The Courage of the Queen and the Providence of God

Lighthouse Bible Church

Sunday April 5, 2020

 

Basic Training Bible Ministries
www.basictraining.org

 

The Courage of the Queen
and
The Providence of God

Book of Esther Part 2

 

As you will remember from Last week we looked at the first 4 chapters of Esther. We saw that King Ahasuerus had a huge banquet to show off his wealth and riches.

 

 

Toward the last part he sent for his queen Vashti who refused to show up so he divorced her and had a contest of all the young virgins to select a new queen.




 

Esther, a young Jewish girl was selected as she was beautiful and charming. She also had some special help from Hegai the eunuch in charge of the women in the contest as well as her cousin a Jew named Mordechai. She kept her identity as a Jew secret as Mordechai had told her.

 

 

Then king Ahasuerus promoted Haman the Agagite to the highest prince second only to the king and commanded all to bow down to him. Mordechai refused to bow to Haman angering him so much that he developed a plot to kill all of the Jews in the land.

 

 

The king approved Haman’s plot and sent out a proclamation that it was to be done. Mordechai was very sad and angry and sent word to Esther that she should tell the King.

 

The law was such that anyone who went before the king without being summoned would be killed unless he found favor and raised the golden scepter sparing their life.

 

 

 

At first Esther balks at going to the King because being against the king’s law it risks immediate death. Mordecai explains that she will not escape and will be found out as a Jew and killed as well.

 

 

So will Esther be successful in convincing Ahasuerus to stop Haman’s genocide?

 

 

We can see here that Queen Esther has a plan and is being very careful to approach the issue in a way that will be positive for the King. After all the goal is for him to reverse his order to kill all the Jews.

 

 

Well that was some serious Karma! Haman had to parade Mordechai through the city with the king’s robes on the king’s horse and proclaim him to be honored. Exactly the opposite as what he expected and the method of honor was his own choosing. Also he was executed on the same gallows he built for Mordechai.

 

So even though it looked very bad for Mordechai, and the Jews including Esther, God in His wisdom and love for them used events and people to accomplish their deliverance and deliver judgement to the evil Haman.

 

If you remember we learned a couple weeks ago in 2 Peter chapter 2 that God will deliver the righteous and will judge the unrighteous.

 

 

 

 

Verse 27 shows that they had allies in this land of their exile and this to me would seem to indicate that they only killed those who would have killed them and note that they did not take any plunder.

 

 

The festival of Purim is celebrated every year by the Jews on the 14th of the Hebrew month of Adar (late winter/early spring). It commemorates the (Divinely orchestrated) deliverance of the Jewish people in the ancient Persian empire from Haman’s plot “to destroy, kill and annihilate all the Jews, young and old, infants and women, in a single day,”

 

 

What can we take away from this beautiful story?

God was still in control of the deliverance of the Jews

Even though the Jews had been taken into exile for their disobedience God still loved them

 

 

The courage of Esther to risk her life was rewarded by God

The victory of Mordechai and Esther over Haman is analogous to Christ’s victory over Satan

Esther gained the support of the king by her humility and respect for his authority

 

 

God’s hand was everywhere in this book and notably in causing the kings insomnia and remembrance of Mordechai’s report on the plot against the king

 

 

Like we learned in First Peter 5 we should trust God to exalt us in his timing just as he did for Mordechai and stopped Haman from exalting himself from his arrogant will

 


 

Just as we learned in second Peter chapter 2 God delivers the righteous and judges the unrighteous .

Even when evil looks insurmountable God can turn it around for good.

 

 


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