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Last fall, I read a fascinating
book called Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell. He's a writer for the
New Yorker, a public speaker whose fees somewhere run around
$80,000. Somebody thinks he has something
worth saying. And he's also called a geek pop
star in some circles. In the book, Gladwell basically
asks a question that I think that you've thought of some time,
which is, What to what can you attribute the outstanding achievements
of successful people? What is it that makes successful
people successful, that separates them out from anybody else? How
would you answer that question? Why is it that some people are
not only successful, but more successful than people around
them? Is it simply a matter of hard work and individual merit?
You can come to America, work harder than anyone else, be given
more opportunities than anyone else. Or, you know, you can live
like no one else, or you can live like no one else. Is that
the answer that we have? Gladwell's answer might surprise
you in that book, whether you agree with it or not. He's not
just using, he's not being sarcastic. He's giving a legitimate explanation
to that question. Each chapter of the book outlines
a different successful person or situation in life. From Bill
Gates to hockey stars, from mathematicians to airline pilots. What makes
the good ones the best ones? In an interview he gave with
the New Yorker, he actually said, here's his answer to why some
people are great and others aren't. The book is saying great people
aren't so great. Their own greatness is not the
salient fact about them. It's the kind of fortunate mix
of opportunities they've been given. That's what makes them
great. Well, in other words, he says
that great people are great because of fortunate opportunities given
to them that are outside of their control. So, for instance, a
Canadian psychologist noticed there's a disproportionate number
of elite hockey superstars in Canada who were born at the beginning
of the year. Gladwell explains what academics
call the relative age effect, by which an initial advantage
attributable to age gets turned into a more profound advantage
over time. What that means is that because
Canada's eligibility cutoff for hockey is January 1st, a boy
who turns 10 on January 2nd could be playing alongside boys who
don't turn 10 until the end of the year. So you've got a 10-year-old
playing on a team of nine-year-olds. You could guess that at that
age, when the differences in physical maturity are so great,
which one of those kids is probably going to make the all-star team.
And once on the all-star team, the kid who's born at the beginning
of the year gets more practice. He gets better. He gets better
coaching. He's playing aside other all-stars, so much so that,
say, by the time he's 14, he's just not older than the kid who's
nine, but he's better. All because he was born at the
beginning of the year and not the end. Then there's Bill Gates. Gladwell begins a chapter on
Bill Gates saying there's a body of research finding that the
magic number for a successful person for true expertise is
you have to put in at least 10,000 hours of practice. Well, Gladwell shows that Gates
accumulated his 10,000 hours while in middle school and high
school in Seattle. How did he do that? Gladwell
outlines nine incredibly fortunate opportunities that Gates had
that few others had. He was at a private school. The
private school had a computer club. The private school that
had a computer club had access to and money for a sophisticated
computer. And his childhood home's proximity
to the University of Washington, where he had access to an even
more sophisticated computer. And Gladwell says by the time
that Gates drops out of Harvard after his sophomore year, he
had been programming practically nonstop for seven consecutive
years, way past the 10,000 hour mark. He's obviously brilliant, Gladwell
concludes, but without the lucky breaks he had as a kid, he would
have never had the opportunity to fulfill the true potential
for brilliance. All because he had a series of
nine incredibly fortunate opportunities. Great people aren't so great.
That's rather the kind of fortunate mix of opportunities they've
been given. And here's one of my questions. Do you think, Gladwell,
he's not interested in this question, do you think that such fortunate
events just happen randomly? Or is there a purpose behind
them? Should we think that every part of our life, even the tragic
parts, are just a result of stuff happening? Or is there purpose even behind
The distasteful aspects of life. Now, we're going to try to give
an explanation to that kind of question this morning. By looking
at another chapter from Outliers, actually, it's not in the book,
but it probably could be maybe as an appendix, the real story
behind the rest of these stories. It's something that Christian
people call Providence. And if you're not a follower
of Jesus Christ this morning or never heard of that big fancy
word, just listen in this morning. See if you agree. See if you
agree if this might be an explanation to the thing that Gladwell, he
says it's out there, but he doesn't really offer many solutions to
it. So maybe this is a solution or an explanation. That quote
on the front of your order of worship that probably you received
when you came in is by an old Puritan minister named Thomas
Boston, and he once preached a message on this topic of God's
providence. And he addressed God's action
in redemptive history by taking this text from Psalm 107-43 that
we open up our scripture meditation with. Whoever is wise will observe
these things. And Boston comments that whoever
would walk with God must be due observers of the word and the
providence of God. For by these in a special manner,
he manifests himself to his people. In His Word, we see what He says.
In His works, we see what He does. These are the two books
that every student of holiness ought to be much conversant in.
They should be studied together if we would profit by either.
For being taken together, they give light one to the other.
As it is our duty to read the Word, so also it is our duty
to observe the work of God. I want to take that last phrase.
It's kind of our subject heading for this morning, observing the
work of God, the God who works in mysterious ways. Now, we could
try to accomplish this in a number of ways. We could turn to a bunch
of passages in the Bible where this is laid out and propositionally
stated. But I think that some of us would
go, oh, yeah, I've heard all those verses before, which is
why, in God's kindness, the Bible is not all written in the same
kind of literary form and genre. It's full of stories. Our text
this morning is a narrative, a story, and everybody loves
a good story. And Esther is a great story. That's what we'll be looking
at this morning. So if you have your Bible and
you want to turn there and follow along, it's kind of in the first
half of the Christian Old Testament. It's a book called Esther. The beauty of the story, of course,
is that it allows us to to experience something again in a fresh way
or even a memorable way. And Esther provides us with that
model where through the medium of a story, we get to observe
the work of God who moves and works in mysterious ways. And
if you don't know anything about the story, here's essentially
it. Esther is a rags to riches kind of story. If you sat down,
you could probably read the story from start to finish in something
like a half hour. It takes place in a 10 year period
and it's occupied with a Jewish orphan girl. who in the end is
exalted to be a queen of the Persian Empire. And before any
of that happens, there's a lot of feasting and drinking, there's
deceit, there's irony, there's suspense. That's essentially
what's going on. But we're going to look at this
story this morning. We're going to observe God's
mysterious providence. We're going to highlight God's
preservation, all for the purpose for us to rest and humble ourselves
before the one who made us and works out all things to their
end. Now, exactly when does this story take place and who are
the principal characters? We're going to start by reading
the first four verses and then read a few verses from chapter
two just to set the context. These two readings will set the
setting and will introduce us to the principal characters for
the most part. Esther one. Now in the days of Ahasuerus,
or your translation might have Xerxes, it's the same person.
The Xerxes who reigned from India to Ethiopia, over 127 provinces. In those days when King Ahasuerus
sat on his royal throne in Susa, the capital, in the third year
of his reign he gave a feast for all his officials and servants.
The army of Persia and Media And the nobles and governors
of the provinces were before him while he showed his riches
of his royal glory and the splendor and pomp of his greatness for
many days, 180 days to be exact. That's one character and setting.
Now look at chapter 2. Chapter 2, verses 5 and 7 introduces
us to two more characters and provide more of a time period.
Now there was a Jew in Susa. in Susa the Citadel, whose name
was Mordecai, the son of Jeir, the son of Shimei, son of Kish,
a Benjamite, who had been carried away from Jerusalem among the
captives, carried away when Jeconiah, king of Judah, whom Nebuchadnezzar,
king of Babylon, had carried away." Well, we have our three
characters. One will be introduced in a moment.
There's a king named Ahasuerus. There's a man named Mordecai
and his cousin, a Jewish orphan girl named Esther. We also know
that in putting these two passages together, that this king reigns
in a period of time known formally as what we've looked at this
summer as that post-exilic period. Esther looks like it happens
very early in our Bibles, but actually it belongs towards the
end of the Old Testament. This takes place when God's people
were being punished for their 70 years of sin. You recall the
Davidic dynasty has fallen. Prophets like Jeremiah and Isaiah
warned this was coming, and now it's happened and it's upon them.
And then 70 years after that, God moves on the heart of Cyrus
to let God's people go. We looked at that in Chronicles
and Ezra and Nehemiah this summer, the same time period that Psalms
is written as well. And many people go back, like
Haggai and Zechariah, they go back as well, other biblical
characters. And it's probably somewhere between Ezra's return
to rebuild the city, the temple, and Nehemiah's return to rebuild
the city, somewhere between those two events that this story takes
place. And whether you're a Jew who
stayed back in the land or whether you returned, you still had the
same kinds of questions that I hope by now are familiar to
you if you've been here in the series this summer. Will God
keep his promises? Has he forgotten about us? Is his favor still on us? Does
he have a future for us? And Esther provides for the Jewish
people, as well as people today, a resounding yes to all of those
questions. And we'll see that this morning.
So that's somewhat of the historical backdrop, the backstory of Esther.
And now we're asking, why is this story in the Bible? Well,
in one sense, if you read the book this week in preparation,
in one sense, it explains the Jewish feast that many Jews celebrate
today, the Feast of Purim detailed in Esther 9. It's a feast that
essentially celebrates the Jewish people were spared from from
national genocide while they were under the reign of Ahasuerus. The Book of Esther does teach
us that, but it does something broader than that. Something
that's applicable to people of all times and genders and ethnic
groups. It teaches us to do the thing
Thomas Boston encouraged his own congregation to do, to observe
the work of God. For by these, observing his works
in history in a special manner, he reveals himself to his people.
In other words, Esther is going to encourage us to look for God
in everyday, ordinary events of life. And the purpose is so
that we can exclaim with conviction because we've discovered it for
ourselves. We're not told this. We discover
it for ourselves that God had to have done that. I mean, He
could come right out and say it, but this heightens the dramatic
effect and it makes it more personal and memorable Because it comes
to us through a story that we discover, and we don't really
discover it until the end, and then it dawns on us, and then
we don't forget this story. Kind of like the film Signs. It's an old film. You may not
like it. It's a science fiction film. It opens with an Episcopal
priest who's lost his faith after he's lost his wife in a car accident. He cares for two young children. One suffers from asthma, and
one has a really odd, annoying habit of leaving unfinished glasses
of water all over the house. My wife says, I have that habit
as well. With the loss of his wife, he's
going to need some help, so his brother moves in, and his brother
is a former minor league baseball player. As the film progresses,
all of this seems somewhat normal, even if tragic. A car accident,
one child with asthma, one child who leaves things all over the
house, and a brother who's really good at swinging a baseball bat.
Just random, ordinary things. Or are they? Well, strange things
start happening. I mean, it's a science fiction
film. Something strange has to happen, like crop circles appearing
in the middle of the field, and then aliens, of course, like
all science fiction movies, start attacking the Earth. And eventually
one such alien makes its way to the farmhouse of this dad
and they come face to face with this alien in their house and
guess what happens next? Every one of those random ordinary
events early on are now signs and purposeful for how to survive
the ordeal. He has a flashback. For a moment,
the action stops. He flashes back to the time that
his wife is in the car wreck, on the pavement, about to die,
and he recalls her final words. Of course, she tells him that
he loves him. Says, look after the children. I want you to see
and tell your brother to keep swinging away. He flashes back
to reality. And those words, which previously
sounded like the random babbling of someone succumbing to death,
suddenly take on new meaning. He kind of comes back into reality,
and the first thing he sees is a trophy baseball bat on the
wall. He tells his brother to grab the baseball bat and to
start swinging away. Well, the brother starts swinging
away, and the alien is not going to go down easily, so he lets
go of poisonous gas. He's blinded and he starts swinging
aimlessly and he starts hitting those random glasses of water
located in various places in the house. And wouldn't you know
it, the aliens, the way to beat the alien is he can't stand water. So as the water hits him, the
alien's now really in trouble and starting to back off. And
meanwhile, because all that's happened, the kid with asthma
goes into an asthma attack. The dad runs the son out of the
house and gives him his asthma medicine, but he realizes that
because he had the asthma attack, he wasn't really able to inhale
very much of the poisonous gas. And so the movie ends with the
winter weather outside. The dad is back in his clerical
garb, and he's preparing for church. Now, whether you like
the film or not, do you see what the filmmaker's done, at least
the questions he's asking? Can ordinary things, random things,
like a car accident, a child's asthma, a glass of water, a skill
at swinging a baseball bat, can those random things actually
be signs meaningful of some supernatural something at work in our lives. Well, far better than signs,
Esther encourages us to look for God's work in everyday life. When we're most tempted to think
that God has forgotten us, that our way is hidden from the Lord,
that our cause is disregarded from God, we can be sure that
God is at work. And Esther, this story encourages
us to do that kind of thinking. It's like the poem that comes
to my mind when I think of Esther, that part from Elizabeth Barrett
Browning, when she says, Earth's crammed with heaven. Every common
bush afire with God. And only he who sees takes off
his shoes. The rest sit rounded and plot
blackberries. Oh, beloved, this book this morning
is crammed with heaven. His fingerprints, his signs are
all over the ordinary affairs of your life. This is the God
who moves in mysterious ways. What we're going to do now is
just look at a few verses in the first seven chapters of this
book. Just going to go through them.
I'll read them. You can listen or it might be helpful if you
have a Bible to actually look at it this morning. And we're
going to see God's working in this book. So we're in chapter
one, this king, he's having this feast at the end of the feast.
He decides that he wants to bring his queen Vashti before the king
with the royal crown to show off her beauty to everybody.
That's chapter one, verse 11. But the queen wants nothing to
do with it. She refuses in verse 12 to come
to the king's command. And at this, the king becomes
enraged and his anger burns within him. Now, Vashti's refusal. sets up the arrival of this lady
named Esther to her exaltation as becoming the next queen. So
chapter two introduces us to Esther. She's a Jew. She's an
orphan. She's living in a foreign country
under the domination by the leading world power of the day. And by
the time the first part of chapter two ends. She wins a kingdom
wide beauty pageant. Now, it's probably a bit more
perverse than that, but nonetheless, you get the point that of all
the women in the kingdom, A Jewish orphan is picked. And then the
question that I have when you look at this is who gave her
that kind of favor? A Jewish orphan ends up as queen
of Persia. And if you've ever entered any
kind of competition, you know how hard it is to win. Why does
she win? Who gives her favor? That's exactly
what the text says in chapter 2 verse 15. Now Esther was winning
favor in the eyes of all who saw her. You see this unexposed, the unexpected
deposing of Vashti leads to the unheard of favor and exaltation
of a foreigner, Esther. I mean, how do you explain that? Who moved on Vashti's heart?
We're even told that Esther was beautiful to look at. Why was
she born so beautiful and then given favor? We're seeing early on that promotion
doesn't come from the east or the west, but God sets up one
and he puts down another. It's also fascinating that when
you get to the end of chapter two, you have another providential
arrangement. Esther has a guardian. A cousin
named Mordecai. He's been looking out for her
this whole time. He's been keeping close tabs
on her. And then he makes the most fortunate
discovery at the end of chapter two, verse 21. In those days,
as Mordecai was sitting at the king's gate, Big Thun and Teresh,
sounds like two thugs, two of the king's eunuchs who guarded
the threshold became angry. They sought to lay hands to kill
King Ahasuerus. This came to the knowledge of
Mordecai and he told it to Queen Esther and Esther told the king
in the name of Mordecai. When the affair was investigated
and found to be correct, the men were both hanged on the gallows.
And it was recorded in the Book of Chronicles of the Chronicles
in the presence of the king. Now, think about this. Mordecai
just happens to be in the right place at the right time. He just
so happens that he has some kind of job or relationship where
he's sitting at the king's gate where business of some kind is
transacted. And it just so happens that his happenings for the day
lead to his overhearing of an assassination plot of King Xerxes.
And by the way, it just so happens that he actually knows somebody
who has the king's ear. And it just happens to be his
cousin. So God providentially spares
the life of a pagan king through Mordecai. But just as an aside,
do you think God can providentially spare the lives of pagan kings
today? And then what you expect, and
at the end of chapter two, when you go into chapter three, what
you expect to hear, chapter three opens up and so Mordecai was
rewarded. That's how it struck me this week, and we just heard
about Mordecai saving the king's life. And Esther told the king
that it was Mordecai who did it. It was even written down
in the book. So in chapter three opens, that's what you expect.
But it doesn't happen. It appears as if Mordecai is
overlooked. Now, have have you ever felt
like that in your life before? Overlooked. God has forgotten
about you. And then we're introduced to
some dude named Haman. I mean, where does he come from?
It's like reading some Shakespeare play, and when you think you
have it figured out, here comes one more, and you go, sheesh,
how many are there? Or my wife and I have been, we
like to watch those, the BBC remakes of classic Dickens novels
and the like, and I bugger to death when in the middle, somebody
new comes up. Like, where have they been? With
this crucial bit of, you don't know anything about him, he just
kind of shows up. And then when he shows up, he's exalted at
the king's right hand. He has unexplained favor and
there's this unexplained character that's introduced when it should
have been Mordecai. Then in chapter three and verse
two, it looks like Mordecai makes a questionable decision. Chapter
three and verse two, he refuses to bow down or to pay homage
to Haman. I don't know what's going on
here. The context doesn't seem to be one of worship. That's
what happened to the three Hebrew slaves and Daniel. They refused
to bow down and worship the statue. That was a context of religious
worship that signaled betrayal of God. But for all we know,
Haman is just the head of state. Why doesn't Mordecai bow down
to him, show respect? Maybe he knows something we don't.
That's true. We're told several times that
Haman is an Agagite, he's part of an Amalekite people who first
oppressed God's people when they came out of Egypt and that God's
people refused to obey him and finish them off. And maybe Mordecai
is aware of that and he's showing honor and devotion to God's command
to have nothing to do with Agag and his people. I have to tell
you, and I'm sure that you saw this as well when you read through
this week, that the actions of the main characters at times
in this book are just questionable. Esther's a part of a harem? She
seems to sleep with the king? And he's going to find out if
he's going to like her or not? Now, true, she's disadvantaged.
She's making the best of a bad situation. And you can put all
those footnotes in. Yet again, when Shadrach, Meshach,
and Abednego are in a similar situation where their lives is
at stake, they say, do as you want, but we won't disobey God. The point is that Esther and
Mordecai are probably flawed heroes. We just don't know. And
the point is to point us to somebody outside of the book itself as
the hero. Well, again, maybe it's a good
reason. For good or bad, Mordecai's decision
provokes this man named Haman to begin plotting a Jewish genocide. It's the rest of Chapter 3. That brings us to the crucial
conversation in Esther four that many of us know. But it's all
set up by Mordecai's actions in verse one, where he puts on
sackcloth and he begins to fast and he starts to cry out to God.
And the reason why he can start to cry out to God is because
what he tells us in verse 14. Verse 14, he has this conversation
with his cousin and he says, Esther, if you keep silent at
this time. Relief and deliverance will arise
for the Jews from another place. But you and your father's house
will perish. And who knows whether you have not come to the kingdom
for such a time as this, did you hear that? Mordecai's example shows us that
belief in God's sovereign providence does not generate passivity at
all. Because he knows God will deliver
from another place. That means he could deliver from
Esther and Mordecai and do it now. So he prays. He coaches Esther. God's sovereignty
that He can deliver from anybody at any time emboldens Him to
entreat Esther to ask the king. For who knows if we aren't the
ones that God will choose to do what He can do at any time
and with anybody. And what a subtle irony it is.
He's speaking better than he knows because the deposing of
Vashti, the unheard of exaltation of a Jewish orphan to Persian
queen, the questionable choices of Haman, the anger of Haman,
all of it was being arranged by God so Esther could be there
at just this time. And those who know the story
love what happens in chapter 5. Haman is so enraged by Mordecai's
refusal to honor him that in chapter 5 and verse 14, he has
a powwow with his wife and his friends and they give him some
advice. Let a gallows 75 feet high be made. And in the morning,
tell the king to have Mordecai hanged on it. Then go joyfully
with the king to the feast. The idea pleased Haman. And he
had the gallows made. Here's the key phrase in verse
chapter 514. And in the morning have Mordecai
hanged. In the morning. So he goes off
to see the king and he's skipping and he makes up some little ditty
because he's so happy. In the morning Mordecai's dead. And he's singing this ditty because
he's really happy. In the morning. And he fades off as he kind of
walks off the stage. Now read chapter 6 verse 1. On that night, Ahasuerus can't
sleep. On that night, the night before
the gallows were constructed and Mordecai was to be hanged,
on that night, the king couldn't sleep. And if that's not providential
enough, keep reading. He wakes up because he can't
sleep. And eeny, meeny, miny, moe, what shall I read from?
The book of the Chronicles. The last time we saw that was
the end of chapter 2, verse 23, where it was written what Mordecai
did. And out of the entire book of
the Chronicles that he could have read, eeny, meeny, miny,
moe, chapter 6, verse 2, where does he read? It was found recorded
there that Mordecai had exposed these two thugs, two of the king's
officers who guarded the doorway, who had conspired to assassinate
King Xerxes. And not only that, whereas earlier
the king did nothing for Mordecai, now he decides to do something
for him. Verse 3, what honor and recognition
has Mordecai received for this, the king asked. Well, nothing
has been done for him, his attendants answered. And at that very moment,
guess who shows up? On the night the king can't sleep,
the night before Mordecai is to die, the night he picks up
the book of Chronicles and then randomly reads about Mordecai,
who forgot about it but now wants to reward him. In the middle
of thinking about rewarding Mordecai, who knocks at the door? The king
says, come in. Who is at the court? Now Haman
had just entered the outer court of the palace to speak to the
king about hanging Mordecai on the gallows he had erected for
him. And if this were on TV, you'd kind of move your chair
up closer, or you'd turn it up, or you'd tell everybody to be
quiet. Because here comes Haman, all happy, skipping like a kid
up to the ice cream counter in the morning. And he's thinking,
the king likes me. I'm one bad dude. There's nobody
as cool as I am. There's nobody that has his favor
like I do. Then he settles himself. He straightens
his whatever he has on. And he acts like he's not excited.
And he comes striding into the king's palace. Listen to what the king says.
When Haman entered, the king asked him, what should be done
for the man the king delights to honor? And Haman thinks, of
course, he's talking about himself, so he lays it on thick. Well,
if you're asking, the man the king delights to honor, well,
have them bring a royal robe that the king has worn and the
horse the king has ridden, one with the royal crest placed on
his head. Then let the robe and the horse
be entrusted to one of the king's most noble princes, and let them
robe the man the king delights to honor and lead them on the
horse to the city streets, proclaiming before him, this is what is done
for the man the king delights to honor. And he's picturing
all of this in himself, and the crowd shouting to him, and he's
riding along the horse. Go at once, the king commanded
Haman. Get the robe and the horse and do just as you have suggested
for Mordecai the Jew. Don't neglect anything you have
commanded. Now I wonder what his face looked
like in the middle of that sentence. I bet he felt like giving himself
the biggest swirly known to humanity at that moment. You see what's happening up to
this point. Up to this point, the story looks
as if the deck is being sacked against God's people. They're
the ones being set up and prepared to die. But in one verse, we
find out it's just the opposite that's been happening the whole
time. God was orchestrating events
to preserve His people and to punish evil. Those are these
twin themes. God will protect and God will
punish His evil. Haman, indeed, is from the descendant
of King Agag, an Amalekite, and God promised to wipe them out
for their mistreatment. God's people had failed and disobeyed
in that area, but now, centuries later, it's about to happen.
I don't know who gave this little aphorism, but It's true, the
wheels of providence and justice grind exceedingly slow, but they
grind exceedingly small. Fine. He's about to go down. He's about to go down. Now before
we proceed, does that remind you of anything else? When people and events are conspiring
against someone, When everything looks out of control, when the
fury of circumstances and people reach its zenith, and at that
very moment, it's reversed. Does that remind you of anything? Well, he's obviously bummed out,
and fresh from his massive swirly, he goes home and he tells his
wife in 613, and she says, this can't be good. And 614 says,
while they were still talking, the king's eunuchs arrived and
hurried Haman away to the banquet that Esther had prepared. And
when chapter 7 ends, Haman is hanged on the very gallows he'd
made for Mordecai. And in a flare of dramatic irony,
he had built his own instrument of death, fallen victim to his
own hatred. And when the story ends, at the
end of Esther, there are at least 12 different reversals that have
happened. I read a small paper this week
by the church planner at Washington, D.C., Jonathan Matias, an excellent
little paper, and I'll try to make it available on the blog
later this week, an excellent paper, and he details those 12
reversals, among other things. Now we've just ticked off several
things, ordinary events. Another helpful little book,
not by chance, Leighton Talbert goes this way with it. Chapter
1, there's the unexpected deposing of Vashti and the ascension of
Esther. The fortuitous discovery by Mordecai
of an assassination plot in chapter 2. The unexplained promotion
of an arrogant prince named Haman in chapter 3. The questionable
decision of Mordecai. The staggering malice of Haman
in Genocide. The conversation between Mordecai
and Esther in chapter 4. The unwitting digging of Haman
by his own grave in chapter 5. The unpredictable insomnia of
the king. The random selection of the record
of Mordecai's deed to be read to the king. the well-timed determination
to reward Mordecai, the coincidental appearance of Haman at the time
the king was seeking to reward Mordecai, the ironic role reversal
between Mordecai and Haman, Chapter 6, the surprise payday banquet
for heaven, Chapter 7, the timely reversal of Haman's plot in Chapter
8, the curious naming of a memorial holiday in Chapter 9, and the
gratifying exaltation of Mordecai, in the end, Mordecai gets Haman's
position and the book closes. Now some of those ordinary events,
insomnia doesn't sound all too different than a glass of water
around the house or asthma. I mean, which person in the story
do you want to credit with all this happening? Who? And if you
think that we're reading too much into the story, then just
think for a moment that the structure itself screams this, because
if you took a look from a literary perspective, even I read, you
probably read this week, chapter 7, chapter 6 is the dramatic
center of the book. And if you looked at it as a
whole in one level, chapter 1 parallels chapter 10, and 2 and 3 parallels
chapters 8 and 9, and it goes all the way until you get to
chapter 6, verse 1. The king on that night, the king
couldn't sleep. Which means here's the question.
How come he can't sleep? You see, if we miss all of those
other providential indicators of God's power, the structure
demands that at least we notice this one who caused the insomnia
of the king. What part did Esther have in
that? How about Mordecai? Haman? You see, the climax, the
dramatic center of the book shows us what's really happening in
the entire 10 year period. This story takes place. God is
masterfully, silently working to bring about even the insomnia
of one man. For the good of his people and
the glory of his name, so he can save a nation. to write a
savior for the world, all because a king couldn't sleep the night
before a dastardly plot was to be hatched. This is the God who
moves in mysterious ways. One writer notes, the remarkable
plot, part played by providential coincidences, and Esther's story
is both heartening and humbling, In our own personal lives, there
are occasions when interlinked coincidences are too extraordinary
to be put down as mere chance. But be careful of having the
wrong reaction. Don't assume that for some reason
that God is on your side and will continue to give you on
a plate all the good things you request. That's not the point. The point is to be in awe of
a mighty God who condescends to answer our prayers and work
out ordinary circumstances in spite of our shortcomings and
downright failures. Here are people who are being
judged for their sin. And even in the middle of being
judged. God is working and using ordinary
circumstances to protect them. God's providence is not ultimately
bound to the faithfulness of his people. You don't really
want to believe the opposite of that, that God's faithfulness
is bound to your faithfulness. You don't want to really believe
that. He's always faithful to his people and his word. And this story, as we just indicated,
is more about God's providence for two people. This story is
about God's preservation. He preserves not just Esther
and Mordecai, but he preserves his people. There can be no denying
that's what's at one level going on. God preserves and protects
his people and the presence of a threat of national genocide.
God doesn't let it happen. There are things that God has
little patience for that you don't live long. If you do, you
afflict his people. Boy, that's bad news. You misuse
his name. That's bad news. He has promises
to keep. And the promises that we think
have failed because the exiles are where they are are still
alive. And once again, God shows that
he will see to it that all things, even the free choices of men,
ultimately work together for the good of his kingdom. Now,
don't picture it like this. Don't hear what I just said like
this, that God is this great chess player or emergency responder
who knows how who knows how to avert a crisis or knows how to
who waits for you to make your move. And he's just this unbelievable
chess player who knows how to counter everything that you do.
That's not quite how it is. God is not passive in Providence. He's actively bringing about
all things to their intended purposes so that the Lord has
established his throne in heaven and his kingdom rules over all. But he's not simply preserving
Esther and Mordecai or his people. Esther displays God's preservation
for people like you and me. and preserving these two people
He preserves and provides for the entire world. Don't forget. Don't disconnect Esther from
the storyline of the Bible that God had made incredible promises
in Genesis 3 to Eve that there will come a seed of the woman
who will crush the head of the serpent. He made incredible promises to
Abraham that through him all the nations would be blessed.
And those promises are real and the threats to those promises
are real. So that if the Jews are eradicated, Christianity
is eradicated. And we're still the hope for
all people, the line of the Redeemer is destroyed. If Haman's plot
is carried out. But what we're seeing is that
no nation No force of nature, scheming men, or mighty potentates
can ever thwart the plan of God. Never. There's that commercial for the
old deodorant. Never let him see you sweat. God is never under
stress so that he might start sweating. I don't mean that to
be a... You understand, he's not concerned. In fact, Psalm
2 says he doesn't sweat, he laughs. I laugh at your attempts. God's purposes will ripen fast. That leads us to just God's general
faithfulness. Because God preserves and His
providence is seen, He is seen to be a faithful God, that He
will indeed harness the chariots of omnipotence to maintain His
promises to His people. So to the Jews who are coming
out of the exile, will God still protect us? Do we have a future? This book sings, it dances of
the marvelous faithfulness of God to his covenant. A feast
they still celebrate to this day. And no matter whether they're
in Jerusalem or in Babylon, it doesn't matter if Nebuchadnezzar
is ruling or Cyrus is ruling or Xerxes is ruling or Obama
or Ahmadinejad, God keeps his promises. And he laughs at the
attempts of the world to thwart him. His kingdom is invincible. And
no one can thwart his redemptive purposes. And in preserving Haman
and Mordecai, he preserves the Jews. And preserving the Jews,
he preserves the Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the
world. One writer comments that seen
in the true light of God's redemptive purpose, the death of Haman,
who represents the devil's venomous opposition to the redemptive
plan of God, that event and the death of the firstborn in Egypt,
those two events show us that God took his promises seriously. In the one case, God miraculously
delivered his people. And the other case, he providentially
delivered his people. He thwarted Satan's desperate
efforts to destroy his covenant people. And apart from the providential
intervention of God. In Esther, there's no Christ
and no salvation for the world, and God would never let that
happen. Well, I hope you're seeing that
ultimately this book, like your life, is not about the courage
and obedience of Esther, though there are certainly certain elements
to be imitated on one level. The book isn't ultimately about
Mordecai the mastermind. The reality is that both of these
people at some level come off as less than worthy of emulation
at times, which leaves us to the only hero in the book. It's
God. God is the hero of Esther. Friends,
he's the hero of your flawed life, too. He's the hero of any
church that you enjoy. That church is flawed. God is
the hero. And whether these people are
exemplary in every point is not the issue. You're not exemplary
in every point either. The point is God can win with
people or without people. And if that bothers you, listen
to Jesus talking to the Pharisees. From these very stones I can
raise up people to praise Me. He doesn't need a flippant one
of us. of His kingdom there shall be
no end. Of His faithfulness there shall
be no end. There is no limiting His power
and His plan. And He uses people willingly
and unknowingly to expand His glorious kingdom. Even Satan,
for whom there is no earthly match, is the unwitting dupe
of God. So Charles Spurgeon says, I believe
that every particle of dust that dances in the sunbeam does not
move an atom more or less than God wishes. Every particle of
spray that dashes against the steamboat has its orbit planned
and ordained as well as the sun in the heavens. The chaff from
the hand of the winnower is steered as surely as the stars in their
courses. The creeping of an insect over
a rosebud is as much fixed as the march of the devastating
pestilence, and the fall of leaves from the poplar tree is as fully
ordained as the tumbling avalanche. He who believes in God must believe
this truth. There is no standing point between
this and atheism. There is no halfway between an
almighty God who works all things according to the pleasure of
His will and no God at all. This is the God who sovereignly
moves in mysterious ways. Now, six things, we have application
to say, what does this mean for me? This is Esther. It's kind
of out there a little bit. Number one, Just because God
is quiet doesn't mean he's not there. All of us want the Red
Sea to open or bread to fall from heaven or somebody to be
raised from the dead that we can see to show that God is working.
But Esther lived in the same kind of time period that we do.
The book takes place 10 years. God is never mentioned in the
book once. Ten years, God is never mentioned,
but His fingerprints are everywhere. And the silence, the lack of
God's name underscores the undeniable reality of His activity. Even
when He seems to be quiet, He's still working. Just because God
is quiet doesn't mean He's not there. That leads me to say this,
that normally, God works normally. There's no great big miracle
in Esther. What you have to step back and ask is, is God any less
involved and less powerful in Esther than he is in Exodus?
Is God's power limited to displays of one time events? Or do you
think in some sense God's power is heightened when he doesn't
seem to be there, when he uses things like a case of insomnia? It's ten years. That's a long
time. It's a lot of ordinary events. Yet throughout all of
those ordinary events, God is powerfully, patiently, sovereign
at work in everyday, ordinary happenings of life. Like a job
interview, a trip to the bank, a conversation in the break room,
a date, the death of someone that you love, In all of those
things, God is working quietly and powerfully. Normally, God
works normally. 3. God's apparent hiddenness
and silence in Esther serves to highlight human responsibility. Even the free acts of people
are somehow orchestrated by the Sovereign God. He's silent, He's
silent and highlights human responsibility and then helps see how even those
free acts are somehow part of God's sovereign plan. Mordecai knows that in chapter
4, 14, God can deliver his people another way. But who knows if
we've come to the kingdom for that time? See, God's sovereignty
encourages actions. The narrator deliberately refrains
from any reference to God in order to accentuate the role
that we have in shaping history to indicate and still yet God's
hidden control. Make no doubt about it, God's
providence is the driving force in the narrative, yet God wants
us to see the readers to see his mysterious, mysterious hand
silently working in the background. So when you get done reading
Esther, you don't get the feeling that people have been acting
against their will or compelled to do things they don't want
to do. Vashti's not saying, I wanted to say yes, I'll show up to the
pageant. How did I say no? Haman's, Mordecai's not standing
saying, I really wanted to bow, but I just couldn't. Or you don't
get the sense that the night before that Ahasuerus pops a
bunch of sleeping pills and he says, now how did that happen?
I wanted to be asleep. You see, while they are acting
freely, God, in ways explainable only to Him, is controlling the
whole scene, just like He does your life and my life. Number
four, not one event in life is chance. Everything is an evidence
of His providence, even Xerxes' insomnia. Now, in light of that fact that
God is doing nothing is left to chance, you just have to step
back and ask these kinds of questions. If everything if nothing is left
to chance. Why are you working where you
are working now? Why has God given you the neighbors
he's given you? Why do you have the gifts that
you have? Observe the work of God. Number
five. God uses the wrathful and evil
choices of people to fulfill his own purposes. It's parallel
to number three, but God uses wrathful and evil choices to
fulfill his purposes, not even the malice and plotting of Haman
or the power of this king is a threat to God. I mean, behind
the scene, there's lots of fear, lots of anxiety. But God uses
those rashful decisions to praise him. Again, Spurgeon says, one
cog of the wheel of Providence disarranged or left to Satan
or to man's absolute freedom apart from God would spoil the
whole machinery. Now, listen to this. I dare not
believe even sin itself to be exempted from the control of
Providence. The friend, if you don't set
your hope there, you will go crazy in life. Brian said it
earlier in the prayer service, if it bothers you that he is
in charge, that he uses sin for his own glory, who do you want
to be in charge? It is unmistakably clear that
our God reigns. And if you have problems with
that, all you have to do is go right to the cross. Right? All along, we think Mordecai
and the Jews are being set up. And in the moment, the opposite
is happening. Esther anticipates the cross. There is sin in all
of its heinousness, all of its fury. The kings of the earth,
Pilate and Caiaphas, Judas, the crowd have plotted together against
this man they all say is truly innocent. It's all stacked against
him. He's being set up by one more
powerful and sinister than Haman. And yet at that moment, We find
out precisely the opposites happening. While it's men who crucify Jesus,
it's the Jewish prophet Isaiah who tells us in Isaiah 53, it
pleased God to crush him. Or the scripture reading that
we read in Acts, this Jesus Christ was delivered up according to
the definite plan and foreknowledge of God. You crucified him. Not even the worst sin is outside
of the control of God. Haman had constructed gallows
made from a tree and it led to death. God constructed a cross
from a tree and it led to life. And friends, that is your only
hope today. Your greatest need is not obedient
kids or a job that you like or a spouse who loves you. Your
greatest need is deliverance from your sin against God. And like Esther and Mordecai
cried out, they needed someone to deliver them. Who will deliver
you from your life? Don't balk at God's control because
all of us come in contact with evil people and suffering in
life. And if you think that people are ultimately in control of
life, you have no hope. He uses the wrath of men to fulfill
His purpose. And aren't you glad He did that
for Esther? And aren't you glad He did that for you at the cross?
What a Savior! What a God! Finally, observing the work of
God who moves in mysterious ways encourages us to faithfulness. The hero is obviously God, but
never underestimate, friends, the smallest act of faithfulness.
By the faithfulness and obedience, flawed though it may have been,
of Esther and Mordecai, God worked to deliver a nation and to deliver
a world and in some level to deliver us this morning. Never
underestimate the importance of one life lived in daily devotion
to God. The consequences are eternal. Who knows what God will do because
you were faithful to your wife? Who knows what will happen because
you were faithful for sharing the truth about Jesus? Who knows
what will happen because you've taught second graders for 20
years? Who knows? I can be faithful to God because
He is always faithful to His promises. See, God teaches us through this
short book that we should be a people who revel and rest in
His providential working. He will be faithful. And at the
end of the day, though we're flawed, he remains in control
and in charge. And while God is the hero, don't
ever forget, don't ever forget how important our faithfulness
is in ordinary lives, because he provided through them for
a nation, for the world, Jesus Christ, the suffering king of
kings. That's the message of Esther. So I ask you this morning. To
whom will you look for a deliverer? In the midst of your troubles,
who or what are you waiting for? Esther tells us only God and
the son he provides is the only true deliverer. So we sang that
hymn by William Cooper, who was the
backyard neighbor of John Newton, They just step back and God moves
in mysterious ways His wonders to perform. He plants His footsteps
in the sea and He rides upon the storm. Judge not the Lord
by feeble sense in your life, but trust Him for His grace.
Behind a crowning providence, He hides a smiling face. His
purposes will ripen fast, unfolding every hour. The bud may have
a bitter taste, but sweet will be the flower. So here's the
point. You fearful saints, fresh courage
take. The clouds you so much dread
are big with mercy and shall break with blessings on your
head. Blind unbelief is sure to err and scan his works in
vain. God is his own interpreter and he will make it plain. The
God who moves in mysterious ways calls you to trust him. Humble
yourself before him and obey him.
Message of Esther: The God Who Moves in Mysterious Ways
Series OT Book Overviews
Great people aren't so great. Their own greatness is not the salient fact about them. It's the kind of fortunate mix of opportunities they've been given. – Malcolm Galdwell
| Sermon ID | 83010110122790 |
| Duration | 1:01:50 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday Service |
| Bible Text | Esther |
| Language | English |
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