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.