A Providential Deliverance

This is a sermon from Cornerstone Church in Kingston. We're delighted to make these resources available for you and hope that you enjoy the Ministry of God's Word today. There are lots of other resources on our website which we are pleased to make available and you can browse our website and download sermons and podcasts, read blogs and articles. And if you've been listening for a while and you would like to get to know the church or for us to get to know you a bit, there is an e-contact card, a welcome card that you can fill in on our website and we'd love to hear from you. We're going to look at Esther chapter 4. We're carrying on in this series just an amazing story isn't it? So hopefully you've been enjoying, it's great how God uses story and such exciting story to teach us great truths about him and that's exactly what Esther does. So let's come expecting to hear from God as he tells us this story. So Esther chapter 4, starting from verse 1 and the whole of the chapter. When Mordekai learned of all that had been done, he tore his clothes, put on sackcloth and ashes and went out into the city wailing loudly and bitterly. But he went only as far as the king's gate because no one clothing sackcloth was allowed to enter it. In every province to which the edict and order of the king came, there was great mourning among the Jews with fasting, weeping and wailing, many lay in sackcloth and ashes. When Esther's unix and female attendance came and told her about Mordekai, she was in great distress. She sent clothes for him to put on instead of a sackcloth, but he would not accept them. Then Esther summoned Haythak, one of the king's unix, a sign to attend her and ordered him to find out what was troubling Mordekai and why. So Haythak went out to Mordekai in the open square of the city in front of the king's gate. Mordekai told him everything that had happened to him, including the exact amount of money Hayman had promised to pay into the royal treasury for the destruction of the Jews. He also gave him a copy of the text of the edict that there annihilation, which had been published in Susa, to show to Esther and explain it to her. And he told him to instruct her to go into the king's presence to beg for mercy and plead with him for her people. Haythak went back and reported to Esther what Mordekai has said. Then she instructed him to say to Mordekai, "All the king's officials and the people of the royal provinces know that for any man or woman who approaches the king of the inner court without being summoned, the king, without being summoned, the king has but one law that they be put to death unless the king extends the gold scepter to them and spares their lives. But 30 days of past since I was called to go to the king, when Esther's words were reported to Mordekai, he sent back this answer. Do you not think that because you are in the king's house, you alone of all the Jews will escape. For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arrive from another place, but you and your father's family will perish. And who knows but that you have come to a royal position for such a time as this?" Then Esther sent this reply to Mordekai, "Go, gather together all the Jews who are in Susa and fast for me. Do you not eat or drink for three days, night or day, I and my attendants will fast as you do. When this is done, I will go to the king, even though it is against the law. And if I perish, I perish." So Mordekai went away and carried out all of Esther's instructions. Josh. Thanks Roy. Good evening. A very enthusiastic, I'm trying to word the word "vom" welcome to you if this is your first time visiting Connuston. As Roy said, you have been saved from the Q&A session at the end of the service. However, you still have to listen to me drawn on for a bit. But if you persevere through that, you will have the reward of an ice cream. So that's that till a forward to. I want to start by asking a question. Has your life ever been completely upended by a government edict? You might think that doesn't happen anymore. We don't live in the dark ages. We don't live in ancient times. This is in the medieval period of history. So what you want about. Well, I would bet that most, if not everyone in this room, has actually experienced this at least once in their life. Many of you might remember exactly where you were on the 23rd of March, 2020, when you heard that infamous speech by Boris Johnson. You must stay home. Well, those words meant was that no more public gatherings, all essential, all non-essential shops, venues closed, no church services on Sunday, no restaurants open, no cafes, no gym, no cinema, everything closed. You must stay home. Just four words, but millions of life disrupted. Weddings indefinitely postponed. Comforting loved ones through bereavement became a crime. Some of Barbeque's and Garden Parties became a health security threat. Unless, of course, you lived on a magical street, a magical street where coronavirus had no power. I'm speaking, of course, of a street called Downing. Anyways, years later, years on from coronavirus, we still don't have an answer to the most key crucial question of did or didn't, Jackie, we were having an authority in that council zoom meeting. But anyway, leaving all of that aside, in the previous chapter of Esther, in chapter 3, we actually saw and we see echoes of this edict. This very serious and a much more somber edict than the one that we're just talking about with COVID, we saw we were introduced to a villain called Haman. He has been promoted over all of King's Xerxes' other bureaucrats. And just like some of the people exiting Westminster tube station on any random workday, Haman considers himself a cut above mere mortals. He demands that everyone acknowledge the basic universal axiom of his greatness by bowing to him. And everyone is happy actually to go along with this vanity project for the boss because they don't want to avoid, they want to avoid upsetting him. Everyone in the empire except Mordekai. Who is Mordekai? Well Mordekai is a very ordinary man with a very extra ordinary backbone. Mordekai is a Jew and as a Jew, he owes his highest loyalty to God. Of course, Haman is incensed by this brazen display of disobedience. He starts to plot his revenge. Now most people would just focus on punishing Mordekai. Mordekai is the problem. Hence Mordekai needs to be sorted. However, most people are just not quite as great as Haman. Haman will not just settle for mere murder. No, its grand genocide is what he's after. And he manages to convince King Zerxes to pass an edict. On a particular day of a particular year, every Jewish man, woman and child is to be exterminated. That is Haman's final solution to the Mordekai question. Now as horrible COVID was for some and it was this announcement is far more weighty. It's far more traumatizing to the Jewish community living in Persia. Imagine having to explain to an eight year old child that the country that they were born in was making it illegal for them to live to see another birthday. Imagine what it would be like to try to convey to an 89 year old relative that the Persia that they had built their entire lives in that they called home decided that they were too different to be allowed to exist anymore. They were just about unassumulated enough that they could be easily annihilated. That is the backdrop. That is against that backdrop. Let's now take a look at chapter 4. We see in verses 1 to 3 of chapter 4, a godly grief. Let's look at those verses. Ben Mordekai learned of all that had been done. He told his clothes put on sackcloth and ashes and went out into the city, wailing loudly and bitterly. But he went only as far as the kings gave, because no one clothed in sackcloth was allowed to enter it. In every province in which the edict and order of the king came, there was great mourning among Jews, with fasting, weeping and wailing, many lay in sackcloth and ashes. Now in the previous chapter, we learned that Mordekai sat at the king's gate. Now this may mean he had some kind of a job within the administration, maybe he was a civil servant, but regardless this morning, he isn't suited and booted for work as he normally would be. He doesn't have his lanyard around his neck. Now he is completely regged by worry and grief. In fact, we'll read here that he's actually torn up his nice work clothes and he's now dressed in sackcloth. He's dressed in sackcloth and his face is covered in ashes. Even one of his acquaintances were they walking down the road, they'd have to do a double take and nudge someone to ask, was that Mordekai down the street? No, it couldn't be Mordekai. I know Mordekai, he's a very squared way bloke. He would never do something like this, this undignified wailing, like a grown man. I mean, come on. He has to be someone else. See, I was talking about this to him in the other day. You know, I was telling him the mental health crisis in Persia is getting so bad we really need more investment in public services. Really, what's him going to do about this? I don't know, but when I was talking to him, he was just busy checking himself out in the mirror. I don't think he heard me. Anyway, it's not just Mordekai alone, every province in the empire Jews are having the same reaction to this cataclysmic news. So we read about that and we read about Mordekai's grief. Now, what is our response to that? See, we might be able to sympathize with why he's feeling so worried and upset. But what advice might we give him? Keep your chin up, maintain that stiff upper lip. Do we think that all of this excessive emotion that he's displaying is a sign of weakness? Sure, we can understand what he's going through, but surely, surely somewhere deep down, there must be a question in the back of our minds about the strength of Mordekai's faith. See, if Mordekai has genuine true faith in God, would he be this worried? If his trust truly is trusting in God alone, then why? Why is he doing this obscene display of unbelief? See, if we think that, then I think we need a more biblically rooted theology of grief, a griefology, if you will. The Bible does not command us as Christians. It does not say that we are to ignore pain. The Bible doesn't talk to us as if it was an Instagram motivation influencer. No, it does not look down on emotions and feelings as if it was some kind of a handbook on stuicism. It does not just reiterate and regurgitate some new age spiritual mantras or self-help cliches to try and focus up and motivate us. No, just scripture does not shy away from sorrow. It does not declare real men don't cry. The shortest verse in the Bible is just two words, Jesus, webbed. It describes the sadness that the realist, the truest man in history, felt at the death of one of his close friends. The Bible is made up of 66 books and one of them is titled Lamentations. We've got a whole book in the Bible that's focused on mourning and grief. Scripture says there's a time for everything. There's a time to mourn and a time to grieve. Sometimes the most appropriate response that we can have to living in a broken world is to weep because anything else would just be mean that we are not being honest with ourselves about how we feel and what we're going through. But, godly grief does not end in tears. See, the Bible provides meaning. It provides purpose to grief, to us offering. See, God acknowledges our suffering. He's not ignoring it. No easy abandoning us to deal with it on our own. Christian grief can be a hopeful grief. Why is that? Because in the midst of our deepest sorrows, in the midst of the most profound grief that the human heart can bear, Christ offers us hope and joy. It's not a joy that flows out of temporary circumstances, of material blessings. It doesn't stop because of heartbreaking situations. Now, this joy, this piece, this hope, is anchored in eternal unfailing promises. We can hope because the Son of God Himself enters our grief, stricken world. He bears our sorrows in shame and because of Jesus's death and because of Jesus's resurrection, we can look past our pain. We don't have to pretend that the pain doesn't exist. It is very real true pain and yet we can look past it and we can look forward in anticipation to the joys of heaven. Secondly, in this chapter, in verses 13 and 14, we see that, we see a glimpse of that hope. We see a God-centered hope. Verse 13 and 14, "When Esther's words were reported to Mordecai, he sent back this answer, 'Do not think that because you're in the King's house, you alone of all the Jews will escape. For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your Father's family will perish.' And who knows that you came to your royal position for such a time as this? So we've jumped from verse 3 to 13, but as we read before the sermon, there's a lot of things that played out in between verses 3 and 13. So Esther is now queen, so she's been queen now in this chapter and she's now in this bubble, in this royal bubble as a queen. And yet still, the news of Mordecai's morning has been brought in by her attendants. Mordecai is like a Father to her, so we can understand how deeply distressed she must be feeling at this moment. Some of you have family who live on different continents and you're separated from them with 10 plus hour flights. Imagine having a loved one and maybe you don't have to imagine it because you've experienced it, but loved one in distress and you are not able to help them because you're in a completely different time zone. Esther by virtue of being queen might as well have lived on a different planet so separated, so distant was she from a commoner like Mordecai. She can't personally go out to him, but she wants to help. She wants to do whatever she can to help him. So she decides to launch an investigation. She gets detective Hathak on the case. She wants to get to the bottom of what's going on. Why is Mordecai so sad? Mordecai seems stuck relaying messages backwards and forwards like some ancient human version of WhatsApp, but let's not worry too much about him, at least he's getting in steps in. A boy Hathak is sweating, but at least he's earning those kudos in Strava. All right, I'll stop with the jokes though. Mordecai instructs her to go to the king and to plead on behalf of his people, of her people. See, all hope is not lost. In the last chapter we saw the villain doing his hateful plotting and scheming, but now there's a counter plan that's beginning to form. The key question is where's Mordecai's hope ultimately placed? Is his hope coming from the fact that he has family in high places? Is it stemming from Esther's influence over the king? Is he hopeful because the king ultimately is more powerful than Heyman? Well, at the At its most basic level, no. See, in verse 13 and 14, we can actually see that Mordekai's hope ultimately is in the main character of the Book of Esther. So who is the protagonist of this book? Who ultimately is in control of everything that's happening in this story? I would suggest that it is someone who is never directly mentioned in this book. God. See, we know this. As Mordekai mentions, he mentions deliverance from the Jews for the Jews will arise from another place. And he also says, who knows? But that you have come to your royal position for such a time as this. See, Mordekai was a God-fearing Jew. He knows the promises that God has made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Promises to bless all of the nations through Jesus's seed. If him and succeeds, and he wipes out the entire Jewish population of Persia, which the empire covered most of the known world, I think, at the time, there's no cross. There's no Jesus, which means that in AD 2026, there's no connoisseur, because there's no reason for any of us to be here. There's no salvation. There's no eternal hope for mankind. All that would be in Kingston is probably a pub-gold connoisseur, but not the church-gold connoisseur. Mordekai is confident, however, that God's purpose will prevail. God is not dependent on Esther. God can deliver people any way he chooses. That's where he says, deliverance will arise from another place if you choose to do nothing. But why is Mordekai so optimistic? Well, to get a clear understanding of that, we need to have a good understanding of what the Bible teaches on sovereignty and providence. These are not just terms to throw around at Bible studies to impress people. These are not just terms to argue and debate over. Although that can be fun. But these are actually important truths for us to hold on to. See, God is sovereign. What that means is God is the creator of the universe. And as the creator of the universe, he has the right. He has the power to do what he will in his creation and through his creation. God's providence means his purposeful, his wise, and loving rule over all things. But that means that God doesn't just have four knowledge of what is going to happen, but that ultimately, God can control and direct everything, including bad things, to his plan. Nothing can happen outside of the control of God. Nothing can happen independently from God's plan. God is the author of history. God is the script writer of time, from the geopolitical, to the geothermal, from the macroeconomic, to the microscopic, from the global, to the minuscule, everything is in his hands. God is never taken by surprise. God's purpose is his own glory and the good of his people. See, God is glorified when he delivers people, his people against seemingly impossible odds, like he will go on to do in the book of Esther. Now, by all accounts, at this point in the book, things are not looking promising. They're not looking up. Esther becoming queen. Well, that's just random chance, isn't it? It's been triggered by a series of events. Maybe we can say she got lucky. But what is who's actually in control? Is that this degenerate king, Xerxes? Is it Heyman? Is it Mordeky? Is it Esther herself? No. See, all of these random chance events are being driven by the unseen hand of the holy God of the universe. Even the time of persecution. The time of persecution that appears engineered by Heyman to satiate his own ego is being directed by God. Heyman doesn't know it, and he might never acknowledge it. But he is hard at work furthering God's plan. He is taking forward God's plan to rescue God's people for God's glory. Heyman wants to display conclusively. He wants to show he wants to prove how great he is. Ultimately, he will succeed only in showing how powerful God is. Mordeky believed that Esther has been installed as queen for exactly this moment. He says, who knows that you were brought into your royal position for such a time as this? The scenes and characters of the Book of Esther have not been set by blind chance. It's been said by an intelligent author of the play. This drama has a director. It has a producer called God. God is preparing a way of escape for his people. And he is going to use in his plan Esther. Scripture says that God sets rulers and deposes rulers. He has the ability to put people into positions where they can further his purposes. So that is why we can rejoice in the midst of suffering. And that is why we can grieve with hope. This is because we have a God who is sovereign over all things. If plans in life, if our plans in life shatter, then our hearts do not have to shatter along with our plans. Because everything we know is always working towards God's plan. Now, Providence, as we said, is not an academic term that we bandy about, not just a juicy topic that we can argue over. But no, if we truly grasp what the Bible is saying here, it can actually be a real source of comfort for us. See, we don't live in a world of random chance. But we actually do live in a world that has been created by an intelligent caring God with an intelligent purposeful plan. And so, yes, what that does mean is that every cancer diagnosis even, every job loss, every marital breakdown that people experience, it doesn't just come out of nowhere from a cold, dead, blind universe. It comes from the hand of a loving father who knows each and every one of us by name and who, with his own hands, will one day wipe our tears with his own hands. Knowing this, knowing that no hardship can ever pluck us out of God's gracious plan, gives us courage to persevere. It gives us courage to keep going. Then from a human point of view, it would be better to just quit. But sometimes this can be less than comforting, isn't it? Because sometimes we fall into the trap of thinking, God is in control. Therefore, our actions are meaningless. We're kind of just like robots or pre-programmed objects. See, God is truly in control, and He's controlling everything. What is there for me to do? Why do I actually need to evangelize? Why do I actually need to serve other people? Why do I actually need to love others or care for others? Because God has His plan for all these people, and He's going to fulfill His plan in any way He wants. So everything I do is meaningless. But that's actually completely the wrong way of looking at it. See, we need to understand truly that God not only ordains ends, He ordains means. Meaning that God not only ordains both the things that will happen, but also the way in which they will happen. God sets the destination and also the path or the people who will go, who will lead to that destination. So every person you talk to today, or in any of the days of your life, every prayer that you uttered, every day, every day. every action that you took, every suffering that you've endured, every decision, it all has meaning because it is in service of a divine plan and it is ultimately even in the times when this doesn't seem to be true, especially in those times it is under the control of the King of Heaven. Bradwood Mordekai said to Esther about a time such as this, "But what about us here this evening? Has God placed us into certain positions in our workplaces, in our communities, in our societies, has he blessed us with gifts or resources? And what are we to do with those? Are we going to use them for God's glory? Or do we think that because we have these things? People should bow to us like him and it." Time such as this. Finally we see the portrait of an imperishable saviour and we see this in verses 15 and 16. Verse 15 and 16 say, "Then Esther sent this reply to Mordekai, go gather together all the people who are in Sousa and fast for me, do not eat or drink for three days, night or day. I and my attendants will fast as you do. When this is done, I will go to the King even though it is against the law and if I perish, I perish." So in the last few services we've actually seen the disturbing set of circumstances that led to Esther becoming queen. Now however distressing it may have been for Esther to get snatched out of her home to please this vengeful lustful King. She's at least now safely in scornst in her palace. She has servants and attendants at her back in call. All comforts and privileges that her position affords her. Her servants and attendants are hardworking. Well at least we know how thick is quite hardworking. He keeps running backwards and forth. But it's also not really known that she's Jewish. So she's probably safe from him in spurge. Now Mordekai's request actually takes her and places her in an impossible situation. We're told also elsewhere in this chapter that it's been 30 days since she's been last to see the King. 30 days. Now so far in the book of Esther we know that King Zerxes has divorced his wife on a whim. He has sanctioned him and plans for an ethnic cleansing without batting an eyelid. He's not exactly the wisest and the kindest and the most even tempered of rulers. And the law is quite unfiguring on this point. The law is clear if anyone approaches the King unbidden, they are to be put to death. So she might be thinking 30 days have passed. Is he bored of me now? Half is affection schooled. Maybe he's planning to replace me like Vashti. At this point the safe play to preserve her life and to preserve her position is to just keep her head down and to avoid anything that will incur the King's displeasure. Putting her neck on the line is just not worth risking this tyrant's wrath, wrath over. So what does she do in this situation? Does she take the safe way out? No, she voluntarily readily is ready to lay down her life for the sake of the people that she loves. So who does Esther remind us of? In Philippians 2, we read a poem about Jesus who says, rather the poem says, "who being in very nature God did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage." Rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness and being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death, even deaths on a cross. Esther's willing to leave her royal courts to put her life in danger. Jesus is willing to leave the throne room of heaven to come down to us to humbly give his life for us. Esther's people are facing danger. They are fearful for their lives because of Haman's murderous schemes. All people face death as a punishment of sin and we need rescuing from the schemes of Satan. Esther says, "If I perish, I perish." Jesus says, "The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep." He says, "Greater love has no one than this to lay down one's life for one's friends." Esther is going to corrupt human king to plead and intercede for her people. We are able to come to God. We're able to come to God because we have an intercessory who dies and not only does he die, but he comes back from the dead. We're told that he is able to save those who come to him because he lives eternally to intercede for us. Jesus is the imperishable savior whom Esther is pointing us to, whom even death cannot defeat. He says, "In John, I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live even though they die and whoever lives by believing in me will never die." So what is our reason for our hope in the most difficult of circumstances? Well, it is that we belong to the one who has conquered the most difficult circumstance imaginable, death itself. In Jesus, we can rejoice. We can rejoice in suffering because our hope is not coming from a thing. He is our hope. He is the hope in the midst of our grief. Isn't this a beautiful savior? Is Jesus your savior? Something else that's beautiful about Esther's declaration of if I perish, I perish, is that not only does it show to us her willingness to be self-sacrificing, but also it shows her understanding of who God is. It shows us her understanding of who God is. She asks Mordekai, she asks the Jewish community of Susa and she says that "I and my attendants will pray and fast for three days." Yet after praying desperately, after pleading with God, she does not come to God and treat him like some genie who is obligated to respond to her every request. God is a loving father who loves to give good gifts to his children and yet we are not meant to just be entitled "Petrol and Bratz" who demand prosperity or material blessings or even good things we do not expect God to answer in the way that we expect him to answer. She says "If I perish, I perish." Not if I perish, God has failed. If I perish was the point of being a Jew. If I perish, God isn't real. She doesn't say that. She says "If I perish, I perish." Because she understands that it is him, it is God who is on the throne and not her. God is the protagonist of history. It truly and really is not all about us. So when we pray, let us follow in the example that our Lord said, "When He prayed in His most troubling hour, He prayed, 'Let not my will, but yours be done.'" Let us pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for the privilege that it is to look to your word tonight. Lord, we pray that the truths of your word that we have heard that you would let them resonate within our hearts that we would not harden our hearts against you, that we would have soft hearts and open ears and that the seeds of your word that are planted within our hearts would bring forth a boundful harvest for your glory. Lord, we pray that we would be encouraged by the truth of your word, by your providence and your sovereignty, that we would know that you love us even during the darkest of days and even during the most hopeless of times. We in you can grieve with hope. Help us to cling on to that truth and help us to love you in everything we do in Jesus name. Amen.