We turn in the Word of God to Esther chapter 2. In its wider context, we learn from scripture that the bulk of God's covenant people had by this stage returned to the land of Canaan. That is described elsewhere in the Word of God. But what happened to those who remained behind? What became of God's people that stayed still in captivity? After the madness of chapter one, we face the stark reality of life for God's covenant people in the nation and kingdom of Persia. And what a pitiful spectacle we have before us. Our subject this morning is a silent church. A silent church. We know, first of all, the king's dilemma in chapter 2, verses 1 to 4. In a fit of rage, Ahasuerus changed his life forever. He became hoisted, as Shakespeare would put it, with his own pattern. In his rage, he passed a law and banished Vashti. In his soberness, he wants her back and cannot have her. After all, there is a law, and once laws were passed, they could not be altered. He threw her out and wants her back. He passed the law and can't undo it. So what's a king to do in such a dilemma? His servants suggest the equivalent of a Miss World Beauty contest. And the icing on the cake, of course, is that he would get to keep the winner for himself. And we note in verse 4, And the thing pleased the king. It's a replay of chapter 1 verse 21, And the saying pleased the king. He took bad advice then, and look what that produced. Perhaps, however, it might be said, but then he was angry and drunk. But what is he now? He is lonely and sad. How ironic all this is. Here you have the most powerful man in the world, and he cannot get what he wants. He's at the mercy of events. and suggestions from lackeys. Hypothetic. What a dilemma. So we have the king's dilemma. But then secondly, from verse five right through to verse 20, we have the folly of believers. In the midst of all this, what are the believers? doing? How do they fare? What are they thinking? What is going on in their lives? Well, these verses furnish us with quite a number of details. We have the position of Mordecai. Like Daniel before him, Mordecai is in the palace, verse 5, Like Daniel, he was a captive in verse six. He had been carried away from Jerusalem. And notice the repetition of the word carried away, captivity. The writer wants you to grasp with all this repetition, do you see the position that Mordecai is in? Do you see why he's here? How it all came about? But we also notice in verse seven, the kindness of Mordecai. Here is one, Adassa, Esther, that he has brought up, an orphan. And he treats her as his daughter. And that's an act of kindness. And we admire that kindness. We delight in that kindness. But then in verses eight and nine, we have the folly of Esther. It's at this point we see the madness and the pragmatism of both Mordecai and Esther. Because in verse 8 it is clear that Esther is part of this troupe, traipsing off to get oiled and waxed and spiced up just like every other woman. Of course, we often hear objection. But she couldn't refuse. This is a rather paltry, pathetic excuse that preachers sometimes throw in. But she couldn't refuse. She couldn't refuse? Didn't Vashti refuse? Ah, but they say as they wring their hands, but look what became of her. Well, how do we reply to that? Herodotus, a secular historian, writing about Xerxes and his court, tells us of other women who had refused the advances of Xerxes. But apart from all of that, what about God? Doesn't God come first? Doesn't God come before Ahasuerus, even though he is the most mighty man in the world? You see, what you are witnessing with your very eyes as you read this history is First Commandment disloyalty. You see, when the church is in captivity, it acts foolishly. Isn't this why Martin Luther wrote that treatise on the Babylonian captivity of the church, in which he thundered out the very same message. The church declined in captivity. It was a call to rise up and be faithful to God. But not only is the first commandment disloyalty, worse is to come. because we're also told twice, verse 10 and verse 20, of the silence of Esther. Esther had not showed her people, nor her kindred, for Mordecai had charged her that she should not show it. And again, in verse 20, it is repeated. And significantly, it's against the background of verse five, Mordecai the Jew. See how strong that language is. See how bluntly it is stated. Mordecai the Jew. The writer is saying to you, now just put that to the very front. Because it's at the very start of this section. And he says, now see what happens. when you forget that. Esther says nothing and her silence is actively encouraged by Mordecai. What a stark contrast to Daniel. And is this not one of the reasons why the name God is not associated with this book? He's there, but why is he not mentioned openly? Because this is what's going on. The silence of Esther and Mordecai. So for 12 months, she is oiled and waxed and perfumed, and she says nothing in 12 months. She goes on display, she says nothing. She trips off to the palace, says nothing. The king makes her queen, she says nothing. Nothing, not a single word is said by Esther as to who she is. And when you look at the construction of this narrative, see how centrally placed verse 10 and verse 20 is in the overall structure of the narrative. How significant were those verses are placed. You know there are many, and they read this chapter, they overlook verse 10 and 20, because like everybody else in Persia, they're looking at the women. They're fixated with all the beauty that's on display. And then they relish and salivate over Esther being elevated. to replace that allegedly rotten Vashti. But it's not like that at all. It's not a bit like that. Whatever else contemporary preachers may say, it's not a bit like that. Vashti took a stand. Esther complies. Vashti had integrity. Esther submits. Vashti is a pagan with integrity. Esther is a covenant child who is silent. You see that little bit of lineage that we're told earlier on, that too is significant. It's put at the very start. You see the writer is saying to you, now did you miss that lineage? Did you miss all this information? Because all this information is of absolute necessity to understand what's happening afterwards. Mordecai can trace his genealogy back to Kish of Benjamin. He's a Benjamin. Esther, Dirac relation, a cousin, his uncle's daughter, also a Benjamin. So these are covenant children. They're the covenant people of God. That's what the writer is telling you. Do you see the covenant people of God? And do you see what they're doing? He wants you to be astonished at what he's telling us. He wants you to be absolutely amazed to say, but these are covenant people and they're doing this? This? All of this? Yes, and more as we'll see in a moment. It is no accident that we get chapter one as chapter one. All that history about Vashti. Why did it come first? Then why does the writer bother to tell you all about Mordecai, his background, his history, his lineage, where he came from, why? He wants you to see a contrast. A contrast between Vashti and Esther. So he puts them side by side. And they've got almost the same context. And what a contrast we have. And the king is angry at Vashti. But he's delighted with Esther. Vashti said no, Esther said yes. And by reminding you of this captivity in verse six, you immediately recall the very same period of time. Daniel is of the same period of time. Daniel refused, didn't he? And Daniel prayed even when they told him not to. But there's none of that here. We don't read of Mordecai praying three times a day or even once a day. We don't read of Esther praying. All that the Jews did in the book of Daniel, we don't read that here. No, they go along with events. She's hiding her distinctiveness. And going through the book of 1 Samuel, some of you will recall 1 Samuel 8, where there was a demand. We don't want to be distinctive anymore. Here in Esther 2, there's a deliberate policy. Don't show your distinctiveness. That's the plan. That's the policy. You wouldn't know who these people were if they were any different if you weren't told in verse five and six that they were different. And that's the point, isn't it? You're told that they're God's covenant people, but when you read the rest, you wouldn't know. It's a deliberate policy. Don't tell anyone. Don't let anyone know. And in case you missed the point of how bad things are, look carefully at verse 12 and verse 14. Read them slowly, even read them again in an instant now, but carefully later on in the day. And what are you being told? Look at the language, the opening sentence in verse 14, in the evening she went and in the morning she returned into the second house of the women. Each girl had only one chance to make it good. A one-night stand with a Hasuerus in his bedroom. Esther was amenable. and she was available. Every single one of them trips off to the palace, to a house of yours. They came in the evening, and they went home in the morning. You see how skillful the writer is. He's telling you exactly what's going on here. Doesn't need to spell it all out the way our culture would want to do. It is sufficient to say to you, You do get the point, don't you? So you know what's going on. One night stands for all of us. And then thirdly, verses 21 to 23, a warning from providence, a warning from providence. The events described here are not simply tacked on to fill up the narrative. No, they play a very important role. They parallel what is going to come. It's a warning. So you have in verse 21, hatred and conspiracy. In verse 22, knowledge and revelation. And in verse 23, inquisition and punishment. And what God is doing here, he's forewarning us, you can hide from the world in which you live. but events will find you out. Hatred will ultimately expose you. Events will eventually force you to take a stand. So it's a warning from Providence, but nobody's listening. And worse is yet to come in chapter three. So you have this small warning from Providence. No one else is listening. Everyone's fixated with the events of the palace. It's a warning from Providence. Well, from this, we learn the following. We learn, first of all, A warning against conforming to the world. A warning against conforming to the world. That's the stark message of Esther 2. You see, a silent church becomes a conforming church and a silent Christian becomes a conforming Christian. Esther. A silent, covenant child of God becomes a conforming child in the world. She conforms to Persian culture, Persian practice. And isn't that what's happening in this country? The silence of the church has produced a conforming church. Silent Christians become conforming Christians. which is the opposite of what we're told in Romans 12 verse two. Be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind. You see where it all starts. It starts in the mind. Evangelicals foolishly place all the emphasis on emotions. They ignore the mind. And we've ignored the mind for far too long. And what happens when evangelicals become ancient evangelicals? They're incapable of thinking. They become dull and apathetic. They've ignored the mind. Paul says, if you want to have this antithesis. If we want to have lively, strong believers in the world, don't be conformed to the world, but rather be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Now verse 2 is a sermon in itself, but I draw it to your attention, maybe at some point someone might remind me of verse 2 and I might preach on it, but anyway, we'll draw your attention to it. Mind renewal is what we need as evangelicals, as Christians in this world. Look after your minds. Children, look after your minds. Young people, look after your minds. Pensioners, look after your minds. But then secondly, the marks of conforming to the world. How can we know whether we ourselves are conforming to the world. Well, using chapter 2, we can draw the following marks. So Esther 2 will furnish us with these marks. What's the first one? Hiding your identity. Hiding your identity. Esther has two names, verse 7, Her Hebrew name is Hadassah. Her Persian name is Esther. Now the Jews in captivity often had two names. Daniel had two. Daniel was his Hebrew name. The other name he got in captivity, Belteshazzar. But there's a contrast between Daniel and Esther. Daniel retained his Hebrew name, Daniel. He didn't use his captive name. But Esther, she stops using Hadassah. We're told it at the start, but hereafter it's all Esther, Esther, Esther. Esther, you see, is keeping a low profile as far as possible. So she's Esther, she's not Hadassah. In fact, Esther fitted right in. She's hiding her identity. Mordecai encourages her to do so. And a pile of questions immediately arise. Are you hiding your identity? Are you fitting in with everybody else? Are you hiding your Christianity? Are you going along with everyone else? Those are intensely personal questions. Do you hide your identity? And let's get even more personal than this. Parents. Do you actively encourage and approve of your children hiding their identity, fitting in with everybody else? It's not that you openly tell them, oh, don't tell anyone that you go to church or that you're a covenant child and that we bring you up in a certain way. No, no, parents can often be more deceitful than that. They just don't say anything. Do you approve when they sing the songs of the world and pursue the agenda and priorities of the world? Do you tacitly approve of it? Or do you set them down and say, now listen, let me explain to you your position in relation to me. as your parent. I have vowed before God to bring you up as a covenant child, to bring you up in the ways of the Lord. I swore before the God of heaven that I will teach you of the Lord's ways. that I will school you and direct you and guide you, if necessary, restrain you and hold you back at other times. Because these are the vows that I swore. This is what I promised to the God of heaven. It's what I swore in the name of my savior, Jesus Christ. Well, are you carrying out those vows? or do you tacitly approve when the world draws the affections of your children? See how uncomfortable scripture can be. So the first mark, hiding your identity. The second mark, aiming to please people. In verse four, we read, let the maiden which pleases the king be queen. In verse 9 we read that she pleased Hagar and then in verses 14 and 17 we're learning that she pleased the Hasuerus. She pleased him in her one-night stand. We can't run away from this. Esther is not a reluctant participant, but an active participant. She aims to please others. It's a mark of conforming Christians, of conforming to the world. where we go out of our way always wanting to please everybody, to please the ungodly, to please the world so they don't think ill of us. That pleasing of others will all come crashing down round her head in due course. But as a mark of a silent Christian, conforming to the world, aiming to please the world. There's a third mark, worldly ambition. Why would Mordecai and Esther do what they did? Worldly ambition. What was the whole point of this contest to find a queen? So the worldly ambition of Mordecai and Esther, you might be queen, so you go along with it, worldly ambition. And you get a hint of it, perhaps more than a hint in verse 22, in the name of Mordecai and Mordecai's name, the same worldly ambition. And you know, there are many Christians in our day and they succumb to the same conformity of worldly ambition. Let me again be uncomfortable. That's what sermons do, they stab us. So I will go and be uncomfortable again. You can test yourself on this. Take out your yearly planner or your diary if you have one. How do you fill in your diary? Well, you put all the main events that you're going to be engaged in hopefully in the year to come, they're all marked on. That's how you start. But isn't there something wrong there? In marking out your year, your month, and your week, shouldn't the first thing be you go through your diary, And you mark clearly, carefully, all the Lord's days. They're all blanked out. They're not going to be tampered with. Then we have our communion season, of course. All those days blanked out. We'll protect those. Midweeks, don't we mark those out? Not going to let any plans interfere with midweeks. Going to protect all that. Whatever else comes along, that will help us in our serving of Christ, we'll look after that. Isn't that what we're supposed to do? Yet how often worldly ambition and worldly plans, they all come first. I wonder how many Christians here in this country in which we are citizens. I wonder how many Christians are secretly following Esther and Mordecai, putting worldly ambitions before the Saviour. It's not that you would openly say it, but we can do it practically. So we can be theoretical Christians and be practising atheists almost. We can achieve the same end as Esther simply by ignoring things that matter. Worldly ambition. It is good to be diligent in your calling. It is good to advance in your calling. But sometimes worldly ambition takes over. And we will sacrifice all kinds of things for worldly ambition to achieve a worldly goal. And we'll put it in Mordecai's name. That'll give him a leg up. That'll bring him to attention, won't it? Are we conforming to this world? The Bible tells us this world is coming to an end. Do we really believe that? Do we? And then thirdly, a minority that forgot its faith, its history, and its covenant. a minority that forgot its faith, history, and covenant. God's covenant people were in captivity. Here they are, a minority, in a world that neither knew or cared who they were, what they were, or why they were. In chapter 3, verse 8, we are reminded again of how scattered the Lord's people are in captivity. We'll come to that verse next, Lord's Day, God willing. But it's telling us that chapter three, verse eight, is that the Lord's people are a scattered minority throughout the whole of the Persian empire. A minority exemplified by Mordecai and Esther who adopt a silent approach. the policy of anonymity and assimilation. Was it a faithful approach? The Bible tells us in Matthew chapter 10, verses 16 to 25, the following things. Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves. Be ye therefore wise as serpents and harmless as doves, but beware of men. For they will deliver you up to the councils, they will scourge you in their synagogues. You shall be brought before governors and kings for my sake, for a testimony against them and the Gentiles. But when they deliver you up, take no thought how or what ye shall speak, for it shall be given you in that same hour what ye shall speak. For it is not ye that speak, but the Spirit of your Father which speaketh in you. And the brother shall deliver up the brother to death, the father the child, the children shall rise up against their parents, and cause them to be put to death. And ye shall be hated of all men, for my name's sick, but he that endureth to the end shall be saved. And so on. They'll be persecuted, verse 23. The disciple, verse 24, is not above his master, nor the servant above his lord. It is enough for the disciple that he be as his master. and the servant as his lord. If they have called the master of the house Beelzebub, how much more shall they call them of his household? And then if we go back to Matthew five and verse 14, ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hid. What are these people doing? They're hiding. They're not doing what the saviour calls us to do. They're assimilating. Following Mordecai, saying nothing. And you know, that explains certain things in our day. When a Christian is arrested or charged or accused of doing something against our culture, and there's all this outcry, because they taught something that was deemed by our culture to be hatred. Why are there not thousands of Christians out on the streets protesting? Because they're hiding. That's what they're doing. They don't want to be seen to be siding or taking a stand anymore. They've lost the fight. When there's a public witness against open displays of depravity. Why are there not thousands there at that open air? Because the majority are hiding. They're assimilating. Will God allow this to continue? Will God allow His glory, honour, name and covenant to disappear? God gave Mordecai and Esther a warning. And they failed to heed that warning. So God is going to send them something worse, something terrifyingly worse, in order to remind them of faith and history and covenant. You know, in 1662, which I refer to from time to time regarding the great ejaction, Edmund Calame in a sermon seeking to explain why all this calamity and trouble had come. He said this, slighting the gospel brought Queen Mary's persecution. So he's going back a hundred years, 1662, he says, let's go back to 1555, a hundred years. The reason why we're suffering today is because we're slighted the gospel, just as they slighted the gospel, so bloody Mary came and persecuted. But then he says, why did that happen? Let's go back a few more years, he says. Unfruitfulness under the gospel in King Edward VI's time brought the persecution of Queen Mary's time. Why is it that Christians in this country have become marginalized, despised? Why? Because we have slighted the privileges God has given. We have slighted the gospel. Thomas Case in his sermon says neglect of spiritual duties, hypocrisy, pride, covetousness, sensuality, uncharitable, censuring of one another, misspent Sabbaths, neglect of family worship, moaning against the Reformation and the Reformers. indifference to faith and doctrine. John Collins in his sermon spoke of a spirit of indifference. Many live as if there was nothing in the gospel of Christ worth practicing or worth suffering for. This lukewarm, indifferent temper has done the church great harm. And what's happening in chapter two, has done the Church great harm. This practice of hiding away, assimilating, it does harm to the name of God, to the glory and honour of God, and shame to the covenant that we claim to possess. But then, fourthly and finally, affirming providence does not mean approving of every decision made. Affirming providence does not mean approving of every decision made. If you simply look at Esther 2, from the vantage point of providence, some seem to think we have to justify everything along the way. We don't. In due time, in God's providence, yes, Esther is in a position to help God's covenant people. But do not confuse that with the decisions made along the way. Her amenableness to Persian culture cannot be approved of. Her amenableness to Persian sexuality cannot be approved of. Let's make it close as possible. Do you think every believing mother would approve of their daughter sleeping with a pagan as Esther did? Do you? Do you seriously think that? I asked believing mothers and grandmothers and aunts today, would you approve? of your daughter, granddaughter, or niece following Esther. Look at these youngsters. Would you approve of it in due time? Do you think every believing father would approve of their daughter doing as Esther did? Do you? Would you be content for your daughter to have a one night stand. Would you approve of that? The point is, while providence is there in the messiness of life, our mess, your mess, and uses it for good, that does not mean you have to approve of the mess that was created. You don't have to approve of everything in affirming providence. Providence is there to demonstrate God's plan cannot be overthrown, even despite your mess. Many of your decisions in life were wrong. You can look back over your life and you can say the decisions I made there and there and at another time, they were wrong. Many of your actions were wrong. But here's the thing. You are here today professing faith in Jesus Christ. Why? Because of God's providence. So yes, you can look over life and say, I wish I knew then what I know now. I think most of us pretty much say that. But you didn't know then what you know now. But in that mess that you created, God on providence has worked it all to the glory of his name and to the good of his children. That is not to approve of every decision, but it is to remind you God is faithful to the welfare of his children. He is faithful to the welfare of his children. What an encouragement, even with all our mess. Amen.