FBC Morning Light – April 7, 2022

Faith Baptist Church

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A good Thursday morning to you. I hope your week is going well, and just a couple days left in our work week, and trusting the

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Lord to give us strength to carry on and fulfill our responsibilities for this week.

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We're looking at the book of Esther in these last few days. Have you noticed, if you've been reading this book, and if you've read it before, you've probably noticed it as well, that in these first four chapters there is absolutely no reference to God at all.

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There is no indication of any interest in him, even on the part of Mordecai and Esther.

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There's no sense of dependence upon him, so there's no appeal to him.

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When this whole beauty pageant thing comes out, there's no sense that Mordecai and Esther are seeking

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God's help and deliverance from this immoral obligation that is imposed upon her.

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There's nothing like that. God doesn't show up at all. There's no sense of prayer.

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There's no mentioning of God. It's just a hint of dependence upon the

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Lord comes in the middle of a crisis, and a very serious one. Haman, for whatever reason, hates the

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Jews, and he's developed this plan to have all the Jews exterminated. His reason stated is that Mordecai isn't giving him the respect that he's due, and Mordecai is a

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Jew, so therefore all the Jews must be as disrespectful as Mordecai is, so they all just need to be exterminated.

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We talked yesterday about what motivated Mordecai not to give Haman the respect, and I pointed out that the end of chapter 2 indicates that he doesn't pay that homage because he's jealous.

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He's envious of that position. He thinks he should have been promoted, and Haman got the promotion. Nevertheless, Haman comes up with this scheme, and he gets the royal seal of approval to exterminate and get rid of, commit genocide against the

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Jewish people, and all the Jews in the kingdom. That causes no small stir among the

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Jews, as you might imagine, and not the least of which, Mordecai, who is in the king's gate.

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He's got some kind of a position in the king's court. Mordecai's response to that is to come and not enter the gate, his official position, because he'd get executed if he did, but just outside the gate, he comes just outside the gate and sits in sackcloth and ashes.

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He's mourning this plight, this inevitable fate of the

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Jewish people. Esther finds out about that. She's in the palace. She sends a message, says, what's going on?

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Mordecai sends back the message, says, this is what's going on, and you're a

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Jew, you're a Jewess, and if you think you're going to escape this, you're mistaken, so you better do something about this as the queen.

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She writes back and says, I can't just go in before the king. If I go in before the king and he doesn't summon me, then

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I could be executed if he wants to, and he hasn't called me for a month.

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That seems rather odd, doesn't it? Again, you remember Ahasuerus has this harem of who knows how many hundreds and hundreds of women, and so he calls a woman when he wants her.

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What a deplorable situation. What a horrible way for the women to live, and what a corrupt way for the man to live.

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Nevertheless, Esther is concerned. You want me to go before the king?

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If I just go before the king and he doesn't want to listen to me, then I'm dead. Mordecai finally responds and says, look, who knows, and here's one subtle little indication that he may count on divine providence, who knows whether or not you've come to the kingdom for such a time as this.

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You better just do it. She responds back and says, all right, I'll do that, but you're going to have to gather people together and call a fast.

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Here's what she says in verse 16 of chapter 4, go gather all the Jews who are present in Shushan and fast for me, neither eat nor drink for three days, night or day.

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My maids and I will fast likewise, and so I will go to the king, which is against the law, and if I perish,

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I perish. I'll do it. I'll risk it, but you go and get people together and fast for three days, three nights, and I will do the same.

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There is a hint of dependence upon the Lord. Notice, there's not a mention of prayer, there's just fasting.

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I acknowledge that the two typically go together, prayer and fasting. I understand that, but I think there's an emphasis in this book that leaves

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God out of the picture, deliberately leaves God out of the picture as if he's not there.

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Here's where we're going with this book. Even though God's people are not what they ought to be, and remember, why are the

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Jews in captivity anyway? Because they have neglected

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God, they have defied his word, and God sent them into captivity as a judgment upon them for their rebellion against him, for their refusal to obey him, and so forth, and so they are in captivity.

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Mordecai and Esther, they don't reflect a godly couple of Jews.

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In fact, their names are not Jewish names. Esther is the

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Persian name Ishtar. It's a derivative of one of the goddesses, and Mordecai is a

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Persian name related to Marduk, one of the Persian gods as well. They've assimilated into the culture.

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They're not the godly people that they should be, that the

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Jewish people should have been at that time. The emphasis of this book is to show how

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God, even though he's being neglected and ignored and not lived for, not obeyed by his own people, he's still going to be faithful to his covenant.

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That's the emphasis you're going to see in this book. He's going to be faithful to his covenant and preserve his unworthy people.

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Again, even though God's name isn't mentioned in this book anywhere, it doesn't mean he's not there, and it doesn't mean he's not acting and he's not working.

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When we get to the end of this little brief study, I'll do a summary of the ways in which

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God is very active in this book, but one of the ways we see it very clearly is the numbers of coincidences in this book.

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One of those shows up in the end of chapter 5 and into chapter 6.

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Haman has everything. He's got the king's favor, he had his way in getting this extermination order fulfilled, ordered, and so forth.

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The king likes the guy, the king really does, but Haman hates

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Mordecai, he just hates Mordecai. He says, I can't be happy as long as Mordecai is alive and he won't bow down before me.

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There's an indication of just how negatively powerful bitterness can be.

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You can have so much and enjoy so much of this life, but if you have a bitter heart, if you're bitter towards someone, it'll sour everything, every good thing that God has given to you.

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I'm going to end with that challenge, that we guard against this bitterness that can come up in our hearts that will literally spoil our lives.

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Let's not let that happen. Let's not be like Haman in this regard. Let's get rid of that bitterness and get rid of it right away before it festers any further.

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Heavenly Father, thank you for this challenge from your Word today, the challenge to truly be dependent upon you and acknowledge you, to pray and express our dependence upon you.

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Also, Father, I pray that you would deliver us from a bitter heart that will, in the end, destroy us.

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Deliver us from this, we pray. We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen. All right.