O Father, You are Sovereign!

Esther chapter 5 is our Bible reading for today in the church Bibles you'll find it around page 412 413 if you're visiting with us we're working our way systematically and consecutively through this book a book in which the name of God is never mentioned and yet God is everywhere present verse 1 of chapter 5 on the third day Esther put on her royal robes and stood in the inner court of the king's palace in front of the Kings quarters while the King was sitting on his royal throne inside the throne room opposite the entrance to the palace it's not easy for us to work out the architecture of that but what is pretty clear to us is that the Queen is if is in the sight line of the King although she is not immediately in the presence of the King and when the King saw Queen Esther standing in the court she won favor in his sight and he held out to a store the golden scepter that was in his hand then Esther approached and touched the tip of the scepter and the King said to her what is it Queen Esther what is your request it shall be given you even to the half of my kingdom and Esther said if it please the King let the king and Haman come today to a feast that I have prepared for the king then the King said bring him and quickly so that we may do as Esther has asked so the king and Haman came to the feast that Esther had prepared and as they were drinking wine after the feast the King said to Esther what is your wish it shall be granted you and what is your request even to the half of my kingdom it shall be fulfilled then Esther answered my wish and my request is if I have found favor in the sight of the king and if it please that came to grant my wish and fulfill my request let the king and Haman come to the feast that I will prepare for them and tomorrow I will do as the king has said and haman without that day joyful and glad of heart but when Haman saw Mordecai in the Kings gate that he neither rose nor trembled before him he was filled with wrath against Mordecai nevertheless Haman restrained himself and went home and he sent and brought his friends and his wives Arish and Haman recounted to them the splendor of his richest the number of his sons all the promotions with which the King had honoured him and how he had advanced him above the officials and the servants of the king then Haman said even Queen Esther let no one but me come with a king to the feast she prepared and tomorrow also I am invited by her together with the king get all this is worth nothing to me so long as I see Mordecai the Jews sitting at the Kings gate then his wife Zahra SH and all his friends said to him let a gallows fifty cubits high be made and in the morning tell the King to have Mordecai hanged upon it then go joyfully with a king to the feast this idea please Damon and he had the gallows made amen our great God we bow down before you believing that when your word is faithfully opened up that your voice is truly heard we listen then for your voice illumine to as the printed page conduct that divine dialogue by the holy spirit whereby we are taken in our thinking beyond the voice of a mere man and encountering you the Living God to this end we seek you in Jesus name Amen coincidence observed CS Lewis is God's Way of remaining anonymous God's Way of remaining anonymous and here in the book of Esther we have the classic statement story in the Old Testament of the anonymity is aware of God but we've been discovering and now we're chapter 5 that beneath the surface of the story of the narrative as it unfolds behind a whole series of events we're finding that although God's name is never mentioned that God is at work everywhere and in everything so when we came to the end of chapter 4 Esther had determined that the prompting of her cousin Mordecai was sufficient for her to resolve that she would actually go to the king and there at the end of chapter 4 if your Bible is open you see her statement then I will go to the king though it is against the law and if I perish I perish it was against the law for someone to come into the presence of the King unbidden but she recognized that she had a higher responsibility to a higher throne where there was a king that was greater than King Ahaz where US and it is to this king that she must eventually and ultimately bow her knee so for her to say if I perish I fairy perish is not simply a statement of bravado but is actually an acknowledgment on the part of Esther that there is a tremendous risk involved in what she's about to do and the difficulty for us in having read the story all the way through is that the tension that builds here in Chapter five may easily be lost on us unless we resolve consistently to stay within the chapter you you lose we lose the benefit of the unfolding drama if we constantly push beyond it and so we need to realize that in verse 11 of chapter 4 all the king's servants and the people of the king's provinces know Esther had proclaimed that if any man or woman goes to the King inside the inner Court without being called there is but one law to be put to death so in other words the King was not going to have his privacy or his security broached he made sure that that would not happen by surrounding himself with henchmen who bore axes so as to make sure that the head of someone was immediately removed they wouldn't be able to do whatever it was they came to do the only exception which Esther points out there in Chapter four was if the King determined that this person who makes their appearance should be allowed to enter then as an expression of his royal and supreme prerogative he would hold out a symbol of his power namely the royal sceptre and the individual would then be made aware of the fact that the King was prepared to allow him this or her this broach of etiquette but what we need to know as we go into Chapter five is that esterhaz now resolved that she will face the possibility of death for doing what she's about to do as a result of speaking up for her people and identifying with them rather than taking the alternative which is to remain silent and hope that there will be sufficient security provided for her because she's actually in the palace so in other words she has two options and neither of them are particularly good she could stay in the palace and die or she could enter the King's presence and maybe die there so let then is let's follow the storyline as it's given to us first of all noticing what we'll refer to as the subtlety of Esther the subtlety of Esther as you read this and as a rule you allow your eye to scan it as I'm addressing you you will see that her approach to the King is brave it is appropriate its cautious its humble its skillful and I think subtle is the right word because she approaches in a fashion that is delicate it is precise our approach is cleverly designed it is carefully planned and executed after all wise men say Only Fools Rush in she's not about to appear in the presence of a king like a bull in a china shop there's a lesson to be learned here by many of us who once we've resolved something are tempted to say to ourselves well I can just get at this directly and it doesn't really matter how I affect or offend anybody else after all something needs to be done and I'm the one that needs to do it and we find ourselves stumbling and bumbling around and often I think in a way that is entirely unhelpful unedifying and so we might take a leaf from Esther's book yes she is resolved that this is something that she must do she is going to take the route of obedience even though she died and that's a good route to walk but at the same time she approaches the opportunity subtly and her subtlety is revealed in a number of ways first of all in her dress that's how the chapter begins on the third day Esther put on her royal robes the time for fasting and preparation is now over the time for action has now come and as she put on her royal that may make you think as it made me think of chapter two and of the first occasion when she had gone in before the king remember when she had in Haggai a fashion consultant and he was responsible for making sure that she and the other girls were all properly prepared and having taken a peculiar liking to Esther he made sure that on the occasion that she went in to see the king that she wore and was appropriately conveyed in relationship to the expectations of the king so I find myself just wondering whether she checked with Haggai or not I the way my mind works but I imagined her saying hey guy do you think I wear heels or shall I wear flats with these robes and hey guy said well I I think heels are always better especially with those robes being as long as they are that's not in the Bible of course it's not in the Bible you don't need to worry about it for a moment I'm just asking the question she obviously made preparation she put on her royal robes she clothed herself in a particular way she thought about what she was going to do some of the commentators this are very clear about the fact that this is a departure for her now whereas before she relied on her beauty perhaps on her powers of seduction instead they say she now is done with all of that and she is only standing before the King dressed in the robes of her royal Jewish persona I'm not so sure about that and I don't think we can say so categorically we would then have to assume that identifying herself in a royal position meant that that's supplanted the place of the beauty that God had given to her the looks that he is entrusted to her the personality they are given to her her coyness her accessibility and so on it doesn't need to be one or the other and if you look at it from the other side you have to then assume that the reason that she found favor with the king if we accept the view that she no longer went in a la the old Esther that we know but the new Esther that we're now meeting that the King then when he saw her coming said to himself my my look at Esther standing there with all the dignity of a royal Jew does that fit the King does that sound like the King I didn't sound like the King anymore than that then the idea is presented in relationship to asked her but your sensible people you have to work this out there's not foundational to the story I I think the King III I don't think that was the King I think the King found her simply irresistible to quote Robert Palmer and because it's the exact same phrase that is used in chapter 2 where he looked over all these girls and he found that this girl rang his Bell that this girl stood out beyond all the other girls so it's highly unlikely that having not seen her or had access to her for over a month now that he was favorably disposed to her just because she showed up dressed in the robes of royalty but again who knows her subtlety though is conveyed in her approach in her dress and also secondly in her demeanor in her demeanor because she responds according to protocol verse 2 when he held forth this golden sceptre that was in his hand Esther approached and touched the tip of his scepter that's important too in other words she didn't say oh I didn't need to do any of that stuff I I have immediate access to the King know she recognized that she was going in here in a peculiarly perilous environment and so when he extended his grace as it where towards her she accepted it in the way that it was conveyed her clothes and her countenance conveyed something of her disposition I resist the temptation to launch into a rabbit trail discourse on the nature of clothing and what clothing says concerning the disposition of our hearts and what it says concerning the nature of our approach to one another to business and to God clothes actually matter they actually convey something and her demeanor is conveyed in her clothing and in her countenance thirdly it is conveyed the subtlety not only in this but also in her dinner plans or in her invitation to the banquet or to this great feast now the King has issued the first of three requests to do something for his Queen what is it what is it you want ask whatever you want he's in the position of Dodger in all of her twists at least in the stage play of Oliver Twist the musical of Oliver Twist declaring I do anything for you Queen anything for you dear and a thing for you okay that's what you say it's hyperbole I'll give you half my kingdom you're not gonna give her half his kingdom what he means is you know there's really no limit to what I'm prepared to do for you I you have found favor in my eyes Queen come on what do you want now he actually has to ask three times as we'll discover as the narrative unfolds before he gets the actual answer that she's prepared to convey in fact the answer that she now gives appears to be almost anticlimactic doesn't it because after all we've had this great setup who knows but that you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this that's Mordecai to Esther it's time for you to step up Esther it's time for you to identify with your people it's time for you to fulfill your calling under God okay okay okay now go ahead and so she gets there and he says and what is it you want and she says would you like to come to dinner later on today and would you like to bring Haman with you doesn't seem like much does it you got the camera you got the lights no action just a banquet and resist the temptation to do it we're down the banquet trail which is another trail that you can study to your own benefit she recognizes that the way to a man's heart is apparently through his stomach so why don't we eat about it why don't we get together and eat and Haman was pleased if it pleases the King and it did please the king and so he said bring Haman quickly so that we may do as Esther is asked we're going to have a feast the chapter the first chapter was has where is his feast but he put that together for himself it's one thing to put together for yourself as another to be invited to a feast that is prepared in your honor and that's what Esther wanted to do included his prime minister this rascal Haman so he sends for him and they came to the feast that Esther had prepared and verse six and as they were drinking wine after the feast the King said to Esther second time what is your wish will be granted to you what's your request even to half of my kingdom it shall be fulfilled okay now she's gonna tell him right know first seven then Esther answered my wish and my request is if I found favor in the sight of the king and if it please the King to grant my wish should fulfill my request then how about we do this again tomorrow night how about we have another meal what in the world is going on here this is a wonderful story you understand the way in which this narrative develops because it's creating suspense is creating tension if you write a story you don't just move from the from the cliffhanger at the end of chapter four into the resolution of the beginning of chapter five because what are you do for the rest of the book it's over and the way the story is told is told in order that we might follow along and be intrigued by this because we've got no way of knowing what is in the mind of Esther why does she do this why feast 1 and then why these 2 his feast 2 as a result of a loss of nerve there's if she just about to say and then she she says well if you would like to know what my request is let's have another feast tomorrow evening and then we'll at that feast I will certainly let you know because if curiosity killed the cat the curiosity in this case caught the king and that's exactly what she's doing I don't think it's a loss of nerve on her part some suggested is I think she just hooking him she recognizes that she's going to put him in a position whereby on this next occasion it will be virtually impossible for him to step back from doing anything other than that which she desires and remember what she is asking him to do is significant in doing so she's identify herself with her people and remember she's lived in the Shadowlands for five or six years she is asking him to reverse an irreversible law she is asking him essentially to lose face in front of his entire kingdom that's what she's about to do she's already identified herself and her allegiance with her people she is the mediator of her people but she holds back on actually lowering the boom as it were in relationship to what is essential to the plot I think she's very subtle very subtle she's setting him up and she's also setting Haman up and it is to him and we come in verse nine moving from the subtlety of Esther to the stupidity of Haman he is the archetypal egomaniac he is the embodiment of a fool do you see a man right Solomon who is wise in his own eyes there is more hope for a fool than for him and here his essential folly stands out his arrogance stands out against the backdrop of the humility of Esther Esther is bold and yet she is winsome if I have found favor in your sight she hasn't actually already found favor in his sight otherwise she would never have got in there she's clever she's subtle if I have found favor in your sight her humility is pervasive you turn to Haman and his pride is unmistakable now he'd been there at these this banquet and he'd gone out verse nine tells us that day joyfully and glad of heart joyfully and glad of heart he went out that day joyfully and glad apart there wasn't going to be another day like that day that was his last day for going out joyfully and glad if art you can follow that through on your own you see what Haman was about to understand to his great shame and eventually to his death was what Robert Burns identifies in his poem tam-o-shanter which I'm sure you all read frequently on a Tuesday and then that poem burns addressing the transient nature of life and how quickly things go through the fingers of a man or a woman he says he writes but pleasures are like poppies spread you seize the flower its bloom is shed and like the snow falls in the river a moment white and then gone forever it is an absolute stupidity to itemize the things we covet as we squander through our lives bear cars better houses term insurance on our wives to live in a world where 86 proof anaesthetic crutches propers to the top where the smiles are all synthetic and the ulcers never stop because ultimately when they take the final inventory it'll be the same old story let's have your autograph Hema endorse your epitaph Hema and he went out from the banquet that day joyful and glad of heart but but the conjunction but when Haman saw Mordecai in the Kings gate here we go again here's the fly in the ointment as it were all of the enjoyment the prestige the significance the accolades were insufficient to prevent him from becoming entirely destabilized by the fact that this little guy Mordecai never stood up when Haman came by and certainly never trembled in his presence and he verse 9 B was filled with wrath against Mordecai it wasn't that he was just a little offended that he was a little ticked he was actually consumed with wrath pride does that to a man because you see when I am a proud person nothing can ever satisfy me when I am a proud person no one can ever meet my standards when I am a proud person there is always another thing there is always another floor there is always another dollar there is always something else beyond my reach which although I have reached this got that succeeded here I cannot enjoy all of this because of the absence of this you understand why Paul says godliness with contentment is great gain with contentment pride and discontented in their sleep in the same bed but he should have been able to say what's one little Jew that won't bow after all look at me I'm in their society pages and photographed all the time now with the King but few people has got as much access as me I'm going to all the big feasts the banquets who cares about Mordecai but he can do it and so he goes home he restrained himself from actually presumably reaching out and he went home and he sent and brought his friends and his wives Arish it's not that he went home and everybody said hey Haman great to see you how are you doing no he actually sent for his friends he brought them in he surrounded himself with those who would be prepared to listen to him talk about himself that's what probably pride does to us and verse 11 when he had put this little assembly together he recounted to them the splendor of his riches have you seen my latest painting I bought this at such a--such a Persian gallery why don't you come down in the basement and let me show you my wine cellar would you like to see the porcelain that I have just picked recently what is all of this is to say look do you realize how great I am do you realize how significant I am it's like Liberace when he comes out on stage on one occasion and he's playing a glass piano did you ever see him do this and he's play begins to play the piano and it's entirely it's as perspex or glass or whatever it was you could see the mechanism underneath and he begins to play and then he stops and he says turning to the audience he says there are only two pianos like this in the whole world and then he says and both of them are mine that's what Haman is doing and he recounts his family there's a way to be thankful for your family there's a way to just brag about your family that's obnoxious do things Arish his wife didn't know how many babies she'd had he recounted to them the splendor of his riches and the number of his sons poor Zahra she's sitting there going yeah yeah I know that why you say why are you telling us that because he wants because this is this is like a Facebook page gone crazy this is the this is a Christmas letter in July this is the worst this is the worst he actually lives with a mistaken notion that he is the center of the universe he's not even the center of his own universe his impending death is before him he doesn't have a clue what's going on he is stupidity on two legs he is the fool as related in the Bible he fits perfectly in contemporary 21st century Western culture who are in the publicity magazines who are on the front pages who are the heroes of our day many of them have done nothing at all nothing when's the last time you saw the best school teacher in America on the front of Vogue magazine or when you saw the brightest cardiothoracic surgeon elevated to a position of significance and Herald it in town or when you saw a mother that had dealt with children in their infancy and in their adolescence and it sustained it all and there she was but no no no we want the Haman's on the front page we want ourselves on the front page you see the problem is it's not enough for me to say all look at the pride of Heyman because I look into the word and I see my own sinful heart when Whitfield was a young man he made the statement in his journal all that I could always see myself in my proper colors I believed I should have little reason to fall down and worship myself God be merciful to me a sinner pride goes before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall God opposes the proud he gives grace to the humble Jesus made himself of no reputation being found in fashion as a man he became a servant giving himself up ultimately to death Uzziah in the Old Testament was gloriously helped until he became strong and when he became strong he could proud to his own destruction we'll come back to this but let's take our final point from the subtlety of Esther and the stupidity of Haman to just drive home again for us the underlying theme of the entire book and the sovereignty of God the sovereignty of God the coincidence is that we find in this book are as we said at the beginning God's Way of remaining anonymous Vashti chose not to come when the King called her and as a result she was deposed she did not choose not to come because she was pre-programmed to choose not to come by some divine plan her choice was her own choice her decision was her own decision and resulted in her deposition Esther was exalted as a result of her beauty a beauty that she did not procure for herself but was given to her by God she had no control over the way her eyes said in her face nor the line of her cheek or her jaw she had no statement to make in relationship to that she was the beneficiary of God's goodness and God and His grace chose to use that Mordecai realizing that he's separated from his Queen from Esther chooses to walk around in front of the Kings gate there he picks up snippets of news as his choices his decision he could have gone and lived in the suburbs but he chose to live there and as a result he becomes the beneficiary of the plot for the assassination of the king and he's able then in turn to convey that and so the coincidences continue and as we read we discover that behind the surface of all these human decisions and actions we discover an urgent and an uncontrollable power a power that it is that is at work in such a way that it cannot ultimately be explained nor can it ultimately be thwarted I was reading Jonathan Edwards this week and he was talking about how as a young man he really stumbled over the issue of the sovereignty of God he didn't like the idea that God was sovereign that he's involved in the atomic nature of the universe that his interest extended to every part of humanity he writes about how he finally resolved that in his own mind and how his life was radically changed some of us may be still wrestling as Edwards was wrestling some of us may have come to a convinced position and relationship to these things don't fall foul of a caricature of it don't make the mistake of thinking you can either have the sovereignty of God on the one hand or you can have the free decision of Mordecai and Esther on the other no you have both if they take the back of my watch there are wheels that go around against one another but they work in conjunction with one another in order to make sure that they produce the end result and tell me the time such is the way of God's intervention in time with the affairs of men and women don't take my word for it take God's word for it go and read your Bibles the king's heart is a stream of water says the psalmist says Solomon he turns it in whichever direction he chooses the psalmist when he writes concerning the praise of God I just give you a couple of verses to reinforce this why should the nation's say where is their God the psalmist says our God is in the heavens he does all that he pleases he does what he pleases 135 the psalms but i know that the lord is great and that our lord is above all gods whatever the lord pleases he does in heaven and on earth in the seas and all the deeps he it is and makes the clouds rise at the end of the earth who makes lightnings for the rain and brings forth the wind from his storehouses nebuchadnezzar did not believe that confronted by the faith of daniel and his colleagues he grew proud to his own destruction he ended up poor character living like a beast in in his fields in his palace grounds until he tells us that he lifted his eyes to heaven and my reason returned to me I lifted my eyes to heaven my reason returned to me see people are trying to deal with the world as it is from a rational perspective well I think it's a reasonable thing to believe this it's a scientific perspective to believe that and so on and maybe some time later on I may actually lift my eyes to heaven the Bible actually says no you will never actually engage as a scientist until you lift your eyes to heaven for when you lift your eyes to heaven and you realize the unmistakable power of God behind everything then you may go about with purpose your scientific investigation so he says I blessed the most high and I praised and honored him for his Dominion is an everlasting Dominion clearly mine isn't says neck Nebuchadnezzar his kingdom endures from generation to generation all the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing it doesn't mean that he's disregarding of individual life but that the vastness of humanity is just a drop in the bucket in comparison to his immensity and he does according to his will among the hosts of heaven among the inhabitants of the earth and none can stay his hand or say to him what have you done this actually makes sense of the storyline not only in the Bible but the storyline of our lives I put it to you without this Solomon or the right sort of Ecclesiastes whoever he was comes up with a right answer meaningless meaningless says the teacher everything is actually meaningless he says I tried to become really educated and I found that at the end of that there was sadness and despair I tried to become really rich and I found that it didn't answer my questions I decided to go the route of humor and when everything became funny nothing was funny anymore and then he says until I finally recognized that God is God you've done that you're here today you're agnostic you're pushing around in these things then I'm glad you're here and I'm glad of the opportunity to address you maybe you're actually an atheist you've decided there is no God you've come here just to prove your point maybe I've helped you to that in maybe you've said if that's what it is about I definitely don't believe CS Lewis quite masterfully said atheism turns out to be too simple if the whole universe has no meaning we should never have found out that it has no meaning the only reason there's meaning is because there's God and if we believe that God is everywhere why would we not believe that he is in the coincidences that seems so strange to us for coincidences are God's Way of making himself anonymous Father thank you for the Bible help us to become increasingly students of it and to rest our heads on the soft pillow of your Providence for your son's sake we ask it

Channel: Alistair Begg

Views: 14,434

Keywords: Sovereignty of God, Biblical Figures, Redemptive History, Wisdom, Esther, Alistair Begg

Id: ftKYo7Jt4TU

Length: 38min 59sec (2339 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 09 2013