Romans 4:1-8 “Yes”

As always, here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:

¹Therefore what will we say that Abraham, our ancestor according to [the] flesh, has found? ²For, if Abraham was justified out of works, he has a boast, but not toward God. ³For what does the Scripture say? “But Abraham believed God and He counted [it] to him into righteousness,” ⁴but the reward [given] to one working is not counted according to grace but according to debt, ⁵but the faith of him is counted into righteousness, to one not working but believing upon the One justifying the ungodly, ⁶just as David also speaks of the blessedness of the man to whom God counts righteousness without works: ⁷“Blessed ones [are those] of whom the lawlessnesses are forgiven and of whom the trespasses are covered.” ⁸“Blessed [is] the man of whom [the] Lord absolutely should not count sin.”

The first three chapters of Romans were concluded with Paul’s statement in 3:28, “Therefore, we conclude that a man is justified by faith apart from the works of the law.” Paul next spends essentially an entire chapter answering the question, “But what about Abraham?” This is a question he had to address, especially when a huge part of the church at that time were Jews—Jews who for the most part believed and taught that Abraham was justified by his works and that only Jews could be saved (or Gentiles who willingly became Jews).

I confess that, as I have studied this, I find it difficult somehow to keep focused. In my own soul, it feels like this is so obvious (that we are saved by faith, not works, that the Gospel is for us Gentiles too) that I just want to move on and get to something more helpful to me personally. Essentially I’m saying, “I already know this,” which I acknowledge is a very, very dangerous attitude to take toward Scripture. It usually means there is something huge I’m missing. However, as I’ve tried to keep my heart open and let the Lord teach me, that sense just doesn’t go away. I studied through the book of Galatians over ten years ago and I feel like there, this whole faith/works thing really finally made total sense to me.

So it seems like I’m re-hashing those same truths. However, I do want to study through this incredible book of Romans, even if I have to work through sections of truth with which I feel I’m already familiar. One thing that often happens is that the Lord opens my eyes finally to see what I’m missing even as I’m typing this blog. It has happened a number of times that I conclude my studies feeling like I’m not quite sure what to do with it all, but as I wander into typing what I do see, suddenly something jumps off the page at me. So, for whatever it’s worth, here’s my thoughts rising out of these first eight verses of chapter four:

People often argue that this passage is in direct conflict with James 2:20-24 which discusses Abraham and then says in verse 24, “You see that a person is justified by what he does and not by faith alone.” Romans 4:5 seems to say the opposite, “However, to the man who does not work but trusts God who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.” The key difference between these two passages is the question, “In whose sight?” In Romans 4:2, it says, “If, in fact, Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about—but not before God.” In James, he says, “You see…” Therein is the difference in the two contexts. In Romans, the “justification” is coming from God and concerns the matter of our eternal salvation. In James, he is concerned about people who claim to have been saved, but then bear no fruit. To “justify” of course means to “declare righteous.” From what “you see,” it is hard to declare someone righteous when their life doesn’t show it. So the two passages are looking at “justification” from two completely different perspectives—one from God concerning the entirely invisible work of redeeming us fallen sinners, the other from what the rest of us can conclude from what we see of a person’s life. Jesus, of course, said exactly the same thing—on the one hand, “He who believes in Me has everlasting life” (John 6:47), and on the other hand, “By their works, you shall know them” (Matt. 7:16). Salvation itself is a matter of believing, but those who do believe will live changed lives. Frankly, if we’re reading our Bibles practically, I think all of this is obvious. I only mention it because it has historically been a matter of considerable debate, at least between people who are not necessarily trying to be practical.

Something I did learn from my study—I’ve always wondered how the quotations from David support the idea of justification by faith alone. After showing that Abraham was justified by his faith and not by his works, Paul quotes David, “Blessed are they whose transgressions are forgiven…” It has always seemed to me like that leaves open the question of how they’re forgiven. Of course, we’re blessed if we are, but it seems like someone could suggest that somehow they get forgiven by what they do—like going to Mass, or doing penance, or whatever. However, what no one seems to acknowledge is this: If you want to be justified by what you do, then you are proposing that God should evaluate you according to your works. But what about your sins? The whole reason we’re talking about forgiveness is that you’ve already sinned. Your “works” have already condemned you. Forgiveness from God has to be entirely a gift of grace granted on some basis other than our works, and, praise God, it is by faith.

In a sense, verses 1-5 are the front door, considering our “good” works, while verses 6-8 are the back door, “Yeah, but what about our sins?”  If someone doesn’t like verses 1-5 and demands to be evaluated on the basis of what they’ve done, verses 6-8 would remind them, “Oh, yeah. There is this small matter of your sins.” You may have done some good for which you think you deserve God’s favor, but what will you do about your sins? David is saying of people who already know they’ve failed, “Blessed are those whose sins are forgiven” or “Blessed are those whom God knows of their failure and yet still grants them forgiveness.” And so we see that these “blessed” persons are very specifically not being judged according to their works. They are proof that, in fact, “The just shall live by faith.”

Then I want to go a totally different direction. If someone wants a verse by verse commentary on this passage, there is a seemingly endless stream of commentaries on the book of Romans they can consult, including this passage here in Romans 4. What I want to do rather is step back and see a much, much bigger picture of what this passage is teaching. The issue before us actually goes far beyond just the matter of salvation. That is the greatest thing I feel I’m learning from Romans—that the Gospel itself reaches far, far beyond salvation itself. It isn’t just a set of truths about how to be saved. It is the Truth. Within the truths of the Gospel, we will find the very Truth about which the entire universe spins. To miss the Gospel is literally to miss the most basic truths of our existence. In the Gospel, we learn who God is and who we are. We learn what is the problem with all of us and what to do about it.

I think what I want to point out is profound truth for us to live by. We’ll see if this croaking toad can present it so anyone else can see it.

In the big scheme of things, what the Gospel teaches us is that grace is better than obligation. Now I’m not just talking about salvation. I’m talking about an all-day, everyday truth to live by. To live a life of grace, in general, is a far better way to live your life than by obligation. Consider the truth from here in Romans 4: “Now when a man works, his wages are not credited to him as a gift, but as an obligation. However, the man who does not work but trusts God who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness.” So, God, in His relationship with you, would rather you enter into a personal, trusting relationship with Him, than to somehow “rack up points” that you think will ultimately get you accepted. He’d rather grant you a free gracious salvation (at infinite personal cost to Himself, by the way), so that you could enter into a relationship with Him wherein you do what you do because you love Him, not because you’re trying to “earn” anything.

Now what I want to suggest is that this “model” of relationships goes far beyond your salvation. Again, the Truth of the Gospel actually informs the totality of our human existence. Consider what Joseph Parker said (ca. 1890) in The People’s Bible: “Faith lives on God, and in God, and with God, and in a sense faith is God. Faith is more largely rewarded than law. You can pay law, you cannot pay faith; you can pay a servant, you cannot pay a friend; you can pay for legal advice, you never can pay for fellow-suffering, deep, tender, night-and-day sympathy; you can even pay the doctor, but you cannot pay the mother.”

“You can even pay the doctor, but you cannot pay the mother.” There it is in a nutshell. You can pay a doctor to “fix” you, but he may very well do it only because he wants your money. I am reminded of the doctor who performed a particular surgery on me which was life-changing. He really helped me—but his bedside manner was nothing but a man in a hurry. He couldn’t care less about me. I was just another pocket to pick. The doctor who did Joan’s back surgery did a fabulous job—almost instantly relieving her of terrible sciatica—but he was about as close as I’ve come in years to punching someone in the face. He was a rude, arrogant man. On the other hand, we’ve all had doctors that were decent people, who acted like they did care—and here’s my point: but none of them can compare to a mother.

And why is that? Because a mother loves for no other reason than love itself. In a mother’s world, there is not even the thought that she’ll get anything in return. It is pure grace that moves her to change the baby’s stinky diaper, to prepare the bottle to just the right temperature, to make sure the child’s hair is combed and their clothes are clean. We have today the “Cracker Barrel” restaurants that supposedly offer “country” cooking. That is nice and I certainly enjoy eating there. It definitely brings back memories of growing up and my mom’s cooking and Grandma Bumbles’, of farm wives’ and almost anyone else’s grandma’s cooking. However, at Cracker Barrel, I’ve noticed for years there’s always just some little element that is “missing.” It finally hit me one day what it is: love. Moms and grandmas not only cooked the food according to whatever recipe, but while they were doing it, it was love that moved their hands. Every ingredient was added with love and then, invariably, they had some little trick, some little “special” they’d throw in, like a teaspoon of brown sugar or a glop of sour cream. When they set it on the table in front of you, it was the most heavenly, delicious food you ever put in your mouth, but I will maintain to the end, what gave it that little extra “punch” of deliciousness was love.

What I want to suggest then, is that, even if you are “working for wages,” it is a far, far better life, far more fulfilling for you and far more beneficial to the world around you, if you strive to do your job out of grace and not debt. Even though the doctor is being paid, he can still do what he does because he sincerely cares, and the same goes for you and me. The “caring” is a grace that must come from within us. People can pay you to work, they cannot pay you enough to make you care. But, even at work, it is the caring that makes your life worth living. Even if there is “obligation,” yet it is the relationship that matters.

Any why is this? Because it is the truth of the Gospel that informs our reality. God doesn’t want to reward you because He somehow “owes” it to you. He wants you to let Him love you just because He does.

And I want to take this a step further. What effect does that have on you and me? How does it affect you to experience God’s love as a total grace gift? How does it affect you to grasp that He cares for you? I hope anyone reading this knows what I mean. It totally transforms me. I almost can’t help but love Him in return. When I grasp His gracious love for me, even His Law is no longer a law. To me now it is simply an expression of the heart of this One who loves me. I actually want to serve Him. I want to study the Bible, not to figure out the rules or gain Heaven points, but precisely because I want to know Him. I want to know more of this One who loves me and gave His only Son for me.

Do you see what is happening? He loves us with a gracious love and what does it produce? More love. It moves us to love Him in return. How does it affect you when it is obvious your doctor does care? Your mechanic? Your realtor? The cashier at the grocery store? Your teacher? Does it not draw you into a love relationship with that person? We’ve all had waitresses who just “did their job” and then the ones who really do seem to care and do a fabulous job of serving us. I try to give good tips to the poor girls even if they’re lousy waitresses, but, for the ones who are marvelous, I find myself wanting to leave them a big tip. Why? Because I want to share back to them the love they’ve shown to me.

Well, there it is.

I hope that makes sense to you. It is far better to pattern your life according to God’s model, the model of grace, than to drudge through your days fulfilling “obligations.” Jesus’ entire life was lived for no other reason than to love. May we hear His words, “Go and do thou likewise.”

One last time—it just floors me how the simple truth of the Gospel actually informs the very core of our human existence. By entering fully and enthusiastically into an active and deliberate love relationship with God, we are actually being transformed into the very people we were created to be—not just in some sense of “religion” but in the totality of who we are all day every day.

Yes.

Esther 4:1-17 “A Heart with God”

Here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:

¹And Mordecai knew all which was done and Mordecai tore his clothes and put on sack cloth and ash and he went out in the middle of the city and he cried out a cry great and bitter. ²And he came in even to the faces of the gate of the king because not to enter to the gate of the king in clothing of sack cloth, ³and in the all of a province and a province from a place which the word of the king and his law arriving, mourning great to the Jews and fasting and weeping and wailing. Sack cloth and ash was spread to the many. ⁴And the maids of Esther came in and her eunuchs, and they told to her, and the queen was deeply distressed, and sent clothes to clothe Mordecai and to take away his sack cloth from upon him and he did not take, ⁵and Esther called to Hathak from the eunuchs of the king who was caused to stand to her face and she commanded him upon Mordecai to know what this and upon what this? ⁶And Hathak went out to Mordecai to the plaza of the city which [was] to the faces of the gate of the king, ⁷and Mordecai told to him all which happened to him and the exact amount of the silver which Haman said to weigh upon the treasuries of the king in the Jews to destroy [them]. ⁸And the copy of the writing of the law which was given in Shushan to destroy them he gave to him to show Esther and to tell to her and to command her to go in to the king to seek favor to him and to seek from his face upon her people. ⁹And Hathak came in and he told to Esther the words of Mordecai, ¹⁰and Esther spoke to Hathak and she commanded him to Mordecai.  ¹¹“The all of the servants of the king and the people of the provinces of the king knowing that every man or woman wo goes to the king to the court of the inner, who was not called, the one of the law of him to kill, except from whom the king extends to him the scepter of the gold, he will live, and I have not been called to go to the king this thirty of day.” ¹²And they told to Mordecai the words of Esther, ¹³and Mordecai said to reply, “Esther, do not think in your soul to escape the house of the king from the all of the Jews, ¹⁴for, if to be silent you are silent in the time of this, relief and the deliverance will stand to the Jews from a place of another and you and the house of your father will perish and who knowing if to a time like this you have arrived to the kingdom?” ¹⁵And Esther said to reply to Mordecai, ¹⁶“Go, gather the all of the Jews found in Shushan and fast upon me and do not eat and do not drink three of days, night and day. I also and my young women will fast thus and in thus I will go to the king, which not according to the law, and if I perish, I perish.” ¹⁷And Mordecai passed over and he did according to the all of which Esther commanded upon him.

Last time I tried to draw out the very real terror that bore upon Mordecai and Esther and also the indications of Mordecai’s faith even in the horror of it all. This time I want to think deeply about our girl Esther and what she teaches us from this passage.

When she hears that Mordecai is dressed in sackcloth and ashes and wailing, the NIV says she was “in great distress.” The old KJV translated it, she was “exceedingly grieved.” The Hebrew word actually describes a woman in labor! What a contrast: Haman and Xerxes plot the senseless, cruel murder of millions of people, and what do they do? They “sat down to drink.” When our Esther hears of someone else’s distress, it hits her like labor! What a contrast. They are oblivious to the pain of others. Esther is smitten with it.

Remember again she is a very beautiful girl and now she is a queen living in fathomless opulence with every possible luxury afforded her. She doesn’t need to care about anyone! The king doesn’t. Why should she? The king insulates himself from other peoples’ pain—Mordecai could not even enter the king’s gate because he was dressed in sackcloth and ashes. Our Esther obviously could have taken the same attitude but instead, when she hears of someone else’s distress it hits her like labor! She is a girl who lived the NT principle of “Rejoice with them that rejoice; Weep with those who weep.” She allowed herself to feel others’ pain…and so should we.

I love too that she is a girl who’s in the habit of doing right. When Mordecai instructs her to go in to the king and plead for her people, what is her first response? “But that’s against the law.” “That would be breaking the rules.”

Good for her. If any group in any country is its law-abiding citizens, it should be us believers. If any group in any company is its compliant employees, it should be us believers. Even under a government without God, the Bible tells us, “Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and the authorities that exist are appointed by God” (Romans 13:1). As we will see in Esther’s case, there is a time for what we call “civil disobedience,” however that is not the norm for us believers. It is a rare exception.

Especially in the workplace, I would maintain that part of the reason bosses will often “like” us is because they find us easy to lead, that we are to them unusually compliant and dependable. They often find other people “difficult” and perhaps not always dependable. Then there is the Joseph, the Daniel, the Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, the Nehemiah, the Ezra—the believers who found their way into high places specifically because they were very good workers. Now we have our Esther whose humility and sweetness landed her in the position of queen. If we ever do face a situation where we will need to “disobey,” then like Esther, it should be totally out of character for us.

Some commentators make a big deal about Esther’s reluctance and suggest it is a matter of fear. I would say, certainly she would be fearful when the penalty is death, yet I think we do her a great disservice to paint her simply as someone paralyzed with fear. Again, she is a good girl who grew up humbly obedient to her father. The first thing we should expect from her would be reluctance when suddenly asked to commit a capital crime!

Then we get to see a glimpse of this father/daughter relationship and what a good father Mordecai was. Although we would expect her initial reluctance simply because she’s not in the habit of “breaking the rules,” yet Mordecai knows Esther is young and very well could give way to fear. If we look closely at what he tells her, I hope we can all realize what he’s doing is helping her “think it through.” Once again, I would suggest this is “nothing new.” I would suggest we see that Mordecai is not and never has been a father who simply says, “Do it because I say so.” He certainly was firm with Esther growing up (to raise such a sweet daughter), but he was a father who shepherded her heart, who helped her to not only do right but, more importantly, to think right—and that is exactly what he is doing here.

He doesn’t say, “Yeah, I know it’s dangerous. Just do it anyway.” Look what he does. Without mentioning God’s name (in this book of the Unseen God), he draws Esther to see her world through God’s eyes. Because he knows fear is a very really threat, a very real path down which her heart could run, he says, “Do not think that you of all people will escape this calamity.” That is the truth and what she needs is truth. It is the truth that she is a Jew and the king’s decree is the death of all Jews. Truth. Then he reminds her that this annihilation cannot succeed in the end because there is a God in heaven, this is His world, and in it, He has promised to preserve and bless the Jewish people. If you don’t do the right thing now, relief and deliverance will arise for the Jewish people from somewhere. Truth.

Further, because God is very real and very present, we can rest assured that acts of cowardice and self-preservation will one way or another suffer His chastening hand. It is a NT principle but was just as true then, “He who saves his life will lose it; He who loses his life for My sake, the same shall find it.” Truth.

Then this loving father tells his daughter one of the immortally greatest encouragements in human history: “And who knows but that you are come to the kingdom for such a time as this?” So much of what people tell each other is sarcastic, discouraging, demeaning, and anything but encouraging. But not this Dad. He tells his daughter exactly the words she needed to hear, words that encourage her to grasp what was without a doubt her greatest opportunity to serve the Lord and her people. “You can do it, my daughter.” I wonder how many times before he has encouraged her with words just like these? No wonder she could rise to be a queen. Her father always knew she could! And he told her so. May we all learn to be encouragers. As you and I speak to others, may we be people who strengthen their hands and help them to battle on, to become all they were born to be!

Then our text turns back to Esther. How will she respond? She says, “I will go into the king, even though it is against the law; and if I perish, I perish.” Obviously we could praise her for many things. We could praise her faith. We could praise her courage. But I think it’s worth going even deeper yet. What gives her such faith? What makes her so brave? She actually draws back the curtain of her heart in 8:6. Listen to what she says there: “For how can I bear to see disaster fall on my people? How can I bear to see the destruction of my family?”

What is going on? Love. Jesus told us “Greater love has no man than this: that he should lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13). Again, I call our attention to the contrast. Godless Haman and Xerxes can “sit down to drink,” in utter disregard for the miseries of others. Godless Xerxes can decree that no one enter his presence in mourning. The plain simple truth is that their hearts without God were also hearts without love. With God, Esther’s heart is so full of love, she goes into “labor” when she hears of someone else’s grief. She sends clothes to Mordecai, probably so he could enter the king’s gate and be closer to explaining to her what was wrong. And now her big heart of love says, “I will go into the king, even though it is against the law; and if I perish, I perish.”

The greatest horror of a world without God is that it will be a world without love. God is love and calls us as “dearly loved children” to “live a life of love.” In His world, He would have us know that the two greatest things you can ever do is simply to “love God and love people.” We can pause to acknowledge that there is love that goes on even in the lives of people who care nothing for God. However, this is precisely because even they were made in the image of God and, even though that image may be horrifically marred, yet still it will show like the face you see in the shards of a broken mirror. It is part of what we call “common grace,” the fact that the Lord sends His rain on the just and the unjust—that He does allow blessing into the lives of even those who hate Him.

But again, what a contrast: godless men who seem to have not a whit of love in their hearts compared to a girl whose heart bursts with it. They possessed everything this world values most. Esther had the one thing that mattered most. That is what knowing God will do for you and me—He’ll make us love more. And to love more means to enjoy relationships more. And then the day comes when we realize that was the only thing that really mattered anyway.

May Esther teach us all to let God give us hearts of love. May we care deeply for others around us, may we allow ourselves to sincerely feel their pain, and may God help us all day everyday be people who “lose their life for Jesus’ sake” only to find we gained it after all!

 

Esther 4:1-17 “Real People in Real Terror”

Here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:

¹And Mordecai knew all which was done and Mordecai tore his clothes and put on sack cloth and ash and he went out in the middle of the city and he cried out a cry great and bitter. ²And he came in even to the faces of the gate of the king because not to enter to the gate of the king in clothing of sack cloth, ³and in the all of a province and a province from a place which the word of the king and his law arriving, mourning great to the Jews and fasting and weeping and wailing. Sack cloth and ash was spread to the many. ⁴And the maids of Esther came in and her eunuchs, and they told to her, and the queen was deeply distressed, and sent clothes to clothe Mordecai and to take away his sack cloth from upon him and he did not take, ⁵and Esther called to Hathak from the eunuchs of the king who was caused to stand to her face and she commanded him upon Mordecai to know what this and upon what this? ⁶And Hathak went out to Mordecai to the plaza of the city which [was] to the faces of the gate of the king, ⁷and Mordecai told to him all which happened to him and the exact amount of the silver which Haman said to weigh upon the treasuries of the king in the Jews to destroy [them]. ⁸And the copy of the writing of the law which was given in Shushan to destroy them he gave to him to show Esther and to tell to her and to command her to go in to the king to seek favor to him and to seek from his face upon her people. ⁹And Hathak came in and he told to Esther the words of Mordecai, ¹⁰and Esther spoke to Hathak and she commanded him to Mordecai.  ¹¹“The all of the servants of the king and the people of the provinces of the king knowing that every man or woman wo goes to the king to the court of the inner, who was not called, the one of the law of him to kill, except from whom the king extends to him the scepter of the gold, he will live, and I have not been called to go to the king this thirty of day.” ¹²And they told to Mordecai the words of Esther, ¹³and Mordecai said to reply, “Esther, do not think in your soul to escape the house of the king from the all of the Jews, ¹⁴for, if to be silent you are silent in the time of this, relief and the deliverance will stand to the Jews from a place of another and you and the house of your father will perish and who knowing if to a time like this you have arrived to the kingdom?” ¹⁵And Esther said to reply to Mordecai, ¹⁶“Go, gather the all of the Jews found in Shushan and fast upon me and do not eat and do not drink three of days, night and day. I also and my young women will fast thus and in thus I will go to the king, which not according to the law, and if I perish, I perish.” ¹⁷And Mordecai passed over and he did according to the all of which Esther commanded upon him.

I’ve been studying this chapter for about a month now. My heart tells me it ought to be written in letters of gold. Here we find two people in literally their finest hour. Here we find Mordecai and Esther suddenly faced with an unthinkable tragedy and yet that very tragedy becomes only a setting to display what model human beings they are. There is much from which the rest of us can learn.

What do we see? First of all we learn that we believers are far from exempt to hardship and tragedy. There is always (and probably in all of us) the temptation to think that, if you know the Lord and love Him and try to do what’s right, that will mean He’ll somehow make your life easy. We know that other people may face horrific troubles and we know we too must face hardships – just not like really bad ones, right? Well, since our Savior Himself got cruelly murdered, you’d think we’d realize that, no, we aren’t necessarily exempt from any kind of hardship, no matter how unthinkably horrific.

In God’s world, both are true. He does let most of us enjoy a life of love and joy and peace and, even in what we might call the “minor” trials of everyday life, we find Him very present and overwhelmingly kind to us. Isaiah said, “Thou wilt keep Him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed upon Thee” (26:3). David said, “How great is Your goodness, which You have stored up for those who take refuge in You. In the shelter of Your Presence You hide them; in Your dwelling You keep them safe” (Ps. 31:19,20).

Yet Jesus warned us, “In this world you shall have tribulation” (John 16:33). We meet Mordecai in this chapter, “tearing his clothes, putting on sackcloth and ashes, and going out into the city, wailing loudly and bitterly.” Boy, do Mordecai and Esther have to face that “tribulation”! They remind us here in Esther 4 that we must all face troubles, but, at the same time, they teach us much about how we respond.

Can we first of all note it’s okay to grieve? After people get over the idea that God should exempt them from trouble, the next thing they think is that, if you really have faith, you’ll just smile at everything, trust God, and go on skipping through life. “All things work together for good,” right? So surely it must be wrong to suffer under trials. Yet it was the Savior Himself who sweat “as it were great drops of blood” and cried out “Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from Me.” Paul said at one point, “We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about the hardships we suffered in the province of Asia. We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired even of life” (II Cor. 1:8). It is an undeniable fact that, in the Bible itself, there is a book called, “Lamentations.”

Let us not for a minute think that Mordecai is somehow “lacking” in faith. We know the end of the story…but he does not. We know it by sight. At that time, he could only hope for it by faith. He and Esther live exactly where you and I do—in the present, and for them the present is very, very scary. Faith doesn’t mean you or I won’t feel fear. It doesn’t mean we’ll not grieve. It only means we’ll have a hope that under-girds all those fears and griefs.

We see Mordecai’s faith in his statement to Esther, “But, if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place…” How could Mordecai know that? How could he be so assured it was true? I would say, obviously, he knew his Scriptures and he knew all of God’s promises to Abraham and to the nation of Israel. I would further maintain we see his faith when he adds, “[But, if you remain silent]…you and your father’s family will perish.” What is this? It is Mordecai seeing the unseen God. While Mordecai clearly believes in the Lord’s sovereign protection over His people Israel, he also knows that same God loves His people too much to let them be lazy and cowardly. The true and the living God is immanently present with His people to do them good but also to always firmly guide them in the path of right.

We also see his faith in his immortal question to Esther, “Who knows but that you are come to the kingdom for such a time as this?” Once again, though living in this world of the unseen God, Mordecai believes in the sovereign overruling providence of God, that though this world seems to tumble along on its own stubborn, godless path, yet the Lord is carefully overruling man’s evil to bring about finally His good and loving plan. “A man’s heart plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps” (Prov. 16:9). Joseph had that same faith when he told his brothers, “You meant it for evil, but God meant it for good, in order to bring it about as it is this day, to save many people alive” (Gen 50:20). God’s sovereign overruling providence is the truth which gives us Jer. 29:11: “‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the LORD, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a future and a hope.’”

Right off the bat, as you and I would read this passage of Scripture, let us not forget that Mordecai and Esther do not know the outcome. Let us not minimize the terror and grief they face in the present. If for any reason, we would not see them as real people facing real danger, we will lose the hope their example offers. You and I face what look to us like real dangers every single day. Though ours may not be the complete annihilation of our people, yet we still feel the fears. Even in those “little” fears, we need the faith of Mordecai and Esther – to live in the present, not knowing the future, yet, like Moses, persevering because we see “Him who is invisible” (Heb. 11:24).

Haman is a man without God. Haman and Xerxes form a government without God. Yet, we find Esther and Mordecai as two people with God. Haman and Xerxes’ godlessness made them wicked, cruel, and insensitive. Let us go on and see what knowing God produces in our two heroes.