Believers and unbelievers - what a contrast!

Text Esther 5 Time 19/01/14 Place Childs Hill Baptist Church

We are looking at the Book of Esther and this week we want to look at Chapter 5 where there is a little further development in the story but also a development in our understanding of the character of two of the main characters – first, Esther, our heroine, who takes her courage in her hands and approaches King Xerxes to make her request and is heard, and then, Haman, our villain, who Esther has invited to tea with her and the king and who totally misreads the situation.

Haman is an arch villain, we have said. He is typical of Satan himself and of those who follow Satan. There is a lot to learn from him negatively – how not to live. Esther, on the other hand, gives us an insight into some of the things that should characterise those who are truly followers of the Lord Jesus Christ. Let's look at the two in turn then and let's learn.

1. Consider Esther the believer and the qualities you should seek if you are one

We are told at the beginning of Chapter 5 that On the third day that is after the days of fasting and prayer that had gone on, seeking God for the success of Esther's mission, Esther put on her royal robes and stood in the inner court of the palace, in front of the king's hall. The king was sitting on his royal throne in the hall, facing the entrance. This is the throne room where Xerxes would sit to receive those he summoned or those who came seeking his favour. We are told that there were 36 pillars before it all 65 feet tall. As we have said, Esther knew that if she came to him unsought and he was not pleased then she would die. But if he held out his golden sceptre to her then she could be sure he would receive her with favour.

Imagine her walking up to the king then. What trepidation, what fears. What a relief it is to read in verse 2 that When he saw Queen Esther standing in the court, he was pleased with her and held out to her the gold sceptre that was in his hand. So Esther approached and touched the tip of the sceptre. What a relief! All was well. But then, how to make the most of this opportunity. When the king asked, What is it, Queen Esther? What is your request? Even up to half the kingdom, it will be given you Esther still had to tread carefully. A law had been passed in a land that prided itself on having unchanging laws. A law had been passed, sponsored by the highest individual in the land after the King himself, Haman.

And so she says (4) If it pleases the king, … let the king, together with Haman, come today to a banquet I have prepared for him. Verse 5 Bring Haman at once, the king said, so that we may do what Esther asks. The throne room was a very public place and Esther no doubt wanted some greater privacy before she raised her question.

So we read the king and Haman went to the banquet Esther had prepared. Verse 6 As they were drinking wine, the king again asked Esther, Now what is your petition? It will be given you. And what is your request? Even up to half the kingdom, it will be granted.

Again she has reached a critical point. Perhaps it is getting easier – perhaps not. 7, 8 Esther replied, My petition and my request is this: If the king regards me with favour and if it pleases the king to grant my petition and fulfil my request, let the king and Haman come tomorrow to the banquet I will prepare for them. Then I will answer the king's question. It all seems so slow but if she did not have the King's ear before she certainly did now. He wants to know what it is all about. He wants to know how he can help his queen. Meanwhile Haman is left all unsuspecting.

Now what we see here, I would suggest to you, are four characteristics that should mark every Christian, every true believer in Christ. We are unlikely to be in a position even remotely similar to the one Queen Esther found herself in but we can still learn from here the sort of character we need to live for God and for the good of his people in these days.

Several things stand out in Esther here. Let's say four things

1. If you are a believer seek a brave faith

How did Esther summon up the courage to go to the king, knowing that it may have cost her her life? Clearly it was an act of faith. She would only go backed up by people praying fasting, It was an act of faith on her part. Brave faith is something you need to go to God and become a Christian in the first place.

Do you know the first prayer of the former communist Richard Wurmbrand? He prayed “God, if perchance you exist, it is Your duty to reveal yourself to me.” Wurmbrand (who died in 2001) was born in 1909 in Bucharest, Romania, the youngest of four boys born into a Jewish family. They lived in Istanbul for a short time but when he was 9, his father died and six years later they returned to Romania. Romania was then very much a communist country and he was sent to study Marxism in Moscow. When he returned, he was already a Comintern Agent, that is a member of the Communist International Organisation bent on fighting to establish communism everywhere by any means. In 1936 he married Sabina and they went to live in an isolated village high in the mountains of Romania. But, as an atheist he had no peace and so he bravely cried out in faith: “God, if perchance you exist, it is Your duty to reveal yourself to me.” The next thing that happened was that he met a neighbour, a Christian carpenter who prayed for him and gave him a Bible and he and his wife were converted.

There is a certain bravery or courage about every first prayer, I guess. That spirit of brave faith must go on as we grow as Christians. We need to be unafraid and looking to the Lord do what ever it is that we ought to do.

One writer says

"Christian courage is the willingness to say and do the right thing regardless of the earthly cost, because God promises to help you and save you on account of Christ. An act takes courage if it will likely be painful. The pain may be physical, as in war and rescue operations. Or the pain may be mental as in confrontation and controversy."

Courage is indispensable for both spreading and preserving the truth of Christ. Jesus promised that spreading the gospel would meet resistance: "Then they will deliver you to tribulation, and will kill you, and you will be hated by all nations because of My name" (Matthew 24:9). And Paul warned that, even in the church, faithfulness to the truth would be embattled: "I know that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves men will arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after them" (Acts 20:29-30; see also 2 Timothy 4:3-4).

Therefore, true evangelism and true teaching will take courage. Running from resistance in evangelism or teaching dishonours Christ. There is a kind of cowardice that tells only the truths that are safe to tell. Martin Luther put it like this:

“If I profess with the loudest voice and clearest exposition every portion of the truth of God except precisely that little point which the world and the devil are at that moment attacking, I am not confessing Christ, however boldly I may be professing Christ. Where the battle rages, there the loyalty of the soldier is proved, and to be steady on all the battlefield besides is mere flight and disgrace if he flinches at that point.”

(Quoted in Parker T. Williamson, Standing Firm: Reclaiming Christian Faith in Times of Controversy [Springfield, PA: PLC Publications, 1996], p 5)

Pray for faith, pray for bold faith, courageous faith. Pray to make your stand where you really ought to make your stand.

2. If you are a believer seek a holy wisdom

I think the strategy Esther employed is most striking. She saw the need to work up to her request with subtlety and skill. She managed the whole thing very carefully and very well. Too often we lack such wisdom. We go rushing at things assuming all will be well. We need God given wisdom to know how to act in ways that truly honour God and that are most likely to bring results.

My father-in-law is preaching this week at what is called The Founders Conference in the USA. It is organised by members of the Southern Baptist Convention. Some years ago these people realised that the SBC was far from what it once was – a Calvinistic Baptist denomination. Rather than wringing their hands or leaving the group, they have worked faithfully and wisely to bring about reform and with some success.

3. If you are a believer seek a humble patience

Of course, by employing the strategy she did Esther needed to be patient. She knew that her approach would not solve the problem straight away. Gain, impatience can be a problem for us. We want everything straight away. Too often it is not like that and we simply need to learn to be patient. Are you patiently waiting on the Lord until he answers your prayers?

4. If you are a believer seek a selfless devotion

The other thing that stands out here is the selflessness of Esther. She knew that her approach to the king may well backfire. She was willing to do what she did, however, because she was not concerned only about herself but about those around her too.

Again we need to examine ourselves. Am I living for others? Am I willing to endanger my life an lose my comforts in order to bring blessing to others?

What a challenge!

2. Consider Haman the unbeliever and the qualities you should avoid whoever you are

The rest of the chapter focuses on Haman. We are told in verse 9 that he went out that day happy and in high spirits because he had been invited to tea with the king and queen, which he assumed must be a good thing for him. But when he saw Mordecai at the king's gate we are told and observed that he neither rose nor showed fear in his presence, no change there then he was filled with rage against Mordecai. Nevertheless, we are told Haman restrained himself and went home. He felt like attacking Mordecai there and then (obviously having no idea that this was the cousin of the woman who had just invited him to her banquet).

Back home he called together his friends and Zeresh, his wife, he boasted to them about his vast wealth, his many sons, and all the ways the king had honoured him and how he had elevated him above the other nobles and officials. Verse 12 And that's not all, Haman added. And here we see the irony that often appears in this book I'm the only person Queen Esther invited to accompany the king to the banquet she gave. And she has invited me along with the king tomorrow. If only he had known.

But he didn't and besides he was too pre-occupied with his hatred towards Haman. But all this gives me no satisfaction he says in verse 13 as long as I see that Jew Mordecai sitting at the king's gate. He had a plan to kill Haman along with the whole Jewish race, of course, but His wife Zeresh and all his friends said to him, Have a gallows built, seventy-five feet high, and ask the king in the morning to have Mordecai hanged on it. Then they say in the utter ignorance of the true situation go with the king to the dinner and be happy. This suggestion delighted Haman, of course and he had the gallows built. How far was he from imagining, as he watched the workmen build the gallows, that that was the very gallows on which he himself would one day die.

At the end of Chapter 1 of Charles Dickens masterful novel we read

“The marshes were just a long black horizontal line then, as I stopped to look after him; and the river was just another horizontal line, not nearly so broad nor yet so black; and the sky was just a row of long angry red lines and dense black lines intermixed. On the edge of the river I could faintly make out the only two black things in all the prospect that seemed to be standing upright; one of these was the beacon by which the sailors steered -- like an unhooped cask upon a pole -- an ugly thing when you were near it; the other agibbet, with some chains hanging to it which had once held a pirate. The man was limping on towards this latter, as if he were the pirate come to life, and come down, and going back to hook himself up again. It gave me a terrible turn when I thought so; and as I saw the cattle lifting their heads to gaze after him, I wondered whether they thought so too. I looked all round for the horrible young man, and could see no signs of him. But, now I was frightened again, and ran home without stopping.”

If you know the novel the sight of that gibbet is important as throughout the novel the them of hanging for murder is always in the background in one way or another. We can picture this gallows and think of it in a similar way.

1. Beware of an empty happiness

Haman is very happy in these scenes – happy to be sitting down to a banquet with Queen Esther, happy to boast to his family, happy with their suggestion of how to do away with Mordecai. Indeed, Mordecai is the only fly in the ointment, the only one who makes him sad. His emptiness, of course, was entirely empty. His invitation to Esther's banquet did not come about through anything good in him but because of the war on Mordecai's people he had declared. It all looked like it was going fine but the very opposite was the case. It reminds us of people today who are so happy with things in the life not realising how soon it will all be removed.

2. Beware of a hurt pride

Haman's undoing was his pride. If he could have simply overlooked Mordecai's failure to bow down to him all would have been well. But he cannot and so he has to suffer the consequences which is hurt pride bring about.

3. Beware of a self-centred boasting

In verse 11 we read how together with his friends and Zeresh, his wife, he boasted to them about his vast wealth, his many sons, and all the ways the king had honoured him and how he had elevated him above the other nobles and officials. What a self-centred man he was. Did he not see that any wealth he had was given by God? Did he not know that Sons are a heritage from the LORD, children a reward from him? And did he not know that the king had only honoured and given him the position he had because that was God's will? The biggest irony was in his statement And that's not all, ... I'm the only person Queen Esther invited to accompany the king to the banquet she gave. And she has invited me along with the king tomorrow.                   

4. Beware of hatching evil plans

Of course, the other warning is in his evil plan to try and have Mordecai killed. He has already shown his evil nature in planning to have the Jews put to death but here we see it again in his attitude to Mordecai when he is egged on by his family and friends. What wickedness can lie in the human heart, what evil plans we can devise. Thankfully many, like this one, do not transpire, but the very fact that they are in our hearts at all stand against us.

Here are things to repent from then – a false happiness that is not founded on Jesus Christ and what he has done, hurt pride and self-centred boasting, all evil plans. Where we are guilty of such sins let's repent and turn to the Lord seeking forgiveness.

Let's pray instead for brave faith, holy wisdom, humble patience and selfless devotion. These are the trait we see in Christ and in those who follow him. Pray that such traits will also be seen in us by his grace.