Defining Moments

You're a Jewess, Esther. You cannot hide behind the curtains of your apartment. You can't hide underneath the crown. You don't stand a chance. The secret is going to get out.

Probably even now, more people are putting the pieces together. So you might as well admit who you are. Mordecai is effectively telling Esther to identify with and to operate by virtue of her relationship with the covenant people of God. As the story of Esther continues, Esther thinks she has it made. No one knows her real identity. She has servants at her beck and call. She's the favored wife of the king. But just when it seems like the world is at her fingertips, something unexpected happens that threatens to end it all. Esther is a Jew, and the king was manipulated into signing a decree that has gone out that will result in the death of all the Jews, including Queen Esther. We're taking a closer look at this account today. You've tuned in to Wisdom for the Heart.

Here's Stephen Davey with a message called Defining Moments. She was born into slavery in Dorchester County, Maryland in 1819. Her mother and father, pure-blooded Africans, both of them slaves from the continent. At the age of six, she was considered old enough to work all day and was rented out to a nearby family where she was treated brutally, often whipped, eventually sent back after having eaten one of the family's sugar cubes. At the age of 12, she was injured by a slave owner when she refused to help tie up a young boy, a slave who was trying to run away.

The blow to her head would cause seizures and headaches at times for the rest of her life. When she was 29 years old, she decided to escape and risk her life in doing so. The other slaves tried to discourage her, asking, what will you eat?

When it's dark, how will you know which way is north? She was determined, though, and slipped away in the night in 1849 and eventually made it to freedom. She got a job in Philadelphia and saved every penny as she planned to go back and rescue family and friends.

She would do that. She would devote the rest of her life to rescuing slaves from the south. Her name was Harriet Tubman, considered one of the most fearless conductors of what was known as the Underground Railroad, that path from south to north.

And her nickname was Moses. She would eventually lead nearly 1,000 slaves to freedom. She once made the comment that she would have led 1,000 more to freedom if they'd only known they were slaves. When an early biography was being written about her, Frederick Douglass, a former slave himself and a well-known and respected business leader in the north, an abolitionist, was asked for his recommendation, his commendation on her life. He wrote personally to Harriet Tubman these stirring words, and I quote him, I need words of commendation from you more than you need them from me.

The difference between us is very marked. Most that I have done and suffered in the service of our cause has been in public, and I have received encouragement every step of the way. I have worked in the daytime. You have worked in the night.

The midnight sky and the silent stars have been the witnesses of your devotion. I know of no other slave who willingly encountered more perils and hardships to serve our people than you have. Little surprise, is it to this day that Moses, Harriet Tubman, is revered and honored, in fact all over our country, black and white, Asian. There's something in all of us that is stirred by the biography of someone who risks everything for someone else.

Someone that gives up their rights for the rights of those that really aren't exercising them. And we read earlier, this is what exactly, this is modeled infinitely, perfectly by Christ himself. But there's something in us that's stirred by someone who against the majority opinion, against culture, says I will do this. And when everyone thinks it's wrong, later on we recognize it was right.

The date has been set, if you've been with us in our study, it's now irrevocable. The wanted posters are hung on every post and pillar throughout the Persian Empire. The Jews are to die. In the palace of the king at this point, undetected, is a Jewess who is serving as the queen of the empire. She and her cousin Mordecai have kept the family secret safe for nearly five years, that they're Jews. Haman, however, the prime minister, only recently promoted, and in retaliation to the insubordination of Mordecai who refuses to bow to him, discovers the secret. Office staff tell him, Mordecai has admitted to the fact that the reason he won't reverence you is because he is a Jew. And Haman at that moment decides to settle an old family score, a family feud going all the way back to the Exodus, between the Amalekites and the Jewish people, the descendants of Agag, and the descendants of the Jewish people, which is Mordecai. And he wants to rid the world of the Jews. Now as you already know, God is not explicitly mentioned anywhere in the book of Esther, but neither is Satan.

And they are both at work. And this is only one more assault of Satan against the covenant people of God, an attempt in this particular point in redemptive history to wipe out the potential of the seed coming from the line of Judah. At this particular point in redemptive history, you have the spotlight, and it's suddenly focused on the frail shoulders of an orphan girl who has become queen. She just so happens to have won the king's heart. She just so happens to have the crown. She just so happens to be related to Mordecai, who just so happens to be promoted to inside the king's gate, which is the administrative offices of the empire. He just so happens, because of that promotion, to hear about a plot to assassinate the king.

So he tells Esther who just so happens to tell the king. What an amazing string of coincidences. In fact, there's no such thing as a coincidence. That is our earthbound explanation.

Listen, coincidences are the providential acts of God who prefers to remain anonymous. And a defining moment in our lives are those moments when we recognize the providential working of a sovereign God, and we surrender our lives to join him in that work, whatever it may be. Whether it's rescuing slaves, or risking the crown, or risking your own reputation, or your career path, or your friendships, or your personal comfort, maybe even your own life.

The first scene in chapter 4 takes place just outside the administrative office building. I invite your attention there to Esther chapter 4 and verse 1. When Mordecai learned all that had been done, he tore his clothes, put on sackcloth and ashes, and went out into the midst of the city and wailed loudly and bitterly. He went as far as the king's gate, that administration building, for no one was to enter the king's gate clothed in sackcloth. These kings just couldn't stand the idea of anybody in sorrow or anybody grieving. Of course, you know, a little later on, Nehemiah will show up and he'll be in danger because he just happens to have a sad expression on his face. These kings didn't want anybody in their presence, you know, who wasn't smiling.

They were that insecure. So here's Mordecai. He's lamenting, wailing. Now in our Western world, we don't do that for the most part. We hide our sorrow behind veils and handkerchiefs, but not in the Middle East. Maybe you've seen that part of the world, perhaps on a news commentary or a video clip, as a mob is pushing a casket overhead through the crowd while everyone, men and women, are wailing.

This is exactly what's happening here. Mordecai is holding nothing back. He's dressed in dark, rough goat hair clothing called sackcloth because it was cloth that made sacks.

The closest thing we can think of is burlap today. He would have been wearing it next to his skin to further demonstrate his preoccupation with pain. He's torn his clothing and he's not dressed in sackcloth. He's dusting his head, his beard with ashes. He's weeping and he's wailing outside the palace walls. And I want you to know this is the customary Jewish action that involved mourning and grieving sin, as well as holding special, desperate times of prayer for deliverance.

And that's what I believe he's doing. Verse three, in each and every province where the command and decree of the king came, there was great mourning among the Jews. And note this with fasting, weeping and wailing, and many are even laying on sackcloth and ashes. I found it interesting that many Hebrew scholars believe this is a this is something that would have been immediately connecting Ezra's construction as he wrote here under inspiration with the earlier prophecy of Joel. The only other time this phrase appears in this manner, where he says to the people, return to the Lord with all your heart, with fasting and weeping and wailing or mourning. There is no longer a hidden agenda with Mordecai, who is as the highest official in the land representing the Jewish people is, I believe, spearheading by his own example, this call of Joel chapter two back to God. I also agree with commentators who would say in verse 16, where Esther will ask Mordecai to get all the Jews who live in Susa to fast for her that that Hebrew construction.

She is clearly indicating the request for intercessory prayer. Esther is not quite there yet, though, is she? So she has her attendant go out and try to give him some clothes, a new suit.

Maybe that'll cheer him up. Verse five informs us that Esther has her personal eunuch go out and find out what all the ruckus is about. Now, if I can summarize for the sake of time, a little while later, he comes back to her quarters armed, not only with a copy of the edict, which she probably cannot read.

He reads it for her. Mordecai asks him to explain it to her, gives her the stunning news that the Jewish people are going to be wiped out by order of her husband and the prime minister. And then there's this bombshell that Mordecai says, you go and tell her, verse eight, the middle part, you tell her to go into the king and implore his favor and plead with him for her people. Do you see how loaded that phrase is? Mordecai, you've evidently forgotten something.

And let me let me remind you. And so she rather chides him somewhat softly in verse 11 by reminding him of an obvious legal problem. All the king's servants and the people of the king's provinces know that for any man or woman who comes to the king to the inner court who has not summoned, he, the king, has but one law that he be put to death unless the king holds out to him the golden scepter so that he may live. So Esther sends Haythac back out there. Go out and remind Mordecai that there's a little bit of a problem with this, a legal problem.

Nobody walks into the Oval Office without an appointment. In fact, back then you lose your head. It's an affront to the authority and the deity like status of the king.

You just don't do this. And then, by the way, Esther throws in this little personal problem. You see at the end of the verse, and I have not been summoned to come to the king for these 30 days.

Many Old Testament scholars believe that this is an indication that a hazardous interest in her is now on the wane. To get to the king and you dig into the history and you get your Bible customs books out and your encyclopedias and you can find it, too. It's really not a secret, but it was interesting for me to find out for the first time. To get to the king in the Persian kingdom, you were arranged to meet with him by order of priority. And the one who determined the order of that priority was the Kiliarch, the supreme commander. And the supreme commander happens to be Haman. So she can't appeal to him and admit her reason for coming before him without telling Haman. And then the secret's out. And he'll rub her off, no doubt, some other way. And then you just add to that the fact that the king really isn't interested in seeing her anymore and she's hopelessly stuck.

And so, as you know, perhaps, she decides to do nothing except hide behind the law. And now I have no doubt that Mordecai anticipated her fear. So when Hathak comes back to him and says, you got this issue of legality and she wants you to know as well the king isn't really calling for her anymore. He has ready what we'll just simply call three defining moment incentives. In fact, it's one of the greatest speeches in human history and it serves to challenge us in applicable ways to this day. Look at verse 13.

Then Mordecai told him to reply to Esther. Do not imagine that you in the king's palace can escape any more than all the Jews. Here's defining moment incentive number one. You can't escape in the palace. You cannot hide behind the curtains of your apartment. You can't hide underneath the crown. This is kind of a reality check.

He goes right for it with his opening statement. You don't stand a chance. The secret is going to get out.

Probably even now people, more people are putting the pieces together. So you might as well admit who you are. Mordecai is effectively telling Esther to identify with and to operate by virtue of her relationship with the covenant people of God. You're a Jewess, Esther. Not only admit it, but live by virtue of it.

Here's defining moment incentive number two. Not only is Esther warned that she can't escape in the palace, she's reminded that she cannot erase God's promise. I want you to notice the next phrase in verse 14. For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance will arise for the Jews from another place.

And you and your father's house will perish. You and your father's house will perish isn't a reference to the edict. It's a reference to divine judgment. Mordecai is effectively saying that he has identified with God.

Mordecai doesn't know what God's up to. He doesn't know if he, Mordecai, or Esther will be allowed to survive this edict, but he does state his belief in the fact that deliverance will come. God will keep his promise. There will be a remnant. It will come from this place. You can't escape in the palace. You can't erase God's promise.

You should not evade your position. Famous words of Mordecai are etched there in the last part of verse 14. And who knows whether you have not attained royalty for such a time as this. Esther, you got to see it.

You need to see it. This is God's doing. This was more all along.

This was more than your crown in my career. This was the hand of God to place you by the king's side to preserve the people of God. And by the way, to this day, this is the greatest incentive for standing up for Christ. To me, this is the exciting mystery of the synergy between the providence of God and the obedience of his children. The work of God and the work of his sons and daughters.

Think of it this way. The same Lord who said, I will build my church, said, now go out and make disciples and baptize them and teach them and teach them everything I've commanded for them to observe. He said, I will build my church. Then he tells us, go build it. The synergy of God's purposes combined, as Paul would use the phrase, co-labor with God to see his purposes come to pass. Do we live with that sense of divine destiny that God could use us?

That he has something in mind for you and for me? It might be a sink full of dishes. It might be a classroom full of children. It might be a shop filled with tools. It might be a cubicle filled with paper that you've got to face tomorrow morning. But is that all we see? Or do we see this divine destiny and this incentive that we have been invited to join God in fulfilling whatever his purposes are and the voice of God whispers to us from the shadows, I have plans for you.

Esther, you're the queen. At this moment, that really doesn't matter. You've got personal connections and power. But at this point, that's not the bigger issue. You want personal comfort and safety.

But that needs to be set aside. They don't matter most. Can you imagine, Esther, what's behind all of this? What was behind that pageant that you won? What was behind the king's selection of you above 1,460 other beautiful women? According to Herodotus.

What was behind the wedding? What is behind your title as queen? Esther, is that all you see? Can you see that at this moment, in this generation, in this kingdom, at this time, you have arrived for such a moment as this? This is your hour. Stand up.

Become known for who you are. Speak. But whatever you do, do not be silent. Don't be silent.

This is your defining moment. Esther responds in this closing scene. She puts into motion three decisive actions. It's rather breathtaking how far she comes and how fast. First, she summons the Jews to fast.

Do not eat or drink for three days, night or day. The second thing she does is she states her identity with the Jewish people. The next phrase, I and my maidens also will fast in the same way.

In other words, we will be in this together. She was one of them. Thirdly, she not only summons the Jews to fast, she not only states her kinship or identity with the Jewish people, finally she surrenders to the providence of God. Verse 16 again, the latter part, and thus I will go into the king, which is not according to the law, and if I perish, I perish.

Wow. She's changed from fear to faith, from hesitation to determination, from concern about her own personal safety, which was her first response, to concern for the safety of her own people's survival. It reminds me of David.

You remember when he goes out to see how his brothers are doing at war and finds out as he overhears Goliath blaspheming God, decides that he'll take him on with his slingshot, and his brothers and those around him say, look, it's better off if you go back to the sheep, and he makes that classic statement as he looks around and he says these words, is there not a cause? This is Esther here. She comes to recognize, as one author put it so well, there is no safety in a significant life, and there is no significance in a safe life.

And so Esther takes her stand, but first she'll kneel fast, and I believe according to the call of the prophet, return back to God. Let me make two quick observations about defining moments that are at work in your life and mine every day, perhaps more than we realize. Number one, defining moments are simple steps of obedience where we act like the disciple we want to become. Whether or not you brush past those fears or you brush away your tears, you act like the disciple of Christ you want to become. There is a disciple out there, and we'd like to become that disciple.

We'd like to become it overnight. We'd like to decide I will become that person tomorrow morning. Now, there are a lot of little steps, and a lot of them go backward and then forward and backward and forward. It's going to happen to you tomorrow, by the way. It's going to happen to you in that defining moment when you decide whether or not you will open this book and read. That's a defining moment where you become a little more like the disciple you want to become. That defining moment is going to happen in the cafeteria where you decide in that moment if I'm going to bow my head and pray before I eat my lunch. That can't be a defining moment.

Are you willing? That defining moment is when you reach out to someone who works with you and you tell them something of your testimony or you invite your boss or a neighbor to an event here at church. Secondly, defining moments are those small steps of faith where you trust God like he really deserves to be trusted. We often think of grieving the heart of God by overt acts of disobedience.

I think we grieve him daily by not trusting him in the way that he really deserves to be trusted. Eugene Peterson, the author of the paraphrase The Message, wrote these words about Esther. The moment Haman surfaced, Esther began to move from being a beauty queen to becoming a saint, from being an empty-headed sex symbol to being a passionate intercessor, from the busy life in the harem to the high-risk venture of speaking for and identifying with the people of God.

She needed to start living like that, and God deserved to be trusted like that too. So she says, I will stand and I will speak. I will give everything I have and everything I am.

I will risk it all, but I will not remain silent anymore. Wherever God puts us, he has a purpose for us. You're listening to Wisdom for the Heart. Our daily program features the Bible teaching ministry of Stephen Davey. You can learn more about us by visiting wisdomonline.org. In addition to equipping you with these daily Bible lessons, we also have a magazine that features articles written by Stephen. Each month we explore various topics related to the Christian life and teach you how to think biblically. Our magazine also has a daily devotional guide that you can use to spend time with God each day.

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