When Evil Fails

Text: Esther 7:1–10

Introduction

In November 1945, some of the most powerful leaders of Nazi Germany were sitting in a courtroom at Nuremberg.

Only a few years earlier, these men had held tremendous power. They commanded armies, controlled governments, and participated in crimes that resulted in the suffering and deaths of millions.

For a time, they must have seemed untouchable.

But now they were sitting as defendants, and their own documents, orders, photographs, and records were being presented as evidence against them.

Robert Jackson, the chief American prosecutor, spoke of the remarkable fact that the victorious nations had chosen to “stay the hand of vengeance” and submit these men to judgment under law.

Men who once appeared untouchable were now answering for what they had done.

Evil can look incredibly powerful for a season.

It can even look like evil is winning.

But present power is not ultimate power.

This is what we have been seeing in the Book of Esther.

Looking back at the terrible decree sent out against the Jewish people, it appeared that evil had the upper hand.

Too often in life we think this, but as we see throughout Esther, the Lord is in control and evil will not prevail.

Looking back quickly before going forward, we see

Brief Review

Chapter 4 — Esther settled the question of obedience: “If I perish, I perish.”

Chapter 5 — Esther acted with strategic patience. Faith did not require her to act rashly.

Chapter 6 — While Esther waited, God was working. What appeared to be coincidence was actually providence.

Haman entered that night intending to have Mordecai killed.

He came out of it leading Mordecai through the streets and proclaiming his honor.

God was orchestrating.
Haman was plotting.
 But only one of them was actually in control.

Chapter 6 ends with Haman’s own wife and advisers warning him:

“If Mordecai, before whom you have begun to fall, is of the Jewish people, you will not overcome him but will surely fall before him.” — Esther 6:13

We saw that this was another move of God in this situation.

Ezra–Job Comment

This is the first crack in Haman’s plan against the Jews: how can a man so signally honored by the king be executed?

A Jewish man receiving such grand honor would surely stop the plans of Haman and maybe even backfire on him.

Before Haman even has time to process those words, the king’s eunuchs arrive and hurry him to Esther’s second banquet.

Now, in chapter 7, we see that he falls.

Everything that has been hidden is about to be exposed.

Esther Exposes the Plot

Esther 7:1–6 ESV

1 So the king and Haman went in to feast with Queen Esther. 2 And on the second day, as they were drinking wine after the feast, the king again said to Esther, “What is your wish, Queen Esther? It shall be granted you. And what is your request? Even to the half of my kingdom, it shall be fulfilled.” 3 Then Queen Esther answered, “If I have found favor in your sight, O king, and if it please the king, let my life be granted me for my wish, and my people for my request. 4 For we have been sold, I and my people, to be destroyed, to be killed, and to be annihilated. If we had been sold merely as slaves, men and women, I would have been silent, for our affliction is not to be compared with the loss to the king.” 5 Then King Ahasuerus said to Queen Esther, “Who is he, and where is he, who has dared to do this?” 6 And Esther said, “A foe and enemy! This wicked Haman!” Then Haman was terrified before the king and the queen.

Esther finally speaks

This is the moment she has been patiently preparing for.

She has prepared the ground for the right time.

She has waited and now it was time.

She has fasted.

She has risked her life.

She has waited through two full banquets.

Now the time has come to make her request.

The king used 2 words to ask for Esther’s desire, “What is your wish and what is your request.”

This allows Esther to bind her life tightly with the Jews and ask for her life and their lives.

Esther carefully presents her request

“If I have found favor in your sight, O king…”

Humility. Not brash demanding, but humility.

She asks for her life and the life of her people.

Begging for her life. Shock to the king.

Hyperbolic talk utilized. Sold into slavery would not have been an issue, but this sold into death was reason to bother the king.

Working the ego still. Not condemning or railing but working calmly within the situation to resolve the situation.

She does not begin by attacking Haman.

She first makes the king understand what is at stake.

She focused so intently on the fact that her life was at risk.

Remember the situation from where her queenship came about.

The king remembered the embarrassment and struggle.

He had more than the death of the queen at stake, but his own pride too.

She knew all this and worked that angle.

The king discovers the truth

Haman had presented the Jews as a distant and troublesome people in chapter 3.

Now Ahasuerus discovers something Haman never told him:

His own queen is one of them.

The king asks:

“Who is he, and where is he, who has dared to do this?”

And Esther finally exposes him:

“A foe and enemy! This wicked Haman!”

Significance

What Haman had hidden behind political language is finally brought into the light.

Evil often depends upon remaining hidden, but God has a way of bringing what is hidden into the light.

Haman Is Condemned

Esther 7:7–8 ESV

7 And the king arose in his wrath from the wine-drinking and went into the palace garden, but Haman stayed to beg for his life from Queen Esther, for he saw that harm was determined against him by the king. 8 And the king returned from the palace garden to the place where they were drinking wine, as Haman was falling on the couch where Esther was. And the king said, “Will he even assault the queen in my presence, in my own house?” As the word left the mouth of the king, they covered Haman’s face.

The king responds in wrath

The king leaves for the palace garden.

Haman immediately realizes what has happened.

“Haman stayed to beg for his life from Queen Esther…”

Look at the reversal

The man who wanted Mordecai dead is now begging Esther to keep him alive.

The powerful has become powerless.

The proud man who bragged about:

his riches,

his sons,

his promotions,

his position,

and his special invitation from Esther

now has nothing that can save him.

One final irony

Haman falls upon Esther’s couch pleading for mercy.

The king walks back in and sees him.

The situation becomes even worse for Haman.

Significance

Only hours earlier, Haman appeared untouchable.

Now he is helpless.

Never confuse someone’s present power with ultimate power.

Haman looked like he controlled everything.

He never did.

Haman Is Destroyed on His Own Gallows

Esther 7:9–10 ESV

9 Then Harbona, one of the eunuchs in attendance on the king, said, “Moreover, the gallows that Haman has prepared for Mordecai, whose word saved the king, is standing at Haman’s house, fifty cubits high.” And the king said, “Hang him on that.” 10 So they hanged Haman on the gallows that he had prepared for Mordecai. Then the wrath of the king abated.

Harbona points to the gallows

“Moreover, the gallows that Haman has prepared for Mordecai… is standing at Haman’s house.”

And the king gives a simple command:

“Hang him on that.”

The reversal is complete

Haman built the gallows.

Haman chose its height.

Haman intended it for Mordecai.

Haman planned to ask the king that very morning for permission to use it.

Instead, Haman dies on it himself.

This is the great irony we have been watching develop:

The evil Haman prepared for someone else became the instrument of his own destruction.

Biblical Connection — Psalm 7:15–16

Psalm 7:15–16 ESV

15 He makes a pit, digging it out, and falls into the hole that he has made. 16 His mischief returns upon his own head, and on his own skull his violence descends.

Haman becomes a living picture of that truth.

Theological Truth

God often turns evil back on itself.

Evil may scheme.

Evil may build.

Evil may appear to succeed for a season.

But evil never escapes the sovereign rule of God.

Sometimes, in His providence, God causes the very thing evil intended for His people to become the means of evil’s own destruction.

But there is another side to this truth that we need to understand before we leave this morning.

Louis Zamperini knew something about injustice.

During World War II, after surviving 47 days on a life raft in the Pacific, he was captured by the Japanese and became a prisoner of war. One of the guards who brutally tormented him was Mutsuhiro Watanabe, known as “the Bird.”

Zamperini survived the war, but he came home filled with hatred for the men who had abused him.

After coming to faith in Christ in 1949, however, something changed. Zamperini eventually returned to Japan and met with some of his former guards. Instead of seeking revenge, he offered forgiveness. Watanabe refused to meet with him, but Zamperini later wrote to him expressing forgiveness as well.

Zamperini had learned something important:

Leaving judgment with God frees us from spending our lives trying to carry it out ourselves.

And that matters when we read about Haman.

Because the lesson of Esther 7 is not, “Wait long enough and God will let you get even.”

The lesson is that God is Judge, and we are not.

Application

God sees injustice—and He will act.

That does not mean every wicked person will experience Haman’s fate tomorrow.

Sometimes God’s justice comes quickly.

Sometimes we wait.

Sometimes we may not see justice fully accomplished in this life.

But judgment belongs to God.

So:

You don’t have to become Haman to defeat Haman.

You don’t have to return evil for evil.

You don’t have to manipulate the outcome.

You don’t have to take vengeance into your own hands.

You can remain faithful because God sees what you see—and He sees what you don’t.

He sees the injustice.

He sees the plotting.

He sees what is done behind closed doors.

And He will ultimately judge rightly.

Closing Thought

Haman spent the entire story trying to control the outcome.

Esther learned to trust the God who already did.

God sees injustice.

God rules over evil.

And when evil finally falls, we discover that it was never outside His control to begin with.