ESTHER

¹This happened in the days of King Xerxes, who reigned over 127 provinces stretching from India to Ethiopia. ²At that time he ruled his empire from his throne at the fortress of Susa. ³In the third year of his reign, he gave a banquet for all his princes and officials. He invited all the military officers of Media and Persia, as well as the noblemen and provincial officials. ⁴The celebration lasted six months—a tremendous display of the opulent wealth and glory of his empire.

⁵When it was all over, the king gave a special banquet for all the palace servants and officials—from the greatest to the least. It lasted for seven days and was held at Susa in the courtyard of the palace garden. ⁶The courtyard was decorated with beautifully woven white and blue linen hangings, fastened by purple ribbons to silver rings embedded in marble pillars. Gold and silver couches stood on a mosaic pavement of porphyry, marble, mother-of-pearl, and other costly stones. ⁷Drinks were served in gold goblets of many designs, and there was an abundance of royal wine, just as the king had commanded. ⁸The only restriction on the drinking was that no one should be compelled to take more than he wanted. But those who wished could have as much as they pleased, for the king had instructed his staff to let everyone decide this matter for himself.

⁹Queen Vashti gave a banquet for the women of the palace at the same time.

Other than the fact that the story it contains is about the Jewish people, the book of Esther is a bit of a scriptural oddity. It lacks any mention of the name Yahweh or Elohim. There is no mention of Jerusalem or the Temple. It contains no prayer. There is no expression of concern for the Law. There is not even one tiny miracle. Esther, the heroine of the story conceals her Jewish identity and plays to win the New Queen Beauty Contest.

The book of Esther does not open with a reference to a divine promise, the words of a fiery prophet, or to the heroine. To the contrary, it opens with a description of the pagan Persian king, Xerxes.

Because of the absence of religious values and the presence of sensuality and brutality, the book of Esther has posed a problem for interpreters throughout its history.

While Ezra and Nehemiah tell the story of the return of Jews to their homeland, the renovation of the temple, the restoration of worship, and the rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem, the book of Esther deals with those who did not return to Jerusalem, for whatever reason. It raises the question of why Esther and Mordecai and the other Jews were in Susa and not in Jerusalem.

In spite of these problems, God allowed the book of Esther to be a part of the canon, so we must believe that He has given us bread and not a stone.

The apostle Paul declared, "For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through endurance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope" (Romans 15:4). In his second letter to Timothy, Paul declared, "All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It straightens us out and teaches us to do what is right" (2Tim. 3:16).

If you're like me, then your life may be more like the book of Esther than the book of Acts.

In other words, she was just like us. She couldn't see the happy ending from the frightening beginning.

Like the Jews in Persia, we have no earthly king, no clear prophetic voice, and the present environment isn't exactly reeking with miracles.

I know of no church in our area that is growing because it is reaching the lost. Carl George, in his book, The Coming Church Revolution, says that large Churches "are by and large centers for reprocessing believers, new and old alike, which throng to them from smaller churches. This leads to one of the largest spiritual dilemmas of our time: The bigger a church becomes, the less evangelistically responsible it needs to be in order to grow." [3]

Aubrey Malphurs says, "A significant number of disillusioned Christians are dropping out because they do not feel that the church or what they are doing in the church really matters or has any significance." [4]

For many people, Christianity is more an issue of superstition and fear, than one of faith and reality. They are caught in a land between full commitment and patronization. Their brand of Christianity is motivated by a sense of duty and is void of the passionate desire born of a persuaded heart. Don't believe it? Tally up the number of people attending Sunday morning service at any church and compare that to attendance on Sunday night or Wednesday night. The numbers decline significantly. Others no longer make it to church at all, including some 3 million Americans who identify themselves as evangelical Christians.

Bobby [5] quit going to church when his wife and sweetheart of 45 years was taken from him by cancer. His question: "There are other people who don't love one another and want to die. Why did God let my wife die such a painful death? I loved her and she loved me. Why did God allow this to happen to me?"

Martin [6] was well known in Christian circles. He was the host of a national radio program that dispensed solid biblical advice on a weekly basis. Yet his own faith was shaken when he struggled through an illness that almost killed him. Here is an excerpt from a letter he wrote to a friend:

"I have no trouble believing God is good. My question is more, What good is he? I heard awhile back that Billy Graham's daughter was undergoing marriage problems, so the Grahams and the in-laws all flew to Europe to meet with them and pray for the couple. They ended up getting divorced anyway. If Billy Graham's prayers don't get answered, what's the use of my praying? I look at my life—the health problems, my own daughter's struggles, my marriage. I cry out to God for help, and it's hard to know just how He answers. Really, what can we count on God for?" [Philip Yancey, Reaching for The Invisible God, p. 21.]

Hannah Whitall Smith, whose book The Christian's Secret of a Happy Life beckoned millions of Victorian-era readers upward to a higher plane of living, never found much happiness herself. Her husband, a famous evangelist, concocted a formula for ecstasy that satisfied spiritual longings with sexual thrills. Hannah stayed with him, growing disillusioned and embittered. None of her children kept the faith. One daughter married the philosopher Bertrand Russell and became an atheist like her husband. Russell's own depictions of his mother-in-law describe anything but a victorious woman.

It is not my intention to throw water on your faith, but to give us a dose of reality and to confront the spiritual propaganda that makes God a controllable, visible, vocal deity that always does what we want Him to do.

When Mordecai encourages Esther to put her life on the line for her people, it is a word born more of desperation than divine direction. Mordecai's message to Esther was:

"…Do not imagine that you in the king's palace can escape any more than all the Jews. For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance will arise for the Jews from another place and you and your father's house will perish. And who knows whether you have not attained royalty for such a time as this?" (Esther 4:13, 14)

Esther has no clear word from God. Surely, the word given to her by her uncle, Mordecai, can't be considered definitively prophetic. She has no promise of Scripture that she could claim for her personal safety, yet she is pressed by her well meaning uncle to make a decision.

Like Esther, we struggle to make important decisions without a clear word from God. "My counselor isn't speaking with conviction born of Spirit given faith, so why should I be expected to act on such an anemic word? Give me something in writing God! Give me a clear understandable command and I'll obey! Tell me what You want me to do and I'll do it! But this word prefaced by "who knows" isn't enough."

More often than not we must admit that we aren't living in the Garden of Eden where the Lord walks and talks with us in the coolness of the day. We live in a world where God is unseen and silent.

We can read the entire book of Esther and never hear the voice of God or the mention of His name. But we cannot read the book of Esther without knowing that God is ominipotently present even where He is most conspicuously absent.

I'm sure some will want to use the word "coincidence" to describe what is obviously God's involvement in the events of Esther's life. For instance:

Even in the most pagan corner of the world and in the midst of the darkest circumstances, God is ruling all things to the benefit of His people and to the glory of His name.

All too often we look for God to show up like a battalion of Marines. We expect to see some visible evidence that He has arrived and is at work. More than once Paul referred to God as being "invisible." (See Colossians 1:15-16; 1 Timothy 1:17; Hebrews 11:27.)

God doesn't always show up like He did on the Day of Pentecost, but that doesn't mean He isn't on the scene and at work.

Jesus, God incarnate, walked the streets of Jerusalem, but most people only saw a carpenter's son.

Jesus' last words were, "Go and make disciples of all nations….And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age" (Matt. 28:19-20). And then He left! Nevertheless, our Lord is omnipotently present even when He is most conspicuously absent.

Right there on the job where you work, Jesus is at work. His movements may not be perceptible, but He is working.

There is an interesting article on the BBC News website. The title of the article is Unused Titanic Ticket On Display and it tells the story of the only first-class passage that was not used.

Harry Emerson Fosdick was a national radio personality, a teacher and preacher in the early part of this century. He once did a sermon entitled, "Why I Am A Theist." He said that when he was a boy, he would look out the window and watch the branches and leaves on the tree move. He would sense the wind blowing, and he put it together. He concluded that it was the moving of the branches that he could see that caused the movement of the wind that he could not see. But he explained that when he grew to adulthood, he understood it differently, discovering that it was the wind he could not see that moved the branches that he could see. [8]

Robert Gordis, in his book Megillat Esther, says that the Nazis forbade the Jews to read the book of Esther because the Jews found in it the reassurance that they would survive as a people in spite of the powers that wanted to destroy them.

Could it be that this is the reason our enemy has sought to keep Christians away from this book or to have us treat it as though it were merely an allegory? Could it be that he realizes, more than we, that Esther is not merely a record of past deliverance but a prophecy of future salvation [9] ? A prophecy of your deliverance! A prophecy of my deliverance!

when their van was struck broadside by an eighteen-wheeler truck. All four boys were thrown from the van.
Craig and Susan located their sons by their cries - one boy was lying in the ditch, another in an area wet from melted snow. Nearby was his brother who landed by a telephone pole. All were seriously injured, but when Craig, a medical doctor reached Jeremy, he found him lying by a fence post with his neck broken. There was nothing Craig could do to revive him.

When Don received news of this tragedy a few hours later, he recalls, “My whole world came to a standstill, but I had to get on a plane the next morning and fly to a recording session that had been scheduled for several weeks. Although I knew Craig and Susan were hurting, I couldn't be with them until the day before the funeral.

“During the flight, the morning after the accident, God gave me a song for them: ‘God will make a way where there seems to be no way. He works in ways we cannot see. He will make a way for me.’ The song was based upon Isaiah 43:19 NASB - 'Behold, I will do something new, now it will spring forth; will you not be aware of it? I will even make a roadway in the wilderness, rivers in the desert.’”

This song would bring comfort to Craig and Susan when all hope seemed lost. It touched the hurt in their hearts with hope and encouragement. Don received a letter from Susan in which she quoted Isaiah 43:4 NASB: “Since you are precious in My sight, since you are honored and I love you, I will give other men in your place and other peoples in exchange for your life.”

Susan wrote, “We've seen the truth of that scripture.” When Jeremy's friends learned that he had accepted Jesus into his life before he died, many of them began to ask their own parents how they could be assured of going to heaven when they died. The accident also prompted Craig and Susan into a deeper walk with the Lord as well as into new avenues of ministry. Craig began teaching Sunday school at their church and Susan became active in Women's Aglow, sharing with various groups her story and the Lord's provision in her time of sorrow.

She has since said, “The day of the accident, when I got out of the van, even before I knew our son was dead,I knew I had a choice. I could be bitter and angry or I could totally accept God and whatever He had for us. I had to make the decision that fast. I've seen fruit come as a result of that choice. If I had to, I'd do it again. It's worth it knowing others will go to heaven because of what happened to Jeremy. God really did make a way for us!”

Soon after “God Will Make a Way” was recorded, people from around the world began to write and call, sharing with Don how they had experienced similar tragedies. All of the calls and letters had one great theme - God had made a way for them when all hope seemed to be lost! God had carried them through a shattering situation, and by His grace, they were emerging with stronger faith, renewed hope, and increased courage on the other side of heartache and loss.

The truth of God's Word is always that He will make a way for those who rely solely upon Him.

Perhaps you are having difficulty seeing God in your situation. Let me remind you that it was Haman that died on the gallows he had prepared to hang Mordecai on.

You may not be able to see God or perceive what He's doing, but I can guarantee you that the God who was at work in the book of Esther will make a way for you.

God Will Make A Way
by Don Moen
(Key of G)
God will make a way
Where there seems to be no way
He works in ways
We cannot see
He will make a way for me

He will be my guide
Hold me closely to his side
With love and strength for each new day
He will make a way
He will make a way

By the roadway in the wilderness
He'll lead me
Rivers in the desert will I see
Heaven and Earth will fade
But His word will still remain
He will do something today

[1] por·phy·ry (pôr“f…-r¶) n., pl. por·phy·ries. Rock containing relatively large conspicuous crystals, especially feldspar, in a fine-grained igneous matrix.

[2] Martin Luther, The Table Talk of Martin Luther, trans. William Hazlitt (Philadelphia: United Lutheran Publication House, n.d.), 13.

[3] Carl F. George, The Coming Church Revolution (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Fleming H. Revell, 1994), p. 38.

[4] Aubrey Malphurs, "Strategy 2000: Churches Making Disciples for the Next Millennium" (Grand Rapids, Mich.:Kregel Publications, 1996), p. 33.

[7] "10 things we didn't know this time last week," The BBC News, (9-5-03 column) submitted by Alan Wilson, Nyon, Switzerland

[8] Leith Anderson, "Valley of Death's Shadow," Preaching Today, Tape No. 131.

[9] Robert Gordis, Megillat Esther (New York: Ktav, 1974), pages 13-14.

Other Sources: I am indebted to Karen H. Jobes and her contribution to the NIV Application Commentary edition of Esther. She has done an outstanding job of scholarship and of bridging the gap between the OT text and contemporary life. I am also indebted to Philp Yancey and his life saving book, "Reaching for the Invisible God." Both of these books can be purchased from http://www.christianbook.com or through your local Christian bookstore.

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