Approaching the king was punishable by death, even for the queen. Esther risked everything for her people. What a privilege it is today to be able to approach an even greater throne because of Jesus!
ESTHER – WHO WILL APPROACH THE KING?
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
If not a king, he’s been described as a kingmaker. No doubt the world’s greatest press barren is still known but less feared than two weeks ago. There is even talk that the phone hacking scandal by Rupert Murdoch’s media machine in England could bring down the government. Over the weekend, Murdoch who owns 37 percent of the print media in England, bought ads in the papers he doesn’t own to apologize. His executive, Rebekah Brooks, finally resigned before the weekend and was arrested during the weekend by Metropolitan Police. Two Scotland Yard executives have resigned for not pursuing the charges of phone hacking and police bribery sooner. The Australian Rupert Murdoch, known in America for owning the Wall Street Journal, Fox News, and Zondervan (which distributes the NIV Bible), is now showing more humble pie than an I’m-in-charge-of-the-world attitude. You know that’s what always happens to kings and kingmakers. Only the eternal Living God sits and never leaves His throne.
Welcome to HT, I’m CM sharing the Great Story that’s all about Jesus and a program on the life of Esther called Who Will Approach the King. We’re spending the week, talking about the life of Esther, a brief nine chapter book in the Old Testament, a book I would encourage you to read straight through as we talk about the themes of this special story in the Hebrew Bible. Now, let me ask you, have you walked where Jesus walked? Or maybe you’ve been. Would you like to go again? Why not join me for a unique trip to Israel next February 27 through March. There’s also an add-on visit to Jordan. Call us after the program for more information at 1-800-654-2836. That’s 1-800-654-2836. Or go online at haventoday.org. that’s haventoday.org. there on our homepage, you’ll see a picture of the temple mount in Jerusalem. Just click there for more details. It would be wonderful to have you join us and walk where Jesus walked. Coming up in a few minutes, the music of Graham Kendrick. But first, Christy Nockels opens HT with words you’ve probably heard, but to a tune that may be knew.
OPEN – Whole World In His Hands – Christy Nockels
Today we move to chapter four of Esther. We’re calling this series, “For Such a Time as This,” and today we come to the chapter where those words actually appear.
Esther, Chapter Four
1 When Mordecai learned of all that had been done, he tore his clothes, put on sackcloth and ashes, and went out into the city, wailing loudly and bitterly.
4 When Esther's maids and eunuchs came and told her about Mordecai, she was in great distress. She sent clothes for him to put on instead of his sackcloth, but he would not accept them. 5 Then Esther summoned Hathach, one of the king's eunuchs assigned to attend her, and ordered him to find out what was troubling Mordecai and why.
6 So Hathach went out to Mordecai in the open square of the city in front of the king's gate. 7 Mordecai told him everything that had happened to him, including the exact amount of money Haman had promised to pay into the royal treasury for the destruction of the Jews. 8 He also gave him a copy of the text of the edict for their annihilation, which had been published in Susa, to show to Esther and explain it to her, and he told him to urge her to go into the king's presence to beg for mercy and plead with him for her people.
9 Hathach went back and reported to Esther what Mordecai had said. 10 Then she instructed him to say to Mordecai, 11 "All the king's officials and the people of the royal provinces know that for any man or woman who approaches the king in the inner court without being summoned the king has but one law: that he be put to death. The only exception to this is for the king to extend the gold scepter to him and spare his life. But thirty days have passed since I was called to go to the king."
12 When Esther's words were reported to Mordecai, 13 he sent back this answer: "Do not think that because you are in the king's house you alone of all the Jews will escape. 14 For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father's family will perish. And who knows but that you have come to royal position for such a time as this?"
15 Then Esther sent this reply to Mordecai: 16 "Go, gather together all the Jews who are in Susa, and fast for me. Do not eat or drink for three days, night or day. I and my maids will fast as you do. When this is done, I will go to the king, even though it is against the law. And if I perish, I perish."
17 So Mordecai went away and carried out all of Esther's instructions.
We all like having heroes. I think that’s why we get so disappointed and disillusioned when the people we respect, the people we’ve lifted up to hero status, don’t live up to that status. I believe we were created to lift up and rally around one hero, really, the only one who has ever earned hero status. That, of course, is the Lord himself, Jesus Christ. But that inborn desire for us to rally around the hero… because of sin, it gets warped. It gets channeled off of the Lord and onto human beings. So, instead of lifting up the Lord as the hero, we’re lifting up human beings.
Commentators tend to go this way and commend Esther and Mordecai as great heroes. I’m going to go against the grain, and submit to you that neither Esther nor Mordecai are heroes. Now, I’m not saying they’re villains either. They’re not villains, they’re people. They’re complicated people, just like you and me, sort of a mass of contradictions, a mixture of noble and not so noble. That’s what I love about the Bible. These are just real people. So this morning what I want to do is three things. 1) I want to explain why Mordecai isn’t a hero. 2) I want to explain why Esther isn’t a hero. 3) And then I want to identify and talk about the real hero of this story. We’ve already talked about him; that’s Jesus Christ. So that’s what we’re going to do.
So why isn’t Mordecai a hero? It’s clear he’s a believer in God. This book is remarkable in that it’s the only book in the Bible where God is not mentioned by name. Look at verses 13 and 14, where Mordecai is talking.
"Do not think that because you are in the king's house you alone of all the Jews will escape. 14 For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father's family will perish. And who knows but that you have come to royal position for such a time as this?"
Famous lines in Scripture. What do those lines tell us that be believes? Well, he believes that the Jews are going to be saved regardless of whether Esther acts or not. If Esther does not act, relief or deliverance is going to come from somewhere else.
Now in saying that, what’s he assuming? He never says it. He never mentions the name. But you can’t say any of these things without believing in a sovereign, personal God. A godless universe is not going to treat the Jews any differently than anybody else. A godless universe is not going to judge anybody. The phrase “for such a time as this” betrays Mordecai’s belief that God is ordering events, and he’s bringing them to pass in a very planned, purposeful, intentional way. So what I’m telling you is that Mordecai is a man that knows his theology. His beliefs, even though God isn’t mentioned here, and that’s a deliberate thing that the author’s doing, his beliefs are clearly orthodox. But is the theology he knows translating into action? Is he living consistently with his faith? Look at what he’s doing.
What’s he doing when the chapter opens up? He’s wailing, tearing his clothes, wailing loudly and bitterly. Mordecai is facing a genocide order that was issue primarily because of what he did. At one level, I understand the grief and the wailing. But at another level, if he really believed what he said at verse 14, that relief and deliverance for the Jews is going to arise from another place if Esther doesn’t do it, then why the wailing? Even though at one level he believes that’s going to happen, at another level he clearly doesn’t. He’s not appealing to God here. There’s no recognition, in his living, that God’s in charge.
A doctor and proffesor of Old Testament at Grove City College is a man named Ian Dugan. He’s written a wonderful commentary on Esther. Commenting on chapter 4 and Mordecai he writes: We believe in God. But in practice, we react to life’s crisis as if we were virtual atheists.
Okay, that’s Mordecai. Why isn’t Esther a hero? She certainly seems heroic, doesn’t she? When you look at what’s going on here, what she’s decided to do to go to the king, unsummoned. This was the law. You didn’t dare approach the king without an invitation. If you did, that was an invitation to be decapitated; lose your head. The only exception would be, if you had the courage to show up and the king, in his mercy, pointed his gold scepter at you then you could get in. And she was agreeing to do that. Clearly, she’s putting her life at risk here. I’m not minimizing that at all. It’s her attitude that takes the edge off the heroics. We don’t really see the attitude in the English translation of the Hebrew very well, but it’s there. Really, her only recorded words at this point are at verse 16 and those words can certainly be interpreted heroically. Especially those last words. “I will go to the king, even though it is against the law. And if I perish, I perish!” This sounds very self-sacrificing and heroic in the English language. But if you look at the Hebrew, both the words and the grammatical construction of the Hebrew, what you have is quite uncommon phrasing. What it communicates is a resigned submission. If she doesn’t do anything, she’s going to be killed as a Jew. If she goes to the king to try to save the Jewish people, she’s going to be killed. Ester was resigning herself to a sad end. She wasn’t being heroic, she was choosing the lesser of two evils.
But it is in what Esther agreed to do here that points us to the real hero. Her action points us to a need for a mediator. There is a king on the throne of which all human kings are pale reflections, mirages, of the real king. This king, like Xerxes, has issued a terrifying edict. In the book of Ezekial, this God, the true king, has issued his decree and it says, “Every living soul belongs to me. The Father, as well as the Son, both alike belong to Me. The soul who sins is the soul who dies.”
I know this is hard, especially for those who may not be Christians. It’s really hard to hear. It sounds mean, cruel and a bit arbitrary. The soul who sins must die. It’s not really arbitrary. It’s universal. There isn’t a soul anywhere that is perfect enough for God. Not only are you and me not perfect; we’re sinners. The reality is we live under a death sentence issued from the throne of God because He is perfectly just. And perfect justice cannot tolerate sin. Please, if you’re an unbeliever, don’t think of sin as a bad action or as some instance of sexual immorality. That’s part of sin but it’s just a small part of sin. Sin really runs deep. What it really is is the offense you give God by taking all of His gifts and never acknowledging Him. Having a life, waking up to a day like this, taking your next breath, all of that is a gift from God. How are you living your life? You’re taking those gifts, you’re building a life on those gifts and you’re not acknowledging, thanking the giver. If you did that to a human parent, think how offensive that is. Now think about what you’re doing to an eternal God. It just magnifies the offense. You are actually an offender of God in cosmic proportions. I know you don’t feel like you are. I don’t feel like I am. But in fact it’s true. The soul who sins is the soul who dies. It’s a tough decree and I understand if it offends you. But God doesn’t pursue this decree like Xerxes or Haman. Xerxes didn’t really care about what he was doing to thousands of people. He gave Haman his signet ring and said “Go ahead, do what you want.” Haman, on the other hand, was relishing this decree. He couldn’t wait for the day to come when all of the Jews would be wiped out.
God doesn’t carry out justice this way. Even before there was sin, in our time, the three persons of the Godhead got together. They counseled together. God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit before creation. They determined God’s perfect justice would not reign down on His people who sin. Instead, God decided to bring justice on His Son. Perfect justice is being kneaded out. But it’s also perfect mercy. Jesus stands between you and that justice and He takes it for you instead. It’s the great exchange. I give God my sin, Jesus gives me His righteousness. Jesus dies so my sin is wiped out, it’s forgiven, justice has been satisfied. I stand here not just forgiven now, as a believer in Jesus, but standing in the record of His perfect life. It’s a gift of His love and His mercy. Aren’t you thankful Jesus didn’t say “If I perish, I perish.”? Jesus’ whole life was a death march. He knew He was gonna die. It wasn’t easy. We know the garden at Gethsemane experience He prayed to God that if there was someway other than the cross, let it be. God said no, there isn’t another way. So He went with the joy set before Him. The joy, friends, was you.
Jesus could’ve gone back. He could’ve not completed the mission. But He completed it for the joy set before Him and that was having you with Him. Apart from that, we can’t be with Him. So when I say you, who am I talking about? I’m talking about you who are trusting not in your own performance but in the performance of Jesus. You who recognize yes, I have sinned. Yes, I continue to sin but I am trusting in the perfection of Jesus. If that’s you, then you are His. I know you don’t do any of that perfectly. That’s where Esther gives us hope. Esther and Mordecai were a mass of contradictions. Obedience and disobedience. Good intentions, questionable intentions. Sin and virtue. But it didn’t sidetrack them. Ultimately, what saved Esther and Mordecai is what saves me and you. The one mediator between God and man, the God-man, Christ Jesus. What’s going to motivate you Christians to live a life of courageous obedience instead of cringing resignation, instead of fear, is to reflect on what Jesus did. Consider what your mediator did for you and then go out and face your crisis. What’s going to motivate you, if you’re not a Christian here, to turn to the Lord is not that justice decree, as scary as that is. What will ultimately motivate you to turn to God is the kindness of the mediator. The kindness of Jesus.Trust in Who Jesus is and what He did.
At the end of the day, the Gospel isn’t about us. So many Christians think it’s about obeying the Ten Commandments, being nice to my neighbor. Christianity isn’t about being nice. I’m not nice. The Gospel is outside of us. It’s that God is loving and God is kind and He interposed His own son between Him and us. If we hang on to Him, we will know life abundantly.
Christians, renew your faith. Those of you who don’t know Christ, I would ask you to turn and believe in Jesus. Believe in the mediator.
CLOSE – Graham Kendrick – This Is My Beloved Son – The Very Best of Graham Kendrick
Ted Hamilton thx
