Esther, whose name had been changed, was part of a people, Israel, who had been forced into captivity. Then, her parents die, and she is left with her cousin Mordecai. Next, she is sent to the king's harem, luckily being chosen as queen, but queen to a man who had put away his other wife after she displeased him by not acquiescing to his drunken request. Not a daydream story of being swept off your feet by Prince Charming. While she is given the position of queen, King Ahasuerus' advisor, Haman, has a grudge against Mordecai and hatches a plot to have all the Jews destroyed. Mordecai goes to Esther and says:
Then 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. For if you keep silent at this time, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father's house will perish. And who knows whether you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this?” (4:13-14)
Esther decides to hold fast and requests the other Israelites to do the same. She then approaches the king, who had the power to have her killed for approaching him without being asked. Thankfully, he welcomes her, and she twice requests for he and Haman to attend a banquet with her. In the end, the tables turn. She asks that Haman be killed. Instead of the Jews being killed, they are allowed to defend themselves against those who attack them, killing over 75,000 people, and Mordecai took over Haman's position.
DeMoss focuses on the dual kingdoms present in every situation. What happened to Esther and what is happening to us are happening in the kingdom of man, but outside the story of Esther and the story of us is the kingdom of God. Thus, God is working His sovereign will for His good in our circumstances. While God may not be orchestrating our lives to save an entire people, He is orchestrating our lives as part of His redemptive history, His plan to make a people for Himself, if like Esther we go with His plan and not our own.
Concluding the chapter, DeMoss leaves the reader with six insights from the book of Esther.
1) We are in a battle...Our struggles are not simply with people and our circumstances. We are battling principalities and powers, not flesh and blood. When we are having to fight to get our kids to do our homework, we are experiencing the battle between good and evil. The same is true when there is strife in the church or workplace or when our minds don't think on what is lovely and noble and pure.
2) The weapons and tactics of the earthly, human kingdom are different than the weapons and tactics of the heavenly Kingdom...As people we want to take vengeance, get even. We use harsh words to hurt, emotional overspills to manipulate, and physical force to overcome, but God's heavenly tactics are different. Having total power He can do as He pleases, and He calls us to do it with love and peace.
3) God has a sovereign and redemptive plan, and it will not fail....How hard it is to wrap our minds around this truth. He controls everything, and He knows the beginning and the end. We don't see it, but He does.
4) Through faith and obedience, you can be part of God's plan....We don't know God's plan, but we do know that we either contribute to His plan by obeying His Word. If we disobey, it is not like God's plan won't succeed like. Like Mordecai said, the Lord will raised someone else somewhere else.
5) No situation is so desperate that God cannot redeem it....All the Jews were about to be destroyed by edict of the king, but God stopped it. If He can turn around a situation like that, why do we doubt he can bring good from insensitive bosses, lost jobs, unbelieving spouses, and challenging children? In the middle of bad situations, we often "woller" in how bad it is. We can't see beyond right then, and we forget to remember God has the power to change things. Try to remember this when you look at an unbeliever. God change the heart of the worst person and use that person greatly for his glory.
6) Don't judge the outcome of the battle by the way things look right now....When we look at our lives, sometimes everything we see is awful for a few moments. Others times when we look everything is awful for days, months, and years, but God calls us to see the end of the story. He calls us to be joyful, rejoicing at all times, and He calls us to do this because He has given us a promise He will keep. Jesus will return, make us like Himself, and establish His perfect, forever kingdom. I'm not one to say we should dwell on heaven as if God has not given us a life here to live on earth, but if we see what victory, the assured victory, in this battle brings, we will fight harder in the battle. We will not sink into the miry pit because our best friends said they hated us, there is no money in our bank accounts, or the authorities over us are persecuting us because we say we believe in the one true God. We will look at the end. To live is Christ. To die is gain.
