Sermon Tone Analysis

For Such a Time as This

Part 5: Eternal Truth from Esther’s Trouble

Esther 5:1-14

Sermon by Rick Crandall

Grayson Baptist Church - June 17, 2012

*Four weeks ago, we began to look at this story that took place almost 500 years before Jesus was born.

The Jews had begun to go home after 70 years of Babylonian captivity, but many of them remained in Persia.

It was the greatest empire of the day, stretching all the way from Ethiopia to India.

And it was ruled by a carnal and often cruel king named Ahasuerus or Xerxes.

*At the end of a 6-month drunken celebration, the king commanded that the queen be brought before that crowd.

He wanted to put Queen Vashti on display in an ungodly and indecent way, but Vashti refused.

So in a drunken rage, King Xerxes agreed to a plan to take the crown away from Vashti and give it to another.

*In the Providence of God, against incredible odds, Esther the orphan and secret Jew was chosen to be the new queen.

Esther’s selection as the new queen turned out to be a matter of life and death for the whole Jewish people.

That’s because the new Prime Minister, Haman, hated the Jews and convinced the king to issue an irreversible decree to slaughter them all.

*Esther 3:13 explains that “letters were sent by couriers into all the king's provinces, to destroy, to kill, and to annihilate all the Jews, both young and old, little children and women, in one day, on the thirteenth day of the twelfth month, which is the month of Adar, and to plunder their possessions.”

*Jews all over the empire were devastated when they heard the terrible news.

But living in the isolation of the queen’s house, Esther did not know about the slaughter planned for her people, until she was alerted by Mordecai.

He was the older cousin who adopted Esther upon the death of her parents.

*Communicating through messengers, Esther first learned of the murderous decree.

Then she was persuaded to risk her life by coming before the king to plead for her people.

Listen again to the heart of the drama in Esther 4:10-17:

10.

Then Esther spoke to Hathach, and gave him a command for Mordecai:

11. "All the king's servants and the people of the king's provinces know that any man or woman who goes into the inner court to the king, who has not been called, he has but one law: put all to death, except the one to whom the king holds out the golden scepter, that he may live.

Yet I myself have not been called to go in to the king these thirty days."

12.

So they told Mordecai Esther's words.

13.

And Mordecai told them to answer Esther: "Do not think in your heart that you will escape in the king's palace any more than all the other Jews.

14.

For if you remain completely silent at this time, relief and deliverance will arise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father's house will perish.

Yet who knows whether you have come to the kingdom for such a time as this?"

15.

Then Esther told them to reply to Mordecai:

16. "Go, gather all the Jews who are present in Shushan, and fast for me; neither eat nor drink for three days, night or day.

My maids and I will fast likewise.

And so I will go to the king, which is against the law; and if I perish, I perish!"

17.

So Mordecai went his way and did according to all that Esther commanded him.

*Now as we move into chapter 5, we can learn more eternal truth from Esther’s trouble.

1. First: God gives us a lesson from the urgent pardon.

*I am talking about the pardon that Esther so desperately needed from King Xerxes.

We read about it in vs. 1-2:

1.

Now it happened on the third day that Esther put on her royal robes and stood in the inner court of the king's palace, across from the king's house, while the king sat on his royal throne in the royal house, facing the entrance of the house.

2. So it was, when the king saw Queen Esther standing in the court, that she found favor in his sight, and the king held out to Esther the golden scepter that was in his hand.

Then Esther went near and touched the top of the scepter.

*As strange as it may seem to us, Esther was facing the death penalty for appearing before the king uninvited.

But vs. 2 tells us that Esther found “favor” in the sight of the king.

*The word translated as “favor” here also means “grace,” “graciousness” or “acceptance.”

It’s the same word used in Genesis 6:8, where “Noah found grace in the eyes of the LORD.”

*Esther desperately needed grace from King Xerxes, but we all need grace from the King of Kings.

Thank God that we find His grace in the cross of Jesus Christ!

-- As Paul tells Christians in Ephesians 2:4-9:

4. . .

God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us,

5. even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved),

6. and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,

7. that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.

8.

For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God,

9. not of works, lest anyone should boast.

*Imagine how relieved Esther must have been when she saw the king raise his scepter to grant her a pardon.

-How foolish she would have been to reject the king’s pardon.

-But not as foolish as we would be to reject a pardon from God!

*And when Esther reached out to receive the king’s pardon in vs. 2, she not only found life, but abundant life.

In vs. 3, the king said to her, “What do you wish, Queen Esther?

What is your request?

It shall be given to you up to half my kingdom!” Esther’s pardon reminds us of the abundant, eternal life we can all receive from Jesus Christ, the King of Kings.

*God gives us an important lesson from the urgent pardon.

2. And from the unexpected plan.

*Esther did something unexpected in vs. 3-8:

3.

And the king said to her, "What do you wish, Queen Esther?

What is your request?

It shall be given to you up to half my kingdom!''

4. So Esther answered, "If it pleases the king, let the king and Haman come today to the banquet that I have prepared for him.''

5. Then the king said, "Bring Haman quickly, that he may do as Esther has said.''

So the king and Haman went to the banquet that Esther had prepared.

6.

At the banquet of wine the king said to Esther, "What is your petition?

It shall be granted you.

What is your request, up to half my kingdom?

It shall be done!''

7. Then Esther answered and said, "My petition and request is this:

8.

If I have found favor in the sight of the king, and if it pleases the king to grant my petition and fulfill my request, then let the king and Haman come to the banquet which I will prepare for them, and tomorrow I will do as the king has said.''

*John Gill concluded that Esther delayed her request partly in hope of increasing his affection to her, and partly to prepare him to expect an important request.

(1)

*That makes sense to me.

But it’s not what I would have expected here, and not what most people would have done.

Most people wouldn’t have waited two seconds before they complained to the king about Haman’s vicious plot.

*Why did Esther wait?

Where did she get her plan?

-- No doubt it came from God in answer to three days of prayer and fasting from Esther and God’s people.

*And the unexpected plan reminds me of the truth in Isaiah 55 that God’s ways are not like our ways.

God’s plans have often been most unexpected.

-In Exodus 14:15-16, God’s people were trapped between the Red Sea and the Egyptian army.

15.

And the LORD said to Moses, "Why do you cry to Me? Tell the children of Israel to go forward.

16.

But lift up your rod, and stretch out your hand over the sea and divide it.

And the children of Israel shall go on dry ground through the midst of the sea.

-When Joshua fought the Battle of Jericho, the walls came tumbling down, all in accordance with God’s plan for victory.

-Then in 2 Kings 5:10, Naaman was the commander of the Syrian army, and a good man, but he was sick with the terrible disease of leprosy.

What was he to do? -- “Elisha sent a messenger to him, saying, ‘Go and wash in the Jordan seven times, and your flesh shall be restored to you, and you shall be clean.’”

*Unexpected plans: God how are you going to save my soul?

-- We find the unexpected answer in Romans 10:8-13:

8. . .

"The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart" (that is, the word of faith which we preach):

9. that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.

10.

For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.

11.

For the Scripture says, "Whoever believes on Him will not be put to shame."

12.

For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, for the same Lord over all is rich to all who call upon Him.

13.

For "Whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved."