on to say:

VS 4 For my people and I have been sold to those who would kill, slaughter, and annihilate us.

(Can I just pause here and say that is really redundant. I am going to killed AND slaughtered AND annihilated! Any ONE those three sounds pretty fatal.”

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.”

-She’s talking about the genocide of her people.

-It’s happened in our lifetime. Rwanda and Bosnia.

-This is a great example of when people could rightfully ask, “Why do bad things happen to good people?”

-When we see evil rulers, crooked politicians, murderers, thieves, those who harm children and exploit the innocent…

-People ask, “Why does God allow such evil?”

-You need 2B able to answer this with your non-Christians friends

-What should he do? God should just ZAP em!

What would happen if God zapped all the bad people?