Esther 1-10
"And who knows but that you have come to your royal position for such a time as this." Esther 4:14b
The sovereignty of God is written on every page of this fascinating story. Watch God's hand move the characters.
King Xerxes knew how to throw a party. He gave a banquet for all his nobles and officials, the military leaders of Persia and Media, and the princes and nobles of the provinces. Everybody who was anybody was there. For one hundred eighty days he displayed the wealth and glory of his kingdom. He ended his revelry with a banquet in a beautifully decorated garden area of the palace. The wine was flowing in abundance. The king had shown off everything else in his kingdom. He decided to send for Queen Vashti and display her beauty to his drinking buddies. But Vashti refused to come! This made the king furious.
King Xerxes consulted his advisors to help him decide what he should do about the queen's refusal. One of them said Xerxes should ban the queen from his presence and get a new queen. Otherwise all the wives in the kingdom would be following Vashti's example and refuse to obey their husbands. Xerxes thought this was sound advice.
The king had many beautiful young women brought to the palace . One of these women was a Jewish girl named Esther. Her parents were dead, and she had been raised by a relative named Mordecai. She was Mordecai's uncle's daughter. He had instructed her carefully not to reveal the fact that she was Jewish to anyone. King Xerxes chose Esther to be his new queen.
Mordecai discovered a plot to assassinate the king and told Esther, who reported it to the king. This deed was recorded in one of the books recounting events in the kingdom.
King Xerxes promoted a man named Haman to the highest position of his nobles, and everyone in the kingdom knelt down and honored him except Mordecai. Haman was furious. He found out Mordecai was a Jew and decided to try to wipe out not only Mordecai but all of his people. He talked the king into sending out a decree to destroy all the Jews in the kingdom, saying their customs were different and they did not obey the king's laws. A day was set for all of the Jews to be annihilated.
Esther heard that Mordecai was in sackcloth and ashes, a sign of mourning. When Esther sent someone to inquire why, Mordecai sent word to her about the king's edict and told the emissary to instruct her to go to the king and beg him for mercy for her people. She sent back a reminder to Mordecai that anyone who approached the king without being summoned would be put to death unless he held out his gold scepter to them. It had been thirty days since the king had called for Esther. Mordecai reminded Esther that she would be killed with all the other Jews, and then he said, "And who knows but that you have come to your royal position for such a time as this?" Esther agreed to go before the king,saying "If I perish, I perish." Esther 4:16b
The Jews fasted and prayed for Esther for three days. When she went into the king, God gave her favor in his sight, and he held out the golden scepter to her. She invited the king and Haman to dine with her. Haman bragged to all his friends about being invited, but in the meantime he had a gallows built to hang Mordecai.
That night the king could not sleep. For entertainment he had someone read to him out of one of the books that detailed kingdom events. God caused the reader to select the very book and the very passage that told how Mordecai had revealed the assassination plot. The next morning Haman came to ask the king's permission to hang Mordecai, but the king instructed him to honor Mordecai. Then the queen revealed that Haman's plot to kill the Jews would include her death also. King Xerxes had Haman hanged on the gallows he had built to hang Mordecai! What poetic justice. The Jewish nation had been saved because Esther fulfilled her purpose in the time and place where God had put her.
God has put you in just the right time and just the right place to fulfill His purposes through your life.
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