For Such a Time as This (Esther 4) — Esther: The Invisible Hand of Providence

Now this week, as we would continue in our series through the book of Esther, we will be looking at the entirety of chapter four as we come before this great and wonderful book, this wonderful story in the

Old Testament. There are moments when history feels like it speeds up, right, the air gets thin, the temperature drops, and you can smell trouble coming before you can see it.

Esther chapter four is one of those chapters. A decree has gone out, it's been signed and sealed, it's lawful, and it's wicked, right?

In 11 months time, the neighbors will be invited to turn predator and the empire will call it justice.

The world has always been good at writing tidy laws for ugly sins, it's no different than what we see happening here in Persia as we talked about last week.

The Persian empire has made it a decree that the Jews in the 11th month may be put to death by their neighbors.

Now, if you've been a Christian for any amount of time, really, you know that this isn't only something that happened then, right, this happens now as well, not always with the same uniforms where the world will create these laws to cover up for their sins.

So it doesn't always look exactly the same, not always the same weapons, but it's always the same spiritual math, that the righteous are in the way of the unrighteous and the unrighteous do not like obstacles.

Sometimes the pressure comes like a hammer, right? It's imprisonment, confiscation, violence.

Sometimes it comes like a fog, policies, licensing boards, social penalties, a thousand small threats that all whisper the same thing, be quiet, keep it private, tone it down, and don't bring sackcloth into the king's gate.

And in such times, the church is tempted toward two equal and opposite sins. One is a panic activism, where we sprint around like headless chickens, quoting headlines and calling it faith.

And the other is a pious passivity where we fold our hands, close our eyes, and quietly make peace with the world's terms and call it wisdom.

Esther 4 is neither of those two answers. Esther 4 is faith acting. It's the people of God responding to imminent evil with a familiar pattern, mourning, appeal, and prayer.

And underneath all of those things is a courageous obedience to God when they're in a precarious position, right?

It's a courageous faith that enables Mordecai to say with a straight face that relief and deliverance shall arise to the

Jews from another place. Right, he's not guessing, he's not gambling. He's resting on the promises of God that the

Lord will keep covenant, the Lord will preserve his people, and the Lord will not be mocked. But, and this is crucial, our doctrine of providence is not permission to be passive.

It is a summons to be faithful. It's not permission to be passive, it's a summons to be faithful.

Providence does not give us license to take a nap. Providence gives us the courage to stand.

And so today we're gonna walk through this passage in Esther chapter four, according to the very structure that the text gives us.

Seeing that in these moments, right, in these difficult times, there's first, in verses one through four, a time to mourn.

Second, in verses five through 14, a time to appeal. And third, in verses 15 through 17, a time to pray.

And underneath all of it, again, is a need for faithful courage for such a time as this, as they find themselves in the narrative.

And so if you would join me, and please open your Bibles to Esther chapter four, we'll work through this entire chapter today as we work through this great book of Esther.

Again, Esther chapter four, beginning at verse one. When Mordecai perceived all that was done,

Mordecai rent his clothes and put on sackcloth with ashes, and went out into the midst of the city, and cried with a loud and a bitter cry, and came even before the king's gate, for none might enter into the king's gate clothed with sackcloth.

And in every province, whithersoever the king's commandment and his decree came, there was great mourning among the

Jews, and fasting, and weeping, and wailing, and many lay in sackcloth and ashes. So Esther's maids and her chamberlains came and told it to her.

Then was the queen exceedingly grieved, and she sent Raymond to clothe Mordecai, and to take away his sackcloth from him, but he received it not.

Then called Esther for Hattach, one of the king's chamberlains, whom he had appointed to attend upon her, and gave him a commandment to Mordecai to know what it was and why it was.

So Hattach went forth to Mordecai unto the street of the city, which was before the king's gate, and Mordecai told him of all that had happened unto him, and of the sum of the money that Haman had promised to pay to the king's treasuries for the

Jews, to destroy them. Also he gave him the copy of the writing of the decree that was given at Shushan to destroy them, and to show it unto

Esther, and to declare it unto her, and to charge her that she should go in unto the king to make supplication unto him, and to make requests before him for her people.

And Hattach came and told Esther the words of Mordecai. Again, Esther spake unto

Hattach, and gave him commandment unto Mordecai. All the king's servants, and the people of the king's provinces do know that whosoever, whether man or woman, shall come unto the king into the inner court, who is not called, there is one law of his to put him to death, except such to whom the king shall hold out the golden scepter that he may live.

But I have not been called to come in unto the king these 30 days. And they told to Mordecai Esther's words.

Then Mordecai commanded to answer, Esther, think not with thyself that thou shalt escape in the king's house more than all the

Jews. For if thou altogether holdest thy peace at this time, then shall there enlargement and deliverance arise to the

Jews from another place. But thou and thy father's house shall be destroyed. And who knoweth whether thou art come to the kingdom for such a time as this?

Then Esther bade them return Mordecai this answer, go gather together all the

Jews that are present in Shushan and fast ye for me, and neither eat nor drink three days, night or day.

I also and my maidens will fast likewise. And so will I go in unto the king, which is not according to the law.

And if I perish, I perish. So Mordecai went his way and did according to all that Esther had commanded him.

Thus ends the reading of God's holy word. May he write it on our hearts by faith. Thank you, God. Let us pray.

Oh, Lord, our God, we thank you for your word. And we pray that you would teach us in our time today to mourn rightly, to appeal with wisdom,

Lord, in an orderly and righteous way, to pray deeply and that we would act faithfully.

Lord, make us a people who do not hide when your name is mocked. Do not panic when your people are threatened.

Lord, may you give us a holy fear of you. And therefore may you give us the courage of your Christ and grant that in our day even deliverance would arise so that your name would be praised and your church would be strengthened through Jesus Christ, our

Lord, and amen. Amen. Now, again, coming out of chapter three in that murderous decree that Haman convinces

Ahasuerus to let him issue, we enter into the horror that the people responded with in chapter four.

Again, we read, when Mordecai perceived all that was done, he didn't offer a hot take for the moment.

He didn't post a clever comment. He didn't pretend that everything was fine. Instead, we read that he rent his clothes and put on sackcloth with ashes.

And he went out into the midst of the city and he cried with a loud and bitter cry, according to verse one.

Again, this is not a controlled little sigh, right? This is a man whose guts have been punched.

And then it spreads. In every province, this according to verse three, in every province, whithersoever the king's commandment and his decree came, there was great mourning among the

Jews and fasting and weeping and wailing, and many lay in sackcloth and ashes. And there's something bracing about this as we read.

The people of God don't pretend, right? They don't numb themselves to the realities around them.

They don't put on a happy face and pretend that everything's okay. There's a counterfeit type of Christianity that thinks that grief is always a failure of faith.

But it isn't, right? The Psalms are obviously full of faithful grief. The prophets are full of it.

Our Lord himself even wept at Lazarus' tomb. And so the question isn't, do you mourn?

Is it okay to mourn? The question is, do you mourn as one who doesn't have hope? Paul wrote to the

Thessalonians in 1 Thessalonians chapter four, verse 13, but I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope.

Right, there's a kind of grief that is faithless, a grief that says that God is gone, right?

God can't do it. God is dead. God is irrelevant. But there's also a grief that is profoundly faithful, a grief that says that this evil is evil, and it matters because God is holy, a grief that recognizes our need, our society's need, our community's need for our

God. When Nehemiah, Nehemiah chapter one, heard of Jerusalem's broken walls, he didn't say, well, you know,

God is sovereign. It is what it is. He tells us that when I heard these words, that I sat down and wept and mourned certain days and fasted and prayed before the

God of heaven. That's Nehemiah chapter one, verse four. He heard that his home was destroyed, and he didn't say, oh, it is what it is.

We'll just move somewhere else. He sat down and he wept and he mourned those days, and he fasted and he prayed before the

God of heaven. And if you know, if you're familiar with the story of Nehemiah, we know that that leads to a faithful action and a rebuilding of his home.

When Daniel understood the crisis of exile, he said in chapter nine of verse three, and I set my face unto the

Lord God to seek by prayer and supplications with fasting and sackcloth and ashes.

The prophet Joel chapter two, verse 12, therefore also now saith the Lord, turn ye even to me with all your heart and with fasting and with weeping and with mourning.

The point is that when there's difficulty, the Christian response, many times could and should even begin with the time of mourning, the time of grief.

And so if you're a Christian and you look at what's happening in our time and you feel nothing, right?

If your heart is flat, if your eyes are dry, if your prayers are casual in the face of mass abortions or sodomy or pedophilia, invasions of Christian churches by so -called protesters, that you don't have a superior theology and a greater trust in God's sovereignty, you have a hard heart.

The fear of the Lord makes men tender because mourning is not unbelief, it's love telling the truth of our circumstances.

And the truth is that there is great evil in the world, even still today. And it can be hard to see that evil, not in the sense that it's hard to see when it's happening around you, but it's hard, it's difficult to look at, it's difficult to have to accept and live around such evil, but it should grieve us and it should cause us to mourn.

A lot of talk right now in our parts of Christendom is around the cultural decay of the West and the right

Christian response to it. What is that right response to the cultural decay of our time? And what we see really is that, in my opinion, too many of the old guard in evangelicalism will just tell you to get over it, right?

To deal with it, make the most of the situation. But the truth is that it's okay to mourn something that's been lost or that's being threatened to be taken away from you or lost.

It's even right to recognize the grief of a matter and as Paul writes in Romans 12, 15, to weep with them that weep, not just to tell them to get over it.

So grieve what's been taken from you, that's okay. And even I'd argue it's right to do that. And for that old guard,

I'd say to join in the grief of what has been lost. But the problem, of course, is when that grief turns into doubt or depression or an anger that seeks vengeance, as opposed to a gobbly grief that leads to repentance and faithful action.

But Mordecai in Esther chapter four, he comes in verse two, even before the king's gate.

And notice that what's important about this is that none might enter into the king's gate closed with sackcloth.

So he's actually doing something illegal as he responds in grief here, right? The rule is you may not come before the king's gate in sackcloth.

Grief can happen in secret. You can grieve on your own. You can even do it in the provinces.

But you do not bring your grief into the place where power conducts business in the Persian empire.

And honestly, it's the same way today, right? You can be grieved by these cultural evils, but we don't talk about that at work.

We don't talk about that at the state house because separation of church and state, right? It's the same mentality that is at play.

The world likes religion the way it likes hobbies, right? Private, harmless, contained, and decorative.

But sackcloth is not decorative. Sackcloth is disruptive. And it says that something is wrong and your empire here is built on bones.

So there are limits to what the empire will tolerate, right? They'll tolerate your sadness as long as it doesn't get any traction, as long as it doesn't become too public.

Again, the modern world is not allergic to spirituality. It is allergic to authority. It's not offended by your private spirituality.

It's not offended by your private feelings and grief. It is offended by public claims.

You can grieve provided you do not name the evil. You can pray provided you don't do it out of Planned Parenthood, right?

You can have faith provided you don't bring it to bear. And again, we notice that we even in the church have an aversion to this response,

I think, at times when it comes to recognizing and appreciating a time for mourning.

We see that with Esther's first response in this matter as well. Many Christians, I think, have been infected with this virus, if you will, to kind of cover up and keep our grief to ourselves and to encourage, just like the world, to encourage other

Christians, keep that here. We can grieve here on Sunday, grieve at home in your prayer closet, but you don't have to bring that anywhere else.

Don't get involved in those other things. That's not of this, we're not of this world, right?

Just as the evangelical guard tells the church to toughen up and get over what they've lost, Esther's first instinct is not unlike the world's in that regard.

She hears of Mordecai's grieving and his sackcloth, and before she even knows why he's upset, she's trying to solve what she sees as the problem.

Verse four, then was the queen exceedingly grieved, and she sent Raymond to clothe

Mordecai and to take away his sackcloth from him, but he received it not. Esther is grieved, yes, but her first move is not confrontation, right, or trying to figure out what's going on.

Her first move is covering. Let me send him clothes, put him in something respectable, something that can pass through the gate.

And Esther, it's important for us to remember as we read this, that this isn't saying that she's a bad woman.

Esther's a good woman. She is a model of Christian faith, even, in the book of Esther.

But her first instinct as a good woman is to comfort Mordecai, right, and to cover him up.

That's her first instinct. But it's important to notice this, that feminine instinct to cover up and to comfort those in need, a good instinct, but it's not the need of the moment.

It's not the need of the moment here in Esther chapter four. Let the hearer understand if that's the need of our moment today, right?

I'll tell you, it is not. So it's important for us to remember these things, that different seasons call for different responses, right?

Esther, a good Christian woman. Obviously at this time, she's a Jew, but she's a

Christian woman, a godly woman. Her instinct to comfort Mordecai is a good instinct, but it's not what they need in that moment.

When evil rises, our first instinct is often to make the visible symptoms go away, to manage the optics, right, to settle the nerves, to kind of release the tension, right, to cool things down, quiet the inconvenient prophet at the gate.

We like problems that can just be solved by changing outfits, right, fixed at the surface. But Mordecai refuses the clothing.

Why? Because he knows the moment doesn't call for that. This is a different moment. It doesn't need to just be covered up because he refuses to act like the crisis is not a crisis.

And again, why it's a little bit different for Esther, she doesn't obviously know the fullness of it. She doesn't find out about the fullness of the decree until a few verses later.

But Mordecai recognizes that this is a crisis and that the sackcloth is not a costume, but it's a testimony, it's a statement.

It's the beginning of the process of fighting back. And so some of us need to hear this.

I think that there is a holy kind of sorrow that you should not rush to medicate, okay?

There is a godly grief that produces repentance and sobriety, and there's a lament that teaches you to pray.

And so if you're in a season, right, where God has put ashes on your head by loss, by sickness, by betrayal, by fear for your children, by anxiety over the future, don't immediately reach for distractions, right?

Don't immediately reach for numbness. Don't immediately try to cover it up. Sit in the grief long enough for it to turn into prayer.

Sit in it long enough for it to teach you that you're not God. You don't have to cover it by saying it is what it is.

God's in control. Those are true things. But that doesn't mean we are not allowed to grieve the difficulty of a situation.

And I would even say that it is good to do that because mourning is not unbelief. Again, it's love telling the truth in the moment, whether it's to ourselves or to others, to our families, whatever it may be.

Mordecai is here representing his people, God's people. Again, where many of them, it says in verse three, in every province, whithersoever the king's commandment and his decree came, there was great mourning among the

Jews and fasting and weeping and wailing, and many lay in sackcloth and ashes. Mordecai is the one who's bringing that plea of his people to the king's gate.

He's the one who's representing his people. And to ignore this grief, if he had done that, to move on from it too quickly, it's not a show of strength of your faith or a testimony to your high view of providence.

Rather, it is part of our faithful response to grieve when grief is right.

Because that godly sorrow, according to Paul in 2 Corinthians 7, worketh repentance to salvation without regret.

The grief is used by God to strengthen our repentance, to strengthen our faith and to solidify us on the path to salvation.

Think of it this way. The pain that you feel in seasons of difficulty, you know, when hard things have come, when you've seen hard things, when you've made mistakes and you're paying for it, when you've lost.

In those seasons, you can do one of three things. You can stuff the pain away and act like it has no power over you.

You can live in the pain for the rest of your life, never moving on, feeling sorry for yourself for the rest of your life.

Or you can acknowledge the pain appropriately, grieve the loss or the hardship, and repent, not from sin necessarily, but from the grief, right?

And turn to Christ in faith. And in now knowing the pain for having lived it, for living through this difficulty being, you know, be fueled by that, right?

Now that you know what it feels like to live in that difficulty, be fueled for good works, to overcome the evil that caused it, right?

It's knowing the pain that makes you never wanna go back to it, right? And that fuels us.

The spirit uses that to fuel us for good works that wanna overcome the evil that brought it about.

C .S. Lewis writes in the problem of pain that God whispers to us in our pleasures. He speaks to us in our conscience, but shouts to us in our pain.

It is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world. And so receive difficulty, believing that God means to teach you something through it.

And he intends to use what you've learned for his glory and the salvation of his people. That's why so often we talk about being thankful even in difficult circumstances because there is a purpose for it.

God is intending to use it for something. There is a purpose to pain. We don't wanna brush by it and pretend that it's not there or that it's just delaying us from moving forward.

It serves a purpose for us and for those around us to see that God's people recognize that there is something wrong with this world and that we are heartbroken over it.

And that by the grace of God and the power of Christ, we're gonna fix it. That means something.

That response to difficulty means something. So acknowledge that it's hard. Acknowledge that it's not good.

Grieve it so that we can be fueled to overcome it. And so we see again here in Esther chapter four in these first four verses, there is a time to mourn in the life of faith, but grief is not our end lest we become a people of despair, a hopeless people.

So again, our grief leads us to action, to repentance, to change, to a turning around of things.

And in our text, we see it leads us to this next movement, if you will, in verses five through 14, a time to appeal.

A time of mourning, a time of grief leads into, in Esther chapter four, a time to appeal.

First thing we notice is that appeal begins with truth. Esther sends Hattach to know what it was and why it was in verse five.

And Hattach goes to Mordecai under the street of the city, which was before the king's gate. And Mordecai doesn't just emote.

He doesn't just start bawling his eyes out and screaming, crying, right? But he doesn't just wail about it.

He tells him of all the things that had happened, including some of the money that Haman had promised.

And he gives to Hattach the copy of the writing, the decree. He wants Esther to see ultimately the truth of the matter.

He wants Esther to see the text. He wants her to feel the weight of the words. And this matters, right?

Because we need to know this, that faith is not vague. It's not just feelings, right?

But faith deals in reality. One of the ways that Christians lose courage is by refusing to look at the reality of situations, right?

We either pretend it isn't that bad or we inflate it into this massive myth, right?

That in many ways can even discourage us from even just trying to overcome the thing right in front of us, right? Because the enemy is so large, so amorphous, so unidentifiable that we don't know how to be obedient right in front of our faces.

But both of those things, right? Either pretending it isn't so bad or inflating it to mythical proportions is a form of cowardice, right?

It's a form of not having to do the hard thing right in front of our faces. But Mordecai is factual.

He's plain and he's direct. And then he gives the charge in verse eight, the appeal.

He says that Esther must go in unto the king to make supplication unto him and to make requests before him for her people.

Again, this is the appeal and it's not an appeal to the masses, right? It's not an appeal to all those

Jews in the provinces who put on sackcloth, who are upset about this. It's not an appeal to all them to come to the city and let's storm the gates.

You know, it's not mass protests, but it's an appeal to a particular authority in a particular place, right?

Esther, you are the queen. Please go to the king. And this is really important.

You know, it's a very maybe niche application, but maybe not. I think it's a really important thing for us to notice about this, right?

That this is an orderly appeal, right? There's a type of appeal that's dysfunctional, right?

It's the anarchy style protests that are all about confusion and hysteria and mayhem. That's never the way in which a

Christian should protest. If you think about those ice protests in Minnesota, right? They had the horns that they had going all the time.

It was all about creating confusion and chaos. That is not a

Christian way to protest, to appeal to your government to do something, right?

Christians should do things in honorable and orderly ways. If we want to appeal to our government, which we should and can in our government, we have a certain way of doing it.

We should do that, right? But you do it in an honorable and orderly way. That is the Christian way to do it.

And that's what we see here for Mordecai. As much as you might look at it and say, oh, he's got sackcloth at the king's gate. That's illegal.

There's something disorderly there. Again, in that time of mourning, he's responding and bringing it.

This is him bringing it to his government. And what we see here again is that God has established a certain person in a place of influence in the

Persian government. And Mordecai goes there to make his appeals. He doesn't go to the masses, doesn't start planning the overthrow or the assassination or storing the capital, like I mentioned before.

He searches for answers within the government that God has established. And that doesn't mean that he wouldn't have eventually fought back, right?

In more physical ways if he had to. But as we'll see, he doesn't have to here because God brings success to this appeal through faithfulness and providence.

God doesn't always do it that way, right? History testifies to that for us. If you look at the

American War for Independence, I think that's a really good example of this actually, that they tried to make their appeals in an orderly way that honored their king and honored the government, but they were continually rebuffed and further subjugated even to the point that they basically had no choice but to fight back for their rights as Englishmen.

And ultimately, obviously, we know that they prevailed by the grace of God, but it wasn't a revolution in the true sense of that word.

That's why you'll never hear me call it the American Revolution out of principle. It's the American War for Independence. Neither here nor there, but they don't do that, right?

It starts with an orderly, God -honoring and king -honoring appeal for justice that unlike as we'll see in Esther, went unheard or denied.

But that is still a representative response in history of a Christian appeal.

It's a Christian path towards justice. It's an appeal to the magistrate that God has in place. And when those won't hear you, it's an appeal to heaven.

Again, the alternative is chaos and anarchy akin to the French Revolution, which explicitly mocked

God, hated its government, lets all kinds of debauchery and licentiousness, which still plagues France today, and not to mention the eventual further subjugation and constant war of the people under Napoleon, right?

So you have a revolution of chaos, then you have an orderly appeal, right? The American War for Independence, the

French Revolution are two very important things for us to understand in our modern history. Again, I won't go too deeply into that right now, although I want to, but it's important for us to note the difference, right, of the

Christian response within difficulty in making proper appeal. All right, continuing.

Esther responds to this appeal with the reality. Verse 11, whosoever, whether man or a woman, shall come unto the king into the inner court who is not called, there is one law of his to put him to death, except to such to whom the king shall hold out the golden scepter, that he may live.

Esther at this time had not been called into the king's presence for 30 days, right? And she's not being dramatic here, but she's telling the truth of the matter, right?

She's not inventing danger as an excuse for why she doesn't have to do it. She's stating, here's the law, that I can't just go in front of the king,

I'm not allowed to do that. Nobody is allowed to do that. You know, this is a difficult thing that you're asking me to do.

It's not as easy as me just, you know, walking in and saying, hey, honey, how was your day? Let me tell you about mine.

It's not that world, it's not what they're living in. And right here, I think it's important for us to say that Christian courage is not recklessness, right?

Esther doesn't just gung -ho, let's do it, right? She wants, she counts the cost.

She reasons through it. The Lord Jesus teaches us this explicitly, right? In Luke chapter 14 and verse 28.

For which of you, intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first and counteth the cost, whether he have sufficient to finish it.

There's a kind of faux courage that's really just a love of attention, right? But that is not

Esther. Esther is calculating the risk and the risk is real. But then

Mordecai answers, and his answer is a hammer really in many ways that swings three times.

He gives three reasons or three fold exhortation to her in verses 13 and 14.

First he says, not to imagine that this private safety that you have in the palace is gonna last forever.

Think not with thyself that thou shalt escape in the king's house more than all the

Jews, verse 13. In other words, the palace will not save you when our people are targeted. And that's a word for us to remember as well, right?

There are Christians who think that if they keep their heads down, that the world will leave them alone, right? That there are

Christians who think that if they say the right buzzwords, if they perform the right rituals of public loyalty, if they never bring sackcloth near the gate, then they'll be safe.

If they sign the right statements, they will be safe. Mordecai says, don't kid yourself, right?

When you belong to the covenant people, the world may tolerate you for a while if you act like you don't, but sooner or later the world's hatred for Christ will find you as well.

If you remain silent, you may buy some time, but silence does not buy safety, it buys only complicity.

All right, so again, she cannot imagine that this private safety is going to sustain her in the public judgment.

The second thing is God's promise of preservation stands. He says in verse 14, for if thou altogether holdest thy peace at this time, then shall their enlargement and deliverance arise to the

Jews from another place. So we notice the confidence, right? Mordecai has just got done grieving, but he still trusts in the providence of God.

God will provide, right? And so again, we'll note that connection, but notice the confidence here. Deliverance will arise.

He doesn't say that it might come. He doesn't say, I hope it will come. He says it like a man who has read

Moses and has read the prophets. God made promises, God swore oaths, and God bound himself to his people.

The Lord will not let Abraham's seed be snuffed out. The line must remain because the

Messiah must come. And even in exile, even in Persia, Mordecai believes this to be true.

Again, this is providence in his bloodstream. This is Romans 8 .28 before that was written, right?

We know all things work together for the good of them that love God, who are called according to purpose. It's Psalm 121, right?

He's believing this, that behold, he that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep. He's knowing and believing the promise of Christ that was to come later, that he will build his church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

Mordecai is not afraid that the Jews will be annihilated, right, he knows that they won't be. In some ways, even you could say that he's afraid that Esther might be, right?

That if she tries to save her life by losing her faithfulness, this is not what she, what

Mordecai would have for her, this man who raised her. And the third part of his answer, the third element of his summons to her is that providence, again, is a summons.

It's not a sedative, it's not an excuse. Verse 14, but thou and thy father's house shall be destroyed and who knoweth whether thou art come to the kingdom for such a time as this?

This is, of course, the famous line in the book of Esther. And in many ways, it's become somewhat cliche, but in the text, it's not a cliche at all, right?

It's a warning. Mordecai is saying to Esther, you're not an accident. Your position isn't random.

God has put you here, now obey, right? You could say that same thing for each of us and wherever we are.

This is not an accident. God hasn't randomly put you into this family, into this church, into this community.

He didn't randomly have you to be living here in Massachusetts in the 21st century, in 2026, right?

It's not an accident. God has put us here, now obey, right? That's the corrective for every soft and sentimental use of providence.

Providence is not permission to be passive. It is a summons to be faithful. God's sovereignty is not a tranquilizer, it is a trumpet.

And here, Mordecai is saying to Esther, and perhaps we're starting to see what God is doing in all this, right?

He's raised you to this position. The time for hiding has ended, right?

It's time to reveal who you are. It's time to bring about what perhaps

God has been preparing us for this whole time, right? It's time for us to come forward.

And so again, what we need to hear here is the most important thing about us is not our job, it's not our hobbies, not our political affiliations or our family history.

Those things all have relative importance, not the most important things about us. The most important thing about you is that you belong to Jesus Christ.

And there are seasons when God says, now is the time or not the time to blend in.

Now is the time to be known. Now, obviously we're not called to be obnoxious.

I certainly would not tell you to be obnoxious. Not calling you to this kind of look at me spirituality that walks up to every person at work and says, hey,

God put it on my heart to just tell you this today. I'm just calling you to a simple honesty, right?

You don't have to shout, you don't have to posture, but the time for concealing from my estimation seems to be coming to an end, right?

The time for just kind of blending in seems to be coming to an end in our place in time and history.

Some of us might be tempted to conceal Christ at work, to conceal Christ in our neighborhoods. Some of you are tempted to conceal

Christ even in your extended family, right? You don't wanna cause friction, you don't wanna be difficult.

In Mordecai's word for you is do not imagine that concealment is safety. And at the same time, do not imagine that courage is optional.

There are moments when God's providence places you in a position, small or great, and the question is not what is convenient, but what is faithful.

Now, if we stopped here, we'd have a kind of a sermon that says to be brave, right? But Esther is not a moral fable about bravery, right?

Esther is a story of a God who keeps covenant even through flawed people and calls them to obedient faith.

And Esther 4 does not end with a pep talk, it ends with prayer, it ends with fasting, it ends with dependence upon God, which brings us to that third movement, that third point here, that a time for mourning has morphed to a time for appeal and now a time to prepare for action, a time to pray.

And that again, we'll see in Esther 4 15 -17. Again, verse 15 we read, then

Esther bade them return Mordecai this answer. And what does she say? She says, go gather together all the

Jews that are present in Shushan and fast ye for me and neither eat nor drink three days, night or day.

I also and my maidens will fast likewise. And so we notice the shift here, that Esther doesn't say, okay,

I'll try, you know, I'll talk to him. She doesn't say, I've got this. She says, I need you all to pray and to fast.

What we're seeing here is that the Christian life and especially the life of the Christian church is not a solitary hero story.

It's the body working together in solidarity, in unity. The whole people of God are drawn into the struggle.

Esther will act, but Esther will not act alone. Mordecai will command, but Mordecai will not command as a lone ranger.

The Jews in Shushan will fast, the maids will fast. The community will be humble before God.

This is why we pray for our rulers every week, right? Because we have a part in their faithfulness. This is why we pray for one another each week.

We're all members of the same body, which is Christ. We are in this together.

And we need to be encouraging one another in prayer and in action towards faithfulness in whatever circumstances we may have before us.

Paul in 1 Corinthians 12, for the body is not one member, but many. If the foot shall say, because I am not the hand,

I am not of the body, is it therefore not of the body? And if the ear shall say, because I am not the eye,

I am not of the body, is it therefore not of the body? If the whole body were an eye, where were the hearing?

If the whole were hearing, where were the smelling? But now hath God set the members, every one of them in the body, as it has pleased

Him. And if they were all one member, excuse me, where were the body?

But now are they many members, yet but one body. Again, the purpose here of the

Christian church is to help one another, be a service to one another, be members one of another, to support one another in difficulty.

This is why when the church faces pressure, the answer is not just to get loud or get smarter, but the answer is to come together, unite under the banner of Christ, encourage one another, pray for one another, help one another.

And we see the pattern throughout the scripture. 2 Chronicles 20, Jehoshaphat faced an invading army. He proclaims a fast throughout all

Judah. And Judah gathered themselves together to ask help of the Lord. Ezra, when he's about to lead a vulnerable caravan, he proclaims a fast in chapter eight.

So we fasted and besought our God for this, and He was entreated of us. In the book of Acts, of course, we see several times, several instances of this, but the church fasts and prays before action.

Fasting is a way of saying with your body what you're saying with your mouth, that we are not sufficient.

Fasting in prayer more generally, because fasting really is a form of prayer, is the body agreeing with the soul that we need

God more than bread. And so again, Esther here, as she's preparing for action, she's calling on the people of God to pray.

Now, the immediate throne before Esther is Ahasuerus, the king. But the deeper theology of this is clear.

Before Esther goes to the throne of Persia, the people seek the throne of heaven. Esther's about to approach a king who might kill her for showing up uninvited.

There's a law that would put her to death in this situation. But for the Christian, we must be encouraged, especially in these difficult times, as we prepare to repent of our grief.

Again, not that it's sinful grief, but repent of it, turn out of it and towards Christ. We must be prepared to do that through going before the greater king, greater than the throne of Persia, greater than Ahasuerus, greater than a scepter, a greater scepter than gold, and a greater advocate than Esther, right?

We prepare by going, just as Esther is doing here, she prepares to go before this throne by going to the greater throne.

We don't come to God wondering whether he's gonna extend mercy to us, as Esther was going to have to with Ahasuerus.

Rather, we come through Jesus Christ, the mediator. Hebrews 4 .16, let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

Not arrogantly, not casually, but confidently, with faith, literally, because our confidence is not in ourselves, but in Christ.

Hebrews 10 .19 says, having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus.

Romans 8 .34, it is Christ that died, yea, rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us.

And so the Christian's prayer is not a shot in the dark. It's not a last resort. It's the first move of faith, because it's the surest access in the universe.

Esther risks her life approaching the earthly king. The Christian does not risk death approaching the heavenly king, because Christ has already died and risen and opened the way.

And so, be wise not to moralize Esther, right? And to try harder. Rather, let this story drive us to Christ.

And in Esther's example, even drive us to Christ, that the one, the true one, who approached the judgment seat of God, not with a maybe, but with a surely, is the one to whom we pray, and the one in whom we pray.

The one who did not merely say, if I perish, I perish, but who actually perished willingly for his people.

Right, so prayer is such an important part of our response to difficulty. Before we would act, we must be a people of prayer, ensuring that we have gone before the throne of grace and pleaded our cause before him.

Now, again, prayer has, it's a very important place in our response to difficulty, but it does not replace action.

It prepares us for action. Verse 16, Esther says, so I will go in unto the king, which is not according to the law, and if I perish,

I perish. Resolve, right, this is what she is showing here. Not bravado, but a resolve, that she is going to do what is right in the moment, in this situation.

Prayer and fasting are not substitutes for obedience. She doesn't just say, oh, you guys should just pray about this.

She says, pray for me as I prepare to act, right? Prayer and fasting are not substitutes for obedience.

They are the forge of obedience. They do not take away the necessity of action, but they make our action faithful.

I'm not saying in a vending machine sense, right? But as we go before our God, he strengthens us that we would act with faithfulness towards him.

This is where a lot of Christians go wrong or can go wrong. You know, some Christians act without prayer, which is really, it's just activism with Bible verses taped on it.

That's your social justice warrior. You know, it's fleshly, it's frantic. It burns out quickly, and it becomes bitter even quicker.

Other Christians pray without action, right, which is that kind of pious talk, which is what James calls dead faith.

Even so, faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone. It is not really faith at all, right?

It's just religious delay. But the pattern here in Esther is a better model for us to follow, to mourn truly, appeal orderly, pray deeply, and then act courageously.

And then in verse 17, it's wonderfully plain. Mordecai went his way and did according to all that Esther had commanded him.

Everyone takes their place in the book of Esther. Everyone takes their place, even Mordecai, now taking direction from Esther, from this girl, this young girl who he raised, now his queen.

And so, Christian, if you treat prayer, right, if you treat prayer as a little accessory on your life, something that you do when things get hard, something that you add when you're desperate, you will not have courage when courage is required.

Prayer is not a spare tire that you put on when you need it, right? It's an engine of sorts that needs to be refined and taken care of, maintained.

If you wanna be the kind of person who can stand when the pressure comes, then you must cultivate a life of communion with God now, not later, but now.

And so, husbands, you can't lead your home through a storm if you never pray with your family in calm weather. Pray and acknowledge

God in seasons of blessing and peace, and remember that life is all of grace, even if God were to take it away.

Parents, you can't teach your children to stand in difficulty if the only prayers that they ever hear are quick and shallow.

None of us can face temptation or persecution on fumes, right, you can't carry the weight of a hostile age with a faith made of cotton candy.

God calls his people to become people of prayer because prayer is where courage is born.

And again, prayer is the body agreeing with the soul that we need God more than bread. Now, all of this drives towards the final movement that we have in Esther chapter four, which is courage, right, because the whole chapter is an on -ramp, really, to Esther chapter five, where she actually walks into the throne room.

And so we close today with what the chapter is really training us for, that mourning, appeals, prayer, it's all preparing us to be a people of courage, right?

And courage is not the absence of fear, but obedience in the fear of God. If you read

Esther four honestly, Esther is afraid, right? Mordecai even it would seem is afraid.

The Jews are afraid, they're fasting, weeping, wailing. They're not fearless, but they are faithful.

Courage is not pretending that you feel nothing. Courage is feeling the fear, grieving the loss and the difficulty and obeying anyway, because God is

God and he is good and he is able. Jesus says in Matthew 10, 28, fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul, but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.

The fear of God does not make you timid, but it makes you stable. It makes you able to look at the threats of men and say, you are not ultimate, right?

Proverbs 29, 25, the fear of man bringeth a snare, but whoso putteth his trust in the

Lord shall be safe. The fear of God breaks the snare of the fear of man. Second, we wanna recognize that courage understands

God's covenant promises that God keeps his people and he uses his people. Mordecai's confidence is not in Esther's skill, not her persuasiveness.

It's not in her charm or beauty. It's not in Esther's strategy. His confidence is that God will keep his promise.

Deliverance for his people will arise from somewhere. Why not her? And that gives us a firm footing that if God has promised to preserve his church, then the church can't be annihilated.

She may be pruned, she may be persecuted, she may be scattered, but she can't be erased. The blood of the martyrs has always been seed and the gates of hell do not prevail.

And again, it gives us firm footing in the sense that if God has promised to bless his church, to build his church and cover the earth as the waters cover the sea, we can work with that much greater of a confidence knowing that the

Lord is pleased to bless the work of his people. He may not look the way we want it to, but he will use it for his purposes, for his kingdom to cover the earth as the water covers the sea.

God preserves his people and he is sure to complete, to have come to pass all that he has promised for his people.

We can't hide behind providence, we can't hide behind sovereignty and say someone else is gonna do it.

We should stand up at our moment, just as Esther does, she doesn't hide behind the providence, stand up at our moment and say with Mordecai, perhaps you're right, it is for such a time as this that I'm here and it's time for me to work.

Providence is not an excuse to do nothing and say that if God really wants it, if it's really his will, then he'll make it happen with someone else.

Providence is God's invitation to obedience, wherever you are, wherever he has you, he's given us all that we need to obey him without fear of any earthly consequence.

And so come what may, be faithful to God, his commands and trust the results to him.

Now, as we do close, I'll do so with a final call to three groups, each of us really, or to us at different stations, to the church, again, we wanna adopt this pattern of Esther 4, that when evil seems imminent, we wanna mourn honestly, we're name the evil as evil, don't get sentimental, don't numb ourselves, don't pretend.

We wanna appeal orderly, we wanna be an orderly people as we fight back against cultural evils, speak truth, use lawful means, make the case, bring evidence.

We wanna pray deeply, seek after our God, we wanna fast as we come before him even, gather the people calling the

Lord, lean upon one another, and we wanna act faithfully, again, not with a frantic energy that burns out, but with confident courage in our

God. Courage is what prayer looks like when it stands up and walks into the room, right? If you see someone standing and doing the hard thing, being courageous, you know that they are prayer standing up, essentially, they have been on their knees in prayer, now they are ready to walk in the courage that the

Lord has given to them, that's Esther, right? She's gonna walk in, she's gonna stand there, she's gonna wait for the scepter, and the

Lord, who seems to be hidden through it all, will be very present indeed. To those who might be fearful, right?

You're not called to be the savior, remember this. Maybe you feel small, you might feel like Esther did, who am

I to do anything? But we need to hear this, that God's providence doesn't ask you to be the savior, it asks you to be faithful, right?

You're not responsible for outcomes, you're responsible for obedience. God doesn't put you in a moment like this to crush you, he puts you in it to sanctify you, to purify your loves, to strengthen your backbone, and to make you the kind of person who can speak, even when it's costly.

And to the unbeliever, right, or to the nominal Christian, remember that the palace will not save you.

Mordecai's word cuts in two directions. Think not that thou shalt escape in the king's house.

The palace will not save. And what is that palace, right? Spiritually, let's apply that.

It's every refuge that you have built that is not Jesus Christ. Your money, your reputation, your cleverness, your ability to blend in, your ability to play the game, your hard work and sacrifice, your intentions and sincerity, none of it will save you when the decree of death comes for every man.

The handwriting is against all who are apart from Christ. Death is coming and the palace will not save you.

And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this, the judgment.

And so where do you run, right? If even the palace won't save you, there is nowhere to run, but to trust in the one who intercedes for his people, the one who was established by God to intercede for his people in mourning, who hears the cries, the appeals of his people, who relied not on bread for strength, but on every word from the mouth of God.

Only in Jesus Christ will you find refuge from the penalty of your sin, from the wrath of God to come upon the kingdom of darkness.

The only safe refuge is not the palace, whatever it may be. It is not the empire. No, our refuge and strength is