In our studies in Esther, we have come to the fourth chapter this evening. I will read that, and while you turn to it, I would remind you of the blessings that we can receive from all parts of Scripture. Some of them are more easily understood than others. Some of them we have to dig a little deeper to receive their meaning. But surely the book of Esther can be a great blessing to us. Here now then, God speaking to us out of this fourth chapter of Esther. When Mordecai learned of all that had been done, he tore his clothes, put on sackcloth and ashes, and went out into the city wailing loudly and bitterly. But he went only as far as the king's gate, because no one clothed in sackcloth was allowed to enter it. In every province to which the edict and order of the king came, there was great mourning among the Jews, with fasting, weeping, and wailing. Many lay in sackcloth and ashes. When Esther's maids and eunuchs came and told her about Mordecai, she was in great distress. She sent clothes for him to put on instead of his sackcloth, but he would not accept them. Then Esther summoned Hathath, one of the king's eunuchs assigned to attend her, and ordered him to find out what was troubling Mordecai and why. So Hathath went out to Mordecai in the open square in the city in front of the king's gate. Mordecai told him everything that had happened to him, including the exact amount of money Haman had promised to pay into the royal treasury for the destruction of the Jews. He also gave him a copy of the text of the edict for their annihilation, which had been published in Susa, to show to Esther and explain it to her. And he told her to urge her to go into the king's presence to beg for mercy and plead with him for her people. Hathak went back and reported to Esther what Mordecai had said. Then she instructed him to say to Mordecai, all the king's officials and the people of the royal provinces know that for any man or woman who approaches the king in the inner court without being summoned, the king has but one law, that he be put to death. The only exception to this is for the king to extend the gold scepter to him and spare his life. But 30 days have passed since I was called to go to the king." When Esther's words were reported to Mordecai, he sent back this answer. "'Do not think that because you are in the king's house, you alone of all the Jews will escape. For if you remain silent at this time, Relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father's family will perish. And who knows but that you have come to royal position for such a time as this." And Esther sent this reply to Mordecai, "'Go, gather together all the Jews who are in Susa and fast for me. Do not eat or drink for three days, night or day. I and my maids will fast as you do. When this is done, I will go to the king, even though it is against the law. And if I perish, I perish." So Mordecai went away and carried out all of Esther's instructions. May God bless again to us this reading of His Holy Word. Shall we pray? Lord, we thank You for this time when we can again look into Your Word, that we can plumb its depths, that we can examine exactly what we're being taught here, so that we, Lord, may learn for our day and our generation that we must live by faith and not by sight. May it be, therefore, that as we read of the lives of Mordecai and Esther here, they may encourage us to do that very thing. So guide us tonight and direct us by your Holy Spirit, we ask in Jesus' name. Amen. When the storms of life come upon us, they cause us to look down again at the foundations of life. A crisis demands that we once more look at the reality of who we are and where we came from and our relationship with our Lord Jesus Christ. This past week, of course, there were crises everywhere, as reported in the newspaper. The Amish girls who were slain by this deranged killer, the plane that the light private plane that went down in Georgia, the four sailors who were riding in an M3 BMW convertible were going way beyond the speed limit and crashed into a power pole and were all killed. Oh yes, these things are all around us. We have them reported every day in our newspapers. But you and I don't have to go that far to know of crises in our own lives. And sometimes these crises may not seem as dramatic as these events I've just rehearsed. It may be just that we fell down a set of stairs, Or maybe it was an argument that took place in the home that was the last of a long string of arguments and it was the straw that broke the camel's back. It doesn't matter what it is. If it's a crisis in our life, it's a crisis. And so it is that we have to learn from crises. And so it was as well. A crisis was found in Persia. And this was an extreme crisis, for Haman had declared that he wanted all the Jews killed. And he made sure it would happen. Anyone who killed a Jew would be allowed to take over their property, would be allowed to sell goods that were there. In other words, everything that they got from killing a family would be theirs. Now, indeed, how are these Jews of the dispersion going to respond to this crisis? Well, we find two responses. One in Mordecai and the second one in Esther. And they are responses that come from their faith. The passage begins by saying, when Mordecai learned of all that had been done, he tore his clothes and put on sackcloth and ashes. When he learned of all that had been done, that is all that had been done by Haman. But I'm going to take the moment to go back a little bit so that we make sure that everyone got the context of the relationship between Mordecai and Haman. You remember that Haman is clearly delineated in chapter 3 as a descendant of King Agag. And King Agag was king of the Amalekites. When the children of Israel came out of the Egypt through the wilderness, they came to the land of the Amalekites, and the Amalekites resisted them and said they could not come through, and a great battle ensued. And the Lord declared to His people that they should be annihilated, the Amalekites, they should be annihilated They should be devoted to destruction because of the way that they had treated the Lord. And it was Saul who was appointed to do this as the first king of Israel. And Saul, you know, then went and had the Amalekites destroyed, but he kept the best of the animals and he kept King Agag alive. And Samuel, when he approached him and heard all the bleating of the sheep and the lowing of the cattle, He said to Saul that he had disobeyed the Lord because he didn't destroy all of them like he was told. Even though Saul thought he'd done just fine. And as a result of his disobedience, he would no longer be allowed to have his descendants to sit on the throne of Israel. And in his place there would be one raised up Yes, even David who would rule instead. Now, you have to remember that Haman is in the line of Saul. Kish is his great-grandfather and Kish was the father of Saul. His grandfather was the one, Shimei, who wanted Mephibosheth, the son of Saul, to sit on the throne instead of David, and who cursed David, as you know. And now that antipathy is passed down the whole line and comes now to Mordecai. Mordecai, on the one hand, was willing to disobey the Lord and to hide the fact that he was a Jew, and likewise give the command to Esther to do the same. But when it came to Agag, and the king declared that everyone must bow down before Agag, he refuses to do so. He will not. He will disobey the Lord to hide his identity, but he will not bow down to Agag, even though the Persians did not have worship in this act of bowing down. The act of bowing down was just a matter of courtesy to a high official. Still, Mordecai would not do that very thing. His personal family antipathy arose up And he followed it, to the point where he even revealed that he was a Jew. And so it was, that even though the counsel of all his fellow civil servants was, how come you're doing this? Why don't you bow down? It's nothing. You know, just do it. And he refuses to do it. And then they in turn report to Haman what Mordecai is doing and Haman hates Mordecai and then carries out this plan that's being referred to here in this fourth chapter. And that plan was not just to get back at Mordecai or to kill him, because he was an honored servant of the king. That might be a little difficult. The king wouldn't buy that. But he then reports to the king that there's this foreign people that are out there that have a law of their own. And they obey that law rather than the king's law. And they ought to be taken care of. And the king bought that story. and told him he could go do what he wants and gave him insignia rings so that he could seal all the letters to all the various places. And so the royal secretaries then sent out all these letters to all places saying that in eleven months, on the twelfth month, the thirteenth day, they were to kill every last person who was a Jew. And as they killed them, they would be given their property. Furthermore, he made this very enticing to the king because he offered the king 10,000 talents of silver to put in his treasury. And you have to remember that at that time, according to Herodotus, the entire revenue of the nation for one year was only 17,000 talents of silver. So that's the situation. Now, how is Mordecai going to react to this situation? We're told here that he tore his clothes and put them aside and put on sackcloth and ashes. And he went out publicly and mourned there in the city square. Mourned wailing loudly and bitterly because of what had happened. Now you might find that a little strange when you mourn. You usually mourn in private or you growl to your wife or your husband maybe. But at least you don't go out in the city street and make a display like this. But this is common in this day. This is not unusual. This is what they did. So there's nothing wrong with what he did in that regard. And so it is, in doing so, he is showing that he is going to live by his faith. You see, he isn't going around talking to everybody about this. He isn't going to try to figure out how to enlist the help of various people. This is a crisis. This is a crisis of proportions that he cannot deal with. The Lord has brought him up against a brick wall, and there he is. And what does he do? He cries out unto the Lord. I mean, even though the name of God is not mentioned in this book, it is unto the Lord that he's crying out, and he's weeping, and he's wailing, because that's what these acts indicate. He is confessing his sin to the Lord. He is calling upon the Lord for his help. And so it is, you see, that that is what is transpiring here. And when the message gets out all through the provinces and the Jews hear about it, they do the very same thing. They put on sackcloth and ashes and they fast and they weep and they wail. You see, when all else is impossible to bring help, That is what a crisis does. It brings you to the point where you have to cry out to the Lord and to Him alone. Now you have to remember that this particular book and this particular time is after the destruction of Jerusalem and the raising of the temple. That the children of Israel have gone to Egypt in exile. They are now back into the land. They've rebuilt the temple. But still they're not crying with joy. No, they're not crying out with joy at all. They're still weeping and wailing. They're still lamenting because the temple is not what it used to be. And the glory cloud isn't there with the temple anymore. And things aren't the same as they were during the Solomonic era. Likewise now, we're seeing that these who are in exile and did not go back to the promised land, who have rather stayed with the Persian nation and become involved with the Persian nation, now are experiencing what we talked about this morning. The distinction between those who are the lords and the world And that even though you might get along in the world and everything looks fine for a while, that there will come a time when there will be the hatred of men for those who belong to the Lord. And so it has come up in its fullness here. Now the question is, have you learned how to lament in an hour of crisis? You remember there's a book of lamentations in the Bible, right after Jeremiah. It is thought that Jeremiah wrote them, but we cannot know that for sure. But these are lamentations for the destruction of Jerusalem and for the time that comes after it. Oh, how there is sorrow and outcry and sadness found in these lamentations. However, in the third chapter of these Lamentations, at verse 19, this is what we read. "'I remember my affliction and my wandering, the bitterness and the gall. I well remember them, and my soul is downcast within me. Yet this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope.'" Because of the Lord's great love we are not consumed, for His compassions never fail. They are new every morning. Great is your faithfulness. I say to myself, the Lord is my portion, therefore I will wait for Him. The Lord is good to those whose hope is in Him, to the one who seeks Him. It is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord. It is good for a man to bear the yoke while he is young. You see it? The lamentations and the distress that comes in an hour of crisis. It's good. It's good for us. It drives us back to the Lord, to trust in Him, to rely upon Him, to hope in Him, to wait upon Him. That's what it did for the writer of the Lamentations. That's what it has done here for Mordecai, as we'll see in a minute. It has strengthened his faith. It has forced him to live by faith in a hostile world. And he knows that the Lord will take care of him. That's, you see, what we must know as well. When we come to an hour of crisis, we don't sit there and wring our hands. We don't go to the nearest help or the farthest help. We think it's help. It may not be help at all. No. We go into our bedrooms and close the door. And we get down on our knees and we cry out to the Lord in our agony. We cry out with the fullness of our being. We cry out out of our faith and say, yes, Lord, I know that you have brought this into my life. And I know that you will solve the problem. That's what the hour of crisis did for Mordecai. Now we must look and see what it did for Esther. Esther, of course, is surrounded by the Persian nation. She is the queen. She's in the palace. She doesn't get all the news that's going on around her. She is enmeshed in the Persian life. Inwardly, she's a Jew. Inwardly, she worships the Lord. But outwardly she's fully involved in the life of the palace. And there she is with all the other ladies who are concubines. Well, her attendants, the eunuchs and the maidens, they know what's going on out there, even though she does not. And so they come to her and they tell her about Mordecai. And as a result, she's in great distress because of it. And what does she do? A very superficial solution. She gets together a bunch of clothes and tells her attendant, go take the clothes to him. Tell him to put on clothes. Get rid of that sackcloth. He doesn't need all that right now. Well, you know what Mordecai's response is, of course. He ain't going to put those clothes on. He has some inner turmoil that is eating him up, and he wants the sackcloth and the ashes. That's what belongs on his body at this point, not some of these nice clothes from the king's house. And so, the clothes get taken back and Esther then summons Hathok, one of the king's eunuchs assigned to her whom she can trust, whom she knows will not blabber about it all and who will deal properly with Mordecai. And she sends him out to Mordecai to ask him why he's doing this. And Mordecai then confides in Hathok Hathak confides in him what he is doing. You notice he can't go to work. He can't go to work because he can't get inside the gates of the palace in sackcloth and ashes, and he works inside the gate. He's still out there, you see. He's possibly jeopardizing his own job, who knows. But anyway, he tells Hathak what is going on. He explains the whole thing to him, everything that's happened, and the exact amount of money again that Haman has paid to carry out this dastardly deed. And so then, he sends him back with a copy of the edict itself, so she can read it for herself, And he does so, he takes it back to Esther. And as he reports to Esther what Mordecai has said, then she wants to send a message back again, to tell him just exactly what would happen if she came into the king's presence. Because he had asked, you see, that she go into the king's presence and plead with the king for the life of the Jews. And so when she instructs Hethik, to go back to Mordecai, he is to tell her that all the king's officials, which means Mordecai too, you know, he should know better, who approach the king in the inner court without being summonsed, for then there is one law and that is you will die. Unless, of course, the king reaches out his golden scepter and says you may approach. And she hasn't gone in to see the king for 30 days. So she has no idea what her status is. Perhaps he's found one of the other concubines that he likes a little better. He's maybe found five or six or ten. He's for 30 days. He hasn't had her come to him. So she would be taking her life in her own hands if she did this. Again, this message comes out to Mordecai, and Mordecai then says this in response. Do you think that because you are in the king's house, you alone of all the Jews will escape? For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father's family will perish. And who knows but that you have come to royal position for such a time as this. Notice his faith. He says, if you don't do it, God will do it some other way. Now there's faith. I mean, the law of the Medes and Persians can't be reversed. The law of the Medes and Persians is out there. They're gonna die. But he knows that the Lord can override anything. The Lord can do the impossible. And so He says that. But if you don't do what you're supposed to do, you and your father's house will die. That's the message He sent back. And He says furthermore, even though He doesn't use the Lord's name, the Lord perhaps has raised you up for just such a time as this. Once more a message comes to Esther, from Esther to Bordecai. And she says, Now go and gather all the Jews who are in Susa, and fast for me. Do not eat or drink for three days, night or day. I and my maids will fast as you do. When this is done, I will go to the king, even though it is against the law. Yes. Now she is acting out of her faith. Fast before the Lord night and day. Normally a fast was during the day and you ate something at night. But now for three days they have to fast. And she will do the same with her maids. And she will go into the king. And she says, if I perish, I perish. And she's saying it, as the Hebrew indicates, without much hope. She's saying it in the thought and pretty much the assurance that she's going to die. So on the one hand is this trepidation, on the other hand is this faith. In faith she's going to do what she should do. And she's ready to do it in the face of her own demise. Does that remind you of anything? Well, do you remember out of the book of the Hebrews, in chapter 11, about Moses, what it says there in verse 24? By faith Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be known as the son of Pharaoh's daughter. He chose to be mistreated along with the people of God. rather than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a short time. He regarded disgrace for the sake of Christ as of greater value than the treasures of Egypt, because he was looking ahead to his reward." Yes, that was Moses. who was also in the palace of a foreign king in Egypt. And he took that stand of faith. And now Esther, Esther who has been encouraged to compromise along the way, Esther who has gone into this pagan king and become his queen, Esther now is going to live by faith. She has chosen the way of the people of God, she is chosen to serve Jesus Christ. If she perishes, she perishes. But she knows she has an eternal kingdom with the Lord hereafter. Now this, dear friends, is the response, the proper response to a crisis. The response of Mordecai, whose there in his sackcloth and his ashes, bowed down before the Lord in repentance and confession, and saying that the Lord will indeed bring deliverance whatever way he chooses. But that crisis will be met by him on my behalf. Likewise, here's Esther doing what she should do as she meets the crisis. going in to the king, though it mean perhaps her death. But she's going to follow the Lord. Here then, dear brothers and sisters, as an example for you and for me, in the hour that is the darkest, we have to see the light. The hour of crisis we have to look to the Lord and to Him alone. We have to cry out to Him and pray to Him as both Mordecai and Esther did. And then walk in a way that is in accordance with His will and do as He wants us to do. And trust Him to provide and to bring us through the crisis. Is that what you do? Is that your life? Think about it. Often times when we get into difficult, impossible situations, we wail and we weep, but not unto the Lord. We complain bitterly, but unto other people. Yes, that's what happens, isn't it? Too often. May we learn the lesson of Esther. To go to the Lord. to rest on Him and to trust that in Jesus Christ, He will solve our problems. Amen. Lord, we thank You for Your Word and for its encouragement. We've been at the table today, Lord, and we've been encouraged by that. But sometimes, in the heat of the moment, In the hour of tragedy, when the time of crisis comes upon us, we do not think clearly of coming to the Lord. Oftentimes, we try to solve things ourselves or else we become bitter. May it be then, O Lord, that we shall remember Mordecai and Esther, and remember that in the hour of crisis we must trust You and hope in You. May it be therefore, O Lord, that we will see how You use crises in our life for good, to cause us, to force us to come to You, to rest in You, and to find in You our peace and our consolation. O Lord, work in our hearts and grant us that peace and consolation in Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.