I please God to bless his word
to our souls this evening. Let us turn to the book of Esther,
chapter 4, and we'll read verses 13 and 14. The book of Esther,
chapter 4, and reading verses 13 and 14. Then Mordecai commanded
to answer Esther, think not with thyself that thou shalt escape
in the king's house more than all the Jews. For if thou altogether
holdest thy peace at this time, then shall there enlargement
and deliverance arise to the Jews from another place. For
thou and thy father's house shall be destroyed And who knoweth
whether thou art come to the kingdom for such a time as this. As we read an account like this
of Esther, we have some little insight into the greatness of
God's ways for his people, and how our lives can be very quickly
changed. Situations can develop which
we would never expect. And from a very smooth situation,
we suddenly find there are mountains before us. Well that was the
case with Esther. She'd had a remarkable life,
really. Brought up by her uncle, lost her parents, and then put
forth to take the place of Queen Vashley, who'd been dismissed.
The one who was selected, a Jew. Very surprising it was, but of
course, her Jewish nationality had been kept back. And so she
found herself the favoured queen of King Ahasuerus. No doubt things
had gone very smoothly. She was enjoying the comforts
of the palace and all that that brought with it. And then from a very unexpected
quarter we see the situation so dramatically change. And the decree had gone forth
that all the Jews should be slain. And that was generated because,
really, of her uncle Mordecai, who had refused to bow down before
Haman. And what occurred was Haven was
so angry that not only did he desire the life of Mordecai,
he desired to take the lives of all of his nationality, all
the Jewish people, but to be slaughtered. How was Esther to
be made aware of this? Mordecai went out, clothed in
sackcloth, and cried out with a loud cry in the middle of the
town. And the people observed what
was occurring. And they went and told Esther
that Mordecai was doing these things. And she then requested
to know why it was and what it was. And so she came to understand
what was before the Jewish people. She was given a copy of the writing
to show unto Esther and to declare it unto her and to charge her
that she should go in unto the king to make supplication unto
him and to make request before him for her people. Mordecai laid it on the line,
what was necessary. And Hathak came and told Esther. And Esther then spoke to Hathak.
It's good to know that there was a faithful person that could
be trusted to give the right message and to convey the truth. And so Esther spoke unto Hathak
and gave him command unto Mordecai. And it was a statement which
was obviously well known. 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 into 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 sceptre,
that he may live. But I have not been called to
come in unto the king these thirty days." So it was quite clear that she
believed that the request that had been put to her was not possible
to perform. Because she had not been invited.
And if she went herself, the outcome normally was death. So
it was not a trivial situation. But no doubt she felt that she'd
given a good reason. Sometimes, you know, in our lives,
there may be situations which develop and we may view them And we may
consider them, and we may look, and we may have what we think
is a good reason to not carry out those directions. And as it seems to Esther, a
very reasonable statement, it may be sometimes in our lives,
those situations which develop, and we think they're very reasonable,
why we should not do them. Why we should abstain from them?
Well, Mordecai was not to be put off. Mordecai was a servant
of God. Mordecai very quickly responded. And this was what Mordecai commanded
to answer Esther. Think not with thyself. that thou shalt escape in the
king's house more than all the Jews." He laid it on the line,
didn't he? If she was hiding under that
position, he told her very straight that she should not think that
she should escape. There wasn't any backdoor for
her. There wasn't any way to go away
from it. She was involved in this as much
as all the Jews. Her position was no different
to all the Jews. Although she was Queen, and although
she was in that exalted position, she was not exempt. And how that may be so in our
lives. We are not exempt. from those things which come
into our lives, which may present themselves as very difficult
and virtually impossible. But if they are commanded, commanded
by our God to walk in that way, to obey his voice, then we do
not have any option really. There's no option. Well, having
told this truth that she shouldn't think that she was going to escape,
he then told her, for if thou altogether holdest thy peace
at this time, then shall thou enlargement and deliverance arise
to the Jews from another place. But thou and thy father's house
shall be destroyed and who knoweth whether thou art come to the
kingdom for such a time as this. Now I believe in God's gracious
plan, gracious works in providence, that in each of our lives there
comes occasion, perhaps several occasions, when the Lord has
ordained that we should be in such a place for such a time
as this. And the reason I say that is
this. If we are those who desire to be true followers of the Lord
Jesus Christ, then we can be sure we won't
be allowed, like Esther was, to just sit back as she had,
no doubt in a palace and a throne to sit upon, and a very easy
life, if we are those whom God has
called. I'm sure the Lord ordains for
us situations which develop in our lives And it comes to us
that we have come to the kingdom for such a time as this. We may wish we could escape and
go away. Wish we could avoid it. We may like Esther present
all the reasons why we should not do that, which was necessary
to be done. But if the Lord has called us
for such a time as this, we are not to turn our back upon the
words of God. We are not to turn our back upon
the commands of God. Because if God be for us, who
can be against us? No matter how How high the mountain
may seem, how difficult the way may be.
It may seem impossible to us. We only have to recollect the
children of Israel when they came to the Red Sea. What a situation
that was. The Lord had been with them.
The Lord had been with Esther. The Lord had promoted Esther.
The Lord had delivered Israel from Egypt. And now they appear
to come to an impossible situation. But the Lord made the way. My friends, the Lord does make
the way today. He does go before us. He gave
Moses that faith and strength to obey the Word of God. Yes,
an impossible situation, naturally. But he obeyed God's word and
the waters parted and a way was made on dry land. Now, here we see a similar situation. Esther, faced with this virtual
impossibility and the command from Mordecai. He told her that
she wouldn't escape. He told her if she held her peace
at this time, then there shall enlargement and deliverance arise
to the Jews from another place. Sometimes we may be faced with
difficult things. But the Lord says here very clearly,
through this picture we have, that if Esther held her peace,
deliverance would come from another quarter. She had to go before
the King. She had to testify. She had to
speak. She had to declare her case. It would appear Esther was, like
many people, timid. And yet she was faced with this
situation. And she was told that if she
held her peace at this time, sometimes, you see, we are tempted
to hold our peace. We don't want to do those things
And say those things which may be costly for us because what
was it doing? It was declaring who she was. It was declaring she was a Jew.
Put it into our situation today. It may be declaring that we are
a believer. that we are a child of God, and
therefore we are not to hold our peace. Esther being in a cosy situation, she'd been there for, well, some
time, not told exactly, but some time. And now, it was a time
to declare her true colours. She wasn't allowed now to stay
and to hide under a cloak of her nationality, so that people
didn't really know who she was. She now had to come. She had
to come out. She had to declare. She had to
speak. That was what she didn't want
to do. That which she thought was probably
impossible to do. And here were all the reasons
why she shouldn't. But you see, Mordecai, influenced
by the Spirit of God, spoke these words very clearly. If thou altogether
holdest thy peace at this time. There have been times previously
when She obviously held her peace, perhaps it wasn't too necessary
to declare who she was. But now, the time had come. The set time, God's time had
come. When she wasn't able to hide herself anymore. And the
Lord had ordained that she had come to this place. She'd come
to live in the palace. She had come to be here at this
time for such a time as this. And of course what came forth
from her testimony, from her pleading to the King, was a wonderful
deliverance. A wonderful deliverance. The
Lord appeared and had her at His heart was moved. He held
out the golden sceptre and she was asked to say, What wilt thou
Queen Esther, and what is thy request? It shall be even given
thee to the half of the kingdom. She couldn't have expected such
a gracious response, could she? You see, our God is very gracious. It may be that we are very timid
and very afraid of the outcome. But we may be faced with no alternative. She knew from what Esther spoke,
from what Mordecai said, there was no alternative. There was
no option. The Lord had decreed that Esther's
life, the time had come when she must declare who she was
and plead for the life of her nation. And so, these words of Mordecai,
how strong they are, how clear they are, and how good it is
sometimes that the Word of God comes to us and as we think we're
timid and afraid and the obstacles are too high and too hard and
we cannot do that which is necessary and we might say obvious as a
need of deliverance, we're the person. We're the person that
God has placed in this situation. We can't look elsewhere. Esther
wasn't able to look around her. She'd come to the kingdom for
such a time as this. Now it would be a wonderful situation
in your life and my life if we had come to such a time as this. The ordained time of Almighty
God. The ordained time. And it's interesting to see the
time scale in this account. We see that Haman cast lots to
decide what month it shall be. It was in the first month. They
thought he wanted this to occur so quickly. The Lord granted
that time for them so that everything could be worked out and that
the decrees which had been passed would be brought back, rescinded. It wasn't until the twelfth month
that this command was to be fulfilled. The Lord had ordained there was
time then, from when Esther was to speak before the King, for
this situation to be changed. And for the post to go out to
the other cities and tell them about the situation. So it would
be a change and a complete reversal of that which had been spoken
of and that Lord brought about. Well, here we have Esther in
this situation. And Mordecai is saying, if they're
all together, holdest thy peace at this time, this time, not
another time, not tomorrow, not the next day or so. Although
she did plead, and she said this, she wanted three days to fast. She and her maidens and all the
Jews do the same. What do we see there? We see
a picture really of the nation at prayer. Praying, the Lord
would move the King's heart. Esther didn't just rush off. She knew there was a need for
this fasting at this time, which we can believe was really a time
of prayer. And that was therefore her command. She returned to Morikaya. There
were no more excuses. She knew that she was, as it
were, in the breach. She knew that God had ordained
that she was there for such a time as this. Morikaya spoke it out
to her. She couldn't avoid the truth.
And here it was. So she says, and she speaks these
words, gather together all the Jews that are present in Shushan
and fast ye for me and neither eat nor drink three days night
or day I also my maidens will fast likewise and so will I go
in unto the king which is not according to the law and if I
perish I perish She was casting all her care
upon God. She'd come to that condition,
realising that if it was the Lord's purpose for her to perish,
so should it be. Think, can't we, of the three
Hebrew children, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. when they were
faced with obeying the king's command and they were told to bow down
to the graven image and they refused and Nebuchadnezzar's officers
went and brought them before the king and the king asked them,
is it true? Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego,
that you are not bowing down to the raven image, when they
hear the sound of the trumpet, etc. They said it is true. They were told they will be thrown
into the burning fiery furnace. They said, we are not careful
how we answer the King, because their God was able to deliver. But if not, they would still
be willing to be thrown into the burning fiery furnace. Their concern was to obey the
Word of God. their desire was to honour and
glorify their God. And so we can see here in Esther
a very similar spirit as she testifies. She says, and so will
I go in unto the king which is not according to the law And
if I perish, I perish." See, casting all our care upon the
Lord. If we're doing God's will, we
have nothing to fear, because we know the outcome will be good. We know the Lord will help and
strengthen us to do that which we feared, because here was a
situation would result in the honour and glory of God. A situation
in those three Hebrew children developed for the honour and
glory of God to such an extent that Nebuchadnezzar said when
he looked into the furnace, did not we cast three people into
the furnace and behold I see four And the fourth is like unto
the Son of God. Jesus was with them. My friends, we can believe today
that Jesus will be with us as we do His will. It has come
to us today that we are not to hold our peace At this time, because if we do, there will
be a disastrous outcome. It won't just be for us. Then shall there in light and
deliverance arise to the Jews from another place, but thou
and thy father's house shall be destroyed. It's a very solemn
position, isn't it? to think that if we fail to hear
God's words to us, hear God's commands, sometimes
God speaks words and we dismiss them. We don't like to think
that in fact they are a command from God. We don't like to actually apply
them in that way. You like to perhaps think, well,
that's some words, but I think I can ignore them. I think I
have good reason to not comply with them. I think in fact I
can just resist carrying out such a situation. just how Esther
appeared to state, but then we see how these words of Mordecai
came into her heart. They came into her heart and
they came with that power to make her willing. She was willing
then. And we have to say to her, She
was made willing in a day of God's power. Now it's a wonderful
thing when God comes into our hearts and lives and makes us
willing in a day of His power as we're directed to see the
Lord's called us for such a time as this. The Lord has a purpose
for us. It may not always be very clear
We may not always know the result. But here was a clear statement,
there was a purpose. And that she could not avoid
understanding what Mordecai told her. Whether thou come to the
kingdom for such a time as this. Because if she did hold her peace,
if she did not speak, The solemn word was that the Lord would
pass her by. And worse than that, He would
bring destruction upon her and all her household. It's a very important word, isn't
it, for us today to be concerned in our lives, to speak forth
the great and glorious truth of God. the commands of God. God has spoken. God has told her through Mordecai
what to say to bring about the deliverance of the nation. My friends, it may be. God knows
whether something that we may say may bring about deliverance
to one another. If we hold our peace, it won't
happen. If we speak for all those things
which God has commanded us to, then to believe that there will
be that deliverance, and if not, the Lord might bring deliverance
from another angle, and we and our Father's house shall be destroyed. A very striking statement, isn't
it? Well, Esther, we don't even hear that she said, well, I must
just think about this a bit longer. No, she didn't at all. She sought for that fasting. She thought that might be carried
out and that she would do it herself. And then she would venture
forward. She would venture forward. You
see there was a time of fasting, not going to eat or drink. And
then she said, and so will I go in unto the kitchen. So well, I'll see what happens
after three days. Her mind was set. She told Heitak
to go and tell Morikei of the situation. And so she said, I also and my
maidens will fast likewise and so will I go in unto the king
which is not according to the law and if I perish, I perish. She was willing to do those things
which were not in accordance with the law. It was the law
of man. But she had here the work of
God. She had here a message to bring
to the king. And although it was not lawful
under the laws of the land, yet she had this commission to do.
And she could not hold back. She could not hold back. So she
was able to say, well, so when I go in unto the king, which
is not according to the law, and if I perish, I perish. What do we perceive here? We
perceive living faith. God had blessed her with faith
to do that which she had been charged to do. And she was willing to leave
the outcome. So there was no guarantee that
she'd be received. But she was willing to pursue
that which she'd been commanded to do and to leave it in the
hands of her God. In the days of King Saul, the
Prophet Samuel came and he told Saul on one occasion when Saul
had disobeyed God and he said, to obey is better than sacrifice. It is a blessed truth and it
is good have the answer of a good conscience and to obey the Word
of God, than rather to turn away. Now I know of course we can read
the outcome here. Perhaps in our lives we don't
know the outcome. But nonetheless, let us tonight be encouraged
by the Word of God. The Lord of God gives us such
accounts to encourage us. as it were, to set before us
the way that God does work and God does deal. The whole crux
here is that Esther was willing, made willing, to do God's will. And then you see God appeared. Esther, as we read in the next
chapter, she put on her royal apparel, and stood in the inner court
of the king's house over against the king's house and the king
sat upon his royal throne in the royal house over against
the gate of the house and it was so when the king saw Esther
the queen standing in the court she was standing there waiting to hear what the king
would do Yes, she had that faith to venture
forward. And there she was standing. Standing in the court, waiting
to see whether the King would receive her or whether he would
reject her. And we understand and we see
the beautiful result. And so it was. And it was so
when the King saw Esther the Queen standing in the court,
that she obtained favour in His sight. What a blessed outcome,
wasn't it? I believe that is true for us
today. For a willing like this, you
see, to do that which God commands, we venture forward. We will obtain
favour in His sight. The king held out Esther the
golden scepter. That was in his right hand. So
Esther drew near and touched the top of the scepter. Then
said the king unto her, What wilt thou, Queen Esther? And
what is thy request? It shall be even given thee to
the half of the kingdom. It was a very generous response,
wasn't it? And my friends, our God today
is so wonderfully kind. He gives us much more than we
deserve, much more than we expect. It may be perhaps, like David
said, the 21st time, his cup ran over. What did it run over
with? The goodness of God, the love of God, the mercy of
God. He'd been received. So I believe
it is, the Living Church of God today, as they venture forward,
as they declare, as they're able to come and not hold their peace,
but if they're all together to hold aside peace at this time,
then shall their enlightenment and deliverance arise to the
judgment of another place. No, it was a question of speaking
forth those things which God had commanded her to speak. And therefore, she came and spoke
and said what she would do. She came into the court. She wasn't turned away. She wasn't
rejected. She was no doubt fearful. No
doubt she was trembling. She said, if I perish, I perish. And those were real words. And
that's how she expressed herself. It wasn't an easy thing to do.
It was no doubt the hardest thing that she'd done in her life. But the Lord had ordained that
she had come to the kingdom for such a time as this. In her life,
This was the time that God would use her. This was the time when
through her God would grant a wonderful blessing. This was the time when His ancient
people, the Jews, would be blessed indeed. Or the previous time in her life.
There'd be nothing like this. But now, there was a real time
of testing. a real time of testing, whether
she would serve the Lord or no. Maybe in our lives sometimes,
we find there's times of testing. Whether we will serve the Lord
or no. Whether we will honour our God
or no. We have this account here this
evening. to encourage us, to help us and
to strengthen us. To realise that the God that
Esther came before and fasted before and prayed to was a God
who graciously came and delivered her and her people. It was a glorious deliverance.
And the way that it was worked out, as we know, Ridon Esther
was also quite amazing. We see how the enemies of the
Lord are consumed. Those enemies perhaps who we
feared, they disappear. They disappear. They are not
allowed to stand in the way. The Lord deals with them. The
Lord dealt with Haman in a very solemn way. There may be those
enemies who have risen up to fill us with dismay. Let us remember
the Lord will make his goodness to pass before us in the way.
And it's a great blessing if we observe the Lord's goodness
passing before us. Esther here was observing the
Lord's goodness towards her and to her nation. It wasn't just
her, it was her nation as well. And the Lord had ordained that
she should come to the kingdom for such a time as this. My friends, we know not, I know
not, in any of your lives, what the Lord is working, what the
Lord is doing. But it may be in one of our lives that there
is a time like this, a time as it may be of decision. Will we
honour our God? Or will we turn away, like she
did to begin with, to try and make an excuse? May we be brought
the blessed power and love to the Saviour, to do His bidding
to follow his direction, and to realise, as she came and said,
and so will I go, in answer to the king, which is not according
to the law, and if I perish, I perish. Amen.