7And the king rose in his anger from the banquet of wine into the garden of the palace and Haman stood to seek upon his soul from Esther the queen because he saw that the bad from the king was finished on him. 8And the king returned from the garden of the palace to the house of the banquet of the wine and Haman [was] one falling on the couch which Esther [was] on, and the king said, “Will [he] also violate the queen with me in the house?” The word went out from the mouth of the king and the face of Haman was covered. 9And Harbona, one from the eunuchs to the face of the king, said, “Also, look! The gallows, which Haman made to Mordecai who spoke [intensely] good on the king, standing in the house of Haman fifty cubits high,” and the king said, “Hang him on it!” 10And they hung Haman on the gallows which he had caused to prepare to Mordecai and the anger of the king abated.
This passage is bursting with helpful instruction if we’ll just slow down and ponder on it. Clearly this is one of the Bible’s great days of triumph, right beside the drowning of Pharaoh and his army in the Red Sea or the slaying of Sennacherib’s 185,000 Assyrians. To those we could add the day Daniel was lifted alive out of the lions’ den while his accusers themselves became next on the menu. Of course, reigning above them all is the day Jesus got up out of the tomb! Add to all of those the Day of the Lord, when Jesus Himself will return and “a sharp sword will go forth out of His mouth, wherewith to slay the wicked.”
The Bible really is a book of triumph.
It needs to be. Here, contained in this story, is the seemingly cruel reality of our lives – that constant frightening awareness that we live in a world we cannot control, that dreadful realization it is a world too often controlled instead by wicked people whose goal it would seem is to destroy us and our families. How often do we all feel that “everything is against us”?
Here were Esther and Mordecai, a man and his daughter who loved each other and were trying to live humble lives. The Jewish people all throughout Persia were just a quiet people living their lives and treasuring their families, when all of a sudden Haman’s horrific decree was announced. Suddenly there was a date on the calendar when they would all be brutally murdered.
Our threats may not be that bad, but they are threats nevertheless. Herein is precisely the reason we all cling to verses like Rom. 8:28, “All things work together for good to them that love God,” and Jer. 29:11, “I know the plans I have for you, plans to do you good and not to harm you, plans to give you a future and a hope.” We desperately need the hope that we have a God who actually reigns over it all. We need the hope that there is a Power greater than the evil, a power that, at any time, can overrule the wicked, and who in fact has promised to make it all turn out well in the end. We need a Power that loves us!
I would add, once again, this is one of the beauties of this book of “A World Without God.” Esther presents to us a world that feels so much like our own – a world where it is often very hard to “see” God, where that hope we so desperately need has to be a hope of faith. However, Esther also presents to us this world where faith does triumph! The Hamans of this world do end up hanging on their very own gallows!
As I read all of this and ponder on it, I’m reminded of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. I’m reminded they got up that morning, no doubt knowing they would die that very day. Being very high up in the government of Babylon, they must have known all about Nebuchadnezzar’s plans for his golden image and his fiery furnace for all who would refuse to bow. Yet that night they put on their pajamas and went to bed, not roasted to death but instead triumphant against the very evil that had threatened them! What stuck me most about that passage was that the Lord knew all along. He knew in the morning that they would be thrown into the fire and He knew they would walk out of it unharmed. They actually could have gotten up in the morning literally excited to see what the day would bring! Because they could trust God, they could have faced that day in the confident assurance the forecast for their lives was the kindness of God! In spite of their fears they could have literally run into their future!
As I related after studying that passage, I’ve been a terrible worry-wort my whole life. I tried and tried for years to learn to trust God and rise above all those worries but never quite seemed to get there. I’d resolve to trust Him “next time,” then get clobbered and end up back in the same place, blubbering in my terrors, only to see Him (again) turn all things to my good. Then I would want to kick myself. Why can’t I just rest in His promises and stop wasting all that emotional energy? Somehow the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego finally allowed my heart to lay hold of this amazing confidence. Even in this evil, threatening world, the forecast for our lives is the kindness of God. Even though, by all accounts, it all looks very dark and foreboding, I myself can run into that future! I still of course feel the threats. I still sense the terror, but the boys really did help me make some kind of quantum leap forward in my faith. I honestly would no longer identify myself as a “worry-wort.”
And this story of Esther only reinforces that confidence. The Lord knew. From the very beginning. From beginning to end, He was quite in charge, in spite of how the world appeared to poor Esther and Mordecai and the Jewish people. In the world they could see, this seeming world without God, there was only great darkness and fear. Yet, the God they could not see was quite present and quite in charge. Nothing has changed in 2,500 years. Our world still threatens us, but it is also still true: the Most High rules in the nations of men.
Robert Hawker (ca. 1800) saw these things and wrote: “Oh! for grace to love Jesus, and to know Jesus as a friend, even when in His providences He seems to frown as though He was an enemy. Oh! for grace to lean on one arm, when with the other He is correcting; to cleave to Him, when we cannot take comfort from the darkness of His ways towards us. By and by (the soul saith) He will appear to my joy: I shall behold His face in righteousness. I know that all the ways of the Lord are mercy and truth. Things are now dark; but the morning will come. Oh! for grace, then, to wait the Lord's time, and to be convinced that all things must and do work together for good to them that love God, and are the called according to his purpose.”
Esther again reminds me the forecast for our lives every day is the kindness of God. Esther again reminds me that every day I can run into my future. Triumph is our destiny!
There is so much more I want to observe in this passage, but I think I’ll stop for now and come back again,
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