The title of the message here
is Christ, Our Intercessor. The intercessory work of Christ
is essential, an understanding of it essential to the preaching
of the gospel, salvation by grace. We speak of the death, the burial,
and the resurrection of Christ. And after he arose again the
third day, he met with his disciples, he taught them. And then he ascended
unto glory, where now the scripture says he's seated, meaning that
the work is finished, the work of salvation, the work of redemption,
the work of establishing the only righteousness whereby God
is just to justify the ungodly. He sat down, he's the only high
priest who sat down, and because his work is done. And so he now
lives forever to intercede for his people. He is our mediator. He is the one who appears under
the Father on our behalf. And when we go to the Father,
for example, in prayer, it's Christ who intercedes for us
and makes our prayers, our persons and our prayers, acceptable.
We're accepted in the beloved. And that intercessory work never
ceases. It's a continual thing. And it
has to be because we're sinners. We have no right to go before
God, but Jesus Christ crucified and risen from the dead. And
that is the doctrine that supports the truth, the great truth of
eternal salvation that can never be lost. Right there. Can a person be saved by the
grace of God and then be lost? The answer's no. And anybody
who believes that you can doesn't believe grace. 1 John 2 talks about how when we
sin, we have an advocate with the Father. And who is that advocate? Jesus Christ, the righteous. the one who is our righteousness,
and that's what Christ's intercessory work is about. Well, here in
the book of Esther, we have a tremendous, amazing picture of the intercessory
work of Christ. And as I go through this chapter
and some parts of, other parts of Esther, Esther is a very interesting
book. You know, I told you before,
the, The book of Ezra is divided into
two parts when we looked at Ezra. There's Ezra 1 to 6, and then
the second part is Ezra 7 through 10. And in between those, there's
like a 50, I think I've got here, 58 years. And that's the time
period that the events that are, the historical events that are
written in the book of Esther occur. And what it has to do
with, you know, in Ezra and Nehemiah, you had the Jews coming out of
Babylon after 70 years of captivity back to Judah and Jerusalem.
And they were commissioned to rebuild the temple and then rebuild
the walls of Jerusalem, all that, rebuild the city. And they came
back in three waves of people. But there were some of the Jews
who stayed in Babylon. And we see some of the events
that took place here in the book of Esther that happened to those
Jews who were left in Babylon. And in this book you have basically
four main characters. And number one, of course, is
Esther. She's a beautiful Jewish maiden. She's a Jew. And then the next
main character is a man named Mordecai. He was Esther's cousin,
but he was older than Esther and he took her to raise after
her parents died. He became her guardian. Mordecai
the Jew. In fact, in the Bible, the first
time the word Jew is used is when Mordecai is mentioned. Mordecai
the Jew. And of course, that's a derivative
of Jude, Judaism, Judah. And so he's Mordecai the Jew.
The next important person is King Ahasuerus. Ahasuerus. Most historians believe
that we've known him, if you studied him in school, the Persian
king, that his name was Xerxes. And I believe that's true. But
he's the next one. And then there's another man
who was an Amorite. He was an evil man. His name
was Haman. One, several writers mentioned,
if you read through the book of Esther, it's the only book
in the Bible where there's no name mentioned for God. You don't
see any of the names of God recorded in the book of Esther. And people
wonder, why is that? Well, the best explanation that
I can tell you is what we see in the book of Esther. One of
the main points is the sovereign majesty and providence of God. Working his sovereign will behind
the scenes You know men and women doing their thing, you know going
through history and all that but God's working behind the
scenes his own sovereign will Mainly in the book of Esther
to save his nations to save this nation from annihilation To save
them from being utterly destroyed because it was always God's purpose
to keep this nation together to keep this nation from being
annihilated, literally wiped off the map, until his purpose
was fulfilled. And you know what his purpose
was, to bring the Messiah into the world through these people.
So it was impossible for the Jews to totally, the Israelites,
the physical seed of Abraham, to be totally destroyed. No matter what they went through,
you think about their sinfulness, Did they deserve to be destroyed?
Just like all of us. This isn't about what they deserved
or what we deserve. Salvation is not about what we
deserve. But they were a sinful people. Even the Jews who stayed back
in Babylon, what should they have done? They should have gone
back home. But God had determined to keep this nation together.
And you think about their sins, think about their enemies, this
man Haman. He had it set in his, he hated
Mordecai. And he was given a lot of authority
in that land of Babylon, in that land where they were, in the
kingdom. And he hated Mordecai, and he
hated all the Jews, and he determined in his mind, and he tricked the
king, actually, into signing a writ signified with his ring,
the authority to have all the Jews killed. And we see God working
his sovereign will to turn it back on Haman, and he ended up
being killed himself. But we see this is God's providence
to fulfill his promise of salvation for his spiritual elect by sending
Christ into the world through this Jewish nation. And that's
why he preserves them. And he uses this beautiful Jewish
maiden named Esther to do it. And what happens is she intercedes
for them. Now think about this, here this
is the Jews in Babylon under a Persian king who didn't know
God, who didn't know Christ, and think about the providence
of God here. First Mordecai a Jew, Mordecai held a position in the
Persian government. You can read about that in Esther
chapter two, but I've got this listed, and it just so happened
that Mordecai discovered and exposed a plot to kill the king,
and he actually saved the king's life. That's recorded in Esther
too. So Mordecai had favor with the
king in that sense. And also, and I'm not gonna go
into all the details of this, and I'll tell you something about
Brother Randy. Back in 2018, he preached a message
on Esther. It's called Pictures of Grace
in Esther. And he virtually went through
the whole book in summation. And I'd urge you to listen to
that message. It's on our website. It's called Pictures of Grace
in Esther. And read the book and listen to Brother Randy's
message. And I really thank him because he did a lot of legwork
for me in studying for this message. But I'm going to hone in on just
this one passage here in chapter eight. But by God's sovereign
providence, Esther, this beautiful Jewish maiden, was favored by
the king and he married her and she became the queen. Now you
think about that, a Jewish maid, queen of this empire. And as
the queen, she rescued the Jewish people from the murderous plot
that Haman had devised to annihilate them. This Haman, who the king actually
appointed him over all his affairs, this man who hated Mordecai,
hated the Jews. So because of his hatred for
Mordecai and the Jews, he deceived the king into writing a letter,
making it into law that the Jews were to be killed and all that
they owned, their spoils, were to be taken from them. And when Esther found out about
Haman's plot, she sent a messenger to Mordecai to find out what
was wrong. And Mordecai sent her a copy
of the Edict and asked her, now this is over in Esther four,
in verse eight, Mordecai asked her to go into the king's presence
and beg for mercy. Tried to change the king's mind,
in essence, what she's doing there. And Esther agreed to approach
the king. But the problem was this. Go over to, look over at Esther
4. Look at verse 11. In order to approach the king,
you had to be summoned. You had to be called. And if
you were summoned and called, the king had a golden scepter,
a golden rod, which represented his authority. And to approach
the king, the king had to extend that golden scepter and bid you
to come and then you could come. Now if you came on your own and
tried to approach the king without the king summoning you and extending
the golden scepter, the penalty was death. Look at verse 11 of
chapter four, it said, all the king's servants and the people
of the king's provinces do know that whosoever, whether man or
woman, shall come unto the king and to the inner court who is
not called, There is one law of his to put him to death, except
such to whom the king shall hold out the golden scepter that he
may live. And Esther says, but I have not
been called to come into the king these 30 days. It had been
almost one month since Esther had been summoned to come to
the king. And it says that, and what happens, here's what happens.
Mordecai talks her into going anyway. Look down at verse 16
of chapter four. He said, She said, go gather
together all the Jews that are present in Shushan. That was
one of the capitals of the Persian empire where they were. Fast
ye for me and neither eat nor drink three days, night or day.
I also and my maidens will fast likewise. And Esther says, so
will I go in unto the king, which is not according to the law.
And if I perish, I perish. So she knew the penalty there.
Well, in God's providence, everything came out, and Haman, he continued
his onslaught of the Jews, and he
had a gallows built for Mordecai, whom he tricked the king into
thinking ill against Mordecai. But in God's providence, it turned
on him, and old Haman was hanged on the very gallows that he had
built for Mordecai. So Haman is gone. Now that's
where we take up in chapter eight. Look at chapter eight, our text.
It says, on that day, did the King Ahuresis give the house
of Haman, who was already dead now, the Jews enemy unto Esther
the queen and Mordecai came before the king and Esther had told
what he was unto her and the king took off his ring which
he had taken from Haman and gave it to Mordecai and Esther set
Mordecai over the house of Haman. So Mordecai lived, Haman's dead,
Mordecai got Haman's position and Esther the queen. Verse three,
And Esther spoke yet again before the king and fell down at his
feet and besought him with tears to put away the mischievous of
Haman, the Agagite. It's Agagite, he was an Amorite
and they were, they were infamous enemies of the Jews from way
back. And his device that he devised against the Jews, then
the king held out the golden scepter toward Esther. So Esther
arose and stood before the king. And she spoke to the king. Now
you can read the whole chapter, but she spoke to the king and
the king rescinded his order to have all the Jews killed.
And it said, look down at verse eight. Write ye also for the
Jews as it liketh you in the king's name and seal it with
a king's ring for the writing which is written in the king's
name and sealed with the king's ring made no man reverse. No man could do it, but the king
could do it. No mere man could do it. And
so in verse nine it says, then were the king's scribes called
at that time in the third month, that is month Sivan, on the three
and 20th day thereof, and it was written according to all
that Mordecai commanded unto the Jews, and to the lieutenants
and the deputies and the rulers of the provinces which are from
India into Ethiopia, 127 provinces. You know, the Persian Empire
was probably the biggest that had ever been up to that point.
And it says, unto every province, to writing thereof, and unto
every people after their language, and to the Jews according to
their writing and according to their language. And what happened,
he says, look at verse 11, wherein the king granted the Jews, which
were in every city, to gather themselves together, to stand
for their life, in other words, they could defend themselves,
to destroy, to slay, to cause to perish all the power of the
people in the province that would assault them both little ones
and women, and to take the spoil of them for a prey. So the king
extended his scepter, he put his ring down. Now, my point
in this lesson is all of that, Esther going to the king and
interceding for the Jewish people, that's a type, a picture of Christ
going unto the heavenly father and interceding on behalf of
spiritual Israel. God's elect, and you can see
that. Look here in your lesson, number one. Esther interceded
on behalf of her people as she entered the inner court of the
king, and on peril of her life. Remember she said, I'm gonna
go. If I perish, I perish. Well, think about that in terms
of this, in the everlasting covenant of grace before time began, Christ,
Our Lord and Savior, God the Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, took
upon himself as given to him by the Father and he freely and
fully agreed that he would take responsibility for his people
given to him by the Father. Remember he said, all that the
Father giveth me. And he agreed to do everything
necessary to bring us from the wrath of God into the eternal
bliss and blessedness of God's grace and salvation. He'd become
incarnate in time. He had to have a human body without
sin to die. He would go willingly to the
cross. That's what he did, facing death.
and he'd actually pay the penalty of God's justice that's due to
the sins of his people. He satisfied justice. And although
he died, he didn't perish. Esther said, if I perish, I'll
perish. Well, Christ did die. He died the death that was required
to satisfy justice, but he didn't perish because why? Well, people are thinking about
it today. They ought to think about it every day. He arose
from the dead. When we speak of Christ crucified,
risen from the dead, what we're talking about? We're talking
about the good news of life that comes out of his death. And he
was raised from the dead showing that he perfectly satisfied all
that the Father required for the salvation of his people.
Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It's God
that justifies. Who can condemn us? It's Christ
that died, yea rather, rose from the dead, risen from the dead,
and ever lives to make intercession for his people. And here's the
point. If God brings us to rest in and
believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, truly realizing our sinfulness
and our depravity, the fact that we deserve nothing but death
and hell, and knowing that the only way of our salvation is
by his blood and righteousness, that we have no righteousness
before God except the imputed righteousness of Christ, here's
the point of this intercessory, as long as he's on that throne,
as long as he intercedes for us, we cannot perish. That's the point. And you see, if you read the
whole book, Esther must have been a really, really beautiful
woman to catch the king's attention. This is a man who had all kinds
of women. But Esther stood out, and he
saw her beauty. Well, think about our Savior.
I thought about, I didn't put this in your lesson, but I thought
about this this morning as I was going over it. Over in Psalm
27, King David wrote this psalm. And I want you to understand
now as I read this, this is not just poetry. It is poetry. But it's not just flowery language,
lofty language meant to suspend reality or truth. This is the
real deal. And here's what he says in verse
four of Psalm 27. He says, one thing have I desired
of the Lord, that will I seek after, that I may dwell in the
house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty
of the Lord and to inquire in his temple. Now what is the beauty
of the Lord or who is the beauty? It's Christ. In Christ we see
the glory of God. And that's who Christ is. Christ,
our intercessor. And when we speak of him as our
intercessor, we're speaking of the one who took our place under
the wrath of God, having our sins charged to his account,
dying for those sins, being buried and arose again the third day.
We do serve a living savior, not a dead martyr. Not a dead
example. Not just a moral man. We serve
he who is the beauty of the Lord. Just like Esther was the beauty
that this King Xerxes looked at and delighted in. And that's
what this is all about. We'll go back to Esther. The
second thing, that golden scepter of the king. I love that. The
king had to extend the golden scepter because if you came,
On your own, without that, without the king's summoning, the king's
permission, it was death. And that golden scepter, think
about it. The law said that in going to the king, without that,
you must die. But instead, she found favor
in the side of the king. And how do you know that? He
held out that golden scepter. and that led to her deliverance,
that led to the deliverance of the Jewish people in that country? Well, my friend, in the same
way, there's an authority upon which the kingdom of God, the
eternal kingdom of God is built, and it's represented by a scepter
of righteousness, and listen to Hebrews 1 and verse 8, and
this is quoted from the Psalms. It says, but unto the Son, the
Lord Jesus Christ, The Father saith, Thy throne, O God, is
forever and ever. A scepter of righteousness is
the scepter of thy kingdom. So we see that righteousness
itself is the basis upon which the eternal kingdom of God is
established and upon which it's entered into. and through which
grace reigns in this kingdom. As sin hath reigned unto death,
even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life
by Jesus Christ our Lord. The kingdom of God is built upon
Christ the Lord, our righteousness. He is that golden scepter. I
always think, when I hear that, I always think about Jacob's
prophecy to Judah. You know, the scepter will not
depart from Judah until Shiloh come. And what he's talking about
is the physical kingdom of Israel will not depart until Christ
comes. But that scepter represents the
authority of God which comes to his people through Christ
based upon the righteousness that he established and that
eternal kingdom inhabited by God's chosen people from every
generation and every tribe, kindred, tongue, and nation is based upon
the finished accomplished work of the Lord Jesus Christ as the
Lord our righteousness. And remember what I said, you
might write this down in your lesson, 1 John 2, 1 and 2. When
we sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the
righteous. Now righteousness here in Esther
is represented by the king's scepter. This king was not a
righteous man. And of course, we'd say this,
Esther was not a righteous woman in herself. It wasn't by her
works. I believe she was a sinner saved by grace. Same with Mordecai. But that's the way we all are. We inhabit, we're righteous people
who inhabit a righteous kingdom because of the righteousness
of our king. We have no righteousness that
we worked out. But his righteousness is imputed
to us because we're one with him. He's the bridegroom and
we're the bride, one with him. His name is our name. Read it
back over in Jeremiah 23, five and six and Jeremiah 33, 15 through
16. His name shall be called the
Lord our righteousness and her name shall be called the Lord
our righteousness. So here it is, the basis, the
scepter of righteousness that all of God's chosen people in
Christ shall not perish, but rather are accepted with God
and live forever and he still intercedes for us. We're accepted
in the beloved, eternally delivered. And then thirdly, Esther, she
went back and she pleaded for the king to intervene and the
king ordered a decree to be written to counter the first decree that
he made to have the Jews killed. And this one gave the Jews the
right to defend themselves against anybody who would attack them.
You see, when that first decree went out, people had free reign
to go get them, go kill them, take all their spoils, but now
it's reversed. And some of the enemies did attack,
according to that, but the Jews were victorious. and the king
issued that decree. Well, and it says in the same
way, and he sealed that decree with his ring. Look at verse
eight of Esther when we read that. It says, and write ye also
for the Jews as it liketh you in the king's name and seal it
with the king's ring. And in the same way, Any who
have the seal of the King of Kings have an assurance of salvation
that nobody can reverse. The book of Ephesians chapter
one speaks of that, that seal. The Holy Spirit's work within. And that's the seal because that
causes us to do what? It causes us to look to Christ
alone as the author and finisher of our faith. We're sealed by
the Holy Spirit of promise. Over in Romans 6, 17 through
18, where he says, but God bethink that you were servants of sin,
but you have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which
was delivered you or which you were delivered to. That word
form is like a seal, it's like a stamp. And what was he talking
about? He's talking about the Holy Spirit's
work in making the gospel, the power of God unto salvation to
his people. Who is your hope of salvation? What is your right to come into
the presence of the King of Kings? What gives you any boldness or
confidence at all in prayer, in worship, in anything? If it's
anything but Christ and His righteousness, you haven't been sealed. You
don't have the King's signet. But once the Holy Spirit stamps
that on the hearts of His people, the mind, the affections, and
the will, You can't get away from it. You know your sin. I know my sin. And I've often
said, and I tell you, I hope I never stop saying this, if
God were to judge me based upon anything that I've done, up to
this point and from now, I'd be damned forever. But he doesn't
judge his people that way. How do you know he doesn't judge
me that way? "'cause I have his seal. "'I don't have any hope
but Christ, "'and I sing it all the time. "'My hope is built
on nothing less "'than Jesus' blood and righteousness. "'Dare
not trust the sweet of faith.'" Who are we trusting? Somebody
says, well, I'm just trying to take inventory of myself to see
if I measure up. You don't measure up. Why? Because the scepter is a
scepter of righteousness, and you can't find that within yourself.
If you do, it's self-righteousness. It's not the scepter of the king.
Why do I take, look within? Because here's what I say, you
know, when the Bible says, examine yourselves whether you be in
the faith. Here's what I wanna know when I examine myself. Not am I measuring up or doing
enough, because I can tell you right now, the answer to that
question is no. And that doesn't mean I should
stop trying, because I want to honor the king. But here's what
I want to know in self-examination. Am I really trusting Christ for
all wisdom, righteousness, holiness, and redemption? Or am I trusting
something else, someone else, even myself? Am I really trusting
him alone? That's the key. And that's how
we're to live the Christian life, looking unto Jesus, the author
and finisher of our faith. Well, look at the last two verses
of Esther chapter eight. After all this was done, last
three verses, it says, and Mordecai went out from the presence of
the king in royal apparel of blue and white, and with a great
crown of gold, and with a garment of fine linen and purple, And
the city of Shushan rejoiced and was glad. Here's old Mordecai,
he's coming out clean. The Jews had light and gladness
and joy and honor. Now this is why they're under
a heathen nation. And every province and every
city, whether so ever the king's commandment and his decree came,
the Jews had joy and gladness, a feast, and a good day, and
many of the people of the land became Jews, for the fear of
the Jews fell upon them." The state of Mordecai and all the
Jews is a picture of God's elect, robed in the righteousness of
Christ, that fine linen, that robe of blue and white, and filled
with a joy and peace of salvation. There's joy and peace in believing. Believing what? believing that
Christ is my hope. There's no joy and peace just
in believing anything. A lot of people say they believe
something, but they believe a lie, and they get joy and peace from
that, but it won't last. But if our joy and peace, if
we believe what God says, well, we'll have joy and peace in Christ.
And this is all the work of God in his providence to save us
from our sins and our enemies. We have the hope of the gospel. We have the work of Christ for
us. Okay.