The book of Esther tells a fascinating story, and yet God's name is not found anywhere in the entire book.
So how do we know that this Old Testament book actually belongs in the Bible? We'll find out today on Truth for Life as we revisit this popular message in our Encore 2025 series. Alastair Begg is teaching from the opening verses in the book of Esther. When we study any book of the Bible, and particularly one like this. As we come to the details that are provided for us in the canvas, It is important, as we've said so many times.
that we see the details in light of the big picture. Even the apparently minor details of the Old Testament stories. are all part of the purpose of God in redemption, a purpose to unify all things in and through the person and work of His Son. That is why ultimately it leads to the united nations. Where black people, white people, yellow people, green people, Scottish people, all kinds of people will be gathered around the throne of God.
And they will declare with untrabled tongues that salvation belongs to the one who has crushed the head of the serpent.
So what is happening in the book of Esther is that God is preserving his people, for it is out of those people that his Messiah is going to come. Therefore, he's going to make sure that in the details that appear on the canvas, he has his people in position. Because, as Jesus explained to the lady at the well, salvation is from. The Jews. What was he saying?
Simply that. She had a question about the worshiping of God on Gerizim with the Samaritans or worshiping God in Jerusalem. He says a time is coming and will now come when those who worship the Father will worship him in spirit and in truth. And he says that salvation is from the Jews. And it is.
And God's purposes for his people remain. And that's the whole significance of Romans chapter 11. And you can read that some morning when you At three in the morning when you're having difficulty. It'll help you.
Well, I spent a long time on that, but I'm telling you, it's really important. And that is to understand the big picture. Because otherwise, you drop into Esther and you can do all kinds of things with Esther. You can do all kinds of things with the whole Bible. You can teach stories in a way that simply say, you know, Esther was a really nice person and you ought to be a nice one too.
You know, Haman was a bad guy, please don't be a bad guy. You know, the king had a bit of an ego, you shouldn't have an ego, which is all true, you know. And people do and they fill in the blanks and they walk away and after 15 years they don't know the Bible any better than the day they started because they don't understand, they never stood far enough back from it to see what is actually happening here. God is doing something far vaster than the Persian Empire, far more significant than the British Empire, the American Empire, or any empire that's still to come. Do you believe that?
That in the economy and purposes of God, you are in Jesus caught up in this great cosmic adventure? Instead of salvation being some little sort of personal thing, you know, just me and my little salvation. No, no, lift up your eyes. Look. This is terrific.
Okay, secondly. We not only need to get the big picture, but we need to face the big question. We're going to face it briefly, but nevertheless it needs to be faced. What is the big question?
Well, if you haven't read the book, you won't know, but if you started to read it, you might have got an inkling. And the question is: where is God in this book? Where is God in the book? Because Esther is not simply one of two books written to women. But it is also one of two books.
in which there is no mention of the name of God. The other one is Song of Solomon. The name of God never appears in the book of Esther. And all kinds of explanations are offered. If you read the commentators, you can spend a you can spend a very unprofitable evening wading through just volumes of material.
I I am just simple enough and content enough to conclude That the reason the name of God is not in the book of Esther is because he doesn't want it in the book of Esther. He said, Well, you see, you've been an idiot from the beginning, and that's why you got thrown out of most of your classes at school.
Well, maybe, maybe not. I don't know. But if all of the events of the Old Testament are in the Old Testament because God intended them to be there, then if his name does not appear in the book, it's because he didn't want his name to appear in the book.
Well, why would he not want the name to appear in the book?
Well, maybe to teach us something.
Well, to teach us at least this. That in the events of life when God is apparently absent, He's not. That you don't have to add his name to everything. to explain his presence. He is omnipresent.
You don't have to say, God did this and God did that, and God told me the next thing. The unfolding story of life is God in the details. God, as the hymn writer says, working his purpose out as year succeeds to year. And one of the things that it makes clear is this. That God is not simply present in the sort of lightning bolts of his intervention.
In the passage of the Red Sea, in the calming of the waters. But God is present in the humdrum of life. In the everyday events of life, God is working His purpose out. Do you remember when we studied Ruth, we saw that? Ruth says to her mother-in-law Naomi, she says, It would be okay if I went and gleaned in someone's field today?
A fair enough request, and she's not gonna sit around the house idle. What that meant was that she would go and do what the law of. Um Israel demanded That the Crop Owners Would not Gather the field to the extremities of the perimeter, but would leave enough there so that poor people would be able to go and gather them up. It wasn't a handout. It was a pickup.
He's actually a painstaking picker. Sarce said, yeah.
So she went. And she came home all laden down with stuff, remember? And Naomi says to her, Whose whose field were you in today? She said, Well, I just happened and I there's a guy he's called. A ballass.
Oh Said Naomi, Boas Boys is a good one. He's our kinsman redeemer. When you read the story, it says that she actually happened. She happened. to uh work in that field.
Well, she did happen to. But God was in control of what happened. Happened. Because what he was actually doing has to do with the big picture. Because Through the line.
We were going to get not only to King David. But the King David's greater son.
So, God, although His name doesn't appear all the time, is working. You'll find, as you read through the story, that he is at work in the in the refusal of this Persian queen to her husband's demands. He is at work in the sleep patterns of the king. There's an amazing bit in this story where the Joker can't sleep. And then what he reads.
Of all the things he could have read, he reads this one thing. I mean, it's a great story. You have to read this. He's actually overruling in the hatred of Haman. It's Heyman's hatred.
God hasn't programmed him to hate. He hates Mordecai. He hates these Jewish people. That's what he is. He's a hateful person.
Well, we need to go to our third point. But Spurgeon has a lovely little section in a sermon that he preached along these lines about the absence of uh God. He says, Although the name of God does not occur in the book of Esther, the Lord Himself is there most conspicuously in every incident which it relates. And then using a metaphor, he says, I have seen portraits bearing the names of persons for whom they were intended. And they certainly needed them.
Some of you have had things done of your children or your grandmother or whatever else it is. And the portrait goes up on the wall and people come in and go, who the world's that? you know. And so you had to decide, you have to put on, you know, like Aunt Penelope or something, old Aunt Penelope, you know, 1849, because there's no way anybody in the world would look at that and go, Well, that must be your Aunt Penelope.
So that's what Spurgeon says. He says, I've seen portraits, and the name at the bottom is really important, because otherwise, you wouldn't have a clue who it was. Then he says, But we have all seen others which required no name. Because they were such striking likenesses. That the moment you looked upon them.
You knew them. God takes his name I would have asked her.
So that the moment that we look into Esther, Again and again and again we say that's God. That's God. Let's go. That's God. When God appears to be most absent in your life.
Trust me. He is at work. Big picture, big question, thirdly big idea. Big idea. What's the big idea?
Well, the big idea. is Providence. The doctrine of providence. Remember question two in our catechism: What is God? God is the creator and sustainer of everyone and everything.
He is eternal, infinite, and unchangeable. In His What was it, goodness and glory? In his power and perfection. Actually, I think it was his power and perfection, then his goodness and glory, and his. Wisdom, justice and truth.
Nothing happens. except through him. And by his will. That's the big idea. That's the big idea that runs all the way through Esther.
that nothing happens except through him. and by his will. That is An emphasis which runs through the entire Bible. You can find it in the book of Proverbs again and again. That God Is operating in everything that happens in our world.
He's directing everything according to his appointed end. He's working everything out according to this eternal counsel of his will, as we noted in Ephesians chapter 1. And all of this is taking place in relationship to the hostility that exists between the activity of the evil one as he opposes the work of God. God never fails to meet his people's needs. He knew that his people were facing starvation.
He knew that he would need somebody In a position. In Egypt to deal with the starvation problem of his people. And he had the perfect man. His name was Joseph. But what a strange and convoluted way.
to get Joseph to such a position of Power. His life. Incidentally, was marked by him telling dreams in the morning which ticked his brothers off. His life was marked by the fact that his father doted on him the way he might dote on a small black Labrador puppy. He gave him clothes that he never gave his brothers.
His brothers hated him. They flung him in a pit. He was excised from the pit. and sold into slavery. He was on the receiving end of abuse and scorn.
He ended up in jail. And through all of these things, he finally ends up saying, classically, at the end of Genesis 50, it's recorded for us when his brothers finally show up. He says, Hey guys, I know you're upset about this. You intended all this stuff for evil, but God intended it for good. What was he doing?
He was fulfilling his plan, a unified plan for all of history. And what is happening here? Look at verse 14 of chapter 4.
So we draw this to a close. We're a long way from verse 14 of chapter 4, but we can dip in, can't we? Esther is now the queen. She's in a position of influence. Her uncle Mordecai says to her, You know, you've got a real opportunity on your hands here to get us out of a problem.
He says Mordecai told them to reply to Esther. Do not think to yourself that in the king's palace you will escape any more than all the other Jews. You see, this the edict had been issued for the extermination of the Jews.
So Mordecai the uncle says, I know you're the queen now, but don't think for a minute that just because you're in there with the king, that you will not be subjected to this. Verse 14: For if you keep silent at this time, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another place. In other words, God will look after his people. That's what he's saying. But you and your father's house will perish.
And then here's the question. And who knows? Whither you have not come to the kingdom. For such a time as this. He says, Esther?
Who knows, but this is the reason that you exist on the planet. That your whole life, everything that's happened, that God gave you the DNA, that He made you pretty, He made you really beautiful. He made you desirable among all the other potential desirables to replace the queen. And the reason he's done this, who knows, he says. But you have been brought to the kingdom for such a time.
As this And when we go through this book of Esther, we're going to discover that God is placing his servants. in the right spot. For the right task, At the right moment. We're going to discover that he uses even and arranges even the smallest events to achieve the greatest. Results.
God's providence is such that nothing escapes his notice, nothing happens without his permission. Even the worst things that will happen to us in our lives will turn out ultimately for our good. Do you believe that? See, the real test of our doctrine of providence is not. in the opening phrase of the song we sang.
when peace like a river attendeth my way. That's an easy one. It's a nice day. Feeling good? Just got the blood test back, came back negative.
Um None of my kids are in jail. Uh my my wife is still living with me. It's a great day in the neighborhood. Me and mister Rogers were perfectly contented. when peace like a river attendeth my way.
Okay, let's go to the other side. When sorrows like sea billows roll. That's the test of providence. That's a test. That's where We're either going to take God at His word and trust Him that He is involved in the details.
That nothing is out of control, nothing will get out of control. Or we won't. And let me give you a word of counsel and advice. Do not try and interpret the events in your life. in terms of their immediate impact.
or in terms of their personal relevance. Not because there is no immediate impact or because they are personally irrelevant. but because we will almost inevitably go wrong. When we try and interpret events as they relate only to ourselves. The people of God in the Old Testament interpreted events not in terms of mine, me, and mine, but they interpreted events in terms of we, our, and us.
And he also didn't interpret events in sort of Ti tiny little time frames. They interpreted events generationally. Lord, you have been our dwelling place. For all Generations. It's a part of the challenge of the life that we live and the world in which we live and the nature of the.
Sort of inherit atomization of of moments and of time. Is that we're tempted then to import those notions into our theology. The computer must run faster. The answer must come quicker. The resolution must be now.
But if you think about it, most of the events of our lives will not be resolved in that way.
Some of us may never see our children or our children's children. Profess faith in Christ before we die. We die in faith, believing that God will fulfill his purposes, that he has some of them on a very long leash. He'll pull them in. He'll pull them in.
He's a covenant-keeping God. That's our promise. That's our hope. If I try and explain a cancer diagnosis just in terms of what it means to me, I miss out on what it means to everybody else. What it means to my wife, what it means to my children, what it means to my friends, what it means to the community, what it means is way beyond whatever it means to me, whether I live short or whether I live long.
Those things are not the issue, not in the providence of God. And that is the big idea And the last point to which we won't come I called uh what I called it, I said uh big Big.
Well, big question was number two. Big picture was number one. Big something was number three, the one we're on right now. Whatever it is, big idea, yeah. And the last one is big deal.
Big deal. And that's not to draw, you know, it's not to pull the carpet out from the first three, but it is that this king. thinks he is a big deal. And he is a big deal. But he's not as big a deal as he thinks he is.
Okay? But let me finish with this poem, and then we'll sing a song. You know this poem, don't you? My life is but a weaving. Between the Lord and me.
I may not choose the colours. He knows where they should be. For he can see the pattern Upon the upper side, Well, I can see it only. on this the underside.
Sometimes he weaves in sorrow, which seems so strange to me, but I will trust his judgment and work on faithfully. Cause not till the loom is silent and the shuttles cease to fly, Shall God unroll the canvas and explain the reason why the dark threads are as needed in the weaver's skilful hand? as the threads of gold and silver, in the pattern He has planned. We only see the links in the chain. God sees the end.
from the beginning. When we are tempted to so focus on this. And to forget that Providence is a soft pillow and that the God who loves us with an everlasting love and has a unified purpose in history is engaged in this. We we will inevitably go wrong. You're listening to Truth for Life with Alastair Begg.
Alastair returns in just a moment to close today's program. Let me take a minute here just to thank our truth partners for their faithful prayers and financial support. It's because of your giving that the teaching from Truth for Life is heard on radio stations across the U.S. and Canada and in several other countries around the world. In addition to all of our online platforms, your generosity also allows us to participate in new and ongoing opportunities to teach God's Word.
One door your truth partner giving recently opened for us is giving twenty thousand copies of Alister's books, including name above all names, to English speaking pastors across Africa. If you'd like to see a copy of this book for yourself, you can download the Name Above All Names ebook for free today. It's a book that was co written by Alastair and Sinclair Ferguson, and it's a foundational book that unpacks seven key qualities of Jesus' identity and ministry as revealed through the entirety of the Bible. This is a rich study from two experienced pastors with profound knowledge of the Scriptures, and to help you dive even deeper there is a companion study guide available. Download the Name Above All Names ebook and study guide for free at truthforlife.
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Now here's Alastair to close with prayer. Father, some of us are in the midst of uh deep darkness and stuff that seeks to almost overwhelm us. We're not writing down the At the Lazy River on the Sunday afternoon, but we feel ourselves to be taking on water at an unbelievable rate. And we pray that you will help us to. Hear your word.
which says, Cast your burdens upon the Lord and he will sustain you. To run into the refuge that is available to us in the Lord Jesus Christ. to find ourselves wrapped up in the Embrace of his goodness.
So that even when life has plunged us in its deepest pit. we may discover the Saviour there.
So, to this end, we commend one another to you. May the grace of the Lord Jesus, the love of God, our Father. the fellowship of the Holy Spirit. be the abiding portion of all who believe. today and for evermore.
Amen. Thanks for listening. Tomorrow, we'll hear another popular message in our Encore 2025 series as we examine the Apostle Paul's solemn charge to fulfill the ministry to which Jesus has called us. I hope you can join us. The Bible teaching of Alastair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life.
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