Wednesday Evening Services 7 PM - A New Queen ~ Esther 1-2 ~ Pastor Ryan Nichols

You would open up in your Bibles to the book of Esther, chapter 1. Esther, chapter 1. Oh, that is a good picture. My video person, everybody, she does a really good job. So Esther's a fascinating book of the Bible. Growing up in the church, there's two books that are always consigned to the girls, right? The books of Ruth and Esther, those are girl books. And it's interesting as you study Esther that, man, there's a lot of really neat stuff in Esther.

And she, while is the main character, there's an incredible amount of drama that surrounds this thing. And it's really a fantastic story of God's providence. So we start off in chapter 1, the book of Esther, and it says this. Now, it took place in the days of Ahasuerus. The Ahasuerus who reigned from India to Ethiopia over 127 provinces. In those days, this King Ahasuerus sat in his royal throne, which was at the citadel in Susa.

So we're giving a little bit of historical background. I think it's important that we paint the picture of where we are in history, not only biblical history, but also secular history as well, because this fits into some very interesting parts of secular history as well. So we're given the name of this king. His name is Ahasuerus. Now, Ahasuerus, as we know him from our history classes, in the Greek is referred to as Xerxes.

And this King Xerxes was the son of Darius, who also was the son of Cyrus, king of Persia. So Ahasuerus, or Xerxes if you will, is reigning over what was historically, up to that point in time, one of the largest kingdoms that the world had ever seen. And he goes into detail about the 127 provinces from India to Ethiopia that he ruled over. The events of the book of Esther actually fit perfectly into the middle of the book of Ezra.

The first six chapters of the book of Ezra are when Cyrus had made the decree for the children of Israel to go back and to rebuild the temple. And so the first guy to lead the children of Israel back to rebuild the temple was a guy by the name of Zerubbabel. Well, starting in chapter 7 of the book of Ezra, Ezra the scribe leads a group of people back as well. Well, between those two chapters, between chapters 6 and 7 of the book of Ezra, fits the story of Esther the queen.

And so historically, that's kind of where things fit in there. And just by way of a little bit of background, we don't know who the author of Esther was. There's been several conjectures that have been made. But ultimately, we don't know who the author of the book of Esther was. And honestly, Esther's a little bit of a controversial book as far as its inclusion in the canon.

Because it's one of the only books in the Old Testament that does not mention God by name one time. And it's kind of interesting because there's this entire book, this great story. As a matter of fact, there's going to be a feast that the children of Israel celebrate after this called the Feast of Purim that comes out of this book. But God is not mentioned one time in this entire book.

If you will, it's almost like God is silent in this time. And yet what we'll find, and I'll try to point this out multiple times as we go through the book of Esther, is that while God is not mentioned, He is very much at work. While it seems as though God is silent, He in the background is at work in all of the things that are going on. And I'll make a point of this again towards the end, but isn't that oftentimes the way that God works in our lives?

Sometimes you can think, man, God feels so silent right now. Like I'm not getting the emotional devotionals. I'm not getting all of this grand statements from God all the time. It's like there's just this sort of quiet, this sort of calm. And yet what we have to realize is sometimes when God seems the most silent, He actually is doing the most providential work in our lives.

We just don't always see it until later. And so this King Ahasuerus, who is a great king over a great kingdom,

When the days were completed, the king gave a banquet lasting seven days for all the people who were present at the citadel in Susa from the greatest to the least in the court of the garden of the king's palace. There were hangings of fine white linen, violet linen held by cords of fine purple linen on silver rings and marble columns and couches of gold and silver on a mosaic pavement of porphyry and marble, mother of pearl and precious stones. Drinks were served in golden vessels of various kinds. Royal wine was plentiful according to the king's bounty and the drinking was done according to the law. There was no compulsion.

For so the king had given orders to each official of his household that he should do according to the desire of each person. Queen Vashti also gave a banquet for the women in the palace, which belonged to King Ahasuerus. Now in this bank of scriptures, we find out that there's three different feasts that are mentioned here. And you'll notice the first one, that he invites all of the military leaders and all of the nobles and all of anybody who's important and he brings them to the citadel, which is in Susa or Shushan, some of your translations may say.

And it takes place, anybody take note of how long this feast lasted? 180 days, six months of feasting. That is an intense feast, right? I mean, that's a long time to be out there with all your buddies. And probably what happens, he brought them in in waves. But there was a purpose behind this feast, really a two-fold purpose. The first purpose was really pride on the part of Ahasuerus.

He wanted to be able to show off all the things that he had and all of his great wealth and power and all these kinds of things. So pride was a really big part of it. We're going to find that's a little bit of an issue for him. But the other part of it is that he was really bolstering morale because Ahasuerus had a dream. And the dream that he had was to take over the Greek empire.

He wanted to go up to Greece and go into more of Europe and take over more of that area. As a matter of fact, he was preparing his men to go into battle against the Greek armies, particularly Athens and Sparta. And so he holds this large feast so that he can kind of bolster morale, get everybody excited about it. That's the first feast that we read about. But now it's getting closer to time, and now there's this seven-day feast that he holds.

And in this seven-day feast, it is quite the thing. All the decorations are out. All of the best stuff is out there. And you may have taken note of something, that there was a lot of drinking going on, but the drinking was not by compulsion. In other words, you weren't forced to do it, but you could have as much as you wanted. You could drink as much. We're going to find that that's going to be a little bit of a problem in just a minute.

And so everybody is feasting and drinking and having a great time. Meanwhile, Vashti, his wife, the queen at that point in time, she holds a feast for the women. Now this is not odd. In the culture of that day, they would have feasted in two separate areas. So all of this is going on. And while all of this is going on, I want you to notice what it says in verse 10.

For she was beautiful. But Vashti refused to come at the king's command, delivered by the eunuchs. And the king became very angry, and his wrath burned within him. So everybody is having a great time. And he is really wanting to put everything on display. Well, there's only one thing he hadn't put on display before, all of the great men that he had. And that was his really beautiful queen.

It was his really beautiful wife. And so you can imagine, since he's married with wine, we'll say he's a little tipsy at this point in time. And he sends all of his men, he sends the eunuchs, the ones who are in charge of the royal harem. He says, go get Vashti and tell her to display herself for everyone. Now it's interesting the conjecture that goes back and forth on this.

So one commentary that I read said clearly he wanted her to do something very immoral at this point in time and display herself in some sort of an immoral sort of way. And because her morals were strong, she would not allow this to happen. I kid you not, the very next commentary that I read said clearly he was not trying to do anything immoral in what he was doing. He just wanted to display how amazing his wife was.

Listen, I don't know which one it was because it doesn't really say which one it was. All I do know is she said no, and that's a problem, right? Because what happens when she said no, I'm going to read this to you again. But Queen Vashti refused to come at the king's command delivered by the eunuchs. Then the king became very angry and his wrath burned within him.

make one statement that I think is really important, perhaps a little bit of personal application we can draw out of this first little section here. We should be aware of two things in our lives and the culture that we live in today, alcohol and anger. And can we be honest and say that when those two get mixed together, things go really, really bad? And can I just be honest and say, some people, when they get really liquored up, they're the nicest people you'll ever be around in your entire life, but it's still not genuine.

And some people, when they get liquored up, are the meanest people you have ever been around in your entire life, why? Because alcohol removes your inhibitions. Alcohol takes the wall down inside of you that would normally be held up by your desire to impress the people that are around you, which is why we are told in Proverbs that wine is a mocker and strong drink is a brawler. Listen, I know what I'm about to say is an incredibly unpopular thing in the church culture today because it seems like in the church culture today, the most popular thing to say is, listen, you got freedom, go drink.

I'm here to tell you right now, be careful with your freedom because I have watched people proclaim their freedom while living in sin. I've watched people proclaim that freedom and then live in abject sin. And then they're in my office talking to me because they now have a problem in their life that they have to overcome. And that's just the reality of what we deal with in our culture today.

We just need to know that. It's the very in vogue thing. Matter of fact, I remember I was at a youth pastors conference quite some time back now and one particular youth pastor who, I don't even remember his name right now, but he was really big. He was interviewed by Christianity Today. And one of the things that he was asked is what his favorite beer was and he told them.

And a lot of youth pastors are going, listen, if you got that freedom, that's one thing, but that's gonna stumble somebody because you just had a 17 year old kid read an article about you and what you just told him was that, hey, that's not really that big of a deal. When potentially for him, it could be. And so we have to be careful the way that we handle things like that and make sure that the person that we stumble is not us. But the second thing that I can tell you is, you know what's every bit as dangerous as alcohol?

Anger. Anger gets really, really dangerous in our lives. As a matter of fact, the Proverbs says, a fool gives vent to his anger. And it's such a dangerous thing for us because we can often justify ourselves. Well, that just really ticked me off, right? I'm gonna tell on myself here for just a real quick minute. Okay, so there I was. It was right before, right before I came to church tonight.

Okay, so I'm gonna tell you this story. This is very fresh, not even a couple of hours old. So I'm in my truck and I'm backing out of the driveway and my wife calls me and she says, Ryan, the toilet is overflowing and it's, I've got a bad handle on a toilet. I gotta replace it. But I'm trying to tell everybody in the house, lift the handle when you're done.

And somebody didn't lift the handle when they were done. And so overflowing, I'm running late and now I've gotta get to vacuum out. We gotta, and I was angry. And I let anger rule me for a few minutes. As a matter of fact, as it was like, I was just in the heat of my anger. He got everything swept up and kind of dealt with and I'm getting ready to turn onto Summit Street.

And this guy decides to try to then change lanes on top of me while I'm turning onto Summit Street. I'm not making this up. This is actually my life right now. And so this guy tries to change lanes on top of me and I'm like, well, what are we doing, man? Like I'm in the middle of my turn. You can't get in my lane while I'm turning. And then, so I get over in the right lane after I get in

and I get about halfway there and my wife calls me. She's got more questions for me. And I'm like, man, somebody is like, just riding in my window. You ever been in that situation? Somebody's riding in your window. And I look over and this gentleman is telling me that I'm number one. That's what he's telling me. Now, he was only using one particular finger to tell me that I was number one.

I think his pointer finger was broken, I think was the problem. And so he was telling me, hey, you're number one. And I just looked at him and I thought, that's what anger does to us. And that was what anger was doing to me. That guy's a fool. And I just had to repent of my anger in that moment and I just kept rolling. I didn't even give him a thumbs up. Can we just for a moment say, yay!

Because I'm here to tell you right now, I wanted to run the dude off the road for a minute. Because that's what anger does to us, right? And I want you to notice what anger does to the king. It says, then the king said to the wise men who understood the times. That doesn't mean that they had discernment about end times things. That means that they told time through the stars.

Men who understood the times for it was the custom of the king to speak before all who knew the law and justice and were close to him. All those guys who had access to the king's presence and sat in the first place in the kingdom. According to the law, what is to be done with Queen Vashti? Because she did not obey the command of King Ahasuerus delivered by the eunuchs.

In the presence of the king and the princes, Memucan said, Queen Vashti has wronged not only the king, but also all the princes and all the people who are in all the provinces of King Ahasuerus. This feels aggressive to me. But anyway, the queen's conduct will become known to all the women, causing them to look with contempt on their husbands by saying, King Ahasuerus has commanded Queen Vashti to be brought to his presence, but she did not. This day, the ladies of Persia in media who have heard of the queen's conduct will speak in the same way to all the king's princes.

And there will be plenty of contempt and anger. If it pleases the king, let a royal edict be issued. Let it be written in the laws of Persia in media so that it cannot be repealed, that Vashti may no longer come into the presence of the king and let the king give her royal position to another who is more worthy than she. This feels aggressive at this point in time.

Can we all just agree with that? Like, I don't think that this is all of a sudden going to change law throughout the whole land. I don't think every woman's gonna be reading this on Twitter later and be like, oh my gosh, I can't believe what she did. That's it, I'm never listening to my husband again. And I'm actually gonna flip him off every time I say, I don't think that was probably what was gonna happen.

But they are reacting to his anger, which is exactly what takes place. And I tell this to us as dads especially, our families will react based on the anger that we show. If we can be peaceful in moments like I was just sharing with you, then our family will be peaceful. And again, I'm still learning and growing, right? But if we get angry in those moments, it changes the tone of everyone around us.

Have you ever noticed that? And everybody went, oh my gosh, the king is angry. We should be angry too. We should react in a really brash sort of a way. It says in verse 20, when the king's edict, which he will make heard is known throughout all the kingdom, great as it is, then all women will give honor to their husbands, great and small. And this word pleased the king and the princes

and the king did as Mimi Ken proposed. So he sent letters to all the king's provinces to each province according to its script and every people according to their language that every man should be the master in his own house and the one who speaks in the language of his own people. And so all of a sudden, the queen is just gone. He dumped the queen. She's no longer the queen anymore.

And all because she made him angry. We come to chapter two and it says this. After these things, what we have to realize is that between chapters one and chapter two of the book of Esther, an incredible amount of time elapses. As a matter of fact, four years elapses between chapter one and chapter two, which is why it says after these things, we should probably take just a moment and talk about what happened between chapter one and chapter two, because historically speaking, a lot happened, but it also is gonna explain a little bit of King Ahasuerus in chapter two.

So in between chapters one and chapter two, remember, why was he holding this great feast? Because he was bolstering morale because they were going to go and attack the Greeks. And so Xerxes goes and he attacks the Greeks, right? So the first battle, the battle of Thermopylae, he wins against 300 Spartans, right? We all know a little bit about this battle. The only problem was that the battle

that he ultimately won against the 300 Spartans actually garnered a great deal of nationalistic pride amongst the Greeks and sort of gave them a rallying point. So more battles were fought, but in every battle, the victory was a little bit less until it came to this naval battle of Salamis. So that the battle of Salamis, he gets defeated and he has to tuck his tail and he has to run home. And so in those four years, there's a lot that takes place on the world stage, but a lot that took place on the world stage was actually really bad for Xerxes.

It was actually really bad for Ahasuerus. And so he sort of comes home in this defeated sort of a moment. And as he comes home in this defeated sort of a moment, he comes back and the most beautiful woman in the world isn't there to greet him any longer because in a fit of anger, he disposed of her, right? In a fit of anger, he says, I don't want her to be around any longer.

And all of a sudden he comes back and he's like, shoot, I lost my battle and I lost my queen. I'm a moron, right? After these things, when the anger of King Ahasuerus had subsided, he remembered Vashti and what she had done and what had been decreed against her. I wanna know what those conversations with him were like. Guys, should I call her? Don't call her, there's an edict.

You're not allowed to do that, but I miss her. I know you miss her, but you can't call her. The law actually says you can't call her, but she was so pretty. I know she was pretty, but you have made a law. You should have thought about it before you made the law. So he can't. He remembered what had been decreed against her. So then the king's attendants who served him said,

let beautiful young virgins be sought for the king. Let the king appoint overseers in all the provinces of his kingdom, that they may gather every beautiful young virgin to the citadel of Susa, to the harem and to the custody of Hegai, the king's eunuch who is in charge of the women and let their cosmetics be given them. Then let the young lady who pleases the king be queen in place of Vashti. And the matter pleased the king, and he did accordingly.

So he's all sad pants 9,000, right? Lost the battle, lost his girl. What's he gonna do now? And everybody's probably mildly concerned because when he gets angry, clearly bad things happen, right? And so like, well, let's see if we can make him happy. So somebody comes up with this plan. We're gonna have a giant bachelor show, right? Essentially what he did is this is the very first bachelor,

right? Like all of these women are gonna come present and he's gonna decide which one gets the rose at the end of it all being done, right? This is exactly how I picture this in my mind. And if somebody was really, really smart, they would make a parody of The Bachelor and have it be King Ahasuerus and it would all be all of these like Persian ladies that are all coming into the kingdom.

That's just how I think of it, my own brain. You do what you want to with it. But basically he has to decide which of them is gonna be his favorite. Now, again, there's two different interpretations of what exactly is gonna take place at this point in time. On one side, you have people going, well, this is just a giant beauty contest, right? There she is, Miss Sousa of the Citadel, right?

And there's gonna be judging, there's gonna be a bikini contest and there's gonna be, this is church, there's gonna be a one piece contest and all these different kinds of things and maybe a well thought of tankini, I don't know. But that's what I mean, talent show, the whole nine yards. That's one end of an interpretation of what this means. The other end, I'm not gonna go into because they're all part of his harem and basically whichever one pleased him the most was gonna be his wife.

I don't know which one it is. It's interesting, because Warren Wiersbe presented both of them. Either way, this is the situation. And this was not a voluntary situation. I think it's important. Somebody didn't get a flyer in the mail. Oh, look, the king is looking for the perfect wife. Maybe that could be me. No, he sent people into the provinces and they said, you're pretty, you come with me.

You're pretty, you come with me. They really didn't have a choice in the matter. That is pretty well agreed upon across the board. These women were not volunteering for this. They were voluntold for this. And so they're all gonna be displayed before the king and he's gonna choose whichever one pleases him the most. You may have noticed we've not mentioned the star of the show through so far

in the first chapter and a half. We'll meet her now. It says now, verse five, there was at the Citadel in Susa, a Jew whose name was Mordecai, the son of Jer, the son of Shimei, the son of Kish, a Benjamite, who had been taken into exile from Jerusalem with the captives who had been exiled with Jeconiah, king of Judah, whom Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, had exiled. And he was bringing up Hadassah, that is Esther, his uncle's daughter, for she had no father or mother.

The young lady was beautiful of form and face. And when her father and her mother died, Mordecai took her as his own daughter. Now, I've read the book of Esther an incredible number of times and it really struck me this little backstory that we're given about Mordecai and Esther in this moment. First of all, the pain that they probably grew up with. Mordecai, of course, was a Benjamite.

And if you know anything about the children of Benjamin is they were fighters, right? Like they're warriors. That's just kind of who they were. And so he's got this kind of fighting sort of a spirit in him, but he ends up being taken into exile. And while in exile, his brother's there and sister-in-law and they end up dying. And so somebody who's probably very, very close to

probably came into exile with they dying. And the person that they leave to him to take care of is Esther. And so as he is raising Esther, then I think about the way that she grew up, that she grew up with no mother and she grew up with no father. All she grew up with was Mordecai who probably did the best that he could. But quite frankly, we don't ever read of a Mrs. Mordecai.

And so probably never had kids of his own, perhaps no wife of his own. And he's just doing the best he can to raise this incredibly beautiful daughter, right? And so it really struck me the lives that they must've lived coming to this point in time. And then when you think it can't get any worse, now she is constrained to go be a part of this at best beauty contest, at worst something much more nefarious.

And she's forced into this situation. He's done the best that he can to raise her. He's done the best that he can to teach her right from wrong but quite frankly, he has taught her to take care of herself and he's taught her to conceal a certain number of things for her own protection. We're gonna find in just a moment that she never tells anybody that she is of Jewish descent.

And it's interesting who God has chosen to use in this moment. You have Mordecai who doesn't always own up to the fact that he's a Jew and did not go back to the land with the wave of people that went back to rebuild the temple. And so he got really comfortable there in Persia, really gotten comfortable in Babylon. And he's raising this daughter, this girl who now calls him a father and she doesn't really own her heritage either.

And yet God is gonna use these two in a very powerful way because what seems like tragic circumstances is going to actually lead to great salvation. So we know that she is beautiful of form and she is beautiful of face. It says in verse eight, so it came about when the command and the decree of the king were heard and many of the young ladies were gathered to the citadel of Susa into the custody of Hegai that Esther was taken to the king's palace into the custody of Hegai who was in charge of the women. And the young lady pleased him and found favor with him.

So he quickly provided her with cosmetics and food and gave her seven choice maids from the king's palace. And he transferred her and her maids to the best place in the harem. So this one guy is kind of in charge of everything. I don't remember what his name was in the movie, but it makes me think of the movie. Oh gosh, I just lost the name of it.

Not to kill a mockingbird. It reminds me of the guy that is put in charge of the girls in the game where they all have to try to survive to kill all the other people and try to survive. Somebody's gonna shout the movie name out here in just a moment. But he's this guy who's in charge of all of them. He sees Esther and he says, oh my gosh, you're perfect. I want to take care of you.

I wanna give you everything that you need. And so he sort of takes her under his wing and gives her everything that she needs because God's providential hand was upon her. God's providential hand was over this whole thing. Remember we said, God is not mentioned, but we see his providence at work through the whole thing. We see his providence at work as all of these things

are taking place. And so Esther's given everything that she needs. And it says, and Esther did not make known her people or her kindred, for Mordecai had instructed her that she should not make them known. And every day Mordecai walked back and forth in front of the court of the harem to learn how Esther was and how she fared. When the turn of each young lady came to go

into King Ahasuerus, after the end of 12 months under the regulations for the women, for the days of their beautification were completed as possible. Six months with oil of myrrh and six months with spices and the cosmetics for women. The young lady would go into the king in this way. Anything that she desired was given to her with her from the harem to the king's palace.

All right, ladies, I wanna ask you a question. Can you imagine having one solid year of nothing but a spa treatment? Just bathed in spices and myrrh and aloes and all the things. One commentary pointed out probably why they did this is because they lived in a very hot climate. And in order to not smell like they lived in a hot climate, they did everything that they could to try to change

the smell of anybody that was there. So after 12 months, they would go in with anything that they needed. They would go into the king's palace. And in the evening, she would go in. And in the morning, she would return to the harem, to the custody of Shashgaz, the king's eunuch who was in charge of the concubines. And she would not again go into the king unless the king delighted in her.

And she was summoned by name. Can you imagine the world that these girls were living in at this point in time? It says now, when the turn of Esther, the daughter of Abahel, the uncle of Mordecai who had taken her as his daughter, came to go into the king, she did not request anything except what the king's eunuch who was in charge of the woman advised. And Esther found.

favor in the eyes of all who saw her. So Esther was taken to King Ahasuerus to his royal palace in the 10th month, which is the month of Tibet, in the seventh year of his reign." That's the most anticlimactic way we can say that she became the queen, right? Like she is the one who found favor in his eyes. She is the one who is gonna be brought into his kingdom.

Now, it's important to take note of, she never told anyone that she was of Jewish descent because Mordecai told her to never tell anyone that she was of Jewish descent. It's interesting because she handles things the exact opposite of the way that Daniel handled things. Remember how Daniel handled things when he was in not the same situation, but a potential of being able to move up into a high place within the kingdom? Daniel said, I will not eat of the king's delicacies.

She didn't do that. He held strong to the law of his God. She didn't do that. He said, I am a Jew and I can't violate God's law. She didn't do that. God used Daniel in a very powerful way. And so you look at Esther and you go, so why is he gonna use Esther? She didn't do any of the things that Daniel did. And yet, why is God gonna use her in this powerful way?

Listen, because God uses people based on his grace. God uses people who are of great moral character and who do everything the way that they're supposed to do things. And then God also uses the rest of us. God also uses the people who have a past. God uses the people who have failures. God uses the people who have weaknesses. God uses the people who struggle to be bold in their faith

because God does not use us based on how good we are. God uses us based upon how good he is. And so he brings Esther and he puts her in this place. And I can only imagine how excited she had to have been, maybe, or maybe mildly concerned as well. Because remember, they all knew what happened to Vashti. You do one wrong thing and you're out. But she's brought into this place.

And you can imagine Mordecai going, oh, I'm so happy for her, and yet so stressed for her at the same time. Oy vey. And so we find that she lands herself in the exact right place, listen, by the providence of God. And she doesn't even realize why yet. It says, the king loved Esther, verse 17, more than all the women. She found favor and kindness with him, more than all the virgins.

So that he set the royal crown on her head and made her queen instead of Vashti. And the king gave a great banquet, Esther's banquet, for all his princes and servants. He also made a holiday for the provinces and gave gifts according to the king's bounty. The virgins were gathered together the second time. Mordecai was sitting at the king's gate. And Esther had not yet made known her kindred

or her people as Mordecai had commanded. For Esther did what Mordecai told her, as she had done when under his care. Well, there's one more little story that we'll read here in chapter two. It says this, in those days, while Mordecai was sitting at the king's gate, Big Than and Teresh, two of the king's officials, from those who guarded the door, became angry.

They sought to lay hands on King Ahasuerus. But the plot became known to Mordecai. He told Queen Esther, and Esther informed the king in Mordecai's name. And when the plot was investigated and found to be so, they were both hanged on a gallows. And it was written in the book of the Chronicles in the king's presence. So, while Mordecai's waiting at the gate one day,

because he's continuing to keep tabs on the girl that he'd been given responsibility for, and he took that responsibility serious, he just happened to overhear a conversation. He happened to find himself in the exact right place where he overheard a plot on the king's life. You can imagine his heart kind of pounding a little bit, and he's going, oh my gosh, I think they're talking about the king. This is gonna be really bad.

Esther was just made the queen, and this could end up landing on her too. And so, somehow, he summons Esther, and he gives her the information, and the entire plot is foiled, and they are hung on a gallows. Now, it's important to point out the fact that the word gallows does not speak of someone being hung by the neck. You may remember we said that crucifixion actually began with the Persians, only the Persians crucified, not like the Romans did.

The Romans sort of perfected it. Crucifixion for the Persians was being impaled on a stake. And so, that's what happens to these guys. They get impaled, and they get dealt with. And did you notice the little line that's given? And Mordecai was given a great reward by the king. No, that's not what it said. And it was written in the chronicles of the king in his presence.

In other words, Mordecai just saved the king's life, and nobody noticed. It was just written down in a book somewhere. And you know, Mordecai had to have been like, nothing, not even a cup of coffee out of that whole thing. Don't worry, God saw. But in this moment, it doesn't seem like God has done very much to reward him for his faithfulness to the king. So, I will point out to us again,

God may seem silent, but God is always at work. And see, in this moment, we see that God was at work in providing Esther with the exact right favor in the eyes of Hegai when she got into the king's palace. He just happened to take an interest in her. He just happened to like her a little bit better than everybody else, so he made sure she had everything that she needed and was as prepared as possible when she went to the king.

And it just happened that Esther was the favorite of the king. And it just happened that Esther landed herself in one of the most powerful positions in all of the kingdom. And we'll find that it just happens to be that that position is gonna end up saving her people. And it just happened to be that Mordecai was in the exact right place at the exact right time to overhear the plot against the king.

And it just so happened that he was related to Esther who could do something about it. And it just so happened that the king's life was spared through all of these things. It's interesting how sometimes it feels like we can't see God. Sometimes it feels like we can't hear God. And yet when we look back, we find that God was always at work. God was always at work at what was going on in their lives.

And we'll continue to see that throughout the rest of the book of Esther. Father, we come before you and I just thank you for the time that we've had together and the time that we have in your word. I thank you for this amazing story of your providence. And so Lord, continue to draw us near to you and continue to help us to rest in you. So Lord, move in our hearts as you see fit in Jesus' name.

Amen, be blessed.