Esther 2:5-23

Braden Jacquot

Esther • Sermon • Submitted a year ago

Esther 2

God's Providence

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We are looking at God's providence in using sinful people

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Introduction

In 1892, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle published what he claimed to be one of his favorite stories about his fictional character, Sherlock Holmes

-This particular story, published in Strand Magazine, was called “The Adventure of Silver Blaze”

-The story revolved around a famous racehorse being stolen the night before a big race and and its trainer killed

-The most famous line from “The Adventure of Silver Blaze” comes when Scotland Yard Detective Gregory asks Sherlock:

Is there any other point to which you would wish to draw my attention? Holmes: To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time. Gregory: The dog did nothing in the night-time. Holmes: That was the curious incident.

-And if there’s one thing that Sherlock Holmes, or Colombo, or Adrian Monk, or any other of our favorite detectives from books or shows or movies has taught us, it’s to ask the right questions

-And today, as we look at our text from the book of Esther, we’re going to see the importance of asking right questions of the text

-And hopefully it will help us not only come to right understanding and application for today, but also as we study the Bible on our own as well

Background

-As we saw last week, this account takes place in Shushan during the Medo-Persian Empire

-Judah had been taken captive to Babylon for 70 years as God had foretold

-And then after 70 years in Babylon, Cyrus conquers the Babylonian Empire and allows the Jews to return to their homeland, just as God had foretold

-And the events of this account take place about 50 years after the decree of Cyrus allowing for the Jews to return home to Jerusalem

-And for whatever reason, some Jews stayed in Shushan where they were already living

-And so this account deals with those Jews

-Last week we looked at how God’s name is never used one time in this account, and that is for a purpose

-It reflects how in our real life experience, it often can seem to our 5 senses that God is absent

-But we saw last week how God used an arrogant and pompous King and his wife getting into a squabble at a feast to begin to put His deliverers into place

-The King’s wife, Vashti, refuses to come and be the object of attention in front of her drunk husband and his drunk buddies

-And so the King has her removed as queen

-Then, when he eventually realizes that he has no queen, it is suggested to gather a bunch of beautiful virgins across the kingdom, so King A agrees to it

Vs. 5-8

-Here, for the first time, we meet the two protagonists of the story

-The first protagonist is a man named Mordecai

-The author wants us to know a few things about this guy

-First of all, this guy lives in Shushan in the citadel

-so he’s someone who has a position at the palace in some way

-secondly, he is a Jew

-One of God’s covenant people

-Third, his name is Mordecai

-he seems to be named after the pagan Babylonian god “marduk”

-Next, he is a Benjamite descended from Kish

-Now this is an important detail, but we’re going to circle back to it next week where we see the real importance of this detail

-This guy, Mordecai, according to verse 6, was in a family that had been carried away captive from Jerusalem during the Babylonian takeover

-Now, when we piece all of this information together, we have here a less than impressive protagonist

-Here’s a guy who’s become very ingratiated in Persian life and culture

-He’s become so comfortable and adept in the culture, that he’s actually some kind of palace official

-He’s named after a pagan god,

-he and his family didn’t go back with the Jews to Jerusalem

-And as we’re going to find out in a minute, he seems at least somewhat comfortable with his cousin blending in instead of standing up for what is right

-Then comes our second protagonist, Esther

-There are 3 things noted about her

She is Mordecai’s younger cousin. She has been brought up by Mordecai because . . .

She’s an orphan. Something had happened to her parents to where they were no longer in the picture.

She’s very beautiful

-the author uses two words to describe her here, and apparently others in this chapter agree with the description

Vs. 8-14

-Now what we come to see here is that king’s decree goes out for women to be gathered to take part in the king’s hunt for a new wife

-And what we come to find out is that the process for the king choosing a wife is to gather all the beautiful girls in the realm, and have them spend the night with the king one by one to see which he likes the best

-In the Veggie Tales version or in children’s church, the story is never portrayed in such a risque light

-The question begins to arise: why on earth did Esther give in to this?

-Why on earth did Mordecai standby and let this happen?

-We’ll come back that question later on

-So, Esther gets gathered up and taken to the harem

-She gets put in the custody of Hegai, who’s the chief eunich

Vs. 9

-And she finds favor with him

-he pleases her and helps get even more beauty treatments, and gets her the best place in the entire house of women, and they get provisions from the king’s palace

-what an awesome stroke of luck, huh?

Vs. 10

-Now, the author wants us to note that Esther does not reveal her identity as a Jew, because Mordecai tells her not to

-We’re not told why he does this, what his motivation is, but this detail is going to be very important later on in the account

Vs. 11

-Mordecai comes to check on her every day, since, remember, he is a court official of some sort

-He cares about her, and wants to be there for her

Vs. 12-14

-The pomp and arrogance of the king is once again highlighted here

-Each woman spends at least 1 year getting ready for her one night with the king

-ONE YEAR

-that is a really long time to prepare

-But they would apparently go through extensive treatments with oil and perfume and preparation

-Then, when she was called, she would go to the queen and get her one night of trying to impress him and give him pleasure.

-In the morning, she’d go to a different house, having lost her virginity the night before, she is now a concubine for the rest of her life

-And she may never be called back to the King ever again

-For many of them, they would just live a life of confinement until she died of old age

-And as you’re reading this, you have to wonder: what are the odds that this could be the fate of Esther?

-Just ending up being another concubine?

-Living out the rest of her days in solitude as an uncalled for concubine of the king

But notice what happens instead:

Vs. 15-18

Vs. 15

-We have this continued theme throughout the book of Esther winning favor or obtaining favor

-And she once again obtains favor with who?

ALL who saw her

-I wonder how she keeps obtaining favor with all those around her . . .

Vs. 16

-And so Esther goes in for her one night stand with the king . . .

-And the king chooses her above all the other women

Vs. 17

-Notice the wording!

“she obtained grace and favor in his sight more than all the virgins”

Vs. 18

-So he puts the royal crown on her head, calls a great feast in her honor, and gave gifts away

Questions

Now, let’s step back for just a second and deal with some of the questions that we have to deal with here from this text

-The biggest one, the one that is on everyone’s mind probably, is this:

What on earth do we do with Esther and Mordecai??

I mean, what are we to do with our two protagonists and their seeming lack of morals?

Are Esther and Mordecai good examples, or not?

-Are they people who fear and worship Yahweh, or are they not

And honestly, it’s kind of hard to determine the answer to these questions

-When it comes to Mordecai, there is mixed opinion of him, and there’s a lot of questions to ask

-Why is it that he tells Esther to hide her identity?

-Why didn’t he encourage her to take a stand against what was going on instead of giving in and sinning?

-Was he hoping that Esther would win the contest?

-Was he desiring a better life for her?

-Or maybe was he hoping that through her he could gain more political power or influence?

-Or in asking her to hide her identity and go along with things, was he hoping to protect her in some way?

-These are all questions that we wonder

-What was the motivation and reason for all of this?

And what about Esther?

-Why did she go along with being taken into the queen’s harem

-Why didn’t she fight against losing her virginity to an uncircumcised pagan?

-Was she a victim, caught up in the machinery of a pagan government, having very little say or choice?

-Or was she ok with being taken in by the King, hoping perhaps for a better life than she had at the time?

-Or was she desiring to win the whole contest, hoping to gain power and influence for herself and her family?

-Aren’t these questions we wonder as we study this passage?

-And as we look across the Word of God, we see examples of courageous people who took a stand for God

-Think with me to Daniel 3, when all the high officials bowed down before the statue of a pagan king . . . except for three lone Israelites who refused to defile themselves in idolatry

-Their final words to the incensed, idolatrous monarch before they were throne to the flames were “Let it be known to you O King, that we do not serve your gods, nor will we worship the gold image which you have set up.”

-We think of Moses, refusing to be called the son of Pharoah’s daughter, instead choosing to suffer affliction with the people of God

-We think towards the NT, when the Apostles stood before the High Priest and the council, being threatened to stop preaching the Risen Christ, simply uttered these words:

“we ought to obey God rather than men”

And so what do we do? How do we work our way through this tangled knot of what to make of Mordecai and Esther

-And here’s where we circle back to our Sherlock Holmes illustration at the beginning

-While these questions are natural questions, and not wrong to ask, ultimately, they are the wrong questions to be asking

-How do we know?

**Because the author never bothers to give us the answer to these questions**

-The author is not concerned in this account to let us know the motivations or the thought processes behind the actions of Mordecai or Esther

-He gives us no hints as to what they were thinking or how they were feeling about all of this

-And this is a very important hermeneutical principle for us to take into consideration in our own study of God’s Word, especially in narrative accounts

-While it’s not wrong to ask questions, or even formulate tentative opinions on these kinds of things, we should not leave the bounds of the text and draw theological or devotional principles from our speculation

-To give you an example, at the beginning of John 8, Jesus has brought to Him a woman caught in adultery

-And when they Pharisees persistently question Him about it, He stoops down to draw in the dirt

-And there are people, who spend a lot of time and brain cells trying to figure out what Jesus was writing

-And there are even people who make big implications or even theological or devotional applications based on what he was drawing

-And it doesn’t matter!

-You know why it doesn’t matter?

-Because John never bothers to tell us

-His emphasis is not on what was being drawn, but Jesus response to the Pharisees and His response to the woman

-So as we look at this text, we must realize that the author’s emphasis is not on the morality or lack thereof of Esther and Mordecai

-His emphasis is not on their emotions or thought processes of what was going on

-His emphasis is on the providence of God in placing His deliverers, his instruments exactly where He wants them, whether they were followers of Yahweh or not!

-How on earth does Esther keep winning favor with all of those around her?

-Is this stroke of incredible luck?

-Is this because Esther is hypnotizingly charming?

-Or is it because a sovereign God puts people exactly where He wants them and uses less than perfect people in less than perfect situations to accomplish His more than perfect will?

I mean, look what happens next:

Vs. 19-23

-This event seems kind of random, and maybe even kind of unimportant

-But this is one of the most significant and important details in this whole account

-Mordecai just happens to be in the right place at the right time

-Hears of this plot

-Just happens to have someone he knows who is in an influential position

-The plot is overthrown

-Mordecai is the hero

-And he gets absolutely no reward!

-It gets completely overlooked

EXCEPT

-It does just so happen to be written down in the book of the chronicles of the presence of the king

God uses less than perfect people in less than perfect situations to accomplish His more than perfect will

Application

-So let’s work through some application for our own lives as we consider this passage in the context of the whole account

-So what we’ve come to from this particular section of this account is “God uses less than perfect people in less than perfect situations to accomplish His more than perfect will”

-So first of all, don’t ever think that God cannot use you

-Now we don’t know if Esther or Mordecai were wanting to be used by God or not or even if they were interested in being used by God, or even if they were worshipers of the One True God

-And yet God sovereignly placed them where He wanted them and used them regardless!

-if that’s the case, how much more could God use someone who does know and love Him and wants to be used by Him?

-You might be thinking that you have very little gifts, very little influence, very little to offer God or others

-And while that may be true: you may have little influence or gifts, or things to offer from a human perspective, God is NOT bound by those things

-God can and does use the most unlikely and unimpressive people

-Most of the people in the Bible that God used mightily were not that impressive:

-Moses was too old and was scared of public speaking

-David was too young, and considered so unlikely a candidate, that when Samuel came to Jesse to see his sons and pick a king from them, it didn’t even occur to Jesse to have David there

-Abraham and Sarah were well past their prime

-Rahab was a prostitute

-Gideon was a coward

-Hannah was barren

-Paul apparently wasn’t a very impressive figure

-Peter was always saying something he shouldn’t

-James and John wanted to call down fire on people

-And yet God chose to use these people

-And yes, there are ways that we ought to grow in our maturity and in our sanctification so as to be more and more useful to God

-But God can use you right now

-And that’s because we serve an incredible God who delights to use people that the world would throw on the discard pile

Secondly:

-If anyone is sitting here today, and is struggling with pasts sins and failures

-Maybe you’ve made horrible mistakes in the past

-Mistakes that you still feel like you’re paying the consequences for today

-Let me encourage you:

-God uses sinful people

-I’m not excusing people for sinning

-And I’m certainly not saying that God wants people to sin

-God never desires sin in His revealed will

-But God still uses sinful people, and God still uses people in spite of their unfaithfulness

-God used Esther and Mordecai despite their failings

-Listen, we don’t know a lot about the circumstances surrounding this situation we read today

-But we do know at the very least that God didn’t want His people marrying or having sexual relations with unbelievers

-And yet God used even the sin this situation to accomplish His purpose of delivering His people

-So if you’re sitting here today, weighed down by past sins and failures, thinking that you’ll never be useful to the Lord again:

-That’s simply not true

-God can turn past failures and sins into opportunities for His grace and love and mercy to shine through

Third:

-Think through the people in your life who struggle with

-Maybe it’s people you love, but there are certain things about them that can really be hard for you to deal with sometimes

-Maybe it’s your spouse or a parent or sibling or child

-Maybe it’s not people you love

-Maybe you have a really ungodly and antagonistic boss

-Maybe you have a neighbor who’s a thorn in the flesh for you, who seems to have it out for you

-Maybe it’s not someone that even has a close proximity to you in your life

-Maybe there are governmental leaders that you can’t stand

-president, vice president, senators, judges,

etc.

-Whoever it is in your life, you need to understand that God has placed that person or those people in your life intentionally and for a purpose

-God is using hard, or difficult, or ungodly people in your life for your good and for His purpose

-Remember that God used legalistic Pharisees, jealous Jewish leaders, a cowardly Pontius Pilate, and Roman soldiers to accomplish the killing of His Son that has brought us life

-And instead of spending our lives complaining about those people and daydreaming about how much better life would be if they were different or not in our lives, we instead ought to thank God for His good purpose in placing them in our lives

-It is no accident that this person is in your life

-And regardless of how ungodly or immature or even downright evil they can be, God has providentially placed them there and it is for the purpose of fulfilling His plan and purpose in general, and in your life specifically

-So take heart brothers and sisters!

-Our God uses less than perfect people and less than perfect situations to accomplish His more than perfect will