The Hidden Providence of God

If you have a Bible, go ahead and grab it. We’re going to attempt to get through two chapters tonight, Esther 4 and 5 but as long as we can get through chapter 4, I’ll be happy. As we have gone through the first three chapters, we have talked a lot about the hidden providence of God. To quote again from Matthew Henry from our time in Esther 1, “Though the name of God be not in the book of Esther, the finger of God is, directing many minute events for the bringing about of his people’s deliverance.” That’s an important reminder for us in our day. I know that we often look at our lives and wonder where God is in all of this but as we can see from the first few chapters of Esther and as we will see throughout the rest of this book, God is there and He is not and never will be truly silent. God really is in control of the world. There is nothing that happens outside of His providence and God never plans the end without planning the means by which to get there. To quote R.C. Sproul, there are no maverick molecules running loose and free from God’s sovereignty. What we all must understand is that this is our Father’s world and everything that He desires will come to pass. He is the only One with the power and authority to do that. We need to know that we are not sovereign, we need to know that we are not in control of everything, we need to know that the world does not revolve around us. Some of you may have never been told that before but you need to hear it. Believe it or not, you are not God’s perfect gift to mankind. God carefully orchestrates events in such a way where it should be evident to us that we need Him because we can’t find the solution on our own. Paul says in 2 Corinthians 4:6-7 “For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us.” Every salvation, be it a physical rescue from something, a physical healing from something, to every spiritual salvation in Christ alone comes from God. We cannot save ourselves and yet, God uses us to accomplish His will. Does God need us in order to accomplish what He desires? No, but He uses us so that we can see Him as God over all things. There are 5 things that I want us to look at tonight and I think we should be able to get through all of them but if not, we can finish up next week so here is where we are going tonight: 1. Pain and the Providence of God. 2. Excuses and the Providence of God. 3. Deliverance and the Providence of God. 4. Prayer and the Providence of God. 5. The Pieces of the Providence of God. Let’s pray and then we will read Esther 4

Esther 4 ESV

When Mordecai learned all that had been done, Mordecai tore his clothes and put on sackcloth and ashes, and went out into the midst of the city, and he cried out with a loud and bitter cry. He went up to the entrance of the king’s gate, for no one was allowed to enter the king’s gate clothed in sackcloth. And in every province, wherever the king’s command and his decree reached, there was great mourning among the Jews, with fasting and weeping and lamenting, and many of them lay in sackcloth and ashes. When Esther’s young women and her eunuchs came and told her, the queen was deeply distressed. She sent garments to clothe Mordecai, so that he might take off his sackcloth, but he would not accept them. Then Esther called for Hathach, one of the king’s eunuchs, who had been appointed to attend her, and ordered him to go to Mordecai to learn what this was and why it was. Hathach went out to Mordecai in the open square of the city in front of the king’s gate, and Mordecai told him all that had happened to him, and the exact sum of money that Haman had promised to pay into the king’s treasuries for the destruction of the Jews. Mordecai also gave him a copy of the written decree issued in Susa for their destruction, that he might show it to Esther and explain it to her and command her to go to the king to beg his favor and plead with him on behalf of her people. And Hathach went and told Esther what Mordecai had said. Then Esther spoke to Hathach and commanded him to go to Mordecai and say, “All the king’s servants and the people of the king’s provinces know that if any man or woman goes to the king inside the inner court without being called, there is but one law—to be put to death, except the one to whom the king holds out the golden scepter so that he may live. But as for me, I have not been called to come in to the king these thirty days.” And they told Mordecai what Esther had said. Then Mordecai told them to reply to Esther, “Do not think to yourself that in the king’s palace you will escape any more than all the other Jews. For if you keep silent at this time, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father’s house will perish. And who knows whether you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this?” Then Esther told them to reply to Mordecai, “Go, gather all the Jews to be found in Susa, and hold a fast on my behalf, and do not eat or drink for three days, night or day. I and my young women will also fast as you do. Then I will go to the king, though it is against the law, and if I perish, I perish.” Mordecai then went away and did everything as Esther had ordered him.

Pain and the Providence of God

The first thing that I want us to look at is pain and the providence of God. If you look at this chapter, you see a lot of pain, you see a lot of heartache, you see a lot of weeping, and you see a lot of confusion. Mordecai, the Jews, Esther, everyone is in this state of confusion and in this state of pain. In ways, we have all been there haven’t we? We hear news of something and our heart breaks. We hear of a loved one that has passed away, we hear about a tragedy in the news or in our community, and we weep, we cry, we question. Why? Because we’re human. Hurt people feel hurt and when these things come into our lives, we wonder where God is and why this is happening don’t we? We can know that God holds all things in His hands, that He is in control of all things, and we still have moments of tremendous pain. Why is that? Why is it that Mordecai can know about the providence of God, know of His great strength and wisdom, know that he belongs to the people of God, but he still weeps? He’s human! He sees total human perspective of total annihilation and he’s scared, he’s destroyed on the inside, and he has questions. I’m sure he asked why this was happening and why God would allow it. Haven’t we done this before? Haven’t we questioned God’s sovereignty as we have gone through these moments of pain and heartache? “God why would you take this person from me, why would you let this happen, why, why, why?” I know I’ve been there. I know there have been moments of great hurt in my life where I have wept and I have cried out to God, “God you promised! You promised that if I sought you I would find you, if I knocked you would open the door, and you haven’t done that!” I understand that for many of us, the light and momentary afflictions that we go through don’t feel so light and momentary. Let me first say that the presence of pain and the presence of trials do not overrule the sovereignty of God. The pain in our lives is not void of providence and as Christians, we know that even pain will serve a greater purpose. We also need to know that our viewpoint is limited to that which we know and is directly before us. If we saw things as God saw them, if we knew what God knew, we wouldn’t question the things that come. In fact, we would thank God that they came as they did! We also know that we aren’t the only ones in history that have cried out in desperation to God. Scripture is full of prayers that look on the surface seem pretty dark. Look at David, look at Job, Jeremiah, Habakkuk, look at the psalmists, they all have moments of hurt and doubt and they let God know about it. Yet who knew providence better than David? Who knew it better than the prophets? But they still experienced pain and doubt and they let God know about it and we have it in sacred Scripture. Remember what Derek Kidner said about these prayers and shouts of pain and confusion that are included in Scripture: “The very presence of such prayers in Scripture is a witness to God’s understanding. He knows how men speak when they are desperate.” The third thing is this, God is not indifferent towards our pain. How do we know this? We know it because of Jesus. We know that if God did not care for our pain, He would not have suffered pain. He had no reason to! I’ve shared this a few times in the past but we know that Jesus relates to us in our pain because we see this perhaps most clearly in the raising of Lazarus. John 11, Jesus arrives to the tomb of Lazarus and what does He do? He weeps! He knows what He is about to do, He knows that Lazarus is only a moment away from being alive but He weeps. Why does He do it? Because He’s perfect. It’s because He is so connected to us in love that where we hurt, He hurts. He knows that to raise Lazarus up, He will soon lay His own life down. Jesus knows what it is to hurt because He knows what it is like to be human and if He is willing to weep, we can as well. We don’t always know where God is taking us but we can often see where He took us when we get to that moment that He is bringing us to. Mordecai would be able to do this, Esther would be able to do this, the Jews would be able to do that but that doesn’t happen right away.

Excuses and the Providence of God

Next let’s look at our excuses and the providence of God. Notice that when the command from Mordecai to go to the king gets to Esther, the very first thing she does is make up an excuse. In her defense, it was a valid excuse. This practice of the king putting to death anyone that wasn’t called to him was typical of Persian culture, especially Ahasuerus because he was worried about assassination attempts. Ironically, he would be assassinated later in life. Esther is the only person who is in the position to negotiate with the king, if anyone is going to reach his heart it would be her. She is in the perfect position to do something but she tries to get around it because there is a danger to it. She makes excuses to not do what needs to be done. Instead of trusting the Lord to move, she immediately goes to making excuses, valid as they may be. Mordecai goes on to say to her, “Don’t think that just because you are in the king’s palace that you will escape any more than all the other Jews. Eventually, who you are will come to light.” We can rationalize our way out of doing anything. We don’t need other people to talk us out of doing the right thing because we typically do it ourselves or we look for reassurance from other people that we are doing the right thing. Here’s the moral of the story so to speak: you can make excuse after excuse but that is not a reason for inaction. You can justify yourself all day long that by not doing the right thing that you are actually doing the right thing, but that does not make it the right thing. When God places you somewhere, you need to just go and trust the Lord with the results. If God has called you to something, if you are in a position to do something for Him, there is no point in rationalizing to Him why you are or are not the best person for the job. You don’t see God looking at the qualifications and complaints of Moses and saying, “Ya know what, I’m gonna wait for the next shepherd to come along and lead this people.” No, God is always preparing the man for the moment and the moment for the man. In God’s perfect providence, He chose Moses to do what no one else was to do. This is what He has done with Esther. He is preparing her for this moment. He knew the excuses and the reasons why she would object but as Mordecai would go on to say, Esther has been brought to this moment for this particular purpose. I’m willing to bet that God is doing something like this in your life too. You may not know what it is yet but whatever it is that God is planning for you, there is no one else in the world that has the exact same purpose as you because there is no one else just like you. Whatever it is that God in His providence has in store for you, He has it in store for you specifically and He is preparing you for that moment.

Deliverance and the Providence of God

The third thing we need to talk about is deliverance and the providence of God. Mordecai makes a very important statement in verse 14. He says to Esther, “For if you keep silent at this time, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another place.” I wish that we could spend more time on this but I want to ask you, how did Mordecai know this? How was he able to say confidently, “Esther, if you don’t save the Jews, someone else will”? This is the closest we get to a real theological statement it seems like in the entire book of Esther. Is Mordecai just playing the guilt card? Does he think that if he says this that Esther will feel the pressure to respond? Is He just having a case of wishful thinking? Can he see into the future? No, Mordecai doesn’t have a hidden revelation from God that if Esther doesn’t do it that God or someone else will. No, what Mordecai had was the same thing that you and I have, he had the promises and the covenant of God. You see Mordecai knew that God made a promise to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob that the Jewish people would be more numerous than the stars in the sky and the entire world would be blessed by them. How could this happen if the Jews were annihilated? Deep down, Mordecai knew that God would keep His promise in some way. How do we as Christians relate to this? Because we know the promises of God. We know that providence leads the faithful to Heaven. We know that those for whom Christ has saved, He has saved to the uttermost. Paul says in Philippians 1:6, “And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.” Steve Lawson said, “As a believer in Christ, you are as certain of heaven as though you have already been there ten thousand years. God finishes what he starts.” As Christians, we know that our Deliverer is coming. We may not know when but we do know that it is sure.

Prayer and the Providence of God

One last thing that I want to mention with Esther 4 is the existence of prayer that may be seen in this chapter. We see Esther call for a fast to be held in Susa and the reason that people fast is typically done in order to appeal to God and to trust in Him more. Prayer is usually associated with fasting so I think that we can assume that the Jews would pray during this 3 day fast that Esther calls for. Now the question that I want to quickly try to answer is why pray if God in His providence will do what He wills anyway? Why appeal to God at all? First off, it is because God has called us to Himself. He has commanded us to be in fellowship with Him and we do that by communicating with Him through prayer. Yes, God’s plan will not be thwarted, but we are still called to call out to Him. R.C. Sproul gives us a quick answer: “When God sovereignly declares that He is going to do something, all of the prayers in the world aren’t going to change God’s mind. But God not only ordains ends, He also ordains means to those ends. Part of the process that He uses to bring His sovereign will to pass are the prayers of His changed people. And so we are to pray that circumstances might change, that we might change, but never that our sovereign God might change.” In a way, it is a mystery but it is a mystery with good intentions. God answers every prayer in the exact way that we would want Him to answer if we knew everything that He knew. (If good on time, mention G. Campbell Morgan story on prayer. Should I pray for the little things or just big things. “Madam, can you think of anything in your life that is big to God?”)

The Pieces of the Providence of God

We are running low on time so I want to just summarize what happens in Esther 5. In Esther 5, Esther goes to the king after the 3 day fast is over and she wins the favor of the king and she approaches him and the king asks, “What is it? What’s your request? Whatever it is, it shall be given to you even up to half of my kingdom.” Esther then says, “Let the king and Haman come today to a feast that I have prepared for the king.” So, the king and Haman go to this feast that Esther prepares but the king can tell that there is more to it than just a dinner date so he asks her again what her request is and he attaches the same guarantee of fulfilling whatever she asks for. She asks again that the king and Haman would come to another feast the next day and then at that feast she will present her true request to the king. We’ll read Esther 5:9-14

Esther 5:9–14 ESV

And Haman went out that day joyful and glad of heart. But when Haman saw Mordecai in the king’s gate, that he neither rose nor trembled before him, he was filled with wrath against Mordecai. Nevertheless, Haman restrained himself and went home, and he sent and brought his friends and his wife Zeresh. And Haman recounted to them the splendor of his riches, the number of his sons, all the promotions with which the king had honored him, and how he had advanced him above the officials and the servants of the king. Then Haman said, “Even Queen Esther let no one but me come with the king to the feast she prepared. And tomorrow also I am invited by her together with the king. Yet all this is worth nothing to me, so long as I see Mordecai the Jew sitting at the king’s gate.” Then his wife Zeresh and all his friends said to him, “Let a gallows fifty cubits high be made, and in the morning tell the king to have Mordecai hanged upon it. Then go joyfully with the king to the feast.” This idea pleased Haman, and he had the gallows made.

Haman leaves joyfully but the moment he sees Mordecai, he is overcome with rage. Haman recounts all the great things that he has but none of these things are worth anything as long as Mordecai continues to live. Providentially, Haman’s wife calls for gallows fifty cubits high to be made and the next morning to go to the king to have Mordecai hung on the gallows. After that, he can cheerfully go to the feast because Mordecai will be gone. But what we are going to see next week is that the puzzle pieces of God’s providence are being carefully and perfectly lined up and everything is proceeding in a way that only a sovereign God could intent. Eric Ortlund writes, “Behind all these events, the wheels of God’s providence are in motion, but they are moving slowly. So we too, as we take risks to work in the world on behalf of God’s people, especially when they are in danger for their lives, may have to wait as our situations perhaps worsen. But God’s providential deliverance- in whatever form it takes- is not hindered.” Next week we will see how God’s providence always orchestrates events at just the right moment. Let’s go to the Lord in prayer.