He That Keepeth Israel (Esther 6:1–9) — Esther: The Invisible Hand of Providence

Now last Lord's Day, we were in Esther 5, and there we watched faith step into the room, as Esther did and came before King Ahasuerus, and pride, the person of Haman, build wood, build a gallows at the end of chapter five.

We watched Esther, after fasting and resolving, hiding in prayer, and saying, if I perish,

I perish, we watched her rise and walk into the throne room, into the inner court, and find that the king's scepter was extended, he accepted her as she came before him.

We saw that providence often opens the door only after obedience walks up to it, right?

Esther never would've been accepted before the king if she hadn't obediently walked, and confidently and courageously walked into his presence.

And we saw Esther's wisdom in timing, right? She didn't blurt out her demands, she didn't blurt out exactly what it is that she wanted the second that the scepter was extended, or before even it was extended.

She also didn't flinch, right? She invited the king and Haman to a banquet, and then she delayed to a second banquet, right, at the end of chapter five.

On the other side, we watched Haman's spiritual anatomy, right, all his riches, all his honors, and yet he says, all this availeth me nothing, so long as one righteous man, so long as Mordecai lives, so long as he will not bow, all of these things mean nothing to me.

And so pride, never patient, never satisfied, it went home and built a gallows, 50 cubits high, with Mordecai's name on it.

Once again, in the book of Esther, it seems that every time God is moving, the enemy is trying to counter.

God establishes Esther as queen, and an assassination is attempted. Mordecai discovers and foils the assassination plot, and then he's overlooked in favor of Haman to be elevated to the king's right hand.

And then in chapter five, Esther goes to the king to request two days of banquets, and at the end of chapter five, again, as we ended last week, in the in -between of those banquets, the immediate destruction of Mordecai is being planned.

It would seem that in the unseen realms, there's a constant war in the book of Esther, and really it's true that in all history, this is what is happening.

But it's here in Esther that we see how one of those battles plays out, and how God always intervenes, for the good of his people in the conflict, whether we see what he's doing or not.

And really, I think that that statement is the summary of the book of Esther. If you had to distill down, what is the purpose of this book?

What is it here for, for us to understand? Again, there's certainly plenty of typology, and there's beauty in that.

I don't want to diminish that by any means. But on the large scale, what's the purpose of this book? What's it meant to teach us in one sentence?

That the unseen realms are at war, in the history of man, in redemptive history. And we may not see how it's all happening.

We may not see how the battle's playing out, but God always intervenes. And we may not see

God in it. Again, God's not mentioned in the book of Esther, but God always intervenes for the good of his people in the conflict, whether we see it or not.

That's really the point of the book of Esther. And we're starting to see that come to a head here at the end of chapter five and into chapter six.

But for today, again, in Esther six, we're gonna see today what God is doing in the gap between that first banquet and Esther's tomorrow, her second banquet, and Haman's tomorrow.

There's a great dichotomy here, right? Esther's tomorrow is the second banquet, the confrontation. Haman's tomorrow is the execution of Mordecai, right?

He is preparing for that. And we're gonna see in here at the beginning of Esther chapter six and verses one through nine, what

God is doing in the midst of this scheming, not only by Haman, the evil scheming, but even Esther's righteous scheming, righteous planning.

We're gonna see how God is moving in the midst of it when neither one of them, Esther or Haman, can see what's happening.

This beginning of chapter six, verses one through nine, this is the Lord, this is his intervention.

This is him at work in it. This is the Lord's midnight work. It's that invisible hand moving the pieces while the proud man is sleeping, right?

While the queen is sleeping, but the king can't. And we're getting to the point in the narrative where the swings of this conflict, right?

This spiritual conflict that's happening, this battle that's happening are quicker and quicker. They're coming one after another. The frenzy has kind of begun because the head is coming.

God has moved Esther to intervene. Now the enemy's planning to start the killing early. But before Haman even has an opportunity to carry out this latest scheme,

God is already moving again, right? So I mentioned earlier a few examples of how God moves and then the enemy moves.

And then a little bit later, God moves and the enemy moves. It's happening a lot faster now to the point where the enemy hasn't even carried out yet the plan and God's already moving again to make his plans to be effective and to come to fruition.

And so we do well, excuse me, to note for ourselves again, as we understand this part of the book that the swings are coming quicker and quicker, we can anticipate with that being the case of the climactic moment of deliverance is just around the corner.

It's about to come here. And if you remember the first sermon, not all heard the first sermon in the book of Esther, but it is on our website if you wanna go back and listen to it.

The book of Esther is structured like a chiasm. It's not like the modern movies that we like to watch where the climactic moment comes towards the end.

It's like much of Hebrew literature where it comes towards the beginning. So the climactic moment, or excuse me, towards the middle, the climactic moment in the book of Esther is coming here towards the middle of the story.

And so with all that in mind, Esther chapter six, verses one through nine, that's our text for today.

This is again, the night after Haman's gallows were finished at the end of chapter five and verse 14.

So we'll pick up Esther chapter six, verses one through nine. Hear the word of the Lord.

On that night could not the king sleep, and he commanded to bring the book of records of the chronicles, and they were read before the king.

And it was found written that Mordecai had told of Bigtana and Teresh, two of the king's Chamberlains, the keepers of the door, who sought to lay hand on the king

Ahasuerus. And the king said, what honor and dignity hath been done to Mordecai for this?

Then said the king's servants that ministered unto him, there is nothing done for him. And the king said, who is in the court?

Now Haman was come into the outward court of the king's house to speak unto the king, to hang Mordecai on the gallows that he had prepared for him.

And the king's servants said unto him, behold, Haman standeth in the court. And the king said, let him come in.

So Haman came in, and the king said unto him, what shall be done unto the man whom the king delighteth to honor?

Now Haman thought in his heart, to whom would the king delighteth to honor more than to myself? And Haman answered the king, for the man whom the king delighteth to honor, let the royal apparel be brought, which the king useth to wear, and the horse that the king rideth upon, and the crown royal which is set upon his head, and let this apparel and horse be delivered to the hand of the one of the king's most noble princes, that they may array the man with all whom the king delighteth to honor, and bring him on horseback through the street of the city, and proclaim before him, thus shall be done to the man whom the king delighteth to honor.

Let's pray. Father, again, we do thank you for your word. We thank you for this passage here in Esther chapter six, and ask your help to us as we would learn it and study it today, that you would grant to us a remembrance of, and a love for the things that you would reveal to us in our time.

We ask your spirit would move mightily within each of us, ministering to us, teaching us through the ministry of your word.

We ask these things in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. So let's name it plainly here, right?

At the beginning of chapter six, right? This is the night that the devil thinks that he has the whole thing wrapped up, right?

He thinks that he's finally found his way to thwart what

God is intending to do, to put an end to this, and to ensure the destruction of the Jews, and at the very least, ensure the destruction of Mordecai, right?

The paperwork is done. The wood is cut. The gallows are built, and the rope is ready. The enemy is already rehearsing his speech.

But in the midst of that, and all that, the work that the enemy has done, that the devil has done to work up Haman for this, in the midst of that, the king can't sleep.

Again, the book of Esther is notorious for what it doesn't do. God's name is not written on the pages. There's no, thus said the

Lord, throughout the entire book. There's no fire from heaven, no Red Sea parting, no angelic choir, but the absence of the name is not the absence of the hand.

God is not mentioned, and yet, God is everywhere. He is the author. He's the director. He's the carpenter who doesn't leave sawdust in the living room, but the whole house is standing because he built it.

And so when we come to Esther six, we should not be hunting, or hoping for, or expecting some special effects

We should be watching for God's ordinary governance, the kind that the materialists would call coincidence, but that faith calls providence.

And the point of Esther six is not that insomnia is magical, or that sleeplessness always has a secret message attached to it, or that if your ears are ringing, someone's talking about you.

That's not the point here, that if you can't sleep, you must be on someone's mind or something, whatever those strange sayings are of the new agey folks.

But the point rather, is that the Lord Jesus Christ governs the night. He governs kings and their pillows.

He governs court records and page numbers. He governs the timing of footsteps in hallways.

He governs the kind of pride that can't interpret a question without making it about itself. He governs it all, because it all belongs to him, right?

That is the point that God is making clear to us, that the Spirit is making clear to us in chapter six of Esther.

That all of these plans, all of these plots, again, even the righteous ones from Esther, they are meaningless apart from the work of God.

And so it's with that frame set that we can walk through this passage here, verses one through nine, as it unfolds.

Again, verse one, on that night could not the king sleep. Now there's a thousand ways that you could read that line for modern man.

Again, there's the therapist's way of, let's talk about this, all the stress that you have. Someone read it, like that materialist, probably drank too much that night.

We've seen this king likes to drink, so he must've drank too much and somehow can't sleep. Someone read it like the mystic, that the universe is sending vibrations.

Again, someone's talking about them. But Christians need to read it like Christians, right?

The most high rules in the kingdoms of men. Proverbs 21, one says that the king's heart is in the hand of the

Lord. He turns it, whithersoever he will, right? God is not scrambling for solutions, right?

He's not reacting. He's not pacing the floor of heaven. The king is pacing the floor of Persia, of his bedroom, because God is already pacing out the rescue of his covenant people.

Now, some of us have known long nights, especially if you have young children, you've been up, you've been sleepless, or if you've been working, you're up, you work late nights.

Some of us have been, or you just can't sleep, all sorts of things, right? We stare at the ceiling, while your mind is kind of trying to relitigate the history of your life, right?

I should have done this. I should have said it this way. We've replayed regrets and feared tomorrow, and we've counted losses, and we've measured ourselves against the darkness.

And these things can keep us up at night, not only figuratively, but literally. But this text doesn't tell us that every time you're sleepless at night, that there must be something big happening for you, right?

It's not meant to be that way, that there's gonna be a quick resolution as there was here.

But it does tell us this, that the God who kept Ahasuerus awake is the God who keeps Israel, right?

Remember Psalm 121, verse four. He that keepeth Israel, neither slumbers nor sleep.

In a way here, Ahasuerus is a type to us of our God, sleepless for the purposes of protecting his people, right?

Protecting the people of God, right? Ahasuerus is not a Jew at this point.

He's not a fearer of God. He's a pagan king, and yet he's a picture of that.

The king who doesn't sleep. And what does the king who doesn't sleep do? He preserves his people, right?

This king who doesn't sleep preserves the people of God. It's important for us to keep in mind, these are the pictures that God is putting in here, the

Spirit is putting in here, is to point us to him in all of it. God is never absent, right, from our night watchings.

He's never missing from our sleeplessness, because he is also not sleeping.

He is fully present and fully at work at all times. And so it's not our responsibility to understand why we can't sleep.

What is it that's causing me to have this insomnia? Rather, the onus is on us, it is incumbent upon us to trust

God in it, right? I don't know, I can't sleep, I'm struggling here, right? Let go of the things that we are trying to control, the things that we are trying to perhaps hold onto or change and trust that God is in control, that providence isn't a puzzle that we need to solve, but providence is rather a person that we need to learn to trust.

Now, that brings us to verse two, kind of the next ordinary step in the story. Again, as God is showing how he ordinarily intervenes in the course of human life, and the king does what restless men do when they want to go to sleep, he looks for something to occupy his mind, right?

Didn't have TV back then, so, and he didn't feel like reading, he felt like somebody else reading to him. And so he calls in someone to read for him, he calls for the book of the records of the

Chronicles. Now, again, this isn't the Bible, this is the Chronicles of History of the Kings of Persia. So it's not a worship service, it's not

Bible study, it's bureaucratic paperwork being read out loud to help a pagan king get drowsy, right?

And yet it's right there, it seems so insignificant, and yet it's right there that God is so clearly intervenes.

It's right there in that dusty archive that the name of Mordecai is recalled. He happens to open to this story, to this page of the records of the

Chronicles, excuse me, of Persia. And it's this story that is all too prescient for that moment that the reader opens to for the king.

You know, it's interesting, you think about with all the snow melting this week, how many of us are seeing things in our yards that you haven't seen for months.

I think I've seen so many toys in our backyard that have been there and you almost forget about, it's kind of like a second

Christmas in some ways, it's like, these things are popping back up, like, oh, I forgot about that thing, we should make sure we take advantage of that.

And Mordecai's name in the reading is like that for a hachueros, right, it jumps out to him like a thing that's been buried for the winter.

It says in verse two that it was found written that Mordecai had exposed an assassination plot. The Lord has taken this forgotten act of faithfulness and now he's placing it right in front of the king's face at precisely the moment when the enemy is outside sharpening the knife.

We talked about this a few weeks back when Mordecai was forgotten after doing this great deed, but it's worth repeating again that scripture teaches this pattern over and over again.

Malachi 3 .16, that a book of remembrance was written before him, right, speaking of the Lord. Hebrews 6 .10

says that God is not unrighteous to forget your work and labor of love, right? God does not forget.

God will not forget your good works, right? The world is very good at misplacing gratitude, very good at forgetting the things that you've done or the good that you may have done to others when it serves them, right?

They'll remember the things that you do, especially the bad things, when it serves them, right? But they are very good at forgetting the good, but God does not forget, and so we take heart in that, right here at the beginning of Esther chapter six that we see that God is just and he's bringing about righteousness for the good work, the good faithful labor that Mordecai had done in saving the king.

At the end of chapter two. But again, the world is very good at misplacing gratitude.

Men can and will eat your bread and then forget your name. That's gonna happen to you in your life.

If it hasn't yet, it will happen soon. They'll let you do all sorts of things for them to serve their ends, and then they'll forget you when it no longer serves them.

Even among Christian brothers and sisters, men will eat your bread and not only forget that you fed them, but they'll even forget you altogether.

They'll forget all the good that you've done for them, all the ways in which you've tried to support them and be there for them. They'll forget those things when it no longer serves them.

That doesn't have to be the case, but sadly it is. May we never be a people like that.

May we rejoice and remember the good deeds and good works that happen here in this community.

But I digress. But God is not like men, right? God doesn't have Alzheimer's. He doesn't misfile things.

He doesn't lose track of the details. He is meticulous. And therefore, his providence can be quiet without ever being sloppy.

We do well to learn to trust this providence when things don't seem to go our way, or at least not in our timing.

Now, verse three, as we move towards that, the chronicles have been read, the deed has been remembered, and then the story forces a question, forces a question on the narrative, because again, when we look back at the end of chapter two,

Mordecai saves the king, and it very abruptly, the narrative very abruptly pivots from the king being saved to after that,

Haman was elevated to essentially the right hand of the king. But now, this question that's kind of been on the narrative since the end of chapter two is finally asked by the king in verse three.

What honor and dignity hath been done to Mordecai for this? And the answer, there is nothing done for him.

Now, obviously, this isn't a simplistic do good and you'll get promoted, because that's not what happened here, right? At least it took some time, but even if it did, that's not what

Christianity is, right? That's karma, we don't believe in that. Obviously, we do believe in doing good, doing the works of God, fearing the

Lord and blessing coming from that, but that doesn't always lead to promotions and material gain.

Sometimes God does give vindication in this life, as he does here eventually, and sometimes he gives it only in the resurrection, but the principle is steady, that the judge of all the earth will do right, and the timing and makeup of it will always serve his purposes and not ours.

And so what should you do when nothing is done for you as it was for Mordecai, right? You should keep doing the good that you were called to, right?

You should refuse to make your obedience a business transaction. No, you didn't put this person in your debt.

By obeying God, you've not now put people in your debt. Matthew chapter six, verses three and four,

Jesus says, well now do us alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand is doing. So keep your eye on the father who sees in secret.

James 4 .10, humble yourselves and he shall lift you up. Right, not always immediately, not always in the way that you would script, but he will, right?

God is faithful in these things. He's faithful to his word. In second Timothy two, verse 12, if we suffer, we shall also reign with him.

There's always a purpose that serves the purpose of the sovereign one, right? So suffering, even in the sense of not receiving a just reward, right?

That is a type of suffering. It's not as bad as something could be, but it is a type of suffering. But we know that all these things serve the purpose of the sovereign one.

We will reign with him, and so suffer with grace and suffer with faith. For the Christian, that purpose gives us hope, even when the sovereignty is hard or inconvenient.

Now, at this point, the narrative kind of tightens, right? So we go from this scene, just between Ahasuerus and the chamberlain who's reading the passage or reading the book to him.

But now it kind of tightens. It gets a little bit tense because we see that Haman is there, and we know what

Haman's currently plotting. The king is thinking now about honoring Mordecai. He wants to figure out a way to do that.

But someone else, just on the outside, just out in the inner court, is trying to plot a way to kill the same man that the king wants to honor.

Now, verse four, Haman comes into the outer court to ask permission to hang Mordecai, but instead, the king intervenes with his question first in verse four, and he asks, what should the king do for a man that he delights to honor?

Now, wickedness is often diligent, right?

It gets up early. It makes plans, drafts letters. It tries to throw its weight around.

It takes control whenever it can, right? It funds budgets. It builds platforms, and it doesn't usually just present itself as lazy, right?

So wickedness will endeavor to find ways to get into influential places, right?

That's not universally the case, that people who are influential are the wicked, but wickedness, it's always angling for power, right?

It's looking for ways to wrestle power. Psalm 37, verse 12 and 13, the wicked plotteth against the just.

The Lord shall laugh at him, for he sees that his day is coming, right? So the wicked is plotting.

They're always plotting for power, it would seem, for influence to be able to move their agenda along in whatever situation they may be, but the

Lord is laughing at these things, right? The Lord mocks them in their scorn. Now, this is not naivete, right?

This is faith, you know? Christians are not called to be gullible about evil, we'll pretend that it's not a big deal, but neither are we allowed to treat evil like its ultimate, right?

Job 5, 12 says that God make it the devices of the crafty of none effect. And Psalm 91, 3 says, surely he shall deliver thee from the snare.

God is not dejected by evil's advances and neither should we be. Rather, we trust that he is able to overcome evil with good and that he can do it even with insomnia and paperwork.

But it's here again that we're seeing the precision of God's timing in it. Haman arrives to request a hanging and he's ushered in to answer a question about honoring his enemy or about honoring in general.

And we find that God is moving to have that be about the one that Haman wants to destroy.

So again, verse six, what shall be done unto the man whom the king delighteth to honor? In Haman, and this is the line that exposes him really in the,

I mean, he's already been exposed in the narrative, but it really starts to leave him in a position of, you see the unraveling beginning here in verse six in his response to this question.

He thought in his heart, to whom would the king delight to do honor than to myself? Right, pride is not just a bad habit.

It's a way of reading reality. It's a hermeneutic. If Haman led a Bible study, he'd be the one who's telling you that the passage's true meaning is actually just however it made him feel.

If you were debating eschatology, he would join the modern dispensationalists who believe that when Jesus is talking to this generation, that surely he's talking to me.

Who else could he possibly be talking to? Pride takes every question and makes it a mirror.

Pride takes every silence and turns it into applause. It takes every ambiguous providence and assumes that it's a personal endorsement.

Beware not to become that prideful man, right? Whose first instinct is always, what does this have to do with me?

You'll note these things in yourself, right? Assess yourself in conversation. And I'm really preaching to myself in many ways here.

Assess yourself in conversation. Whatever it is you're talking about. Someone asks kind of an open -ended question and you think, are they trying to say that about me?

Is this really about me that they're asking? Is that why they're asking this question? We do this with our spouses more than probably anybody else.

But be wise not to be that person. Beware not to be that person. The prideful man whose first instinct is always, this must be about me.

How so? That's the spirit that Haman is operating in. And again, we see that when his pride is finally, when it gets out and he exposes that pride to the king, that's the beginning of his unraveling.

That's the beginning of him heading towards now destruction. So Haman advises for the honored man, because again, this must be about me, what he has always wanted for himself.

Verses eight and nine. The king's robe, the king's horse, the king's crown in a public proclamation.

He wants to look kingly without being the king, right? He wants the glory of the king for himself.

Again, verse eight, let the royal apparel be brought, which the king useth to wear, and the horse that the king rideth upon, and the crown royal, which is set upon his head.

And let this apparel and horse be delivered to the hand of one of the king's most noble princes, that they may array the man with all whom the king delighteth to honor, and bring him on horseback through the street of the city, and proclaim before him, thus shall it be done, to the man whom the king delighteth to honor.

One of the things that we'll do often, that I particularly enjoy doing, especially in the

Old Testament, is explore the typological nature of characters in the Bible of these people.

How they serve certain roles that are meant to point us to Christ. We've talked about how Esther and Mordecai are types of Christ, and that they do certain things, or they hold certain positions that is typological, or points to Jesus.

And we'll often say things like, Jesus is a better Esther, or he's the better Mordecai, in the sense that he exemplifies those things, which they are a type of, he exemplifies them more fully, better, more completely.

In the same way, we see in Haman here, at these verses, we see him as a type of Satan, a type of the devil.

He's just more limited in what he's able to do, and his power, and what he even understands going on. In Isaiah 14, we read of Lucifer's fall from heaven, and the pride that led to his destruction, starting in verse 12 of Isaiah 14.

And again, think about the similarities here, to what I'm going to read, to where Haman is at, and what he's asking for, as he thinks about, what should the king do to honor the man that he wants to honor?

Isaiah 14, verse 12. How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning?

How art thou cut down to the ground? Which didst weaken the nations? For thou hast said in thine heart,

I will ascend into heaven. I will exalt my throne above the stars of God. I will sit also upon the mounts of the congregation, in the sides of the north.

I will ascend above the heights of the clouds. I will be like the most high. Haman, like his father, the devil, wants the honor for himself.

He is sure that the king must be thinking about Haman, so he lets slip what it is that he wants.

But again, Proverbs 16, verse 18. Pride goeth before destruction. In Luke 14, 11.

Whosoever exalted himself shall be abased. God has built humiliation into the architecture of pride.

Now, we are not types of the devil here, as Haman is. We're not Haman's, right? But we are still susceptible to sinning in these ways, right, to being prideful and wanting the glory for ourselves.

How many of our sins are just Haman's sin in different suits, right? When you interpret the world as a stage for your recognition, right?

When you treat your husband, your wife, your children, like this is your world and they're just living in it, right, for children as well.

How often do you treat your peers? This is one of the things we try to teach our children pretty diligently.

Treating their peers like they're props or they're actors in a game, right? They're toys in a game.

And we don't consider their humanity with honor and dignity, right? There's ways in which children should be playing with one another that honors the other person, honors their dignity, honors their humanity, right?

Doesn't make it all about us, but especially as children, we have to learn that. It takes time. But again, how does pride manifest itself?

We can't rejoice at another man's honor. Another man is excelling or doing things well, but it makes us bitter and jealous, right?

That's pride coming to bear in our lives. Can't hear a compliment given to somebody else without feeling personally robbed.

I have a good friend. I certainly didn't mean it this way, but he told me one time that he's heard his celebrity doppelganger is

Kevin James. And it's true, it looks just like him. But then I, at the same moment,

I didn't even think like celebrate with this guy. He was really excited about it. I said, oh yeah, mine's Ben Affleck. And he, in a way for him,

I was like, I was stealing the moment from him. And I, again, certainly didn't mean that. I was trying to, it was about solidarity more than anything else.

But the point being, can we hear a compliment given to somebody else without feeling personally robbed or like that looking around the room, now who's gonna say something nice about me?

And when our obedience quietly mutates into a demand for applause. Again, normally as this type of pride sits and it stews within us, eventually it comes out for,

I'm gonna require that everybody look at me. I'm gonna be the center of attention. This is a pridefulness at work in each of us.

Again, that doesn't make us Hamans in the sense of, in the utter sense of being, the anti -God's people, anti -Christ in the story, right?

But that's something that we need to be paying attention to, repenting of, growing from. Haman is like his father, the devil.

He wants the glory of the king. He wants to take it. He, in his pride, he wants to be elevated above even the king.

And yet in his pride, we see just as we saw in Isaiah chapter 14, that is what ends up leading to his destruction.

Satan cast down for that same reason, and that's gonna lead to the destruction of Haman. Instead, the

Christian life is quite a bit different because we don't look at Haman. We certainly don't look at Lucifer, Satan, the devil.

We look to Christ, right? Philippians chapter two at verse three says, let nothing be done through strife or vainglory, right?

So nothing for pride's sake. Romans 12 10, we are to be in honor, preferring one another, right?

Always outdoing one another in honor, in honoring each other. That's the Christian way. It's humbling ourselves. It's not natural, it's supernatural.

It's the work of the spirit in people who have been freed from themselves. This is the way unto life, right?

Haman's way, the prideful way, Satan's way is the way unto death. This is the way unto life.

That is the way to true glory. That's the paradox of the Christian gospel. That's the great irony of it.

Haman seeks glory through his own means, through his prideful means, and it leads to his destruction.

The Christian seeks the honor and the dignity of those around them, and they are given true glory by the grace of our

God. Amen? So as is often said, right, the way up is down. And Paul reminds us in the

Christ hymn of Philippians chapter two, verses five through 11, and this is really where we'll head towards our closing here today.

But Philippians two, five through 11, speaking of what Christ has done in the incarnation.

Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, who being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but made himself of no reputation.

It took upon him the form of a servant and was made in the likeness of men. And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.

Wherefore God has also hath highly exalted him and given him a name, which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow of things in heaven and things in earth and things under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is

Lord, the glory of God, the Father. That is the way unto life. And that is the dichotomy that's being set here at the beginning of Esther chapter six, verses one through nine.

Again, God has intervened. He has brought Mordecai to mind for the king. He wants to honor him. Haman in his wicked pride, in his wicked schemes has come to destroy

Mordecai. And before he can even attempt to do that, God has put a word on the king's mouth.

What should I do for the man that I want to honor? And now Haman in his pride is going to, in a sense, put his own foot in his mouth.

He is going to elevate his enemy. He is going to be the one who elevates him, who gives him glories as unto the king.

And this is, again, the picture, the point of the book of Esther at this part of chapter six, pointing us to the

Christian life as one of humility. That is what Christ has done. He has humbled himself. He was destroyed by the word of Satan.

He was even put to death on a cross for us. And what was that? That was the elevation of him unto glory.

Just as Satan thought his plan, his scheme was going to destroy Mordecai here in Esther chapter six, so it was with the cross of Jesus Christ.

He thought he was going to destroy him. And instead, it elevated him unto a glory that otherwise was not attained.

The mercies and the riches of the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ was demonstrated in what he did for his people.

And it was all that every tongue should confess that he is Lord to the glory of God, the Father. So as we close, again, we want to be a people who trust in the providences of God here, right?

God is, he doesn't have to be loud in order for us to trust him. He doesn't have to be working a constant miracle in order for us to believe that he is at work, right?

We can trust him even in those small turns and trust that we may not see it. We're making our plans.

We think that this is the right thing to do. Like Esther, we think we're doing the right thing, but we're trusting God to do the work in the places that we're not there yet, right?

Just like we prayed earlier. We trust that God is preparing the hearts of those that we intend even to minister to.

And so we are trusting in his providence, his intervention, his care, his governance over all nights, minutes, paperwork, everything.

We want to be a people who, you know, if we find ourselves in seasons of restlessness that, again, cling to him, trust in him, trust in the person that is providence, right?

Trust in Christ, not be a people who get caught up in our sleeplessness. Don't be naive to evil schemes.

Don't be terrified of it either, right? Don't think it's nothing. Don't think it's everything.

It's not ultimate. The Lord laughs not because evil is harmless, but because it's doomed, right? He has spoken.

It will be destroyed. And then again, let's not be like Haman, right?

Don't be like Haman. Don't be ruled by your pride, governed by your pride. Be governed by a desire to honor those around you in the spirit of Christ.

Again, the Lord governs the sleeplessness of kings, and he is the one who governs our story, the king of kings.

The Lord who can bring the right sentence off the right page at the right time can also bring mercy to each of us when we need it, to our households, to our society, to our culture here in Massachusetts.

He can bring repentance to the hearts of men and steadfastness to each of us as we carry out our callings in each of our lives.